Curse

TimberOwl · Mar 21, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Hehe, im standing in droks 7, american sever, near the exit to talus...

In the past seven minutes, ive seen a total of 233 Mo/w going out the exit... Lots of them got kinda caught in the henchies, and some ran into the wall untill they finally moved closer to the exit.. One even tried selling me something.. So, i accepted for a laugh, turns out, he stood there for 3 mins without offering anything for sale? so i whisp him with no thanks. But, he doesn't do away, infact he follows me to the rune trader and back, then to storage, all the time trying to open trade with me, untill i finally whisp him with fck off.... Ironically he doesn't bother me again? If it was a bot, why would it have responded to my insult and left me alone? Unless maybe its set up to recognise these things, ha, ill never know.

I tell you these bots are plague!

Beeline · Mar 21, 2006, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

And how would you? Do you have these accounts on your friends list? The sweatshop farmers (I refuse to call them bots because they do not fit the correct profile of a "bot") simply move to a new account if one is banned.

Then i ask you the same question, how do you know these are all sweatshop farmers like you say. I would offer a guess that your just repeating what Anet tell us regularly to make us think they are acting. I am stating my oppinions based on a little research and a lot of observing.

To just accept what Anet say that these are not real "hacks or bots" but merely account stealers is to be naive IMHO. These sites do exist, they do give hacks and cheats out for many diff MMORPG's GW being just one of them.

If you were to spend a few minutes observing Droknars international districts you might come to a different conclusion than just simply accepting what Anet tell us they are doing is true.

Interesting statements about how Anet have to tread a fine line when dealing with this kind of abuse, but i ask you - why has the answer to bot farming been nerfing the areas if Anet actively ban the bots? Why were farm bots working from Augury rock for over 2 months and finally they stop -: because they were banned NO, because Anet nerfed the area so it became un-solo farmable. Why did it take a week for the "sweatshop farmers" to re-appear in Droknars after having their patch in Augury nerfed, because it took the sweatshop farmers a week to figure a way to farm solo in droks... NO, because it took the hackers a week to re-code the farm bot. The very same day that Augury got nerfed the "Augury farm bot" dissapear from the hacker sites, and a week later a new farm bot appeared....

To be frank i do not accept them telling me they are doing something when all evidence from observations lead me to believe they have not banned anywhere nearly enough bot users and fair players continue to lose out.

Thargor · Mar 21, 2006, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Went to international dist1 Droks last night to see the monks on parade! After standing there for about 5 minutes i got an invite, OK so I accept it and the little girl monk runs out the door. She powers up her enchants and runs off, I wait to see what happens and after a minute i run after her, catch up to her in the troll cave and throw up Symbiosis! Symbiosis + 55Monk= Instant death lol. Instead of getting any response from her she goes into town and then runs back out again. I did this a total of 5 times and got no response in chat so finally just left. This was either a bot or a very forgiving and patient person.

Tonight I think I will try to get an invite again and be nice this time for the free drops. My thought here is that if the bots will invite us into a party then we are cutting their income in half. Not solving the problem but might as well slow them down if we can!

Jeremy Untouchable · Mar 21, 2006, 09:29 PM // 21:29

i was happy because it takes skills to 55 in the hydras, griffions were way to easy. and that gets boring. farming is something that anyone with the need for an item, (such as a green) and not the ablity to it find them selfs(maybe they dont have the skills to run in B/P groups) they will allways be looking for the next good loot and gold dropping spots

Lord Iowerth · Mar 21, 2006, 09:37 PM // 21:37

What Mimi says is the truth. A good 75-80% (rough figures from my own testing) have legitimate people behind the keyboard. Bad english speakers? Yes. Bots? No.

Now, granted, they are in sweatshops doing the same repeatitive farming runs over and over again ... but technically they are not violating any of the terms of service by doing so. THAT is why they haven't been banned.

Yes we know they sell the gold on EBay and other places, that violates TOS ... but until they can be caught doing that (much harder to detect than botting) they will continue to make the Talus Chute exit look like the Mo/W Indy 500.

Mimi Miyagi · Mar 21, 2006, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Iowerth

What Mimi says is the truth. A good 75-80% (rough figures from my own testing) have legitimate people behind the keyboard. Bad english speakers? Yes. Bots? No.

