Will guild wars have hackers like diablo did since its a no pay game? - Page 3 - Guild Wars Forums

Perishiko ReLLiK · Apr 04, 2005, 11:24 PM // 23:24

This game is made nearly Perfect, and in my mind, it is Perfect... Level cap of 20 means, everyone will be a nice max lvl before long anyways... bots for exp are useless. And if they have a bot to find some items... kudo's to them, but they still won't be "Godlike", besides... most of the skills and such that are elite, are gonna come from hidden places, and hard bosses, in which you have to be there to get it... so really, they'll just have a tiny edge over the competition, and if they're willing to work that hard on a useless bot... then let them, i don't see a way of this game being "ruined" at all.

Edit :: Reading the last post, i have to say something, ... The economy is going to be Incredibly hard to keep going even without cheaters... it's one of the hardest things for online games to keep up and running, so expect things to be changing anyways... it seems like the people at guild wars are waiting for the release more then we are... it actually seems like they're a company that wants to give the public what WE want... ive seen tons of changes based on the feedback from people, let alone something i wanted... so i know even my little voice was heard, along with anyone who thinks the same... i really think this company is going to be topline. Just the way i thought of blizzard games, over sony games... now arenanet will be the new leaders in my mind.

Loviatar · Apr 04, 2005, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Varggoth

Here it is people True there is a level cap of 20 but you can still gain experience after lvl 20 to get stat points. So thers one way a bot can work. .

do you mean SKILL points instead of stat points?

Varggoth · Apr 05, 2005, 02:04 AM // 02:04

yes i do mean skill and also i think the people making guildwars are very smart in making this game, there are no flaws in my opinion. The only flaw was the hackign and cheating that could happen but you guys brought me to believe there will be very little.

ApOcAlYpSe · Apr 05, 2005, 03:01 AM // 03:01

But really how is botting going to help someone? so they can reach the low lvl cap faster? ok then they will be in the higher pvp arenas...so what.
To get better weapons? sure but anyone could find those at random and the weapon is only part of the characters offensive. Its about the skills. every class will be able to counter another so the bots will not be all powerful. These facts alone prove the pointlessness of botting.

Lansing Kai Don · Apr 05, 2005, 03:16 AM // 03:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zfactor

I do not know how the structure of ArenaNet works, and I do not suspect they would be willing to release that information (less they risk widespread hacks) but in order for it to be multiplayer, the server has to register where you are and where you are moving to. Othwerwise you would not be able to interact with other users. The server constantly sends packets back and forth with information like "There is a monster here" so it appears on your screen. Then you would send a packing saying "attack with sword" for the server to know you are doing that and to show it to everybody in the room (obv the packets are just data, not phrases :P )

So if you are standing in a room in the game, and your friend walks across, that is because s/he clicked to do so on his/her computer, and the game sent a packet to the server saying "I am going over here." The server in turn keeps a check on every action. If you send an illogical packet then it would dismiss it, or drop you. So you couldn't send a packet saying "I killed everybody in the game" or "I did 100 damage to player X." This also stops people from editing maps say to put 1,000 gold on the ground and picking it up. The reason being is if you tried this (letting go of all reason and saying you editied the map to do this), you would have to send a packet saying you picked up the gold, to which the server would say "there is no gold there"

Essentially, packets are the medium by which the server displays every action from every player and monster that goes on. (Tossed that in in case my poor explanation was incomprehensible)

----------
Addition: I saw a couple of posts of people posting some rares they found in BWE. These are the things bots would seek out- high quality rares like weapons and whatnot found from drops. If the rares' attributes are calculated by a roll of the dice (so to speak) then the more time you spend finding them the more likely you are to find that one godly rare.

