Recent Actions Against Exploitative Accounts - September 2023

[janeSmith]

YAY, they banned bots! But next day they will be back again, because the detection of botting in WoW is dogsh*t.

If you just dive a little bit into the rabbit hole of botting, you know how this ban wave is just a small PR stunt without any effects on the real problem

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Isn't it strange that all these hundreds of thousands of bans does nothing to stop the bots, it's just as bad on classic and retail as it has been for the last 5 years, despite the millions of bans at this point

Could it not be that ultimately both players and blizzard benefit from bots and the dirty secret it no one reall wants to see them go

It would be better for the players to get rid of bots, but it would cost Blizz/A too much money and time to do so. They just shrug, earn some money on it and can pull off "awesome news - we banned some bots!" news to pat themselves on their shoulders.

[Todd Duval]

A lot of this is a never ending cat and mouse game. Why is the number so high?

I don't think many people realize that when some people bot, it's not a single account, it's like maybe +32 accounts at the same time, running on virtual machines, on VPNs. Some of the accounts getting banned every day is normal, and they just keep going, and add new accounts as needed.

[Relapses]

Will never happen unless they price their gold token accordingly. They choose to keep bots profitable.

Blizzard doesn't set the price for the token. Players do.

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Botting is extremely hard to combat. Lost ark finally managed to make a dent in it by doing weekly-bi weekly purges of suspected bots.

The gold selling problem will always be an issue because there are people who would rather trade time for money. Blizzard knows this and gave their players with that mentality a way to trade disposable income for in game currency without the fear of being hacked or banned.

If the token made a dent in gold sellers then they wouldnt be selling twice the amount of gold for the same price as a token.

So instead of the token, Blizzard should have simply banned more bots. Brilliant. I wonder why they never thought of this.

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Lol, did people actually buy that ... excuse? The token is there so that they can get their cut from people trading gold, otherwise the price of the token would be the same as value returned by said token, which would still be a win for them anyway.
Though I gotta admit, the classic token reasoning was even better "we're adding it cause people are not interested in buying gold". But it did solve a bit on the scamming part, gotta give them that.

"Hey guys, I know we're a publicly traded company dependent on shareholders but why don't we make less money?" -no company, ever

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The Token price went from 30k when they started up to 200k (from WOD if i remember correctly up to Dragonflight).
They manipulate the pricing of it, I don't think it just randomly goes up and down according to demand. I don't really believe they leave the price to luck/demand.

The token's price inflated because the mission tables from WoD and Legion gave people the ability to generate billions of gold simply by logging in and playing a Facebook game. This had nothing to do with Blizzard because, again, the price of the token is not set by them. It's set by players. (I guess you can indirectly blame them for allowing mission tables to exist but there's a reason they're no longer in the game.)

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By actually making changes to the UI and the client, to make it harder for Third-Party Automation Software to be used. It's a million dollar company with resources and people. How do you think Banks keep their systems so well protected from theft malicious programs from stealing money from them?.

You're talking about two-decade old code. Kernel-level anti-botting measures would require them to reprogram the game from the ground up. It would be easier for Blizzard to create an entirely new game engine. This isn't happening.

[Baraden]

Blizzard doesn't set the price for the token. Players do.

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So instead of the token, Blizzard should have simply banned more bots. Brilliant. I wonder why they never thought of this.

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"Hey guys, I know we're a publicly traded company dependent on shareholders but why don't we make less money?" -no company, ever

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The token's price inflated because the mission tables from WoD and Legion gave people the ability to generate billions of gold simply by logging in and playing a Facebook game. This had nothing to do with Blizzard because, again, the price of the token is not set by them. It's set by players. (I guess you can indirectly blame them for allowing mission tables to exist but there's a reason they're no longer in the game.)

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You're talking about two-decade old code. Kernel-level anti-botting measures would require them to reprogram the game from the ground up. It would be easier for Blizzard to create an entirely new game engine. This isn't happening.

