Curse

Gli · May 30, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashius

The integrity of the game was in jeopardy for months up until now, yet A-Net waited until now to deal with it? They didn't ban to maintain the game's integrity, if they did they would have stopped the problem in December last year. They banned for publicity, and it seems to have worked.

We have no idea what went on inside ANet. They may have acted late and imperfectly, but the notion that they shouldn't do anything if what they can do isn't perfect, doesn't hold water.

cebalrai · May 30, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

I don't really get Anet's motives behind banning everybody.

Because they habitually cheated to gain an illegal advantage over other players? Because they knew it was illegal and willfully broke the rules time and time again?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

A simple fix preventing .dll injection months ago would have prevented any PvP or PvE title bots, it would have prevented alot of players from getting banned and it would have taken alot less time to implement.

None of this changes the fact that the cheaters should be held responsible for their actions, does it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

If Anet had even gone as far as to post in a login announcment saying that they will be more vigilant about traking botters how many people do you think would have stopped botting and would still be here right now?

Again, the cheaters should be held responsible for their actions. You're blaming Anet for the cheaters' behavior, which is pathetic and irrational on your part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

Whenever a certain exploit becomes well known Anet has always (eventually) gotten around to fixing it, and on very few occasions were bans ever given.

I know lots of people who have been banned for cheating. And yes, some of them got off easy with a suspension. None of this changes the fact that botters should be banned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

How is botting any different? How many of you bashing all the people who got banned right now also participated in the Duncan exploit, or RR, or run speed books? Heck if stealing rare minis and thousands of ectos only earns you a two week ban (and often you get to keep the stolen goods after) how can one argue that botting your Asura title and earning 200k along the way is merit for a perma ban?

Neither myself nor anyone I know of participated in those exploits.

And those that steal rare minis, thousands of ectos, etc deserve bans as well IMO. If they got off easy then they were lucky.

None of this changes that botters should be held responsible for their actions and banned.

-Sonata- · May 30, 2010, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashius

Good to find another intelligent individual here. But I have to disagree, it was obvious that the bots in their current form were to become an epidemic, yet A-Net chose to wait before taking action. And it had been going on for a huge period, long enough to cause some to quit. It just seems that A-Net are using this as a quick-fix PR scheme before GW2.

This was an arguement used during the DoA ban. The arguement pretty much said, "Anet waited so long to do something so it was obvious people were going to exploit it". That's nothing more than an excuse.

There are two choices that Anet has in front of them when dealing with a severe botting, or exploit issue.

The first choice is act right away, with little knowledge, or information, and start slamming the ban hammer blindly. The positive is the issue is acted upon quickly before it gets way out of control. The negative is, without studying the issue clearly and gaining evidence against detected offenders, the blind ban hammer strikes without accuracy. It is the "Instant Gratification" method that you often see in F2P games.

The second choice involves waiting. In many ways it's a sting. The problem is identified and the time is taken to identify who is abusing, who isn't, and how it can be solved to the best of what your resources can provide. The positives are action has been taken and collateral damage is minimal. The negative is during that time the problem can become larger, as you made clear.

Regardless of which path the game maker chooses, then or now, both with their good and bad sides, it still does not negate that the offending players have known from the birth of Guild Wars that the actions they were participating in weren't allowed. Period.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dancing gnome

They even said they were deliberately avoiding commenting on the issue. This seems like the opposite of what they should have been doing.

So you wanted Anet to give yet another warning, which as I've said, how many do people need? Even after 5 years of knowing what the stance is on botting, you needed another warning? If 5 years of warning players resulted in this epidemic, what good were the warnings?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiky

What can the high-end players do if a public bot is being overused in which game the admins don't do anything and let the problem be widespread?

The real answer is, "What we, the high-end players can do is, Don't add to the problem".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

A simple fix preventing .dll injection months ago would have prevented any PvP or PvE title bots, it would have prevented alot of players from getting banned and it would have taken alot less time to implement.

