Curse

Bill Easternview · Jun 03, 2010, 03:20 AM // 03:20

As someone said up-topic "Anet won't "go back further to game history" to ban bots. I expect that is true, but not because they don't want to, BUT BECAUSE THEY CAN'T.

As I tried to say earlier, GW does not seem to generate and/or retain log files with sufficient information content to allow them to look back in time. If they did it would be relatively easy to address gold sellers.

Example: Anet goes online and buys gold from someone, doing a real money transaction. A char run by Anet then meets with the gold selling char and sees their name. Then just trace back where all the stuff the gold seller had came from, follow the wealth backwards, eventually you will get to the farmers (human or bot). Then follow the money back down that pathway and find all of the other player chars who also ended up with gold from that pool of farmers. Then ban the lot of them.

This isn't rocket science. But it takes LOG FILES. Detailed log files kept for more than a day or two. If gold sellers are a problem, then such log files don't exist. Anet needs to add them for GW2. THAT is the real lesson from all this.

Trub · Jun 03, 2010, 03:31 AM // 03:31

Well..if that's the case with the gold sellers, they might be a little more wary when they try to steal another account,
or purchase another to up load their bot(s) to...
from here on out, it's going to be 'at your own risk'.

It isn't for 'normal' players to question the 'time in history', or what 'days, months, or even years' they (ANet/NCSoft) are going back to..it isn't OUR business..it's ANet's/NCSoft.

Siris · Jun 03, 2010, 04:30 AM // 04:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoF

Sorry but I have reported a lot of Xkgkgiiinfn Obfgb kind of 'players' that were running to signposts in town to the area to be farmed, and never replied to my whispers when I friendly asked if I could 'have their build' and such.

They're still there, and you're buying ectos/Z-Keys from them on eBay or other RMT sites!

EDIT:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/bots-in-zos-chivros-t10420026.html.

So are you legit?.

Say i'm farming Orr Emblems out of Bergan,
and because i'm also munching on a sandwich and thus playing one handed (*bows* thankyou thankyou)
and click-moving and I choose not to reply to your pm.
Or even i choose to act like a dick and ignore you all together,
you're going to report me?

Nice Methods.

Moral of the story:

People who report based on your style of "friendly whispers" should be banscythed.

/signed.

Lord Sojar · Jun 03, 2010, 04:35 AM // 04:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siris

So are you legit?.

Say i'm farming Orr Emblems out of Bergan,
and because i'm also munching on a sandwich and thus playing one handed (*bows* thankyou thankyou)
and click-moving and I choose not to reply to your pm.
Or even i choose to act like a dick and ignore you all together,
you're going to report me?

Nice Methods.

Moral of the story:

People who report based on your style of "friendly whispers" should be banscythed.

/signed.

I agree with this on almost all counts actually, except one:

If a GM PMs you with special colored text, you best be answering

. If not, you are a moron, and deserve to be banned for being a fool. Players though, yeh, I ignore tons of PMs, especially when I'm guild-less.

GoF · Jun 03, 2010, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siris

So are you legit?.

Say i'm farming Orr Emblems out of Bergan,
and because i'm also munching on a sandwich and thus playing one handed (*bows* thankyou thankyou)
and click-moving and I choose not to reply to your pm.
Or even i choose to act like a dick and ignore you all together,
you're going to report me?

Nice Methods.

Moral of the story:

People who report based on your style of "friendly whispers" should be banscythed.

/signed.

You do not munch on a sandwich for 10+ hours, now do you?

Doing the farm over and over (every 2minutes in town), the same way in town for 10hours or more is indeed suspicious to me, /report, sorry.

Grj · Jun 03, 2010, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoF

You do not munch on a sandwich for 10+ hours, now do you?

Doing the farm over and over (every 2minutes in town), the same way in town for 10hours or more is indeed suspicious to me, /report, sorry.

What and you spend the whole 10+ hours watching them before you /report?

GoF · Jun 03, 2010, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grj

What and you spend the whole 10+ hours watching them before you /report?

hehe when I have to study for 10+ hours a day, yes

Nerel · Jun 03, 2010, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoF

You do not munch on a sandwich for 10+ hours, now do you?

Doing the farm over and over (every 2minutes in town), the same way in town for 10hours or more is indeed suspicious to me, /report, sorry.

What's wrong with playing one handed? Does NCsoft discriminate against one handed people?

Besides, I'm sure there could have been things other than eating a sandwich that could have kept his other hand busy... but for ten hours? Maybe he needs to send a medical certificate from his doctor explaining that he suffers from anejaculation and just didn't know when to stop

I'd hate to be the support staffer that gets that note...

Danny Used Frenzy · Jun 08, 2010, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nerel

What's wrong with playing one handed? Does NCsoft discriminate against one handed people?

Besides, I'm sure there could have been things other than eating a sandwich that could have kept his other hand busy... but for ten hours? Maybe he needs to send a medical certificate from his doctor explaining that he suffers from anejaculation and just didn't know when to stop

I'd hate to be the support staffer that gets that note...

I'd hate to be the support staffer that gets that note handwritten in the mail.

Shasgaliel · Jun 08, 2010, 03:45 PM // 15:45

/notsigned.

They should ban all the rest as well if they can. I do not see ANET as being obliged to act on all bot cases in the same time. I would not be surprised if there will be banning bat coming once a while for a different bot or exploit.

Skyy High · Jun 08, 2010, 04:45 PM // 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Easternview

This isn't rocket science. But it takes LOG FILES. Detailed log files kept for more than a day or two. If gold sellers are a problem, then such log files don't exist. Anet needs to add them for GW2. THAT is the real lesson from all this.