Blizzard absolutely can influence the value of gold tokens; they have complete control over the economy - when they release multi million gold mounts, reduce passive gold gain througout the game, don't crackdown on boost services and allow bots to run rampant; they are influencing the economy, they are more than comfortable with an inflated economy

Why? The bigger the economy, the bigger the gold value a wow token numerically holds, even if it's actual value doesn't really change - doesn't make a difference; a person is more likely to buy a wow token for real money when it's worth 300k than they are when it's work 100k, even if the intrinsic value is the same

Moreover the bigger an economy is the less time efficient it is to farm gold with casual methods (quests, raw gold farms, transmog farming), the bigger the pressure there is on people to buy a token rather than farm gold themselves; this is also why there's no more mission tables giving you reasonable amounts of easy gold - why would I waste time with non-player driven gold farms that maybe net you 5-10k an hour when I can just buy a token for less than an hours real life work and recieve well over 1000-2000% extra gold, if not more

[kranur]

Blizzard doesn't set the price for the token. Players do.

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So instead of the token, Blizzard should have simply banned more bots. Brilliant. I wonder why they never thought of this.

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"Hey guys, I know we're a publicly traded company dependent on shareholders but why don't we make less money?" -no company, ever

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The token's price inflated because the mission tables from WoD and Legion gave people the ability to generate billions of gold simply by logging in and playing a Facebook game. This had nothing to do with Blizzard because, again, the price of the token is not set by them. It's set by players. (I guess you can indirectly blame them for allowing mission tables to exist but there's a reason they're no longer in the game.)

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You're talking about two-decade old code. Kernel-level anti-botting measures would require them to reprogram the game from the ground up. It would be easier for Blizzard to create an entirely new game engine. This isn't happening.

You either like kissing Blizzard ass or simply don't understand how they can very easily influence the token price without having to adjust it manually.
And the argument wasn't that their it goal shouldn't be to make money, it's that they kept on claiming that it's a tool to combat bots, which does absolutely nothing to combat it, it actually makes it worse because gold got de-valued so bots need to run more accounts to keep up profits.

[Relapses]

Blizzard absolutely can influence the value of gold tokens; they have complete control over the economy - when they release multi million gold mounts, reduce passive gold gain througout the game, don't crackdown on boost services and allow bots to run rampant; they are influencing the economy, they are more than comfortable with an inflated economy

The people I quoted were insisting that Blizzard manipulates the price of tokens behind the scenes. There is absolutely no evidence of this happening. They can indirectly influence the price of tokens which they did in WoD and Legion because of mission tables. They could add Brutosaurs to Classic and it still wouldn't solve any of the problems that botted gold has already created. If Blizzard were truly interested in stopping botting they would have had kernel-level changes made to the game before they released Classic back in 2019. They weren't and even though the Token is a half-measure, it's the most egalitarian solution which doesn't bankrupt the company in the process.

Now, if you want to talk about ways to actually remove gold from the economy the easiest way to do that would be to simply create a new currency to replace gold at the beginning of each expansion. We've known this to be the solution since Vanilla, all the back in 2004. Blizzard knows, however, that gold hoarding is one of most lucrative ways to keep players subbed so they're not about to go that route any time soon.

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You either like kissing Blizzard ass or simply don't understand how they can very easily influence the token price without having to adjust it manually.

source: trust me bro

And the argument wasn't that their it goal shouldn't be to make money, it's that they kept on claiming that it's a tool to combat bots, which does absolutely nothing to combat it, it actually makes it worse because gold got de-valued so bots need to run more accounts to keep up profits.

If not the Token what should they have done instead? (Note: "Blizzard should spend $60k/yr on people to sit in a room and do nothing except press the 'delete bot' button 40 hours a week" doesn't solve the problem either and takes away from developing the game.)

[kranur]

source: trust me bro

If not the Token what should they have done instead? (Note: "Blizzard should spend $60k/yr on people to sit in a room and do nothing except press the 'delete bot' button 40 hours a week" doesn't solve the problem either and takes away from developing the game.)

Are you pretending that you don't understand what I'm saying or just refusing to? I was simply saying that despite their claims that the token exists to combat bots it just doesn't and it makes no sense to combat them. All it did is it removed some sellers.

