Blizzard's Thoughts on the WoW Token in Wrath Classic, WoW Hotfixes - May 24, 2023

[Relapses]

There is a vast difference between not being able to weed out every bot in existence and not doing anything for weeks/months. First of all the whole ban-wave bullshit is just a giant invitation to botters to keep doing it again, because almost always make back their original investment and then some. There is also the laughably blatant bots that run for days and weeks, like the tar pit moonkin parade during SL or all the 24/7 static moonkin skinning bots. This shit is so blatant, a complete programming newbie could come up with ways to identify these in a matter of minutes.

We all know Blizzard's internal programmers function at the same level intellectually as a toddler and are incapable of doing anything useful. If only Blizzard would hire from the fansite forums where every single person who contributes to the conversation has a quadruple PhD in bot detection and prevention. I'm sure you could easily whip up something better than any of the counter measures they've developed in twenty years, maybe even before breakfast. Well, you're probably not a programmer but I think if you read a few wikipedia articles on the subject you'll easily be ten to twenty times more useful than your average Blizzard programmer.

[Cosmic Janitor]

We all know Blizzard's internal programmers function at the same level intellectually as a toddler and are incapable of doing anything useful. If only Blizzard would hire from the fansite forums where every single person who contributes to the conversation has a quadruple PhD in bot detection and prevention. I'm sure you could easily whip up something better than any of the counter measures they've developed in twenty years, maybe even before breakfast. Well, you're probably not a programmer but I think if you read a few wikipedia articles on the subject you'll easily be ten to twenty times more useful than your average Blizzard programmer.

Lame appeal to authority /yawn. Yes, Blizzard's efforts in this matter are clearly lacking, which is rather obvious. The only reason botting is as profitable as it is, is because Blizzard allows it to be. The reason is simple: combating it would cost them double, wheres adding the token gives a tripple benefit for them. Also, I feel like I need to point it out yes again: Yes, even through you may not be able to comprehend it, in a nerdy fandom like WoW's there are indeed people aplenty that could deliver you dozens of possible solutions to a technical problem at the drop of a hat. In fact, even in its diminished state right now, the sheer size of the playerbase means that will find all kinds of people.

[Relapses]

Lame appeal to authority /yawn. Yes, Blizzard's efforts in this matter are clearly lacking, which is rather obvious. The only reason botting is as profitable as it is, is because Blizzard allows it to be. The reason is simple: combating it would cost them double, wheres adding the token gives a tripple benefit for them. Also, I feel like I need to point it out yes again: Yes, even through you may not be able to comprehend it, in a nerdy fandom like WoW's there are indeed people aplenty that could deliver you dozens of possible solutions to a technical problem at the drop of a hat. In fact, even in its diminished state right now, the sheer size of the playerbase means that will find all kinds of people.

Go ahead and read the article linked in the OP of this thread then get back to us, would you?

[rrayy]

There is a vast difference between not being able to weed out every bot in existence and not doing anything for weeks/months. First of all the whole ban-wave bullshit is just a giant invitation to botters to keep doing it again, because almost always make back their original investment and then some. There is also the laughably blatant bots that run for days and weeks, like the tar pit moonkin parade during SL or all the 24/7 static moonkin skinning bots. This shit is so blatant, a complete programming newbie could come up with ways to identify these in a matter of minutes.

Prove they are not doing anything? Amazes me that people continue to make baseless claims.

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It's pretty simple really. Can blizzard stop the botting? Yes. Will they invest the time and money into it? No. Their automated systems are clearly not working which means this issue can most likely only be solved with more boots on the ground, so to speak. But they aren't gonna invest in more GMs.

You aare beyond naive if you think they can stop botting. They can't for reasons they outlined. Hilarious that you think adding GM's will magically make bots disappear. Banning bots does not stop the botting software.