Gold sellers are a problem in pretty much every MMO. Are you saying no MMOs have log files? And, if so, doesn't that suggest that creating, storing, and searching those log files would be a bit more difficult than you suggest? If not, then why are gold sellers a problem in other MMOs?

Martin Alvito · Jun 08, 2010, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Gold sellers are a problem because of the wage differential between developing and developed countries. Bots are just the most efficient way of exploiting that differential.

Da Tru Legend · Jun 09, 2010, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Petitions don't magically solve PvE bots. Gluck on thy honourable quest against ye scoundrels and vermin.

~Tru

Shasgaliel · Jun 10, 2010, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Easternview

As someone said up-topic "Anet won't "go back further to game history" to ban bots. I expect that is true, but not because they don't want to, BUT BECAUSE THEY CAN'T.

As I tried to say earlier, GW does not seem to generate and/or retain log files with sufficient information content to allow them to look back in time. If they did it would be relatively easy to address gold sellers.

Example: Anet goes online and buys gold from someone, doing a real money transaction. A char run by Anet then meets with the gold selling char and sees their name. Then just trace back where all the stuff the gold seller had came from, follow the wealth backwards, eventually you will get to the farmers (human or bot). Then follow the money back down that pathway and find all of the other player chars who also ended up with gold from that pool of farmers. Then ban the lot of them.

This isn't rocket science. But it takes LOG FILES. Detailed log files kept for more than a day or two. If gold sellers are a problem, then such log files don't exist. Anet needs to add them for GW2. THAT is the real lesson from all this.

If it was like you have depicted I would just mean that both gold sellers and ANET are just a band of morons. I can already tell you it is not the case.

I can also tell you THEY DO KEEP THE LOGS and they are detailed. Few hundred accounts are banned every day. There are scripts checking ongoing transactions and there are people verifying them. Account is used for one transaction and gets almost immediate block and then ban and same happens to the one it got its resources from.

The gold they sell mostly is not from farming but from hacking. So what that ANET banns the account if it was actually a hacked account? The only way to stop RMT in GW is:

1. People stop buying gold and items online
2. People pay more attention to their account security.

ANET cannot do much with that. What they can do I think they do ok.

Tullzinski · Jun 10, 2010, 02:05 PM // 14:05

damn this almost went away...

Martin hit the nail on the head above. It will always be an issue for any MMO.

/close +1

Xiaquin · Jun 10, 2010, 04:16 PM // 16:16

The OP makes a lot of valid points, almost to an extent that I wish he/she would take a job at Anet if there is such a solid understanding of the problem.

One thing that caught my eye was: If I met people who later used bots, and I didn't report them myself, could I really register complaints as to how Anet has taken action? Shouldn't we all be reporting anyone who is a known botter, regardless of how "nice" of people they are? If there are any exceptions to the rule, it's tainted. A botter is a botter. It's nothing personal, just an observation.

Wouldbe Hero · Jun 12, 2010, 05:25 PM // 17:25

A-Net is playing a rotten game, by banning innocent players without giving them a chance to defend theirselves, automated responses and not even trying to react in person is childish and cowardly for an institute grown as big as it is by their buyers.

Airstu · Jun 12, 2010, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Why are these qq I got banned for botting threads still open?

/close +1

Killed u man · Jun 13, 2010, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tullzinski

damn this almost went away...

Martin hit the nail on the head above. It will always be an issue for any MMO.

/close +1

Runescape was a botfest. About 3/4 years ago, Jagex (Creator, our Anet if you will) pulled out some major efforts against the botting community. Now don't get mistaken, just because Runescape is a browser game (which since a couple of years it isn't anymore) doesn't make botting it easier.

Pretty much everyone botted for real world gold, heck, even I made a couple 100 bucks simply by having 1 bot run overnight for a couple of weeks. (With a self made script on top of that)
Then they started adding checks like Anet did (It's not about having an arms race with the botters, it's about grabbing them with the balls and simply not letting go), and in less than a year, botting easily went down by what ~99%?

However, not only did they tackle botting by adding various in-game counters (randoms as they are calling in the Runescape-scene), they also destroyed the real world trading scene.
They put in trade-limits, trade checks, buddy loan systems and so much more. All-in-all, it did take them alot of updates and reverts, but they RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOin nailed it: The game is still very playable (despite what many people on "black" sites claim) and real world trading is next to impossible. (You simply can't trade such masses of gold)

It did however came at several costs, which in my eyes are only part of the solution to another problem anyways, those being the fact that trading became very, very strict.

Merchanting, the only real way to make big money in Runescape, died. (Now they implemented a global market so people can still amass large quantities of gold simply by playing the "stockmarket") But concidering merchanting is based buying an item cheap, and selling it high, I myself concider it no more than a legal form of scamming, and so I couldn't care less about that.

Point of this nice story: MMO's can be kept clean from bots and RWT's. It does however come at a certain cost. That cost being freedom (To trade, merchant and scam) and a slight effort from the devs. But concidering there is plenty of good implemented ideas in Runescape, all Anet would have to do is copy/paste them. (Obviously, I'm talking about GW2 here)

Night Life · Jun 13, 2010, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wouldbe Hero

A-Net is playing a rotten game, by banning innocent players without giving them a chance to defend theirselves, automated responses and not even trying to react in person is childish and cowardly for an institute grown as big as it is by their buyers.

they shouldnt have a chance to defend themselves. they break rules they get banned its as easy as that. if you think the game is rotten then dont play it also as simple as that