But like everybody seems to agree on, if the rares turn out to be useless, then there will be less bots, and it would be confined to the private realm. In which case we won't have to worry about it. That is what I am hoping for

Actually, your half right, if your in a group then theoretically it would be easy to implement a shared multiplayer map (meaning one computer hosts), this would take the load off of the servers. Don't tell me some people don't have the Bandwidth, I know, but there are several easy ways to detect a connection's bandwidth and you choose the largest to do the hosting (don't need a fast computer just a large bandwidth). This puts no packets to the server minus the initial phases of map construction (monster placement and weapon drops).
Also, packets are alot smaller than your making them out to be, if your using the TCP/IP protocol the largest default packet size is 1500 bytes (your MTU) minus headers and checksums it doesn't give you all that much room to work with per packet. I guess it matters how your fragmentation is setup on your system. But let's say there is 1500 bytes in the transmission portion, that leaves you with 750 "words. I don't want to go any further in depth... unless you want me to

Lansing Kai Don

P.S. My point was in the first paragraph, it could be easily hosted from any computer per map (except if solo, it's gotta be yours of course).

P.P.S. Oh and to get back on track I agree with Pershiko in the manner that the game was built for skills. They can gather gold and make gold worthless (how?), by giving it away? Then ANet, just makes the gold a different multiple, not that difficult as they've shown in the last BWE.

Smiggles · Apr 05, 2005, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Unrelated to the topic...is this game already out? I saw an Xfire signature and some guy had 119 hours on Guild Wars...

Darkmane · Apr 05, 2005, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiggles

Unrelated to the topic...is this game already out? I saw an Xfire signature and some guy had 119 hours on Guild Wars...

Did you see this as all time or as this week?

If it is this week:

I would think that:

1. That person has the guildwars client left open for whatever reason. I do not know for sure if this will trick xfire into think he's actually in game.

2. That person is also some kind of alpha tester/dev or privledged individual that simply needs to give me his login and password so I can play .......

If its all time it is perfectly normal as there have been beta weekend events where people that pre-orded the game can get in and have a taste. With the pre-order key.

The game is not out yet and is set to be released as of the 28th of this month. But you may want to keep your eyes on the official site. http://www.guildwars.com just in case.

Lunarhound · Apr 05, 2005, 04:52 AM // 04:52

I checked it out myself and if you just open the client and let it sit there, X-Fire does register it as playing the game. The person you saw is probably either an Alpha tester (assuming the Alpha client shows up on X-Fire), or has had their Guild Wars beta client running at the login screen for 119 hours.

Sausaletus Rex · Apr 05, 2005, 05:54 AM // 05:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Varggoth

Here it is people True there is a level cap of 20 but you can still gain experience after lvl 20 to get stat points. So thers one way a bot can work. Gold is very useful and theres many way a *cheater* can ruin the economy. One they can make gold worth nothing and thats not good.I realy want to know what guildwars is doing to stop all this im very curious.

Make no mistake, bots can be used in GW. As people have suggested, the main draw is to acrue items and wealth. As long as there exists a secondary market - your Ebay, your IGE, and anywhere else where real game items will be traded for real world cash - then there's an incentive for people to figure out the best way of grinding out items and gold. And what better way is there than to have a program do it for you?

Bots can be made, bots have been made, to farm in GW. As long as there's at least the perception that it takes time to get the equipment or the money that you need, then they'll continue to be used. The instanced system doesn't prevent this at all, if anything it makes it easier. There's no one in your instance to report you to a GM. There's no one to interfere with your bot. There's no one to steal kills from or anything else that normally gives bots a bad names. No, bots can quietly and quickly farm and pile up massive amounts of loot. And what that does, as has been said, is to wreck the ecconomy. If some people, those who can run or who can obtain the benefit of running bots, can pile up gold piece after gold piece while you have to grind them out then pretty soon, gold becomes meaningless. The work you'd have to put into getting the gold to actually trade for something of value is insanely high and your only reasonable recourse is to run a bot yourself or to run to an online auction store. The same goes for items as long. As the game includes any sort of scarcity and rarity to give those items value - if you can't just get anything you want right away - then there's going to be a desire for a shortcut. Think about how often gold dropped last BWE, think about how much a full set of max armor would cost you, then think about whether or not you'd be willing to use a program that let you get that gold in a fraction of the time. That's where bots come from.