Out of curiousity, have you shared, in detail, what this simple fix is, including all the steps involved in making it happen? I hope you're not keeping the vaccine formula a secret...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

If Anet had even gone as far as to post in a login announcment saying that they will be more vigilant about traking botters how many people do you think would have stopped botting and would still be here right now?

We've been there, done that. To repeat a few lines above, we've had 5 years of warnings about the use of 3rd party applications (bots). If, after 5 years, we had this severe wave of botting, what good were the 5 years of warnings?

Jinkies · May 30, 2010, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Reposting this from a seperate thread.

I bet in 3 months Regina will make another thread here. She will say that the support team has been developing a top secret method of detecting exploiters. All those that did the Duncan exploit, the Speed Booking exploit and any others that I forgot about will be perma banned. Since exploiting is against the EULA all these speed bookers are using an exploit to their advantage.

There will be QQ threads and everybody who didn't do it or know how to do it will post here flaming those who got banned. Saying all those who did the Duncan and Speed Book exploit were gold sellers who ruined the economy by inflating the amount of armor remnants on the market. Saying they cheated their rep titles and deserved their bans.

A giant Grenth will come out of the ground and kill those who did speedbooking and RR (which was clear match manipulation and totally ban worthy) Anet will make a huge announcment saying 4k more exploiters were banned and taking advantage of exploits is not allowed. All the people who did the Duncan exploit one time to try it out will be banned. No exceptions. Everyone who played HB normally but faced an RR'er will be falsely banned and told to contact support only to recieve a bulk of automated messages telling them their ban was highly investigated and the decision final. The people on Guru will flame those who got falsely banned and accuse them of lying.

It's just a matter of time guys. ¯\(º_o)/¯

Quote:

This was an arguement used during the DoA ban. The arguement pretty much said, "Anet waited so long to do something so it was obvious people were going to exploit it". That's nothing more than an excuse.

The difference between the DoA ban and the botting ban was that Anet acted much quicker in comparison to the botting incident. In doing so they ended up with far fewer accounts that needed to be banned. Not only this, but they fixed the problem so nobody could ever do it again.

Ashius · May 30, 2010, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gli

We have no idea what went on inside ANet. They may have acted late and imperfectly, but the notion that they shouldn't do anything if what they can do isn't perfect, doesn't hold water.

That isn't what my stance is at all, my stance is that action should have been taken before it came to this. It would have involved maybe 20 permabans at the most, and would have completely stopped the problem. But that wouldn't earn them the positive PR that this has. Since they had so long to prepare this, it could have been executed more smoothly, involving case by case analysis of accounts involved and punishment given out due to severity of offence.

Mithie · May 30, 2010, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashius

Let me modify this to reality:

1. People were botting.
2. Anet is made aware of this.
~6 months pass, problem becomes an epidemic
4. Anet bans the botters.
5. Anet hires technical staff to detect these bots.

It could have been stopped immediately after 2.

Now you're trying to second guess anet's working process. Fact of the matter is that neither you nor I know the exact circumstances. It could be that botting was far more pervaisive than we know. It could be that anet's lacked the resources to tackle this issue. It could be that their management prioritized other issues. We simply don't know.

But we do know the results. Yesterday's mat had no botters. That's the result we can see.

cebalrai · May 30, 2010, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashius

Let me modify this to reality:

1. People were botting.
2. Anet is made aware of this.
~6 months pass, problem becomes an epidemic~
4. Anet bans the botters.
5. Anet hires technical staff to detect these bots.

It could have been stopped immediately after 2.

You apparently have no clue what reality is.

Reality is that people had a choice as to whether #1 would happen. If people decided to make #1 happen, they made a willful decision to violate the rules which are clear as day.

You can cry all you want about how Anet should have hired anti-bot staff sooner and I agree. But the speed of their hiring doesn't change the nature of the crime one bit.