[sam86]

No company is going to win the fight against bots

so give up?
Also u didn't answer why not make it for same price as a sub instead of take almost half the money pure profit
Honestly if i think hard about it, the biggest problem is scam profit out of nothing, if they sell token for exact price as sub (or even a few penny, for 'online fees' or something, even if that fee apply to buying a sub too) it would get far less heat, but blizz is making a sub costs almost 50% more for reward of in-game gold, while inflating prices as much as they want with support of boost sales, and making the game more and more slot-machine like

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Prove they are not doing anything? Amazes me that people continue to make baseless claims.

the prove is right in-game, the bots army was 24/7 active and well known, from druid farming in SL, to hunter buzz farming in hellfire citadel
bots can't play like real ppl, they have spots, farm them 24/7, something that can easily be detected, heck just check who is online 24 hours, no human can do that, and if u afk (to sleep duh) u get dc after i think 30min then game kicks u out of server in another 30 min
"what if a human actually stays 24/7" then have someone just check the extremely few players who stay online 24/7 and contact them to confirm they are not bot

all my 'solutions' may not work anymore with the insane rise of AI but they are answers to old problems that existed for years unsolved, and again during tbc the 'most delayed' ticket answer i got was 20 min in a patch day, while now with 1/10 of playerbase u lucky to get answer in same day, because bobby kodick fired 10% of staff whom entire year salary worth is lower than 1 of his bonus he gave himself in same year

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In fact, even in its diminished state right now, the sheer size of the playerbase means that will find all kinds of people.

how many play now? i'm asking for real..
i know it is unrelated to topic but i feel pissed that DF seems to have less players than BFA/SL

[rrayy]

the prove is right in-game, the bots army was 24/7 active and well known, from druid farming in SL, to hunter buzz farming in hellfire citadel
bots can't play like real ppl, they have spots, farm them 24/7, something that can easily be detected, heck just check who is online 24 hours, no human can do that, and if u afk (to sleep duh) u get dc after i think 30min then game kicks u out of server in another 30 min
"what if a human actually stays 24/7" then have someone just check the extremely few players who stay online 24/7 and contact them to confirm they are not bot

all my 'solutions' may not work anymore with the insane rise of AI but they are answers to old problems that existed for years unsolved, and again during tbc the 'most delayed' ticket answer i got was 20 min in a patch day, while now with 1/10 of playerbase u lucky to get answer in same day, because bobby kodick fired 10% of staff whom entire year salary worth is lower than 1 of his bonus he gave himself in same year

That isn't proof. But you do show you have absolutely no understanding of bots. Simply banning bots will not stop it because they will just get new accounts and be botting almost immediately. You have to break the botting software. And as you do that, the bot software makers will be updating their botting software to combat Blizzard trying to break it. Your "solutions" are not feasible. and do nothing to really combat botting because you don't do anything to actually break the bots. You can ban 50,000 bots and then 55,000 more bots show up to replace them while you are doing that.

Banning bots WILL...NOT...WORK unless you break the botting software as well. It amuses me people think botters will quit because they got banned. That is beyond niave thinking.

[sam86]

That isn't proof. But you do show you have absolutely no understanding of bots. Simply banning bots will not stop it because they will just get new accounts and be botting almost immediately.

how
if u actually ban them, and they start bleeding accounts, they will stop, accounts+sub cost money, and since blizz do a good job of making old content irrelevant they must buy current exp, we talk about average of 50usd just to start, and to farm u need to be active for few days to successfully start get gold for sale, during all that time, the typical bot behavior can be detected too easy and stopped fast if they try, but they don't
again with this very first year of rise of AI i don't know how it will be from now forward, but up to 2023, detecting bots is too easy, blizz problem from 2004 to cata was that main gold income from bots was hacking account, something that authenticator in smartphones killed
And again because this keep getting ignored if their goal is to actually fight bots don't get a fucking ~40% profit out of it, make a token exactly sub price for 1 month, make it an option u buy token to sub or sell for same price, they don't do that because they never had problem with bots, they just want profit