If you think that's it's impossible or that it hasn't happened, you're wrong. Alphas have made, tested, bots and, indeed, have been encouraged to by the developers so that defenses could be made agaisnt such things. You might remember that at one point there was a hotkey to "target nearest item", a key you could press that selected the closest drop or something along those lines. There's another hotkey to pick up that item. Such things made developing a bot to collect drops a fairly simple matter. Remember that GW has been designed to run as a window or alt-tabbed out of so that people can run things like IRC or Instant Messanger or Ventrillo in the background more easily as they play, using "3rd party" software with GW isn't a big deal in the first place, all you have to know is a bit about how to program such things. The select nearest item hotkey was subsequently removed from the game along with a lot of other changes. But that's only made the job of Botters or people who'll come up with programs that will, say, let you toggle the function of holding down CTRL during PvP or programs that will ping every taget on your mini-map or help you scan for Monks or whatever else you might think of just a little bit harder. No system's perfect, certainly not one as open and accessable as the interface for GW, there'll always be flaws and gaps that people can exploit.

I know, without doubt, that some alphas, some guilds have run such bots and used them to gain an advantage. This was long ago, there's little need for such things now, but once the game is released, there will be again. Items are a significant part of your character. Gold is valuable and used to purchase your skills and armor. Don't believe for one second that farming well can't lead to success. War Machine won their Top 5 prize largely due to the fact that they had a few members already in the alpha who used the time leading up to the ladder competition to farm like mad. I've even heard fairly viscious, though I'll stress unsubstantiated, rumors to the effect that they were running bots in order to do so. It can happen, it does happen, and it will happen, if there's any advantage to be drawn from botting and other "hacks". As of now, it looks like there's going to be significant advantage to be drawn from such things, despite ANet's best efforts. The best to hope for is that they'll be quick to respond and eliminate the problems as they occur because it's getting a bit late to deal with the fundamental underlying causes and attack the problem from the demand side rather than the supply side.

Darkmane · Apr 05, 2005, 06:26 AM // 06:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

Make no mistake, bots can be used in GW. As people have suggested, the main draw is to acrue items and wealth. As long as there exists a secondary market - your Ebay, your IGE, and anywhere else where real game items will be traded for real world cash - then there's an incentive for people to figure out the best way of grinding out items and gold. And what better way is there than to have a program do it for you?

Bots can be made, bots have been made, to farm in GW. As long as there's at least the perception that it takes time to get the equipment or the money that you need, then they'll continue to be used. The instanced system doesn't prevent this at all, if anything it makes it easier. There's no one in your instance to report you to a GM. There's no one to interfere with your bot. There's no one to steal kills from or anything else that normally gives bots a bad names. No, bots can quietly and quickly farm and pile up massive amounts of loot. And what that does, as has been said, is to wreck the ecconomy. If some people, those who can run or who can obtain the benefit of running bots, can pile up gold piece after gold piece while you have to grind them out then pretty soon, gold becomes meaningless. The work you'd have to put into getting the gold to actually trade for something of value is insanely high and your only reasonable recourse is to run a bot yourself or to run to an online auction store. The same goes for items as long. As the game includes any sort of scarcity and rarity to give those items value - if you can't just get anything you want right away - then there's going to be a desire for a shortcut. Think about how often gold dropped last BWE, think about how much a full set of max armor would cost you, then think about whether or not you'd be willing to use a program that let you get that gold in a fraction of the time. That's where bots come from.

If you think that's it's impossible or that it hasn't happened, you're wrong. Alphas have made, tested, bots and, indeed, have been encouraged to by the developers so that defenses could be made agaisnt such things. You might remember that at one point there was a hotkey to "target nearest item", a key you could press that selected the closest drop or something along those lines. There's another hotkey to pick up that item. Such things made developing a bot to collect drops a fairly simple matter. Remember that GW has been designed to run as a window or alt-tabbed out of so that people can run things like IRC or Instant Messanger or Ventrillo in the background more easily as they play, using "3rd party" software with GW isn't a big deal in the first place, all you have to know is a bit about how to program such things. The select nearest item hotkey was subsequently removed from the game along with a lot of other changes. But that's only made the job of Botters or people who'll come up with programs that will, say, let you toggle the function of holding down CTRL during PvP or programs that will ping every taget on your mini-map or help you scan for Monks or whatever else you might think of just a little bit harder. No system's perfect, certainly not one as open and accessable as the interface for GW, there'll always be flaws and gaps that people can exploit.

