Curse

Mork from Ork · Feb 22, 2008, 02:25 AM // 02:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by asp1988

This is ridiculous, first of all theres no definitive way to discern which characters are bots and which are not. .......If someone was running bots, you'd assume they had the common sense to select believable names. Also, how does a bot look? If you're going solely off armor choices, well than thats just as implausible as naming conventions...

He has a point - the bots often do have random names and they do have to start somewhere to get to level 20 so they can farm the different areas so they have to be played through the game somehow at least to the farming spot-

botters can't start their characters in Granite Citadel right at level 20 anymore than you or I can

However, I suspect they are not noticed until they begin farming because I doubt they stay in towns for more than few seconds - just hook up to a leader who will level them and then he heads out the door. After all, they aren't making any money hanging around and chatting and who looks at every name in town?

jiggles · Feb 22, 2008, 02:39 AM // 02:39

A guildie of mine was running a single person(a monk in a scar pattern may i add) once, she wasnt running as she was killing things along the way. this 'person' tried to pick up every single drop along the way. Sound suspicious?

quickmonty · Feb 22, 2008, 02:45 AM // 02:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiggles

A guildie of mine was running a single person(a monk in a scar pattern may i add) once, she wasnt running as she was killing things along the way. this 'person' tried to pick up every single drop along the way. Sound suspicious?

No. Sounds smart to pick up everything. A few gold here and there add up after a while.

Captain Miken · Feb 22, 2008, 02:48 AM // 02:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faer

Excuse me, but Mr. Daniel Webster would like to have a word with you. I suggest you step into his office.

Glad to see someone else knows what the word "retard" means.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiggles

A guildie of mine was running a single person(a monk in a scar pattern may i add) once, she wasnt running as she was killing things along the way. this 'person' tried to pick up every single drop along the way. Sound suspicious?

I've amassed 1000k + 100+ ectos by playing smart, like this person.

jiggles · Feb 22, 2008, 02:56 AM // 02:56

when i said everything, i didnt mean drops just for him. i meant EVERYTHING, this includes drops that werent assigned to him

arsie · Feb 22, 2008, 03:05 AM // 03:05

I think the main reason why we do not bump into them so often is because they are probably using International District in a quiet hour. Time-zone differences and all.

The next thing is, that they probably have one (or a few) human level 20 that is leading 3-7 monk bots through the outposts and zones. They probably do not need to stay in a outpost more than the time needed for them to move to the next exit. Farmers used to be taught to minimize contact with human players to reduce the chance of them getting complained. This kinda runs counter to the newer website spamming trend.

An expert runner could bring 3-7 bots through in hours, I expect. Bear in mind that all this is scripted and automated. They can be in any instance leveling from 2 to 20, and noone will ever know, except Anet.

A handful of humans, or maybe even one human, is enough to start up such a company for Guild Wars as compared to games like WoW that requires human farmers. So these companies could sprout out anywhere, since labour costs is not an issue.

creelie · Feb 22, 2008, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by asp1988

This is ridiculous, first of all theres no definitive way to discern which characters are bots and which are not. Just think logically, do you actually believe they name their characters in a fashion like this?:

-GoldBot 001
-GBR 493498
-0001234 13

If someone was running bots, you'd assume they had the common sense to select believable names.

It's not an exact science, but if you've ever seen a bot swarm you get a feel for their names. Random letter strings like Asdf Jkl, and words that are probably phonetic pronunciations of languages that don't normally use this alphabet. And sometimes you will actually see "bot families" in a town, with names like "Asdf One" "Asdf Two" and so on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by asp1988

Also, how does a bot look? If you're going solely off armor choices, well than thats just as implausible as naming conventions...

Before insignia, every last one wore undyed tattoos, probably from Lion's Arch. And before the random assignation of features by the character creation screen, every last one was that default blonde.

But of course, as several people have mentioned, nobody really notices bots until they start running their scripts en masse on location.

HawkofStorms · Feb 22, 2008, 03:20 AM // 03:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosyfiep

I would assume that the bots have a sort of 'guild' that levels them up so the can go botting....since I doubt that there is just one person doing it---so it would be easy for there to be a leader (or leaders) who run the newbie bots to the area where they will be botting, levels them up there as well; runs them to the armor spot and then lets them bot...
if this is the case there would be no reason to ever see the bots before they start their botting careers.

That is correct. There was once a post here on guru (like 2 years ago, its lost in the pile of threads by now) showing a Warrior/Monk runner who was partied with 4-5 Mo/W bots who were like lvl 8 who just sat there. They were in the desert to be ascended and instantly get lvl 20 and get attribute points. The runner, who was a real human being, admited that he was setting up the bots.

@Asp, you can definately distinguish bots (after all, if A.net can't, then how do they ever ban them?). Bots always use signposts to move through towns and run in predetermined patterns. For proof, once in Droks, I saw a guy glitch one of the roaming NPC guards in the town. He made the guard get stuck dirrectly in the path that all the bots take to leave the area and farm the troll cave. In about 15 miniutes, around 40 Mo/Ws were body blocked by this one Dwarven guard (since NPCs can body block in town, while player characters can be walked through) who was just standing there. If they were real people, they could have easily taken one step to the left to walk around him and get out of town. They didn't, and just stood there trying to walk straight forward until the next game update rebooted the town or the bot admin logged the bot off.

Hott Bill · Feb 22, 2008, 03:22 AM // 03:22

The bots have built in guides for leveling. They can complete the easy quests with henchmen and get to level 20. So basically you load the bot and it levels to 20 by itself then farms.

crazybanshee · Feb 22, 2008, 04:30 AM // 04:30

I imagine they start them in packs of 2 in pre, then groups of 4, never playing with anyone else until they're in their armor and leveled to where they can start botting. Really, if they've worked out the absolute minimum requirements to do what they need to do, it probably doesn't take more than a couple hours to get them set up to start botting.

Captain Miken · Feb 22, 2008, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hott Bill

The bots have built in guides for leveling. They can complete the easy quests with henchmen and get to level 20. So basically you load the bot and it levels to 20 by itself then farms.

Screenshot of the coding or it didn't happen.

/e/: blur the variables

hurdlebeast · Feb 22, 2008, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaic Annihilator

nightfall or just a pvp char

the pvp char's are to spam the site's name that farms gold; for instance, the infamous ugamegold bots that, btw, Anet has done a wonderful job of cleaning up.

Lykan · Feb 22, 2008, 06:24 AM // 06:24

They still come from prophecies, i saw a bunch in LA last week, a level 20 mo/w surrounded by 4 level 5 tattoed monks all with odd names.

Snow Bunny · Feb 22, 2008, 06:25 AM // 06:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by quickmonty

Mental retardation is not a choice. A person who is mentally retarded cannot decide to not be a "retard".

Very debatable