Curse

cormac ap dunn · Jun 02, 2010, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Um Yeah

Considering Anet first said they were "combating bots/RMTs" back when there were actually more than 5 people maintaining and working on this game, I suspect they do even less work on it now. I mean, they basically got all the money out of this game that they're probably gonna get, so why bother caring anymore beyond basic server maintenance? Im sure some of you may say that if they dont put an actual effort to keep botting out of GW, then you wont buy GW2, but really, you will probably end up just doing it anyway, right? I really don't see any reason why they should put forth any more effort into stopping botters, assuming theyve put forth much of any effort in the past 3-4 years theyve been "working on it".

Also, with regards to the idea of designing some sort of automated system to detect "bot-like activity", I really don't see it being feasible due to the complexness involved especially considering the Reconnect feature was designed by an Anet staff member in their free time as a side project, again, back when there were more than 5 people working on GW. With as few people that are working on GW now, I imagine it would take them quite some time to design such a system. Then again, I can't imagine that the people still working on GW actually do much anything during their work day, so maybe they could do it.

I'll agree it was slow coming, that being said, they did just publicly ban botting accounts for a reason. As stated earlier they also added new staff to combat botting. Do I think they can eliminate botting or RMTs, no, but i believe they can make it harder and harder for casual botters, which puts most of those RMTs out of business(lets face it, they are the most likely candidates for RMT anyway. Too lazy to play=would probably rather pay.).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Um Yeah

And for those who are enjoying the bans on the PvP bots, you should have played when there was actually competition and more than what? 500? guilds. A good mes/ranger>bot any day. A bot's a wasted spot compared to a good player. Of course, theres MAYBE one each of those left sooo...you might have a better point. Regardless, l2p.

There, /thread

You're Welcome.

Now to the highlighted text,lol, surely you must be one one of those huh? Of course you are... Then surely you will have noticed a significant reduction in bots Mr Great at PvP? Or is this one of those "QQ Anet is fail because they banned bots but i haven't played in the last 2 years so i have no idea how bad it got " posts?

There, /failed troll

You're Welcome.

Kiky · Jun 02, 2010, 07:25 PM // 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by mini pet monster

For those of you that are curious, the bans were not for 'botting' per se, but for injecting a certain .dll

Of course, many, many botters were caught because the .dll gave such powerful options and botters couldn't resist using it.

However, I can give some funny examples of bans that happened to real players:

1. Someone released a map travel tool on a guild website. It allows you to map travel to anywhere in the game that you have unlocked on that character. For example, you can go from ToA to DoA in 1 click. Woohoo! Little did these guildies know, the utility was built using that forbidden .dll. They are all perma'd.

2. I'm going to assume 95% of the players with max drunkard used some kind of glitch (remember when you could drink, map travel, drink, map travel?) or an auto clicker. I have never heard of someone being perma'd for clicking booze. Well, one poor soul used the injected drunkard clicker because it was so readily available. He didn't dare use any other bots, but he figured, who's been banned for a drunkard clicker? Well he was.

I can also give some funny examples of real people that were not banned:

1. A few people botted hard on alt accounts, but never injected on their main account. Their bot accounts are smoked, but their mains live on. They also gained some fat stacks. Good for them.

2. Those that started injecting about 2 weeks ago, missed the ban wave. No doubt, they are crapping their pants, but for now, they are safe.

So, if everyone was banned for modifying the client, but not necessarily 'botting', why is texmod, multilaunch and ksmod ok?

Texmod can be used to confer some cool advantages as martin posted. It can also be used to help with cartographer, and even help setup pixel detection bots. I believe texmod was the main tool used by guild wars botters before this new .dll came out. Diablo 2 bots live off of texmod.

Multilaunch confers wicked advantage to those that can use it. You can rush multiple accounts through one area, instead of playing it over 3 times. You could red resign like a BOSS. I'm sure everyone knows someone that loaded up 4 accounts or something crazy and made a few thousand zkeys. You can powertrade kamadan and scam ascalon at the same time. During canthan new year, all the top rbr racers had multi accounts going. They would race the first 30s, and if they couldn't get a top score, they would just switch accounts. During festivals, people drop all their accounts into kamadan/LA/shing jea and afk gifts. The list goes on.

I'm unfamiliar with ksmod but I believe it plays some fun noises when enemies die. In GvG or HA, its nice to have something indicate when someone dies besides a tiny little faction counter that pops up.

These modifications all confer advantages. They are OK as long as not abused right? So why is the standard not the same for this modification that got 3700+ banned?

Now this is exacly what i was talking about, and every should carefully read this guy's post.