I know, without doubt, that some alphas, some guilds have run such bots and used them to gain an advantage. This was long ago, there's little need for such things now, but once the game is released, there will be again. Items are a significant part of your character. Gold is valuable and used to purchase your skills and armor. Don't believe for one second that farming well can't lead to success. War Machine won their Top 5 prize largely due to the fact that they had a few members already in the alpha who used the time leading up to the ladder competition to farm like mad. I've even heard fairly viscious, though I'll stress unsubstantiated, rumors to the effect that they were running bots in order to do so. It can happen, it does happen, and it will happen, if there's any advantage to be drawn from botting and other "hacks". As of now, it looks like there's going to be significant advantage to be drawn from such things, despite ANet's best efforts. The best to hope for is that they'll be quick to respond and eliminate the problems as they occur because it's getting a bit late to deal with the fundamental underlying causes and attack the problem from the demand side rather than the supply side.

The only reason I didnt cut this post up is because it upholds what I stated in my poll thread about ' stopping it before it happens'. All I was trying to suggest is some way to keep the botters from being able to:
loot and get back to town to sell. loot get back to town to sell and so on and so forth. I find it hard to believe that there is some kind of macro bot out there that has the ability to decipher a random picture with numbers on it. I am not saying it doesnt exist, but that would be one powerful OCR type botting program which could be dealt with by putting the numbers on a dark background in a flash type environment to make it even harder for the bot to find the picture. I am not saying its going to be impossible to bot in GW. I am saying that it is totally easy for you to do what I suggested could be done in this thread:

Code:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2037

Macro programs are easy to come by .. and all you have to do is run through the sequence once, start the macro -go to work / school / out and let the bot feed your pockets.

Eskimo Bob · Apr 05, 2005, 06:53 AM // 06:53

I don't think there will be any hackers/bots/cheaters in guild wars. Because if any surface I personaly will find their address and beat them down with a led pipe.

But sieriously if any bots do surface I am pretty sure AreaNet will deal with them before long. And If a botter does get a godly item it will go like this...

botter "Ha, ha, I will beat you down with my godly weapon. Unfortunatly I have let my botting program run for so long I have not learned any skill in this game so you will most likely masacure me with your knowledge of this game."

Gaile Gray · Apr 05, 2005, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

Make no mistake, bots can be used in GW.

Hopefully you and every other tester is doing his best to alert us to abuses and help us solve the problem and get the best possible handle on potential abuse. I'll be honest -- I find your post depressing, for it seems to reek of fatalism, as if to say they are present and cannot be stopped. I disagree. As long as there are bright and motivated testers, players, fans, and students of the game who disagree with such practices, there will be people working against such things. I hope you'll always choose to take an active role, to be one of many in the community who will do his best to keep Guild Wars cheats, hack and exploit free -- or to help us quickly find resolutions to problems when they arise.

Xellos · Apr 05, 2005, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weezer_Blue

Arena.Net has commented on cheating and hacking and exploiting countless times. No. There will bo no cheats, hacks, exploits, or any other form of unfair victories in Guild Wars.

And your telling us to be like sheep and just believe it won't happen? Even you must have some common sense to believe that someone in this world that wants to play this game can somehow figure out a way to do one of those and not be completely caught with their pants down. I doubt there's a single RPG game that hasn't been hacked or something like that.

Gaile Gray · Apr 05, 2005, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos

And your telling us to be like sheep and just believe it won't happen? Even you must have some common sense to believe that someone in this world that wants to play this game can somehow figure out a way to do one of those and not be completely caught with their pants down. I doubt there's a single RPG game that hasn't been hacked or something like that.

You're right, Xellos, there probably have been few if any games that were not hacked or exploited. But you know, the hacking or exploiting attempt isn't really the problem. The problem is how the company deals with the situations after they arise. Do they have solid technology that allows them to trace the possible exploit and slam it shut? Do they have thorough protection against the predictable cheats, and a team dedicated to predicting the unpredictable cheats?