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I never said it's too hard for Blizzard to ban these people, I said it's impossible for them to ban them all. It's a pipe dream so stop quoting your favorite streamer or upvoted comments on reddit. Back when Blizzard had "integrity" and not underneath the great savior "BOBBY", they still couldn't deal with bots farming in Vanilla WoW or creating hundreds of characters to suicide in capital cities directing players to gold buying websites. This is back when they physically had a lot of customer service as well, and while rare, you might spot a GM from time to time.

because back then the main source of income for gold sellers was hacking accounts, not actually farming, bots weren't smart at all to farm and with no authenticator using wow websites to hack was way easier, something that rise of smartphones killed off and ended its threat
back then banning gold farmers usually result in banning innocent ppl who got hacked then fucked by blizz for 'suspicious behavior', like what?
wow is so old that most of its old patches videos (something that i miss and sadly blizz stopped) aren't even uploaded on wow official youtube channel, but u can find them in all glory 240p fans channels

[Tojara]

Uh, back then there were actual PEOPLE farming gold and selling it for money because gold in WoW was worth more than their native currency at the time. If you knew any mandarin which a few people in my guild did (in Vanilla), you could talk to people who just endlessly farmed certain areas and sometimes get pretty good deals. Otherwise they would just sit there and endlessly farm (they weren't bots).

There was still bots in early iterations of WoW. They might have not been super efficient at farming at this point in time, but they definitely existed. There's a reason why you randomly get disconnected from moving too fast or using things like gliders at particular spots. The games way of checking to see if you're doing something you aren't suppose to, but can randomly disconnect you for doing something as simple as using engineering.

I certainly remember bots flying under the terrain in WoTLK/Cata mining things completely out of sight.

[ParanoiD84]

Wonder how much of a problem bots and gold sellers will be in d4 seeing as you can trade gold.

[kranur]

Would have been a decent thought if they had not included the part "we're adding the token because people are not interested in it and it doesn't impact the regular player" ... bull fucking shit.

[rrayy]

how
if u actually ban them, and they start bleeding accounts, they will stop, accounts+sub cost money, and since blizz do a good job of making old content irrelevant they must buy current exp, we talk about average of 50usd just to start, and to farm u need to be active for few days to successfully start get gold for sale, during all that time, the typical bot behavior can be detected too easy and stopped fast if they try, but they don't
again with this very first year of rise of AI i don't know how it will be from now forward, but up to 2023, detecting bots is too easy, blizz problem from 2004 to cata was that main gold income from bots was hacking account, something that authenticator in smartphones killed
And again because this keep getting ignored if their goal is to actually fight bots don't get a fucking ~40% profit out of it, make a token exactly sub price for 1 month, make it an option u buy token to sub or sell for same price, they don't do that because they never had problem with bots, they just want profit

You are naive. They will just get a new account, likely paid with a stolen credit card, and continue on their merry way. You have also ignored what will truly stop bots and that is breaking them. Bots will continue to happen unless you break the botting software, and by the time you are able to do that, the botters have already updated their bots to get around what Blizz broke. You don't have any clue what you are talking about.

[sam86]

You are naive. They will just get a new account, likely paid with a stolen credit card, and continue on their merry way. You don't have any clue what you are talking about.

they will steal credit cards to buy wow accounts? beside the obvious fact that u don't steal a credit card for a joke of 50 usd, then they will use 1 card to buy shitload of accounts in same time, making it - again - easy to combat since it will be obvious when blizz find 1 credit card bought 10000 account at same time
and if they steal just like 100 usd from each card, they don't need wow gold then to get money, it is enough for them to get rich from credit card
credit card stealing makes more profit way more than sell gold in wow, and u claim i don't know what i talk about?

[Mysterymask]

Wonder how much of a problem bots and gold sellers will be in d4 seeing as you can trade gold.