Now, granted, they are in sweatshops doing the same repeatitive farming runs over and over again ... but technically they are not violating any of the terms of service by doing so. THAT is why they haven't been banned.

Yes we know they sell the gold on EBay and other places, that violates TOS ... but until they can be caught doing that (much harder to detect than botting) they will continue to make the Talus Chute exit look like the Mo/W Indy 500.

Quoted for truth. I'm sure that some sweatshops have custom coded their own "bot" scripts, but they're not about to give them away, that would be shooting themselves in the foot.

And the farmers don't sell the gold - they give it to their boss who "launders" the gold and sells it via ebay. You can't do anything about the farmers unless you can definitely PROVE they are bots, not human controlled - and the sweatshop owners know how to circumvent any "checks".

Repetitive behavior doesn't neccessarily mean "bots" it more likely means bored farmers doing the same thing for 12 hours six days a week.

Jeremy Untouchable · Mar 21, 2006, 10:12 PM // 22:12

of over 40 monks that i saw only one would reply

Matsumi · Mar 21, 2006, 11:00 PM // 23:00

I'm sorry, but all these posts about sweat shops and what not, to me, is just starting to sound more and more unbelievable. The idea of a bunch of kids being stuck into a big room with expensive computers and internet connections farming their little hearts out on GW, with hardly any breaks or food and water is obsurd. For the tiny amount of profit they are making off GW gold/items sold for real money? I can hardly believe sweat shop owners would invest in all the computers/internet connections over something like child labor or anything else, just to get a few bucks a day. Doesn't seem likely, but bot programs built for farming does.

Dion Star · Mar 21, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matsumi

I'm sorry, but all these posts about sweat shops and what not, to me, is just starting to sound more and more unbelievable. The idea of a bunch of kids being stuck into a big room with expensive computers and internet connections farming their little hearts out on GW, with hardly any breaks or food and water is obsurd. For the tiny amount of profit they are making off GW gold/items sold for real money? I can hardly believe sweat shop owners would invest in all the computers/internet connections over something like child labor or anything else, just to get a few bucks a day. Doesn't seem likely, but bot programs built for farming does.

There has been some great TV programs about this and if you took the time to Google you would find many online articles.

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/news...?searchid=7804

There is also a great atrtical from NY times but you need to sign up to view it so I wont link it.

The Second Foundation

TheMosesPHD · Mar 21, 2006, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corinthian

Using a bot is not cheating. Using a godmode or speedhack is. Bot, or macro if you like, is just there to assist you to do tedious tasks over and over again. I personally do not use bots because I'm not into farming, I'm into PvP. And I haven't seen any cheaters so far.

Um...it's not cheating? Guild Wars is a game meant to be played by human beings, not computer macros. Using a farming bot in GW is just as much cheating as it is to use an aimbot in a first person shooter. It's cheating because you're using something other than your own skill/time/concetration to advance yourself in the game.

Matsumi · Mar 21, 2006, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Ok, well, I will try doing some more research into this type of idea, that article didn't really support any hard proof to me. It would be interesting to find out where this type of thing goes on at as well. Off to researching I go...

Well, I stand corrected, sorry. After reading this article which was very good.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/...ess/gaming.php

Lord Iowerth · Mar 21, 2006, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matsumi

<snip>It would be interesting to find out where this type of thing goes on at as well.</snip>

China, for the most part. Our dollar goes such a long way there, that the "couple of bucks" they seem to make from the sales on our side (less than an hour's work for most of us) is proportionally more in their own currency, sometimes a week's pay depending. There is alot of information out there on it, i've no doubt you'll be able to find more than you wanted

TheMosesPHD · Mar 21, 2006, 11:28 PM // 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matsumi

I'm sorry, but all these posts about sweat shops and what not, to me, is just starting to sound more and more unbelievable. The idea of a bunch of kids being stuck into a big room with expensive computers and internet connections farming their little hearts out on GW, with hardly any breaks or food and water is obsurd. For the tiny amount of profit they are making off GW gold/items sold for real money? I can hardly believe sweat shop owners would invest in all the computers/internet connections over something like child labor or anything else, just to get a few bucks a day. Doesn't seem likely, but bot programs built for farming does.