People will try to hack a game, and they might even succeed in the short term. But a team with an active and watchful team can make sure that when problems arise, they're quickly resolved before they impact upon the game in a major sense.

When I was following a certain popular title a few years ago, there was a desparate need for a patch, to close exploits and put an end to cheating and hacks. The economy was delicate, and it imploded, in part because the dev team delayed taking the matter in hand and waited 18 months to make a half-baked attempt to solve the multitude of major problems. By that time, the damage was irreversible.

I believe that Guild Wars will not be like that. Clilent/server tech will provide protection that cannot be given in a peer-to-peer game. And with our streaming technology, when a bug, glitch, or yes, a cheat arises, we can mend it quickly, maybe in 18 hours rather than 18 months.

I really think that there is a matter of well-placed faith here.

jdwoody · Apr 05, 2005, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Quote:

But you know, the hacking or exploiting attempt isn't really the problem. The problem is how the company deals with the situations after they arise. Do they have solid technology that allows them to trace the possible exploit and slam it shut?

hehe very nice! If anything you can make it painful enough that it won't be fun for them to keep putting out the cheats...

If people think there is no way that any company can stay one step ahead of hackers, you should research what directtv did to pirates a few years back.

They chose a technical solution rather than just suing everyone and thousands of people who had paid a flat fee to unlock all of directtv suddenly found themselves with a $200-$300 paper weight...

Striker Shardale · Apr 05, 2005, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taranis

Well if Blizzard didn't want hackers in D2 there wouldn't be any, Neverwinter Nights had all the character informations on your computer too and I've seen several servers with a "Character-Ban-Function" if the characters stats were unrealistic, same for the weapons/armor. I think Blizzard just didn't really care about hacks and cheats on Diablo and I bet ArenaNet will do everything against that!

EDIT: This is ArenaNet's very first game, they'll want it to run PERFECT so people will want to buy their next games too!

Yeah, I think the whole thing with it being their first game was that their combination with NCSOFT helped them learn a bit about keeping playing equal for everyone. Lineage had the problem with stealing kills, CoH had the problems with "Milking" missions, and the Winter Lord Event. When the Winter Lord Event came up you could go from lvl 1 to atleast 25 within a week or two, depending on the time you spent hunting Winter Lords which caused there to be noobs not knowing how to do anything yet being lvl 50. GW I think eliminates all, if not MOST of the problems that Lineage and CoH has/had.

Takkun[CRNR] · Apr 05, 2005, 08:47 PM // 20:47

I believe Guild Wars will not have too many problems with bot or hacks, because if the hacks became known publicly, surely some Guild Wars fan would post about what they have heard and have seen on these or any other forums. Once they post about it on Forums, it is only a matter of time before Gaile or any other ArenaNet employee sees the posts and pounces on the problem like a tiger pounces on its prey. If the other companies were as dedicated to the community as Guild Wars is when it comes to reading forum posts and emails, then maybe the Wall Hacks and Aimbots in Counter-Strike, the Map Hacking and Item Duping and God Modes in Diablo, the Extra Money Hacking and Aim Bots in Gunbound, and other hacks would have been stopped quicker before the entire community was destroyed.
If I remember correctly, Half-Life 2 almost didn't come out because a hacker got a hold of their codes leaked out a lot of information about the game. Then the Half-Life 2 guys fought back by tracking them down through forums and websites and caught him, which allowed the game to become a success.

worthless · Apr 05, 2005, 08:58 PM // 20:58

why do people assum since thiers no montly fee its more hackable? what makes a p2p game less hacker friendly?

Zfactor · Apr 05, 2005, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lansing Kai Don

Actually, your half right, if your in a group then theoretically it would be easy to implement a shared multiplayer map (meaning one computer hosts), this would take the load off of the servers. Don't tell me some people don't have the Bandwidth, I know, but there are several easy ways to detect a connection's bandwidth and you choose the largest to do the hosting (don't need a fast computer just a large bandwidth). This puts no packets to the server minus the initial phases of map construction (monster placement and weapon drops).
Also, packets are alot smaller than your making them out to be, if your using the TCP/IP protocol the largest default packet size is 1500 bytes (your MTU) minus headers and checksums it doesn't give you all that much room to work with per packet. I guess it matters how your fragmentation is setup on your system. But let's say there is 1500 bytes in the transmission portion, that leaves you with 750 "words. I don't want to go any further in depth... unless you want me to

Lansing Kai Don

P.S. My point was in the first paragraph, it could be easily hosted from any computer per map (except if solo, it's gotta be yours of course).

