Darn bots - Guild Wars Forums

Firefly · Aug 11, 2005, 03:41 AM // 03:41

I was playing late tonight and I forgot what town i was in but i was the only real person there. The rest were all bots over 40 of them

. all running together. I really hate that. People get that lazy that they use a bot. Its so dum. But my realy question is where do these people even get theses bots and why doesnt GW bock the program or somethin. Thank your reading heeheh

Thank you,
Ladie Firefly

Lasareth · Aug 11, 2005, 03:43 AM // 03:43

You can't block a program from running in the background all the time. If Anet engineered a way to block it, the authors would just tweak a programming intstrument and bypass the problem, getting it to work again. It's akin to the windower for FFXI.

blane · Aug 11, 2005, 03:47 AM // 03:47

How do you know they are bots by the way?

Epiph · Aug 11, 2005, 05:24 AM // 05:24

hack sheild could help the problem but not by much

Krank · Aug 11, 2005, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by blane

How do you know they are bots by the way?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firefly

I was playing late tonight and I forgot what town i was in but i was the only real person there. The rest were all bots over 40 of them

. all running together. I really hate that. People get that lazy that they use a bot. Its so dum. But my realy question is where do these people even get theses bots and why doesnt GW bock the program or somethin. Thank your reading heeheh

Thank you,
Ladie Firefly

Probly thats how he knew

Lasareth · Aug 11, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33

The problem with bots to be specific is that many do not interfere with packet transfer at all. Most are pixel readers which is an output feature of the computer and input via pseudo-keypresses. So, it's like having someone at the computer, and GW can't really tell the difference. The only way it could would be to invade your running processes and shut down whatever it thought was the cause of the problem, which I don't think is what we want.

Why does Anet have so much trouble spotting bots? Because to them, the only way they can know the difference is by extrapolating patterns of normal player behaviour
and basing judgement when something falls out of the norm of that behaviour i.e. repeated and instantaneous actions, and input that's nearly identical over long periods of time. If they knew what was causing the problem, they wouldn't make an effort to stop those people from using bots, they'd just ban them

Divine Elemental · Aug 11, 2005, 05:39 AM // 05:39

Ring of fire
go there
theres atleast 5 bots...
i nisult them spit in their face
enter them with me for mission
and they all go togehter not following me
they speak every 5mins saying what?
this so pisses me off

MaglorD · Aug 11, 2005, 07:10 AM // 07:10

Blizzard was able to spot bots in D2 and WOW, how difficult is it to do so in GW?

Andy of Glacieria · Aug 11, 2005, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Yea Blizzard was able to spot SOME bots.... not all. Same with Anet.

Kamatsu · Aug 11, 2005, 09:04 AM // 09:04

only way to 100% kill bots... is to implement someting that would also kill the game

Implemnent having to input random numbers/letters displayed in a "picture" whenever you enter a mission and/or explorable zone or change towns/outposts. This would kill bots since they wouldn't be able to see the pictures and thus couldn't enter the coide..

course bot's could then just build a database of the codes to try... but if say you only get 2 attempts at the code before being ejected off the server... and make sure there are a lot of codes used.. and randomize which get used... sure some bots with databases would get lucky.. but generally speaking they would get kicked off... especially if the codes were changed frequently (and thus forcing the databases to be expanded...)

Course this would totally peev players off and would cause a mass exodus of players from GW.. anet would solve the bots.. but would kill the game in the process... cuz who really wants to have to stop and enter a random code whenever we enter a mission, change cities/outposts, etc?

snepp · Aug 11, 2005, 10:22 AM // 10:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamatsu

cuz who really wants to have to stop and enter a random code whenever we enter a mission, change cities/outposts, etc?

If you could guarantee me that it would eliminate botting entirely, I'd go for it. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take care of the "botting houses" that have a live person sitting around monitoring computers.

Kamatsu · Aug 11, 2005, 10:35 AM // 10:35

snepp - thats true.. since they would just enter the code. so guess it's not a 100% way of removing bots...

it would be a 100% way of getting rid of bots where the ppl aren't monitoring the bots.. but the bot factories wouldn't be effected since they sit and monitor the comps to respond to GM's and enter codes and such as is needed (depending on what game they are farming).

but fact is I'd say that a vast majority of players would agree to wanting to get rid of bots.. but if anything was implemented that effected them.. they would complain and leave the game. It's the old "We know it has to be done, but it better not effect me!"

Just like whenever a council or such wants to put in a new tip.. or something like that.. people campaign to not have it in their backyard... "We know it's needed, but not in our backyard!"