Source: Check the token price when items that cost a lot of gold are added or when new raids launch with plenty of BoEs and top guilds spend literally tens of thousands of dollars on gold to buy them. Surely these don't impact the price.

[Relapses]

Are you pretending that you don't understand what I'm saying or just refusing to? I was simply saying that despite their claims that the token exists to combat bots it just doesn't and it makes no sense to combat them. All it did is it removed some sellers.

It combats people buying gold from disreputable sources which does, in fact, indirectly combat botting. Specifically, it combats small scale bot farms which may not seem like much on their own but when the barrier to entry for botting in WoW is as low as it is actually has a pretty big impact. By making it more difficult for the disreputable sites to obtain botted gold, they're less likely to accept smaller amounts since the risk/reward factor is significantly higher for small scale bot farms. The large scale bot farms still remain since the risk is baked into their business model but there's little more than what they're already doing to combat this.

Source: Check the token price when items that cost a lot of gold are added or when new raids launch with plenty of BoEs and top guilds spend literally tens of thousands of dollars on gold to buy them. Surely these don't impact the price.

Tell me you do not understand how supply and demand works without telling me you don't know how supply and demand works.

[kranur]

It combats people buying gold from disreputable sources which does, in fact, indirectly combat botting. Specifically, it combats small scale bot farms which may not seem like much on their own but when the barrier to entry for botting in WoW is as low as it is actually has a pretty big impact. By making it more difficult for the disreputable sites to obtain botted gold, they're less likely to accept smaller amounts since the risk/reward factor is significantly higher for small scale bot farms. The large scale bot farms still remain since the risk is baked into their business model but there's little more than what they're already doing to combat this.

True, but by making it "legit" for everyone to dump their gold for blizzard balance, the gold got devalued and in turn the "reputable" sellers increased their botting farms by a lot. So you got rid of the small ones but the big ones got even bigger.

[Relapses]

True, but by making it "legit" for everyone to dump their gold for blizzard balance, the gold got devalued and in turn the "reputable" sellers increased their botting farms by a lot. So you got rid of the small ones but the big ones got even bigger.

I'm pretty sure the Classic Token can only be converted into game time at the moment. It is legal to liquidate Classic gold into retail gold then convert the retail gold into BNet balance but I'm not sure how popular this method is. It's still wrong to say the Token had no impact on botting.

[Foulfrost]

Pray tell: In your infinite wisdom, if not the token then how should Blizzard have handled the problem of botting?

How the fuck should I know? That's not my job to figure out. I just know that the token isn't it and is just them taking their cut.
And I know that speaking up about that is perfectly fair.

[Relapses]

How the fuck should I know? That's not my job to figure out. I just know that the token isn't it and is just them taking their cut.
And I know that speaking up about that is perfectly fair.

Gotcha -- you just want to be mad about it without being inconvenienced by having to defend your position. What was that about "zero nuance" again?

[Foulfrost]

Gotcha -- you just want to be mad about it without being inconvenienced by having to defend your position. What was that about "zero nuance" again?

You shameless troll. It literally isn't my job to solve the problem. You understand that right?

And what would you have typed if I had suggested something, huh? You would have done what you did to others who tried. "No that wouldn't solve it, you're wrong". It's a lose-lose situation with you. Do you know the solution? No, you don't. Does that mean you can't have an opinion? No, it doesn't.

But just because some random forum guy doesn't have the perfect solution to a massive problem like online botting, doesn't mean he can't complain about the ineffective and greedy solutions provided by Activision. If you call that 'something to be mad at', you don't understand what deep disappointment looks like.

[Relapses]

You shameless troll. It literally isn't my job to solve the problem. You understand that right?

And what would you have typed if I had suggested something, huh? You would have done what you did to others who tried. "No that wouldn't solve it, you're wrong". It's a lose-lose situation with you. Do you know the solution? No, you don't. Does that mean you can't have an opinion? No, it doesn't.

But just because some random forum guy doesn't have the perfect solution to a massive problem like online botting, doesn't mean he can't complain about the ineffective and greedy solutions provided by Activision. If you call that 'something to be mad at', you don't understand what deep disappointment looks like.