P.P.S. Oh and to get back on track I agree with Pershiko in the manner that the game was built for skills. They can gather gold and make gold worthless (how?), by giving it away? Then ANet, just makes the gold a different multiple, not that difficult as they've shown in the last BWE.

I typed that out like I did because I thought you were asking more what packets are/work on the basic level, so sorry for the unnecessary fluff--just a simple misunderstanding of the question. But as per this statement, I don't see how it would be legal to host servers/maps on user's computers thereby making them a server against their will. While it may be true that people can OPT to host their own mods or whatever (like they allowed in D2, and assuming that guildwars allows this), forcing users to foot the bandwith necessary to host maps on their own PCs is totally outrageous IMO, even if they could TECHNICALLY do so. I just don't see a way they could do this without risk of lawsuite (unless they slap on a term in the TOS but then again if you are footing the bandwith you dont have to follow the TOS and could technically tinker around and figure out ways to do nasty stuff).

Zfactor · Apr 05, 2005, 11:20 PM // 23:20

I keep seeing a lot of people saying that there is no benefit from a bot, or that the level cap of 20 makes a bot moot, or that botting for levels is pointless. But consider the following (if you have the time to read it all).

Setting aside all glitches, exploits, hacks, and cracks that can easily be fixed once discovered by the "streaming technology," I want to delve into how destructive bots can really be.

In diablo 2 somebody made a tool that allowed you to run two or more clients at the same time. All you needed was a second CD key. When I say two clients at the same time, I mean on the same computer. In fact, the better your computer, the more clients you could run on it. That means that a person could get a character strong enough to bot, then start that character botting immediately and start playing on the other account. A group of such people were even worse because they used eachother to outfit their bots with elite equipments and "rush" that character to high levels within days. Heck, acting alone I was able to get a character to level 70 in one day. Now, obviously the way GW works this will not be as widespread, but there is always power in numbers. Furthermore, the small price of a second CD key is easily cut out by the profit of selling the *Technically* legitimate items on secondary markets.

Setting aside the possibility of these mutli-client "hacks" and assuming somebody could only run one bot at a time, think about how much stuff this bot could accumulate in twenty four hours of PURE gold harvesting. The player would be able to play the game and "learn the ropes" (which I dare say a lot of you are making out harder than it is) and during offtime be botting and getting the items to back it. ArenaNet would not be able to stop them from playing 24/7 unless they put a time restriction on the game, at which point they would piss off alot of players who like to play alot on vacations or whatever. So let's assume it is possible and unrestricted to play all day every day.

Combine the time with the smarts of the real hackers who were (quite easily I might add) able to make bots that identify item stats and compare them against a database (user defined) to decide what to keep and what to toss. What you get is a recipe for disaster to the economy of the game. Every MMORPG that has trading has an economy. Many of you seem to idolize GW so much that you think it is immune to any economy shocks due to item flooding. But the fact remains that the value of an item is based solely on its scarcity, and bots reduce that scarcity. So unless Arenanet decides to randomly delete items to keep the stockpiles down, bots will flood the market. Now, to what extent is left up to users like us. If a bot goes public it is our responsibility not to use it. But lets be frank about it, most people would.

Even if GW could cut out bots that go public (somehow) there are still bots and groups that will not go public. Think about it, all the best bots for D2 were private. In Diablo 2 I can garuntee you there were Travincal bots out there that were harvesting high level runes from the council (like ber and jah for those of you familiar with D2) but you would be lucky to find one (well, one that was not going to put a trojan on your computer and steal your account information). Up until d2jsp was cracked by somebody it was the absolute top bot that you had to pay money for to use. But it was virtually undetectable and extremely smart (and probably still is now since Blizzard basically gave up on battle.net).