So ppl might in principle agree to entering random codes to help kill bots... but the moment it actually gets implemented and ppl actually have to enter the codes... they will get peeved off and whinge and whine and complain about it and demand that the code "garbage" gets removed.. forgetting why it was implemented in the 1st place... and then quit the game in anger...

Kai Nui · Aug 11, 2005, 10:40 AM // 10:40

But don't BOTS have feelings too...? How would you like it if you were playing a game and got shut off for doing it? I wouldn't like it, ESPECIALLY! if I was a bot.

snepp · Aug 11, 2005, 10:53 AM // 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamatsu

but fact is I'd say that a vast majority of players would agree to wanting to get rid of bots.. but if anything was implemented that effected them.. they would complain and leave the game. It's the old "We know it has to be done, but it better not effect me!"

Without a doubt, for every 100 people that say it would be a great idea, 99 of them would be pissed/annoyed/quit GW if it were to actually be implemented (random numbers, no statistical accuracy intended

). While it's a nice idea in principle, it's not exactly a viable solution.

Kampfkeks · Aug 11, 2005, 12:17 PM // 12:17

The annoying bot paranoia is pissing me of big time. Can't you guys just mind about your own business? Yes i am farming. Yes i do it regularly and in quite the same way. Yes i like playing GW this way, no i am not screwing anyone. Yes you can go and cry about bots now -.-

Why am i so aggresive about this? Arena.net must have like 50 reports about my person because people thought i was a bot when i in fact wasn't. Countless are the times i've been accused of bots just because i would not reply to some random accusation of some random moron sitting at an outpost 24/7 whispering every trespasser with "evidences of botting". Go get a life for christs sake and stop messing with my gameplay experience you damn bot paranoids -.-

Sorry, this is really pissing me off. This game is going down the drain like Counter-Strike. You know the saying?

5 Kills in a row in Quake 3 - Excelent
5 Kills in a row in UT - Monsterkill
5 Kills in a row in CS - Kicked by console.

Do you really want it to be alike in Guildwars (there is no plat in those games, just an example)

100 plat a day in WoW - Nice dedicated playing there pal!
100 plat a day in Everquest - Woaah, nice farming! Mind sharing?
100 plat a day in Guildwars - Bot Report.

RTSFirebat · Aug 11, 2005, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Kampfkeks,

When I see 10 people in the Ember Light Camp repeatly doing the same thing over and over again, its begs to differ if they are a bot or not.

When I go farming I take the time to make sure I say I'm not botting by speaking out, since I myself have had people message me, trying to test if I'm botting or not, basically using an auto-response system.

Bots are reported by players, the way I see it, your CS example is groundless, since its a different game, and getting 5 kills in a row, all headshots, all within the space of 5 seconds is cheating.

Needless to say Guild Wars is a different kind of animal, no normal player could amass 100K every day, 7 days a week, its simply not possible. That says without selling stuff since most bots simply farm and sell to Traders for gold.

Personally I say well done to A.net, some MMO games simply give in and allow bots to carry on, at least ArenaNet is trying to do something about it.

Algren Cole · Aug 11, 2005, 02:25 PM // 14:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lasareth

You can't block a program from running in the background all the time. If Anet engineered a way to block it, the authors would just tweak a programming intstrument and bypass the problem, getting it to work again. It's akin to the windower for FFXI.

they'd get themselves into some pretty serious legal trouble if they engineered a way for their game to shutdown other processes you had running.....

Kampfkeks · Aug 11, 2005, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTSFirebat

[..text..]

The thing i wanted to get across was the paranoia at the moment. In my example it is not only 1 different games but a total of 6 different games. What i'm trying to say... paranoia is what made the CS Community go down the drain. Behind each kill they suspected a cheater and accused alike.
This turned the once good community into what it is today, a lot of people disrespecting with a lots of REAL Cheating going on. Only because people where suffering from paranoia earlier.
Even though 5 kills in a row isn't directly comparable to Guildwars. The problem about Paranoia still has gotten carried over to it. Sadly. People accuse allmost everyone now of being a bot. If you think 100 plat is unrealistic, decrease it down to like 5 plat a day. You'll still get accused of being a bot if you leave the same area twice.
Hell, i even got accussed of being a bot while i was just staying there, busy chatting with my guild. To some people it looked like i was a bot who got stuck in its pathfinding routine.

And i just don't want to spam useless text just so no one accuses me of being a bot. And i don't want to have to reply to every, sorry, moron accusing me.