I mean there's gold sellers in 3 where
1. Gold practically rains from the sky
2. You cant trade it
3. It doesn't even really do anything

I mean shit Madden has seller bots, Street fighter has seller bots if there's a grind to be done there is someone who's gonna profit off someone's lazyness

[rrayy]

they will steal credit cards to buy wow accounts? beside the obvious fact that u don't steal a credit card for a joke of 50 usd, then they will use 1 card to buy shitload of accounts in same time, making it - again - easy to combat since it will be obvious when blizz find 1 credit card bought 10000 account at same time
and if they steal just like 100 usd from each card, they don't need wow gold then to get money, it is enough for them to get rich from credit card
credit card stealing makes more profit way more than sell gold in wow, and u claim i don't know what i talk about?

They use said stolen credit account to by all the accounts, not just one.

You don't khnow what you talk about because you hilariously think you can get bots to quit by merely banning them. They have banned a ton of accounts and tbey keep coming back. Simply banning accounts may work in your fantasy world, but in the real world it doesn't.

[Mecheon]

they will steal credit cards to buy wow accounts? beside the obvious fact that u don't steal a credit card for a joke of 50 usd, then they will use 1 card to buy shitload of accounts in same time, making it - again - easy to combat since it will be obvious when blizz find 1 credit card bought 10000 account at same time
and if they steal just like 100 usd from each card, they don't need wow gold then to get money, it is enough for them to get rich from credit card
credit card stealing makes more profit way more than sell gold in wow, and u claim i don't know what i talk about?

I think you don't quite get the scales at play here. This isn't just like, one or two random people. Back in its heyday, gold farming in WoW was a ridiculously massive industry, and the way Classic players play was basically leading right back to that. Like, I forget who, but someone invested like $60k into one of the gold farming companies around. Very publically did this. This stuff was Big Business, and Classic players are, at present, actively supporting it with what is basically gold laundering

Frankly the better solution would Classic players killing off GDKP, instead playing for fun and not shoving their nose directly against the grindstone, treating normal raids we cleared a decade ago with all of the expectancy of a mythic world first race, but, well, the Classic playerbase is what it is and they've apparently decided how to play. May as well undercut the competition if Classic players want to buy gold that badly.

[Stickiler]

they will steal credit cards to buy wow accounts? beside the obvious fact that u don't steal a credit card for a joke of 50 usd, then they will use 1 card to buy shitload of accounts in same time, making it - again - easy to combat since it will be obvious when blizz find 1 credit card bought 10000 account at same time
and if they steal just like 100 usd from each card, they don't need wow gold then to get money, it is enough for them to get rich from credit card
credit card stealing makes more profit way more than sell gold in wow, and u claim i don't know what i talk about?

I feel like you're saying they steal the credit cards themselves, but that's not how it works. They buy them for 10c-1$ on the dark web, then buy as many accounts as they can and set them botting. Also, Blizzard doesn't see your credit card details, as far as I'm aware, that's handled by Adyen, their payment processor.

[trimble]

Why solve a problem when you can profit from it?

Hiring as little as 2 full time gms to monitor a server would cripple botters and gold buyers/sellers in a matter a weeks if they banned on the spot.

[Biomega]

Why solve a problem when you can profit from it?

Hiring as little as 2 full time gms to monitor servers would cripple botters and gold buyers/sellers in a matter a weeks if they banned on the spot.

If you think 2 people could monitor all of WoW's servers for botting and gold-selling, you seriously underestimate the scope of things. Let alone the fact that as people have pointed out, simply banning botters tends to be ineffective, because a lot of the time they use stolen or fraudulently obtained accounts anyway. You think 2 people are enough to keep up with organized botting operations overseas? That's borderline delusional.

[trimble]

If you think 2 people could monitor all of WoW's servers for botting and gold-selling, you seriously underestimate the scope of things. Let alone the fact that as people have pointed out, simply banning botters tends to be ineffective, because a lot of the time they use stolen or fraudulently obtained accounts anyway. You think 2 people are enough to keep up with organized botting operations overseas? That's borderline delusional.

I meant per server

[Biomega]

I meant per server

You realize there's more than 200 realms on US alone right. You're casually saying "just hire 500 people full-time!". Still delusional.