If you're going to criticize me for calling out other people for not having solutions to the problem then why shouldn't I be able to ask you what your thoughts on the matter are? It sounds like what you want is a safe space where you people can just be upset with Activision for introducing the Token without having to deal with anybody ever questioning your validation echo chamber.

[Foulfrost]

If you're going to criticize me for calling out other people for not having solutions to the problem then why shouldn't I be able to ask you what your thoughts on the matter are? It sounds like what you want is a safe space where you people can just be upset with Activision for introducing the Token without having to deal with anybody ever questioning your validation echo chamber.

It's not a validation echo chamber. It's a place to voice real grievances and disappointment. And if all you have to say about it amounts to tossing the responsibility for solving the problem in our lap, then your input isn't worth much. That's the same as just saying 'Shut up'.

The core issue here is that we're not seeing bots decrease, we have seen measures implemented that were supposedly going to help mitigate the problem. They didn't seem to do that but did give the developer an extra cash income. We're looking at that and calling it out.

Somebody here suggested they should rework the client, you dismissed it as something that just wouldn't happen. But it might actually help if they did that. So... why aren't they? Because the investment into a better game for us isn't worth their money? Who actually knows but were that the case, calling that out too wouldn't be unfair.

Ultimately, it is not on any of us here to present the solution to such a large problem. We're not programmers, we don't work for Activision. And you don't have the moral or intellectual authority to tell us that if we can't present a perfect solution to the problem, we're not allowed to complain about it.

[bjoerninger]

AKA we just earned 7 million from new bot account sign ups! We, the normal players mean nothing to Blizzard. They are selling a service to bot accounts now.

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I am on A52. Turn off warmode and go into the Cavern. You will see them everywhere mining nonstop.

and now there are 136k less... wtf is your point? there are no "legit players" being banned for cheating or exploiting.

[Relapses]

It's not a validation echo chamber. It's a place to voice real grievances and disappointment. And if all you have to say about it amounts to tossing the responsibility for solving the problem in our lap, then your input isn't worth much. That's the same as just saying 'Shut up'.

I can accept people being upset and airing their grievances but I cannot accept the framing of the Token as a purely profit-motivated endeavor on Blizzard's part since that's very clearly not its purpose. I also have a problem with players insisting that Blizzard is manipulating Token prices "because they can" as there is absolutely no evidence to support it.

The core issue here is that we're not seeing bots decrease, we have seen measures implemented that were supposedly going to help mitigate the problem. They didn't seem to do that but did give the developer an extra cash income. We're looking at that and calling it out.

It removed gold selling spam almost immediately which is how many of the bot farms advertised. Directing players away from these websites obviously won't fully cure the issue since players who want to cheat will still find ways to cheat but at the very least there's less predatory activity going on. Again, my concern isn't that the problem still exists, it's the rampant, unfounded cynicism which seems to imply the Token did nothing when it very clearly had demonstrable positive effects.

Somebody here suggested they should rework the client, you dismissed it as something that just wouldn't happen. But it might actually help if they did that. So... why aren't they? Because the investment into a better game for us isn't worth their money? Who actually knows but were that the case, calling that out too wouldn't be unfair.

I mean, I explained why it wouldn't happen: It would require them to completely reprogram WoW from the ground up. The reason for that is because most bot programs utilize LUA which is the same programming language WoW add-ons use. So not only would Blizzard need to develop a version of WoW that doesn't allow the use of add-ons, they'd also have to completely change the way the game works at the kernel-level. Blizzard's anti-cheat, Warden, is also comically easy to bypass these days since it was first developed around the same time as Vanilla. If they're going to go about bot-proofing the current version of WoW that we play, they may as just make a brand new game because the amount of work required is roughly the same.

Ultimately, it is not on any of us here to present the solution to such a large problem. We're not programmers, we don't work for Activision.

Is it actually that large of a problem though? It's important to factor in how much botting actually negatively impacts the game and how imperative it is for there to even be a solution to it in the first place. In forum discussions like this, you'll frequently see players pointing to botting as the #1 most important issue that Blizzard has to contend with, as if the entire future of the game's development is hanging in the balance. In reality, botting really only impacts the people buying gold and doing boosts. And if that population of players is in the single percentage points (which it almost assuredly is) then the vast majority of players simply have no reason to care about the Token or the impact of botting. It certainly isn't the kind of problem which Blizzard needs to bankrupt itself trying to solve by throwing raw manpower at it.