Btw, anet won't "go back further to game history" to ban bots, they said publicly that 3700 bots were banned and they feel like they did a fair job.
They didn't: ppl are using textmod which sometimes decites the match. Don't even try to tell me that bs that if a frenzied warrior is highlighted on ur screen it doesn't give u an advantage. As a prot monk, as caller, as blinder and so on, it obviously not fair to use but they weren't banned.
As for the "texmod is available to everyone" well if u think of this bs than the PvP interrupt bots shouldn't have been banned cause they were available to everyone since it was released to public.
Players who used that fast traveling script or tested a bot to counter it got banned instead which don't give u any advantage in the game.
So that 3700+ banned bots should be corrected to injections detected on 3700+ accounts.

Martin Alvito · Jun 02, 2010, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

From what I understand people who have been running GWCA based bots on their alts that didn't get banned (since the ban) have yet to be banned. This would suggest that Anet's super amazing bot detection methods aren't really all that great and it takes alot of time for bans to actually catch up with the botters.

Actually, what it proves is that Support is slow and thorough. We should expect the former given what NCSoft is willing to spend on Support. The latter is somewhat surprising.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinkies

There is a reason you haven't stopped most botters yet. And that's because you just plain can't. The only methods you have are checking for repetitive action, which could easily be justified by a macro, and in game reporters, which you've never given a shit about anyway.

True in any game; the ability of the developer to police botting is conditioned upon the amount they are willing to spend to do it. The result is that it is always possible (but risky) to get away with some cheating. Usually, only the most flagrant cheaters eat bans. The result is a risk/reward function where it makes sense to cheat for some players.

For instance, if all you want to do is acquire certain pets for HoM, it makes sense to stop logging into your main, switch ISPs, bot, move the proceeds to accounts not connected to your IP, and repeat until banned. That's not a good thing...but it's also the way it is, and it's totally unrealistic to expect things to be different. If ANet had infinite resources with which to police cheating, we'd see a different result, but they don't and no developer ever will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theocrat

I believe it was mentioned in a press release (or something of that nature) that they would be adopting the banwave system commonly used by companies such as Blizzard and Valve. It's likely that anyone using GWCA bots won't be banned for another 3-6 months.

Which, naturally, gives them plenty of time to obtain virtual riches and safely stash them away on alternate accounts.

I'm not quite that skeptical about time frames, but this does reveal the largest problem with enforcement. If people can extract RL cash worth more than the cost of the account and the time cost of setting up the farmbot, then botting will continue. It is therefore critical that ANet react swiftly to cheating.

Rocky Raccoon · Jun 02, 2010, 07:46 PM // 19:46

After 14 pages of postings I would have thought that those who have been trying to justify botting and deflecting any blame from themselves would give it up. I was wrong.

JoeKnowMo · Jun 02, 2010, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiky

As for the "texmod is available to everyone" well if u think of this bs than the PvP interrupt bots shouldn't have been banned cause they were available to everyone since it was released to public.

Good point. Everyone should have been running bots since they are 'publicly' available. A lot of illegal things are also 'publicly' available. Let me know how that works out as a defense for you in court.

Kiky · Jun 02, 2010, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeKnowMo

Good point. Everyone should have been running bots since they are 'publicly' available. A lot of illegal things are also 'publicly' available. Let me know how that works out as a defense for you in court.

Next time if u want to be a smartass and troll someone at least read their whole post. k?
I'm against interrupt bots those are the worst type of thrid-party program /end

Killed u man · Jun 02, 2010, 07:57 PM // 19:57

Are people downright retarded here? All he did was pointing out that "Texmod is publically available to everyone" isn't a valid excuse for it to be legal, as so were the bots.

God pardon the flames but some of you people really need to learn comprehensive reading. I find it really sad that your first language is English aswell.

JoeKnowMo · Jun 02, 2010, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiky

I'm against interrupt bots those are the worst type of thrid-party program /end

What bots are you not against?

Martin Alvito · Jun 02, 2010, 08:07 PM // 20:07

You're all still missing the cost term.

TexMod isn't bannable because it's hard to detect. If the advantages were gamebreaking, maybe ANet would be willing to invest the resources to set up a VAC-style monitoring program.

But they aren't, and ANet isn't. Demanding that ANet fix the problem just makes you look silly. Doing so shows that you're unaware of the RL problems facing a developer trying to address problems of cheating.

Further, if ANet says it's kosher, then we're all on a level playing field.

Kiky · Jun 02, 2010, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeKnowMo

What bots are you not against?

Mentioning interrupt bot was only an example and a good one since it caused the most of the troubles. If u can't see it u are either retarded or want to troll someone so badly u gave up ur own reasoning. All u posted in this thread was worthless, nothing but "flame", picking out words/sentences from other people post to troll it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

You're all still missing the cost term.

TexMod isn't bannable because it's hard to detect. If the advantages were gamebreaking, maybe ANet would be willing to invest the resources to set up a VAC-style monitoring program.

But they aren't, and ANet isn't. Demanding that ANet fix the problem just makes you look silly. Doing so shows that you're unaware of the RL problems facing a developer trying to address problems of cheating.

