Curse

Star_Jewel · Oct 07, 2011, 07:57 PM // 19:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

Sometimes it's really obvious why people botted and maybe the developers should stop making boring content that makes people want to bot.

The developers did. And then the people who like to grind whined until we got titles. The reputation titles really don't provide significant benefits at higher levels than they do at lower levels -- the only ones who'd really care are the ones who'd need them for grindy things like farming or GWAMM, which is self-inflicted.

I might have agreed with you prior to the Survivor/Drunkard/LDoA update. But now it's a walk in the park to get even GWAMM with little grind.

ArenaNet has gone out of its way to please everyone -- provide titles for the natural grinders while making those same title accessible to the non-grinders.

Botters have no excuse.

*lemming* · Oct 07, 2011, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Don't see how this is relevant, considering we're talking about PvP bots here.

Honestly, I think that most of the 3700 accounts from last year weren't PvP-related.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MMO Player

I am of the opinion that if people are so lame they need to bot let them. No skin off my nose. :P

There's a minority of botters that run multiple accounts in parallel to make gaudy profits. I believe there was a screenshot of one showing off his wealth - something like a full storage of ecto, a Kanaxai, and a new computer in the span of a couple of months?

Do you think that there's something less morally acceptable about what they're doing?

keli · Oct 07, 2011, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by MMO Player

I am of the opinion that if people are so lame they need to bot let them. No skin off my nose. :P Personally I think it is just as bad when others resort to buying gold etc.. If they would stop paying real world cash for power ups etc., then your bot population would drop considerably.

Also as far as detection software goes, you can't detect custom bots that are not sold or given away. Without the source there is just no way to detect something like that. The tried and true method is the GMs. GMs can always detect a bot by common sense. Chat with the person, no response might be a bot. Watch them follow them around in the game and see repeatable odd behavior then more likely a bot. Playing for 24 hours a day etc..

Not that I am into buying multiple accounts, but do they allow people to multibox this game? I know some WoW players who had/have up to nine accounts going and I thought that was pretty lame behavior as well. But Blizzard allowed it.

Mainly because of the money they were making off those fools.

The problem is not with pve, it is with pvp, you shouldn't let them bot in pvp.

Hugh Jarse · Oct 08, 2011, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Mixed feelings here. At the start of the week I was enjoying 10-0, 10-1 regularly with no wait times in JQ with the majority of bots seemingly on Luxon side (unless I was just lucky). Now wait times are up and I'm actually having to work my butt off whilst having an enjoyable 10-9, 9-10 when I get a game.
So feel free to insert an in/equality of your choice here:

reward ...... fun

Leohan · Oct 08, 2011, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Banning comes in waves because looking for bots takes investigating. So a list is made from reports from the community to checking the data. When an official list of known bots hits the plateau... BAM! Grenth comes out for the night of the living dead.

If you are truly wrongfully put on a ban list it is possible to get off of it.

Mireles · Oct 10, 2011, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

Kotaku said it best when they reported on the bans last year.

If so many players find content in your game so boring they are risking their accounts and resorting to botting to complete it (faction titles, old school drunkard etc) then you've done something wrong in game design. No-one enjoys grinding faction to level up their EotN titles every time they make a new toon. People don't love that speck of dust on the horizon that is the Luxon or Kurzick faction title - if they did they'd keep farming Mount Quinkai once they got it, but they don't.

Mine sweeper, solitare, 52 card pick up are all boring games... are there bots for those?

If the game is so boring why play? People don't bot in a game they don't like to play... they bot because they want instant admiration and attention from people that do play.. without having to actually do anything.... or commit copyright infringment for money... but on a individual basis.. its usually the first reason

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

I get most of these bans were for PvP botting, and aside from increasing the number of players in the arenas resulting in more matches taking place this harms real player's experience, but not all cases of botting are some big mystery where you think; why did they do that? Sometimes it's really obvious why people botted and maybe the developers should stop making boring content that makes people want to bot.