I do mind my own business, why can't the others do alike? If there are really that many bots it is A.nets duty to spot those. Not the duty of the players. A-Net, so i do assume, does a good job in finding those real bots. The players don't. They aren't as professional as A-Net is and they often go a bit extreme with their accusations.
________________

All i am asking for is a community which tries to prevent its own self humilation in form of paranoia.

@Algren
You do know about a so called copy protection called SecuRom? This little program gets automatically installed into your system with some games (even some demos, see F.E.A.R). It now is resident in your system and demands the deletion of copy programs like Alcohol and others. It even wants you to uninstall Daemon Tools of any kind.

Magus · Aug 11, 2005, 03:07 PM // 15:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firefly

But my realy question is where do these people even get theses bots and why doesnt GW bock the program or somethin.

A few people program them out of scratch. I wouldn't be surprised if GW had more than one "type" of bot. But I'm guessing that the majority of the botters never wrote their own code, and got it from others.

It's impossible to permanently block bots. If you block or try to change the packet encryption used by the bots, they'll just change it.

sidepocket13 · Aug 11, 2005, 03:07 PM // 15:07

i wouldnt complain if they implimented the random #/letter thing during trades. of course it would bother me if they didnt allow me to customize the amount of items i am selling. last night i cleared out my inventory of steel and iron, had 250 of each. if they had the random # system i would have had to input it 275 times! but if they say, enter it once and then i can enter that i want to sell all 250 of some item, yeah i wouldnt mind that.

Aug 11, 2005, 03:41 AM // 03:41	#1
Firefly Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Oak Creek, WI Guild: Holy Knights Templar Of Ascalon Profession: E/Mo	Darn bots I was playing late tonight and I forgot what town i was in but i was the only real person there. The rest were all bots over 40 of them . all running together. I really hate that. People get that lazy that they use a bot. Its so dum. But my realy question is where do these people even get theses bots and why doesnt GW bock the program or somethin. Thank your reading heeheh Thank you, Ladie Firefly

Aug 11, 2005, 03:43 AM // 03:43	#2
Lasareth Aquarius Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Somewhere between Boardwalk and Park Place	You can't block a program from running in the background all the time. If Anet engineered a way to block it, the authors would just tweak a programming intstrument and bypass the problem, getting it to work again. It's akin to the windower for FFXI.

Aug 11, 2005, 03:47 AM // 03:47	#3
blane Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Singapore Guild: Sg Knights Profession: N/Me	How do you know they are bots by the way?

Aug 11, 2005, 05:24 AM // 05:24	#4
Epiph Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Mar 2005	hack sheild could help the problem but not by much

Aug 11, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33	#6
Lasareth Aquarius Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Somewhere between Boardwalk and Park Place	The problem with bots to be specific is that many do not interfere with packet transfer at all. Most are pixel readers which is an output feature of the computer and input via pseudo-keypresses. So, it's like having someone at the computer, and GW can't really tell the difference. The only way it could would be to invade your running processes and shut down whatever it thought was the cause of the problem, which I don't think is what we want. Why does Anet have so much trouble spotting bots? Because to them, the only way they can know the difference is by extrapolating patterns of normal player behaviour and basing judgement when something falls out of the norm of that behaviour i.e. repeated and instantaneous actions, and input that's nearly identical over long periods of time. If they knew what was causing the problem, they wouldn't make an effort to stop those people from using bots, they'd just ban them

Aug 11, 2005, 05:39 AM // 05:39	#7
Divine Elemental Desert Nomad Join Date: May 2005 Location: Near Your House Guild: I Used To Own [ IUTO ]	Ring of fire go there theres atleast 5 bots... i nisult them spit in their face enter them with me for mission and they all go togehter not following me they speak every 5mins saying what? this so pisses me off

Aug 11, 2005, 07:10 AM // 07:10	#8
MaglorD Jungle Guide Join Date: May 2005	Blizzard was able to spot bots in D2 and WOW, how difficult is it to do so in GW?

Aug 11, 2005, 08:54 AM // 08:54	#9
Andy of Glacieria Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Jul 2005 Guild: pD-Paladins of the Dark Profession: W/Mo	Yea Blizzard was able to spot SOME bots.... not all. Same with Anet.