Of course there are probably many simple solutions to cutting out bots. Like the random generated passcode. But that would really only cut bots out of public hands, because when somebody does eventually cracks it they are not going to hand out the technology to everybody. Hopefully ArenaNet will use their "streaming technology" to toss in so many curveballs on botting that it will make the usefullness of a bot be very short time periods. But only time will tell how bad it is going to get. Of course this would require the constant attention and work by the folks running ArenaNet.

Apr 04, 2005, 11:24 PM // 23:24	#41
Perishiko ReLLiK Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Feb 2005 Guild: Divine Guardians of the Soul (Soul) Profession: Mo/E	Cheaters will be laughed at. This game is made nearly Perfect, and in my mind, it is Perfect... Level cap of 20 means, everyone will be a nice max lvl before long anyways... bots for exp are useless. And if they have a bot to find some items... kudo's to them, but they still won't be "Godlike", besides... most of the skills and such that are elite, are gonna come from hidden places, and hard bosses, in which you have to be there to get it... so really, they'll just have a tiny edge over the competition, and if they're willing to work that hard on a useless bot... then let them, i don't see a way of this game being "ruined" at all. Edit :: Reading the last post, i have to say something, ... The economy is going to be Incredibly hard to keep going even without cheaters... it's one of the hardest things for online games to keep up and running, so expect things to be changing anyways... it seems like the people at guild wars are waiting for the release more then we are... it actually seems like they're a company that wants to give the public what WE want... ive seen tons of changes based on the feedback from people, let alone something i wanted... so i know even my little voice was heard, along with anyone who thinks the same... i really think this company is going to be topline. Just the way i thought of blizzard games, over sony games... now arenanet will be the new leaders in my mind. Last edited by Perishiko ReLLiK; Apr 04, 2005 at 11:28 PM // 23:28..

Apr 05, 2005, 04:52 AM // 04:52	#48
Lunarhound Krytan Explorer Join Date: Feb 2005	I checked it out myself and if you just open the client and let it sit there, X-Fire does register it as playing the game. The person you saw is probably either an Alpha tester (assuming the Alpha client shows up on X-Fire), or has had their Guild Wars beta client running at the login screen for 119 hours. Last edited by Lunarhound; Apr 05, 2005 at 04:57 AM // 04:57..

Apr 05, 2005, 02:04 AM // 02:04	#43
Varggoth Banned Join Date: Mar 2005	yes i do mean skill and also i think the people making guildwars are very smart in making this game, there are no flaws in my opinion. The only flaw was the hackign and cheating that could happen but you guys brought me to believe there will be very little.

Apr 05, 2005, 03:01 AM // 03:01	#44
ApOcAlYpSe Academy Page Join Date: Mar 2005	But really how is botting going to help someone? so they can reach the low lvl cap faster? ok then they will be in the higher pvp arenas...so what. To get better weapons? sure but anyone could find those at random and the weapon is only part of the characters offensive. Its about the skills. every class will be able to counter another so the bots will not be all powerful. These facts alone prove the pointlessness of botting.

Apr 05, 2005, 03:37 AM // 03:37	#46
Smiggles Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Apr 2005	Unrelated to the topic...is this game already out? I saw an Xfire signature and some guy had 119 hours on Guild Wars...

Apr 05, 2005, 06:53 AM // 06:53	#51
Eskimo Bob Krytan Explorer Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Canada, Alberta Guild: Angelic Knights Profession: W/Mo	I don't think there will be any hackers/bots/cheaters in guild wars. Because if any surface I personaly will find their address and beat them down with a led pipe. But sieriously if any bots do surface I am pretty sure AreaNet will deal with them before long. And If a botter does get a godly item it will go like this... botter "Ha, ha, I will beat you down with my godly weapon. Unfortunatly I have let my botting program run for so long I have not learned any skill in this game so you will most likely masacure me with your knowledge of this game."

