Curse

DRGN · Apr 27, 2010, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Alright, well, after experiencing this myself and seeing countless reports about it in local chat and having all my friends say "Yeah this is insane", I thought I'd see if this was as widespread as this appears. This isn't a whining post or an "ANET FIX MY SHIT NOW" thing, just bringing it to the forefront. A similar thing was done during Wintersday and that prompted Regina to alert us that their server was the issue behind insane Kamadan lag. This just started being widely complained about yesterday, too; it's not like this has occurred the entire event.

It really is sad that I have to justify a simple question with a full paragraph, but oh well.

athariel · Apr 27, 2010, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Raptor farmers are lagging the server

Karate Jesus · Apr 27, 2010, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by athariel

Raptor farmers are lagging the server

^ Exactly. Right before the event, a raptor farming bot's source code was widely released and made downloadable by several GW fan sites.

There are always a lot of raptor farmers, but now people are farming with 2-4 bot accounts as well and it's mucking the server up. Bot forums have been chatting about it for a few days. They actually had to build in delay times to account for the lag in some instances.

Welcome to GW 2010 - land of the bots.

Bob Slydell · Apr 27, 2010, 08:17 PM // 20:17

And as always, Arena Net's word on combating the bots is of course a lie, otherwise this wouldn't be going on.

Ailina · Apr 27, 2010, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Slydell

And as always, Arena Net's word on combating the bots is of course a lie, otherwise this wouldn't be going on.

Just because they're not able to get rid of them does not mean that they're lying about combating them. Since you seem to think that it's easy to solve the problem of people using bots, how would you go about doing it? How do you suggest that Anet figure out which characters are bots and which are just obsessive farmers? Especially if the player is using a macro, there is no way for Anet to know that they're a bot except for player reports (and there are a ridiculous amount of those) or a close analysis of a suspected bot's pattern movements, and it seems like that would be nearly impossible given the number of reports and possible bots.

It's ridiculous for you to be so confident that Anet is lying about dealing with the bots, because you have no idea what goes on in their offices and how many bots they've already gotten rid of. You just see the ones they haven't gotten yet.

Bob Slydell · Apr 27, 2010, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ailina

Just because they're not able to get rid of them does not mean that they're lying about combating them. Since you seem to think that it's easy to solve the problem of people using bots, how would you go about doing it? How do you suggest that Anet figure out which characters are bots and which are just obsessive farmers? Especially if the player is using a macro, there is no way for Anet to know that they're a bot except for player reports (and there are a ridiculous amount of those) or a close analysis of a suspected bot's pattern movements, and it seems like that would be nearly impossible given the number of reports and possible bots.

It's ridiculous for you to be so confident that Anet is lying about dealing with the bots, because you have no idea what goes on in their offices and how many bots they've already gotten rid of. You just see the ones they haven't gotten yet.

Ok. Maybe I was a bit harsh saying they were lying. Still, do you honestly think they are wasting their time with this? They should be patching and encrypting the game client code to STOP ALLOWING BOTS SCRIPTS.

Deviant Angel · Apr 27, 2010, 09:07 PM // 21:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karate Jesus

^ Exactly. Right before the event, a raptor farming bot's source code was widely released and made downloadable by several GW fan sites.

There are always a lot of raptor farmers, but now people are farming with 2-4 bot accounts as well and it's mucking the server up. Bot forums have been chatting about it for a few days. They actually had to build in delay times to account for the lag in some instances.

Welcome to GW 2010 - land of the bots.

Don't want to work for the things you want? There's an app for that!

Karate Jesus · Apr 27, 2010, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ailina

Since you seem to think that it's easy to solve the problem of people using bots, how would you go about doing it?

Re-design the launch client to prevent injecting .dll's like most other games already do.

That would cut the botting in GW about 50%-75%. There would still be ways to bot, but they would be much less efficient.

aspi · Apr 27, 2010, 09:09 PM // 21:09

And how exactly is it possible for a bot to run this? There are a few patterns in the movement of the hatchlings but nothing a bot would be able to handle?

Mini Vizu · Apr 27, 2010, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by aspi

And how exactly is it possible for a bot to run this? There are a few patterns in the movement of the hatchlings but nothing a bot would be able to handle?

It's not wise to ask these questions.

Karate Jesus · Apr 27, 2010, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by aspi

And how exactly is it possible for a bot to run this? There are a few patterns in the movement of the hatchlings but nothing a bot would be able to handle?

I would tell you, but that's a good way to get banned around here. Let me just say, there are websites dedicated to this type of thing.

EDIT: Let me add a caveat, because I know that Anet employees read Guru and barely understand a damn thing about botting. I do not bot. I know many people who do, read the forums, etc. If you guys decide to blanket ban because you don't know what you're doing, leave me out of it.

Schnellburg · Apr 27, 2010, 10:11 PM // 22:11

You inject a .dll file into the gw application, and it understands certain colors and what not. This allows your "Bot" to do things. The bots then can recognize the hatchlings, and then determine when it is best to aggro everything. It isn't that hard to figure it all out.

Botting will always exist. It really comes down to you just getting use to it, because if they do figure out a way to get rid of it, you could always just run a macro you set up yourself, and it is in theory a bot, but not.

khios · Apr 27, 2010, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Karate Jesus, my dear friend (or not? your choice) do you really think it's that easy to block bot programs?

Let's just take an example... Let's take the case of a well known FPS : Counter-Strike (1.6 or CSS as you want)

Steam aka Valve has been on the scene for quite a long time but there's still bots coming out every day! Using different injection models and some are just UNdetectable (aka ring0 injection)!