Gill Halendt · May 30, 2010, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Preventing injection is pretty much impossible, I'm afraid.

Kiky · May 30, 2010, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Sonata-

The real answer is, "What we, the high-end players can do is, Don't add to the problem".

We've been there, done that. To repeat a few lines above, we've had 5 years of warnings about the use of 3rd party applications (bots). If, after 5 years, we had this severe wave of botting, what good were the 5 years of warnings?

We dont add to the problem if we want to learn to play against bots effectively after getting pissed of the 6 months mass botting. We are actually doing something against it.
Btw botting has never even been this widespread in GW, idk if u are playing for 5 yrs but i do and i know it

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

Preventing injection is pretty much impossible, I'm afraid.

Yes it is impossible BUT detecting it and letting the community know that they care before the problem is so srs is not impossible and thats what we all wanted and should have been done...

Brett Kuntz · May 30, 2010, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

Anet was able to ban most people using injected dlls (aka GWCA) due to a packet file in the GW dat that checks for injection.

For this reason it is logical to conclude that there were more than a small handful of those who were falsely banned due to the injection based nature of Anet's conclusion. It's quite reasonable to assume that some 3rd party apps such as KSmod or Texmod produced a false positive based on injection, which to Anet meant they must be botting.

Anet's main detection of bots relied on their ability to utilize a .dll injection finder.

Anet has not stopped the botting problem, they have only stopped those who used dll injection (which mainly served for complicated bot scripts that were more for title bots, and interupt bots and soforth - not farm botting)

As would a simple error in programming allow people to inject .dll files into the GW client. (aka botting)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

After doing some investigative work I noticed a pattern that could not be mere coincidence. On nearly every account, those who ran bot that did not require the use of .dll injection remain unbanned. Those who used injected .dlls obviously were. After closer examination of the GW.dat I found a particular packet that upon closer inspection brought me to the conclusion that Anet's super secret method of detection relied on checking if a .dll was injected or not.

I would just like to point out that almost everything Jinkies has claimed in this thread is a lie. He or she is lying just to get people riled up over nothing. There is no "packet" in the GW.DAT file, he/she didn't find anything, it's all lies.

Close this thread as it's clearly a cheater crying:

cebalrai · May 30, 2010, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashius

Well the sheer fact that they could play a game for 5 years, which is known for having a somewhat juvenile community, and refrain from obtaining any black marks. I have played for about that long, and over that time I've gathered numerous black marks due to abusive language ingame, etc. If you are going to play the morality game, then surely I should be banned too, as myself spamming racial slurs to someone is obviously worse than injecting a bot once. I actually had an effect on someone. The punishment should meet the crime.

Of course it should. Which is why bans are appropriate for botters.

A suspension would just accomplish two things:

1) The botters would spend their time off scheming of better, less detectable methods of botting.

2) The botters would get to keep their illegally-earned fortunes, rank, titles, items, etc, thus legitimizing them.

Therefore, nothing but a widespread ban was even feasible.

Ashius · May 30, 2010, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

You apparently have no clue what reality is.

Reality is that people had a choice as to whether #1 would happen. If people decided to make #1 happen, they made a willful decision to violate the rules which are clear as day.

You can cry all you want about how Anet should have hired anti-bot staff sooner and I agree. But the speed of their hiring doesn't change the nature of the crime one bit.

The reality is that I had to put up with these obvious botters for 6 months, no matter how many times I reported them, with action only coming now in the form of a publicised mass banning. That reeks of PR scheme.

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

Of course it should. Which is why bans are appropriate for botters.

A suspension would just accomplish two things:

1) The botters would spend their time off scheming of better, less detectable methods of botting.

2) The botters would get to keep their illegally-earned fortunes, rank, titles, items, etc, thus legitimizing them.

Therefore, nothing but a widespread ban was even feasible.

But I'm not talking about the mass exploiters, I'm talking about those who tried it once in the Isle of the Nameless. A suspension would easily scare them off.

