Curse

Stockholm · Aug 13, 2006, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Thanks to Thallandor I came to read this really interessting artical.

http://www.player2player.net/index.p...e=print&sid=91

Quote
"He states that he received in excess of 2000 petitions related to botting from characters but was instructed to only investigate the petitions and not to terminate any accounts. In Lin’s affidavit, he states “NC made it clear to me that they didn’t want to ban the bots because it would mean lost revenue for them. I think that the bots make up anywhere from 30 to 40% of the community. So banning the bots would result in a 40% decrease in revenue. Everybody knew this, and accepted it.” The affidavit also states that NCSOFT engaged in deceptive practices related to preventing the proliferation of bots in Lineage 2. Lin refers back to a memo he received, “The memo said that there was to be now public acknowledgement of the botting problem. Any public questions about bots in the game were to be answered with: ‘we’re working on it.’” Lin’s account of banning players detailed, “Anytime a player started making too much noise about botting or anything like that we banned them. I thought it was unfair but that’s what we were told to do. No player was allowed to talk about bots in the forums, or name a person that was botting. When a player always petitioned us, we would call them a “pet” and sometimes we banned them because they would rally other players to petition us about bots. We really couldn’t have that.”
End Quote

This is just like GW, ban a few bot's just to make it look like they are working on it.

Thanks for the link Thallandor.

ubermancer · Aug 13, 2006, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Guild Wars does not check for memory hooking.

That alone assures me that they have NO intention of stopping botting.

On the flip side, they have created a game where botting does not really hurt anyone.

In the end, Id much rather prefer that they simply sell ingame gold in their store...

ubermancer · Aug 13, 2006, 03:05 PM // 15:05

Okay before people flood this thread with 'zomg what is memory hooking' posts let me explain.

The short of the long is that it is how a botting program (like Requia) is able to directly read the memory in which Guild Wars runs. They can then simply (after some groundwork) call a function to target a merchant, run up to him, ID and sell all their goods, and run out to the zone (contrary to the wall trick that lesser bots use in Elona to find the merchant). Most people dont recognize these bots as bots, instead believing them to be legit farmers.

It is also possible to stop this sort of botting and cheating (as it has other cheating applications) dead in its tracks. ANet has not taken the requisite steps. In contrast, WoW has since day one. (and I assure you, botting on WoW is something thats only really feasible due to a few quite bright people who managed to circumvent these extensive measures)

In contrast, bots written in au3 are limited to keyboard and mouse input, and are only able to gain input by observing what colors what pixels are on the monitor. These bots also mandate constant focus on the game while games that use memory hooking dont.

Once upon a time I was told quite explicitly from a few contacts I had in ANet about their 'anti botting measures' which sounded quite heavy duty. They outlined things like a silent observer in the client that used complex pattern recognition huerestics to monitor a player, and then ultimately (and spontaneously) contact the server should they find something... hiding this exchange of information in the noise of normal play. However, it turns out that this isnt true, and GW's weapons against bots are utterly lackluster.

I believe its more likely that they periodically ban accounts from the botters not as a way to dissuade them, but rather to get more profit...

Again. Just sell the gold in your store at this point.

Timmy Shinobi · Aug 13, 2006, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Wow! That is one big issue but anyway, what ever happened to the lawsuit? Who won?

Stockholm · Aug 13, 2006, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Have not been able to find anything yet, might not been a court hearing yet Class act suits can take years before a court date is set.