And you don't have the moral or intellectual authority to tell us that if we can't present a perfect solution to the problem, we're not allowed to complain about it.

I'm not telling anybody they can't complain about it, I'm saying that if you are going to complain about it then maybe put your money where your mouth is and share with us how you'd go about solving it. The Token was certainly better than doing nothing which is what it seems most people who hate the Token would have preferred for Blizzard to have done.

[rrayy]

South Korea forces Blizzard to give Diablo III refunds, was one of the examples of the notable controversies that this company love to create. And about the Token, unless you guys really trust (without evidence) that the system actually works like that....good luck with that. I don't trust it.

Ironic coming from the guy who is making claims against Blizzard with zero evidence to back it up.

I find it hilarious that you guys said that the Token was not created to stop bots + gold selling....That was actually the main reason it was created in the first place. Is actually funny that Blizzard only created another microtransaction and solved nothing in the end. And you guys are OK with that. (or even with the Boost and thinking that leveling services from shadowy sources where elimited because of the introduction of this microtransaction....and we know is not true, they still exist, because i see them in Wyrmrest Accord using bots to level up in dungeons).

I find it hilarious you continue to present this BS claim as fact. IT was NEVER about stopping bots. THey said from day one that this was about giving players a legitimate a safe way to buy gold. Their own words. YOu are just saying whatever BS you can to fit your BS narrative.

Ok...You are telling me, that the Token + Boost are not pay to win. Now I understand how much you are into this game to not be able to see this as a pay to win. I'm not even going to try to convince you about it. It's up to you but, is a Pay to Win (Token = Pay to get gold, Boost = Pay to get level. Unfair advantage over other players who doesn't open the wallet).

NO they are not. Where you fail is that you cannot get to max level with a boost. You still have to level to max level then gear up your toon just to be able to ATTEMPT to complete the hardest content. "I am right because I say so and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong" is not a legit argument.

[Altmer]

Ironic coming from the guy who is making claims against Blizzard with zero evidence to back it up.


I find it hilarious you continue to present this BS claim as fact. IT was NEVER about stopping bots. THey said from day one that this was about giving players a legitimate a safe way to buy gold. Their own words. YOu are just saying whatever BS you can to fit your BS narrative.




NO they are not. Where you fail is that you cannot get to max level with a boost. You still have to level to max level then gear up your toon just to be able to ATTEMPT to complete the hardest content. "I am right because I say so and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong" is not a legit argument.

My level of disappointment with Blizzard is that low, that I don't believe in them. You may call it BS, I call it: "I don't trust them and their systems, I think they end up manipulating them at will". The best evidence is the long history with Blizzard controversies and legal issues they had.

And about the boost, is still an unfair advantage against someone who doesn't pay for it. It doesn't matter if it stop at level 60. Is still several hours of invesment vs instant level up by just using your credit card. I find it hilarious that you don't admit that is a pay to win, just because it doesn't give you level 70.

[rrayy]

My level of disappointment with Blizzard is that low, that I don't believe in them. You may call it BS, I call it: "I don't trust them and their systems, I think they end up manipulating them at will". The best evidence is the long history with Blizzard controversies and legal issues they had.

And about the boost, is still an unfair advantage against someone who doesn't pay for it. It doesn't matter if it stop at level 60. Is still several hours of invesment vs instant level up by just using your credit card. I find it hilarious that you don't admit that is a pay to win, just because it doesn't give you level 70.

Tha is ridiculous. Leveling to 60 is hardly a significant investment and nowhere near a point to make a boost a huge advatnage. Players aren't playing against each other.

I find it hilarious that you continue to declare yourself right and that everyone should just admit you are right. Not how things work at all. This is not pay to win. I told you why it is. You gave no facts to refute that. You simply say "Nope, you are wrong. It is PAy to Win because I say so". I am not going to admit to something that is clearly wrong simply because you declare it right.