Once again why would you want rewards in a game you dont like to play... Theres no reason you need any titles or massive wealth in this game to play... you can just not play the parts of the game you don't like.... unless you have alternate reasons for wanting rewards like stated above. Blaming the developers is like blaming a steriod junkie blaming the sports assosiation for not making it easier for him to set records... just doesn't make since unless your expecting everything to just be handed to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

Just like gold buying, bot programs will cost less than the money they earn when compared with a minimum wage job. The time it takes to farm the items or gold or complete the boring and reptitive grind titles in the game could easily be spent flipping burgers at McDonalds for minimum wage to pay for 100 times the amount of gold or time saved not killing raptors.

Are we really compairing the game to a job? I was under the impression games were for playing and fun... not to create monitary needs in which to spend your money on so you can eleminate some game time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

Put into that context, who is sadder - the one who has enough of a real world investment to save time and money (in the form of opportunity loss) by purchasing an in game objective that was built around intense time sucking grind or the person who spent hundred of hours in front of their computer grinding out the same content they didn't enjoy but felt passively satisfied by (aka near catatonic state) achieving something in a virtual world in the form of multiple GWAMMs?

The guy using real world money for game presige that doesnt require the use of real world money. Kind of like buying a hooker because you don't enjoy going on a dates and making that effort to woo a woman. Except its even sadder because its a virtual world. Don't play games that feel like work.... Unless your since of fulfillment is recognition in a game you don't like to play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tummlykins

I don't support botting and I think it's important ArenaNet action those accounts but I'm not going to pretend it's a big mystery why people bot instead of "play" the game. I think a more important focus for ArenaNet would be to create more engaging gameplay with far less intense grind. It's a shame every time the botting issue comes up, people don't look at what ArenaNet could be doing to positively discourage botting - or here's a thought - what are they doing wrong to make people bot in the first place?

The game is just a game, you can play the entire content once and enjoy the story... there is nothing that says you MUST complete titles and accomplishments to play... You can stop playing as soon as it stops being fun... as i said before people bot/RMT because they want the virtual glory but don't have the virtual guts.

Coraline Jones · Oct 10, 2011, 09:37 PM // 21:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mireles

Mine sweeper, solitare, 52 card pick up are all boring games... are there bots for those?

That's because those are single player games.

If there was a competitive online minesweeper game, then I guarantee that somebody, somewhere would write a bot program for it and then bot for weeks on end so they could be on the top of the leaderboards.

Quote:

If the game is so boring why play? People don't bot in a game they don't like to play... they bot because they want instant admiration and attention from people that do play.. without having to actually do anything.... or commit copyright infringment for money... but on a individual basis.. its usually the first reason

You want the real reason? Because it has an audience. Any MMO with more than one person playing on it will have somebody, somewhere will care about titles, player rank, and loot. Once you get an audience then there's going to be somebody, somewhere that will try to exploit the system to get all of it with no effort.

Also, many younger gamers simply don't care about hard work and time investment in a video game because there's so many avenues for entertainment. In other words, when you can go almost anywhere for instant gratification, then playing some grind-oriented goal becomes a pointless endeavor and they'll just turn to bots or Chinese gold farmers.

One study measured how often the average gamer completes a game. It is something like 25 percent. You can look at the statistics on sites like Steam and see that it's true that more than half of the gamers don't even bother finishing a game they bought. My point is, people's attention spans are so short nowadays that they just want to get all the stuff in their game and move to the next item. Ever heard of gamers that buy games that they don't even play? I have seen more than one person admit it. One of my closest friends even bought a game that he had no desire to ever play. He bought it anyway because it had--and I quote--A COOL TITLE. If that doesn't show how capricious some people are, then I don't know what does.

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In a completely unrelated note, I think that it says a lot when ArenaNet has reversed wrongful bans. In other words, it is possible to play Guild Wars in a way where an active moderator can't tell the difference between a real player and a bot program. I don't know if that says more about the intelligence of the bots, or about how much grind is inherent to the game. You'd think that the only way to be accused of being a bot is to do something over and over and over and over for hours at a time.