Aug 11, 2005, 09:04 AM // 09:04	#10
Kamatsu Moderator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Australia	only way to 100% kill bots... is to implement someting that would also kill the game Implemnent having to input random numbers/letters displayed in a "picture" whenever you enter a mission and/or explorable zone or change towns/outposts. This would kill bots since they wouldn't be able to see the pictures and thus couldn't enter the coide.. course bot's could then just build a database of the codes to try... but if say you only get 2 attempts at the code before being ejected off the server... and make sure there are a lot of codes used.. and randomize which get used... sure some bots with databases would get lucky.. but generally speaking they would get kicked off... especially if the codes were changed frequently (and thus forcing the databases to be expanded...) Course this would totally peev players off and would cause a mass exodus of players from GW.. anet would solve the bots.. but would kill the game in the process... cuz who really wants to have to stop and enter a random code whenever we enter a mission, change cities/outposts, etc?

Aug 11, 2005, 10:35 AM // 10:35	#12
Kamatsu Moderator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Australia	snepp - thats true.. since they would just enter the code. so guess it's not a 100% way of removing bots... it would be a 100% way of getting rid of bots where the ppl aren't monitoring the bots.. but the bot factories wouldn't be effected since they sit and monitor the comps to respond to GM's and enter codes and such as is needed (depending on what game they are farming). but fact is I'd say that a vast majority of players would agree to wanting to get rid of bots.. but if anything was implemented that effected them.. they would complain and leave the game. It's the old "We know it has to be done, but it better not effect me!" Just like whenever a council or such wants to put in a new tip.. or something like that.. people campaign to not have it in their backyard... "We know it's needed, but not in our backyard!" So ppl might in principle agree to entering random codes to help kill bots... but the moment it actually gets implemented and ppl actually have to enter the codes... they will get peeved off and whinge and whine and complain about it and demand that the code "garbage" gets removed.. forgetting why it was implemented in the 1st place... and then quit the game in anger...

Aug 11, 2005, 10:40 AM // 10:40	#13
Kai Nui Desert Nomad Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Behind you with a knife Guild: Celebrity Gangsters [FamE] Profession: Me/	But don't BOTS have feelings too...? How would you like it if you were playing a game and got shut off for doing it? I wouldn't like it, ESPECIALLY! if I was a bot.

Aug 11, 2005, 12:17 PM // 12:17	#15
Kampfkeks Krytan Explorer Join Date: Aug 2005	The annoying bot paranoia is pissing me of big time. Can't you guys just mind about your own business? Yes i am farming. Yes i do it regularly and in quite the same way. Yes i like playing GW this way, no i am not screwing anyone. Yes you can go and cry about bots now -.- Why am i so aggresive about this? Arena.net must have like 50 reports about my person because people thought i was a bot when i in fact wasn't. Countless are the times i've been accused of bots just because i would not reply to some random accusation of some random moron sitting at an outpost 24/7 whispering every trespasser with "evidences of botting". Go get a life for christs sake and stop messing with my gameplay experience you damn bot paranoids -.- Sorry, this is really pissing me off. This game is going down the drain like Counter-Strike. You know the saying? 5 Kills in a row in Quake 3 - Excelent 5 Kills in a row in UT - Monsterkill 5 Kills in a row in CS - Kicked by console. Do you really want it to be alike in Guildwars (there is no plat in those games, just an example) 100 plat a day in WoW - Nice dedicated playing there pal! 100 plat a day in Everquest - Woaah, nice farming! Mind sharing? 100 plat a day in Guildwars - Bot Report.

Aug 11, 2005, 01:29 PM // 13:29	#16
RTSFirebat The Humanoid Typhoon Join Date: May 2005 Location: UK Guild: Servants of Fortuna [SoF] Profession: R/	Kampfkeks, When I see 10 people in the Ember Light Camp repeatly doing the same thing over and over again, its begs to differ if they are a bot or not. When I go farming I take the time to make sure I say I'm not botting by speaking out, since I myself have had people message me, trying to test if I'm botting or not, basically using an auto-response system. Bots are reported by players, the way I see it, your CS example is groundless, since its a different game, and getting 5 kills in a row, all headshots, all within the space of 5 seconds is cheating. Needless to say Guild Wars is a different kind of animal, no normal player could amass 100K every day, 7 days a week, its simply not possible. That says without selling stuff since most bots simply farm and sell to Traders for gold. Personally I say well done to A.net, some MMO games simply give in and allow bots to carry on, at least ArenaNet is trying to do something about it.

Aug 11, 2005, 03:07 PM // 15:07	#20
sidepocket13 Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: New England Guild: Metallica Roadies Profession: Mo/Me	i wouldnt complain if they implimented the random #/letter thing during trades. of course it would bother me if they didnt allow me to customize the amount of items i am selling. last night i cleared out my inventory of steel and iron, had 250 of each. if they had the random # system i would have had to input it 275 times! but if they say, enter it once and then i can enter that i want to sell all 250 of some item, yeah i wouldnt mind that.