Bots Taking Over Shadowlands! Asmongold Leads a Protest on Every WoW Server

[Thelyron]

My religion forbids me from ever taking the same stance as assmongoloid, so bots are good and healthy for the game.

[kaintk]

How come you see that picture and don't think the target audience of that video is completely retarded?

its called entertainment, boy.
it why he's rich and you're not
stop being poor and jealous lol

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

its him who really show it at first

If you get all your WoW info from a streamer then I can see why you'd think that but this is completely not true. This has been reported on way longer than Asmon gave his attention to it.

[Astator]

Good job Asmongold.

[Tarba]

its called entertainment, boy.
it why he's rich and you're not
stop being poor and jealous lol

Yeah like Bieber, clickbait articles and other shits like that. Still, there are really no reason to be proud of giving money to them or advertising them for free. And expect the aproval of non retarded people.

[Astator]

So what do ya'll want blizz to do with said bots?
Ban the the account? They'll make another one.
Ban the IP? They'll use a VPN or a spoof
Ban the VPN? ...lol
Ban the person's card? Pre-paid cards exist.
Create a better Anti-Cheat detector? The bot makers will just make one that goes around it.
Ban on report with a human...watching every zone of every server in like 5 continents.

Botting is going to be an issue as long as
1. Wow is popular enough for botting to be profitible
2. The demand for bots is high enough to be profitible

most of us (I think) wont bot simply because it's a bannable offense so that alone keeps about 55% of bots out of the game. The rest who don't care well will continue to do so.

Ban the account, they will have to pay for a new account and spend time to level again. If it is not enough to make the scheme unprofitable, ban the MAC address.

[Clozer]

Yeah like Bieber, clickbait articles and other shits like that. Still, there are really no reason to be proud of giving money to them or advertising them for free. And expect the aproval of non retarded people.

He's not making money off of these videos. At least not directly. Just sayin'.

[Mysterymask]

Ban the account, they will have to pay for a new account and spend time to level again. If it is not enough to make the scheme unprofitable, ban the MAC address.

They already ban the account...they have been since forever still doesn't stop them

also changing a MAC address is pretty trivial to anyone with half a brain to use google.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Everyone knows about it. He isn't drawing attention to anything except himself.

Let's assume you're correct, that his sole interest in this is to further himself and not call out the botting problem. I fail to see how that is an issue. Drawing attention to an issue while trying to draw in viewers is not inherently wrong.

IF the OP hadn't shamelessly posted a stermer's video, then people would be talking about the botting problem. THere was absolutely zero reason to bring up a streamer to make this thread. At all.

If you are alerted to a problem through a video of a streamer, why is it inappropriate to add in lieu of a lengthy OP? Many people in the thread have the capacity to separate Asmongold from the topic at hand, largely disregarding him, and have attempted to focus the discussion on botting, some simply using the video as a reference to show an example of a bot farm within Nazmir. Unfortunately you, and others, are lacking the ability to separate the two and appear to simply be looking for some reason to hyper-focus on Asmongold. These digressions have ranged from simply going off topic to some people openly discussing how much they would like to physically assault him in this thread. It is incredibly degenerate.

[Agartha]

Seconded, not because he's toxic. Just because he's got the face I most want to punch. Worth the jail time.

Lmao we've got a hardass over here. Probably only punched your little sister you feckless thug.

[Magical Mudcrab]

If you get all your WoW info from a streamer then I can see why you'd think that but this is completely not true. This has been reported on way longer than Asmon gave his attention to it.

I think there has been a spike in the sheer scope of the botting operations since Shadowlands launched. Most notably, I've seen lots of bot farms within Bastion (esp. Ithys Basin, and I believe the Anima Shrine) taking advantage of the abundance of skinnable mobs while AoE grinding. Sometimes they are small groups of Guardian druids, more commonly it is spread groups of Balance druids overlapping Starfalls. I've seen some examples of this in Ardenweald too, but I rarely go there so I cannot remember exactly where. Though I would probably partially attribute the abysmal AH prices for skinners to these bot farms in Shadowlands zones.

[Yarathir]

Well i don't put myself on a pedestal. Also... you don't know me^^

You did in your very post, though.