Further, if ANet says it's kosher, then we're all on a level playing field.

Yes i see what u are saying but textmod is "more gamebreaking" than for example the fast travel script which users were also banned.

Gli · Jun 02, 2010, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

You're all still missing the cost term.

TexMod isn't bannable because it's hard to detect. If the advantages were gamebreaking, maybe ANet would be willing to invest the resources to set up a VAC-style monitoring program.

But they aren't, and ANet isn't. Demanding that ANet fix the problem just makes you look silly. Doing so shows that you're unaware of the RL problems facing a developer trying to address problems of cheating.

Further, if ANet says it's kosher, then we're all on a level playing field.

That's just it. They banned the obvious guys.

And that's just the way of things. The obvious guys are always the first in line for trouble. Any place, any time. Try breaking into a car in front of a busy policestation, see what happens. It's not very smart to be an obvious guy.

There's no reason to be lenient toward obvious offenders simply because there are also less obvious ones around.

JoeKnowMo · Jun 02, 2010, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiky

Mentioning interrupt bot was only an example and a good one since it caused the most of the troubles.

You didn't answer the question. Let me ask it again, "What bots are you NOT against?"

Martin Alvito · Jun 02, 2010, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gli

There's no reason to be lenient toward obvious offenders simply because there are also less obvious ones around.

This would be true if enforcement cost ANet nothing. (You mean more obvious offenders, right?)

You're demanding perfect justice in a world where perfect justice is impossible.

Gli · Jun 02, 2010, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

This would be true if enforcement cost ANet nothing.

You're demanding perfect justice in a world where perfect justice is impossible.

I don't really see how what you said has anything to do with what I said.

For starters, I'm not demanding anything.

Martin Alvito · Jun 02, 2010, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Your proposition is: there is no reason to fail to enforce the rules. If you cheat, you should be banned. But not all cheating is equally costly to enforce.

If the developer has unlimited resources, then all cheaters should be banned. If not, then the developer has to prioritize. Hospital emergency rooms prioritize (triage). So do police departments.

Claiming that the developer should ban all cheaters requires making two suppositions: that the developer has sufficient resources to ban all cheaters, and that the players will put up with the methods necessary to ban all cheaters. In practice, those suppositions just aren't true.

Once we've established that, which cheaters get banned and which don't is just an empirical problem dictated by enforcement costs.

Perhaps most importantly, if the developer comes out and says that X form of cheating is kosher, then we all know that's not cheating and can adjust our behavior accordingly. In-game advantages are derived from cheating when some players are willing to accept the assoicated risks of cheating and other players aren't. It's the advantage that's the problem.

Gli · Jun 02, 2010, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Your proposition is: there is no reason to fail to enforce the rules. If you cheat, you should be banned. But not all cheating is equally costly to enforce.

If the developer has unlimited resources, then all cheaters should be banned. If not, then the developer has to prioritize. Hospital emergency rooms prioritize (triage). So do police departments.

What you're saying is exactly the point I was trying to make: take action against obvious offenders (which they did) regardless of whether or not you can do the same to the not-so-obvious offenders. By obvious I mean, the ones they could easily identify due to the methods (injection) they used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Claiming that the developer should ban all cheaters requires making two suppositions: that the developer has sufficient resources to ban all cheaters, and that the players will put up with the methods necessary to ban all cheaters. In practice, those suppositions just aren't true.

I never claimed they should ban all offenders. I simply pointed out that it's perfectly fine for them to act against the ones they can easily identify.

Martin Alvito · Jun 02, 2010, 09:07 PM // 21:07

OK, then I'm entirely misreading your tone in the first post, Gli.

Gli · Jun 02, 2010, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

OK, then I'm entirely misreading your tone in the first post, Gli.

I guess the opening lines of my post you quoted look a lot like what the other camp is saying.

But when I say: "That's just it. They banned the obvious guys. And that's just the way of things." I don't mean it as a criticism, just a statement of fact as to how such things work.

The "breaking into a car in front of a policestation" part was meant to illustrate how it is completely obvious that such things work out the way they do: presenting your offending self on a silver platter will get you nicked every time.

I guess I should be more clear in the future.

Karate Jesus · Jun 02, 2010, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Oh, cute title! Seems familiar

I would expect that this is something being worked on. They've apparently hired several more people and are trying to clean up GW a bit. I think this is something they are really focusing on now and hopefully we'll see fewer of these from now on.

Perfected Shadow · Jun 03, 2010, 12:48 AM // 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Um Yeah

I mean, they basically got all the money out of this game that they're probably gonna get, so why bother caring anymore beyond basic server maintenance?

Anet bans botter's accounts, botting community circumvents new detection, botter buys new accounts (cost is trivial compared to how much they made botting for RMT), Anet gets $$$, repeat