So a company like A.Net can't really do anything, for know it's just a DLL Injection in the process of the game using a injector but the man who created this injector is well known on cheating/botting scene and have so many Aces in his sleve that seriously disabling dll injection might just stop botting 1 day!

So yeah there's bots farming every where nowadays, some are public, some are private but do they change your gameplay (except for lags) at all? If they want to make a program play the game for all the day (time during wich they can't play if they only have an account) that's their problem. They don't botter me @ all and thank to them I can build my Cupcakes stacks a lot cheaper than before

sixdartbart · Apr 27, 2010, 10:45 PM // 22:45

2 mostly empty A districts and 1 completely empty int district makes me sceptical about this lag all being bot related, maybe it is and I don't know where they are but after seeing the waves of monks streaming out of the portals at older well known bot farms makes me wonder.

This lag is rediculous no matter what is causing it, add in super crap cc drops and afking nine rings is fun in comparison.
Anyone know why drops are so bad for me?
Gold items & saurian bones seem about the same as every other time I've farmed event items out there but cc drops are maybe 1-3 per run as opposed to 10-16 that I have gotten every other time I was out there.

any clues aside from the invisible bots?

bursta91 · Apr 27, 2010, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Latency in Riven Earth?

more like all of gw. i love event weekends...

Dzjudz · Apr 27, 2010, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixdartbart

2 mostly empty A districts and 1 completely empty int district makes me sceptical about this lag all being bot related, maybe it is and I don't know where they are but after seeing the waves of monks streaming out of the portals at older well known bot farms makes me wonder.

This lag is rediculous no matter what is causing it, add in super crap cc drops and afking nine rings is fun in comparison.
Anyone know why drops are so bad for me?
Gold items & saurian bones seem about the same as every other time I've farmed event items out there but cc drops are maybe 1-3 per run as opposed to 10-16 that I have gotten every other time I was out there.

any clues aside from the invisible bots?

Well I've done around a 1000 raptor farms this event (from r3 to r10 asura is about 150,000 points and a run gives approximately 150 points, so that's a 1000 runs) and I have less than 2000 cupcakes (little more than 7 stacks), which gives an average of less than 2 cupcakes per run. This is with HM W/N raptor farming, killing 32-34 raptors (including boss). So I think you're not extraordinarily low with your drops.

sixdartbart · Apr 27, 2010, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

Well I've done around a 1000 raptor farms this event (from r3 to r10 asura is about 150,000 points and a run gives approximately 150 points, so that's a 1000 runs) and I have less than 2000 cupcakes (little more than 7 stacks), which gives an average of less than 2 cupcakes per run. This is with HM W/N raptor farming, killing 32-34 raptors (including boss). So I think you're not extraordinarily low with your drops.

well I'm glad it's not just me but.......

everytime I have farmed event drops here {W/N as well} I average around 10

maybe they just want CCs to be hard to get? well unless you are the guy with 15k of them for sale the first day of the event... hahahaha

Zahr Dalsk · Apr 27, 2010, 11:05 PM // 23:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karate Jesus

^ Exactly. Right before the event, a raptor farming bot's source code was widely released and made downloadable by several GW fan sites.

There are always a lot of raptor farmers, but now people are farming with 2-4 bot accounts as well and it's mucking the server up. Bot forums have been chatting about it for a few days. They actually had to build in delay times to account for the lag in some instances.

Welcome to GW 2010 - land of the bots.

I regard this Anet's fault for making the good stuff (wealth, and thus armour and titles) require grind rather than being achievement based. As long as the game has grind, I wholeheartedly support people botting their way through it. It runs counter to the Guild Wars philosophy (skill > time) so it seems like bots are a perfect match.

Karate Jesus · Apr 27, 2010, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by khios

Karate Jesus, my dear friend (or not? your choice) do you really think it's that easy to block bot programs?

I can already tell this is going to be bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by khios

Steam aka Valve has been on the scene for quite a long time but there's still bots coming out every day! Using different injection models and some are just UNdetectable (aka ring0 injection)!

You can actually create a game client that prevents .dll injection entirely, but I seriously doubt any 5 year old game would care to do so (especially w/o the revenue).

Quote:

Originally Posted by khios

So a company like A.Net can't really do anything, for know it's just a DLL Injection in the process of the game using a injector but the man who created this injector is well known on cheating/botting scene and have so many Aces in his sleve that seriously disabling dll injection might just stop botting 1 day!

dll injection only concerns about 50% of botting. I'm not suggesting that it would completely stop botting, I'm just saying that it would make it more complicated and less efficient.

Quote:

Originally Posted by khios

So yeah there's bots farming every where nowadays, some are public, some are private but do they change your gameplay (except for lags) at all? If they want to make a program play the game for all the day (time during wich they can't play if they only have an account) that's their problem. They don't botter me @ all and thank to them I can build my Cupcakes stacks a lot cheaper than before

You, sir, are a conundrum. You literally just answered your own question within your statement and it wasn't even rhetorical. Yes, of course bots affect the game.

They crowd specific areas of the game.
They lower the cost of farmable items (as you mentioned, cupcakes are a good example).
They affect PvP on a widespread level from RA/CM to HA/GvG.
They give inactive players the ability to max titles (gamer points, glad points, etc.)
They give players the ability to earn exponential amounts of money depending on how many accounts they own.
And for so many more reasons.

All of those things affect everyone's gameplay experience. Assuming they don't is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Eluvatar · Apr 27, 2010, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

I regard this Anet's fault for making the good stuff (wealth, and thus armour and titles) require grind rather than being achievement based. As long as the game has grind, I wholeheartedly support people botting their way through it. It runs counter to the Guild Wars philosophy (skill > time) so it seems like bots are a perfect match.

ya you support it until you get banned for lucky boting like a friend of mine