Apr 05, 2005, 08:47 PM // 20:47	#57
Takkun[CRNR] Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Feb 2005	I believe Guild Wars will not have too many problems with bot or hacks, because if the hacks became known publicly, surely some Guild Wars fan would post about what they have heard and have seen on these or any other forums. Once they post about it on Forums, it is only a matter of time before Gaile or any other ArenaNet employee sees the posts and pounces on the problem like a tiger pounces on its prey. If the other companies were as dedicated to the community as Guild Wars is when it comes to reading forum posts and emails, then maybe the Wall Hacks and Aimbots in Counter-Strike, the Map Hacking and Item Duping and God Modes in Diablo, the Extra Money Hacking and Aim Bots in Gunbound, and other hacks would have been stopped quicker before the entire community was destroyed. If I remember correctly, Half-Life 2 almost didn't come out because a hacker got a hold of their codes leaked out a lot of information about the game. Then the Half-Life 2 guys fought back by tracking them down through forums and websites and caught him, which allowed the game to become a success.

Apr 05, 2005, 08:58 PM // 20:58	#58
worthless Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: TX	why do people assum since thiers no montly fee its more hackable? what makes a p2p game less hacker friendly?

Apr 05, 2005, 11:20 PM // 23:20	#60
Zfactor Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: NYC Guild: Freelance Profession: Mo/E	I keep seeing a lot of people saying that there is no benefit from a bot, or that the level cap of 20 makes a bot moot, or that botting for levels is pointless. But consider the following (if you have the time to read it all). Setting aside all glitches, exploits, hacks, and cracks that can easily be fixed once discovered by the "streaming technology," I want to delve into how destructive bots can really be. In diablo 2 somebody made a tool that allowed you to run two or more clients at the same time. All you needed was a second CD key. When I say two clients at the same time, I mean on the same computer. In fact, the better your computer, the more clients you could run on it. That means that a person could get a character strong enough to bot, then start that character botting immediately and start playing on the other account. A group of such people were even worse because they used eachother to outfit their bots with elite equipments and "rush" that character to high levels within days. Heck, acting alone I was able to get a character to level 70 in one day. Now, obviously the way GW works this will not be as widespread, but there is always power in numbers. Furthermore, the small price of a second CD key is easily cut out by the profit of selling the Technically legitimate items on secondary markets. Setting aside the possibility of these mutli-client "hacks" and assuming somebody could only run one bot at a time, think about how much stuff this bot could accumulate in twenty four hours of PURE gold harvesting. The player would be able to play the game and "learn the ropes" (which I dare say a lot of you are making out harder than it is) and during offtime be botting and getting the items to back it. ArenaNet would not be able to stop them from playing 24/7 unless they put a time restriction on the game, at which point they would piss off alot of players who like to play alot on vacations or whatever. So let's assume it is possible and unrestricted to play all day every day. Combine the time with the smarts of the real hackers who were (quite easily I might add) able to make bots that identify item stats and compare them against a database (user defined) to decide what to keep and what to toss. What you get is a recipe for disaster to the economy of the game. Every MMORPG that has trading has an economy. Many of you seem to idolize GW so much that you think it is immune to any economy shocks due to item flooding. But the fact remains that the value of an item is based solely on its scarcity, and bots reduce that scarcity. So unless Arenanet decides to randomly delete items to keep the stockpiles down, bots will flood the market. Now, to what extent is left up to users like us. If a bot goes public it is our responsibility not to use it. But lets be frank about it, most people would. Even if GW could cut out bots that go public (somehow) there are still bots and groups that will not go public. Think about it, all the best bots for D2 were private. In Diablo 2 I can garuntee you there were Travincal bots out there that were harvesting high level runes from the council (like ber and jah for those of you familiar with D2) but you would be lucky to find one (well, one that was not going to put a trojan on your computer and steal your account information). Up until d2jsp was cracked by somebody it was the absolute top bot that you had to pay money for to use. But it was virtually undetectable and extremely smart (and probably still is now since Blizzard basically gave up on battle.net). Of course there are probably many simple solutions to cutting out bots. Like the random generated passcode. But that would really only cut bots out of public hands, because when somebody does eventually cracks it they are not going to hand out the technology to everybody. Hopefully ArenaNet will use their "streaming technology" to toss in so many curveballs on botting that it will make the usefullness of a bot be very short time periods. But only time will tell how bad it is going to get. Of course this would require the constant attention and work by the folks running ArenaNet.