[fwc577]

So what do ya'll want blizz to do with said bots?
Ban the the account? They'll make another one.
Ban the IP? They'll use a VPN or a spoof
Ban the VPN? ...lol
Ban the person's card? Pre-paid cards exist.
Create a better Anti-Cheat detector? The bot makers will just make one that goes around it.
Ban on report with a human...watching every zone of every server in like 5 continents.

Botting is going to be an issue as long as
1. Wow is popular enough for botting to be profitible
2. The demand for bots is high enough to be profitible

most of us (I think) wont bot simply because it's a bannable offense so that alone keeps about 55% of bots out of the game. The rest who don't care well will continue to do so.

Keep hitting the people making the mass accounts to bot with level 50 druids. At some point, it will no longer remain profitable and it will cease.

- - - Updated - - -

I think there has been a spike in the sheer scope of the botting operations since Shadowlands launched. Most notably, I've seen lots of bot farms within Bastion (esp. Ithys Basin, and I believe the Anima Shrine) taking advantage of the abundance of skinnable mobs while AoE grinding. Sometimes they are small groups of Guardian druids, more commonly it is spread groups of Balance druids overlapping Starfalls. I've seen some examples of this in Ardenweald too, but I rarely go there so I cannot remember exactly where. Though I would probably partially attribute the abysmal AH prices for skinners to these bot farms in Shadowlands zones.

This is because of the low barrier to entry which is what helped put the final nail in the coffin for multiboxing and got Blizzard to do something. Hopefully, Blizzard gets off their ass and does something about the botting problem.

[Mysterymask]

Keep hitting the people making the mass accounts to bot with level 50 druids. At some point, it will no longer remain profitable and it will cease

Except thats what they have been doing for like 10 years...

[anon5123]

So what do ya'll want blizz to do with said bots?
Ban the the account? They'll make another one.
Ban the IP? They'll use a VPN or a spoof
Ban the VPN? ...lol
Ban the person's card? Pre-paid cards exist.
Create a better Anti-Cheat detector? The bot makers will just make one that goes around it.
Ban on report with a human...watching every zone of every server in like 5 continents.

"hurdur you can't stop bots xd"

Private servers stopped bots pretty effectively. Why can't Blizzard? You're telling me that a multi billion dollar game dev can't do what some unpaid volunteers could?

GMs have logs of every action you do, with timestamps and all. It's very easy to spot bots because they perform actions at perfectly-specific intervals, move in the same patterns every time, etc. and you can see who they're trading/sending mail to, and just follow the breadcrumb trail to find and ban gold sellers. So you'd just make some automated routine that runs "bot checks" on players, and if the player looks suspicious, flag their account for a human to review it.

On another MMO I played, GMs would test botters by just sending you whispers and if you didn't respond, they'd ban you. There are plenty of ways to test for bots, but the problem is that WoW is no longer Blizzard's big cash cow, so they don't really devote much customer support time/manpower to it anymore.

Back in the day, you'd have GMs actually appearing ingame to help you out with whatever problem you were having. Nowadays you just get a copypasted message saying "lol too bad we can't help you" for most problems.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Funny how that works. I think I just found a skinning bot. Some lonely moonkin that was standing near a pool in bastion killing those neutral flying snake things while never moving an inch, but only skinning the ones that are right next to it, not the ones I pulled 3 meters away. Never properly targeting the mobs either (facing them), just relying on moonfire and starfall. Just standing there and blankly staring into the distance, only coming to life if one of the mobs enters into it's range. Lazy git.

[Hibiki]

Today Maw insane lag. Good job Asmongold, maybe this small indie company Activision will fix quality of his game....

[Kallisto]

The day the motherfucker can put up a video without making a dumbfuck face on the thumbnail I might just check it out.

but but but but but but but but b.b.b.b.b.b.b.b.b.b.b.b.b.but if I don't make a rediculous click baity image for the youtube video it won't get the clicks. It's the ALGORITHMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMSMS fault /excuse of YouTubers.

(Note this isn't Asmongold as he doesn't run the youtube site but just how youtube channels make links in general.)

[Ielenia]

There are tons of easy ways by Blizzard to handle this problem... but for some reason it keeps happening.

Such as...?

[fwc577]

Except thats what they have been doing for like 10 years...

Because they aren't quick enough to ban because they are "studying" to make the bot detection algorithm better for the last 15 years.

It's easy to spot these guys. Ban them early, ban them quick. It no longer is profitable and these people move on.