They use sweatshops to make clothes, they use sweatshops to make toys, why wouldn't they use sweatshops to exploit the game. Virtual gold sweatshops actually make much more than a few bucks a day. They actually make much more profit than other sweatshops. See all they have to do is initially buy the computers, and pay a small upkeep cost each month for internet connections, add on tiny wages to all their workers and they don't have to pay for much else. Other sweatshops that make clothes or toys or anything else have to pay for a lot more including a constant stream of new supplies/materials, constant stream of transportation for both incoming supplies and out-going products, occassional upkeep of machinery, and of course the tiny wages.
I don't even wanna know the exact ammount of their profit but it's definitely off the charts in comparison to any other business I can think of.

Loviatar · Mar 21, 2006, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matsumi

I'm sorry, but all these posts about sweat shops and what not, to me, is just starting to sound more and more unbelievable. The idea of a bunch of kids being stuck into a big room with expensive computers and internet connections farming their little hearts out on GW, with hardly any breaks or food and water is obsurd..

i am honestly happy that you have a standard of living that does not even admit the possibility of living standards so low that adults (not kids) would do this for 12-15 hours a day to make what is for them a living wage.

enough for basic food and shelter for them and family.

50 cents an hour over there is enough to keep someone alive and a roof over their heads.

they would not trust little kids with the equipment but young adults and adults yes.

they make a bare living instead of starving and each higher layer makes a better living and the people that run it are rich.

proven by enough people so it is not simply a myth

Mustache Mayhem · Mar 21, 2006, 11:42 PM // 23:42

why do you think these old guys retire overseas- they take thier little 500 dollars a month and live like king kong over there.. unless they end up in russia and get sold like in hostel

Diablo™ · Mar 21, 2006, 11:46 PM // 23:46

I think Anet should do what Valve did, call in the FBI and have them hunt down these relentless ebaying-bottish sweatshop farmers like grown-ups.

Sirkaze · Mar 22, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

I remeber when 55hp monk's started farming in aungery rock,at one time all the districts were full with bot's lol

volsungxiii · Mar 22, 2006, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Stand by the Talus Chute exit in Drok's Forge late at night. You see a stream of monks in an ant-like fashion entering and exiting the area. Bots galore.

No way there are humanl players...

Legit, honest players are the ones that really suffer. These bot programs? Well the users of these get to sell in-game gold for real cash on Ebay.

Mimi Miyagi · Mar 22, 2006, 09:00 AM // 09:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diablo™

I think Anet should do what Valve did, call in the FBI and have them hunt down these relentless ebaying-bottish sweatshop farmers like grown-ups.

Sorry, the FBI has no jurisdiction over in China. All they can do is complain - if the host country (China for example) doesn't have any laws against this behavior, there is little anyone can do about it, except to ban accounts.

strcpy · Mar 22, 2006, 09:17 AM // 09:17

The problem is that if you can solo it, it's bot'able - period.

If you want to allow solo farming you will never stop them, you will never slow them down, there is nothing you can do about it. Testing tools available are good enough that you can automate testing (otherwise known as "botting"), even with graphical interfaces such as GW.

It's like free speech (or many other freedoms) - you either allow the actions to happen, including stuff you do not like, or you stop it altogether.

All it takes in one botter to figure it out. Once that one does it is all a matter of copying what that one does.

There has been much more money, much more people, much more brain-power expended on copy protection. Yet Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion was cracked before you could download the whole torrent. In less than one day how many thousands of dollars was rendered useless?

I can assure you that the copy protection is MUCH more difficult than a botter. I've written enough testing suites that I could fairly easily bot all my farming runs with some standard testing tools. I would guess a month or two to get most of the spawn possibilities down, another month or two to test it enough to be of "commercial" quality. After that it would take a *major* change (much more major than the AI update) to take more than a week or so to fix/test.

No, I don't like it. It ruins the game for those of us who actually play the game. It ticks me off the see what you describe. About all Anet could do is pay several people a full time salary (along with overhead) to search them out, investigate, and ban (and that is very expensive). I know I've followed a bot's path fairly closely in the past (most effecient is most effecient - I didn't know it was a bot path), I assume I will again. They have to balance screwing legitimate players and stopping the bots. Though the fact that I played missions (many times the blinking ones on my map), switched characters, and all sorts of other things *should* invalidate me being a bot - but anything can be automated to get around the filters.