Kiky · May 30, 2010, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

Of course it should. Which is why bans are appropriate for botters.

A suspension would just accomplish two things:

1) The botters would spend their time off scheming of better, less detectable methods of botting.

2) The botters would get to keep their illegally-earned fortunes, rank, titles, items, etc, thus legitimizing them.

Therefore, nothing but a widespread ban was even feasible.

And do u actually think that people with r12 c4 earned all their pvp title in that 6 months period of time with bots, what u are saying is bs I'm sorry but this is the truth.

JoeKnowMo · May 30, 2010, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brett Kuntz

I would just like to point out that almost everything Jinkies has claimed in this thread is a lie. He or she is lying just to get people riled up over nothing. There is no "packet" in the GW.DAT file, he/she didn't find anything, it's all lies.

Close this thread as it's clearly a butt-hurt cheater crying

Agreed. This thread has a personal agenda behind it and shouldn't have gone on as long as it has.

cebalrai · May 30, 2010, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashius

But I'm not talking about the mass exploiters, I'm talking about those who tried it once in the Isle of the Nameless. A suspension would easily scare them off.

Anet likely can't determine who botted only in the Isle of the Nameless.

That's the risk that Isle botters decided to take, no? They had no business botting anywhere and knew they'd be risking dire consequences.

And seriously, these people which you speak of are surely a tiny percentage of botters. Barely worth talking about.

Jinkies · May 30, 2010, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brett Kuntz

I would just like to point out that almost everything Jinkies has claimed in this thread is a lie. He or she is lying just to get people riled up over nothing. There is no "packet" in the GW.DAT file, he/she didn't find anything, it's all lies.

Close this thread as it's clearly a butt-hurt cheater crying:

Unfortunatly it is all true. I don't know who you think you are to say that it's all lies but I would have no reason to lie about something anyone who had knowledge about the GW file could find themselves.

People who set up bot accounts within a week or so of the mass ban were not banned, as were people who only botted prior to mid Fburary/early March. From this, piecing together the puzzle was a simple task, and one I did with multiple people who were familiar with botting.

You may not wish to believe it, but you have no right to tell lies.

StormX · May 30, 2010, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiky

And do u actually think that people with r12 c4 earned all their pvp title in that 6 months period of time with bots, what u are saying is bs I'm sorry but this is the truth.

Synching codex and having one team auto resign AKA match manipulation.

cebalrai · May 30, 2010, 06:04 PM // 18:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiky

they should have been banned way before when it would have touched only 100 ppl.
We are not crying about bans but about that a player who didnt overused the bot gets same punishment as one who made money out of it and bought a tv, computer and still has money in bank.
Anet should actually investigate and not inject=ban if they let the problem so widespread.

You don't seem to understand that the "I only botted a little bit" excuse is a poor rationalization for cheating.

If people didn't want to get caught and punished they should have simply not cheated in the first place. You know as well as I do that Anet doesn't have the resources to do a full investigation into each and every account that botted.

Stop acting like such a stinking victim.

Kiky · May 30, 2010, 06:06 PM // 18:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by StormX

Synching codex and having one team auto resign AKA match manipulation.

Yes it is but still it doesnt worth perma ban, codex is like a lowest end of pvp we can consider it pve. (I didn't synch codex)
Also synchers can be understood since there is absolutely no enemy in codex and they want a joke title just for fun.

Trub · May 30, 2010, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Unfortunatly it is all true. I don't know who you think you are to say that it's all lies but I would have no reason to lie about something anyone who had knowledge about the GW file could find themselves.

Highlighted for easier reading.

Playing the game normally, doesn't require ANYONE to have a knowledge of it's existence.
It's NCsoft's baby...not mine.

Again, NO messing with protected(TM) softwarez!

But, apperantly your already banned...so you being so 'public' about your knowledge of the GW.dat file isn't going to get you banned again.