Guild Wars 2

I’d heard in-game from other players that we can report the AFKers as “botting”…

But then, when I mentioned it in an overflow, people started verbally accusing me of “spreading lies” and “impersonating an ArenaNet employee” and threatening to ban me.

So is it inappropriate to report the AFKers as bots?

What’s the official stance?
I don’t want to be banned for “false claims”.

Edit: Sorry, I wasn’t clear. This is about people that AFK at the Knight events (taking up slots in event) with the intent to gain rewards with no effort or gameplay.

AFKing and Botting are separate issues. They can be combined, but one doesn’t mean the other is taking place.

You can AFK without a bot by just wiggling your character every 20 minutes or so.
On the other hand, you can use a bot to wiggle the character for you.

It would be difficult if not impossible for a player to tell the difference and properly report it.

Hey! I thought that these events were about marking a boss and go afk, I was wrong?

Boysenberry.1869:

AFKing and Botting are separate issues. They can be combined, but one doesn’t mean the other is taking place.

You can AFK without a bot by just wiggling your character every 20 minutes or so.
On the other hand, you can use a bot to wiggle the character for you.

It would be difficult if not impossible for a player to tell the difference and properly report it.

In this case, you can hit “1” and attack the boss at the start. Then leave.

The AFK time-out is longer than 15 minutes, so the AFKers will get the reward when they come back (and can get a free ride to the Scarlet battle as well).

It’s basically getting rewards for zero effort.

ArenaNet has banned people for a Wintersday crafting/salvaging “exploit” in the past… And I’d argue that the AFKing is worse.

Since, well, AFKers are essentially taking up slots that could be filled by actual participants.

6 Minutes to Knightfall seems impossible with AFKers and such.

If one would do no damage to the knights and just rez the whole fight, would you consider that as “AFK” as well, or indirectly AFK, or indirectly dealing damage through proxy? XD

Steel Fenrir.2791:

If one would do no damage to the knights and just rez the whole fight, would you consider that as “AFK” as well, or indirectly AFK, or indirectly dealing damage through proxy? XD

No, I wouldn’t consider that AFK. They’d be moving their character around and hitting buttons..

AFK would be where their character would just stand still after an initial attack on the Knight.

There has been (confirmed) case of a person getting suspended for afking as a ranger with a pet on aggro. On the other hand, there was never a definite stance from Anet on AFK issue (because they’d have to be consistent then, which would end in mass bans to a lot of people, most of whose would not be doing anything they should get suspended for).

On a more general level, they have no motivation to make an official statement about anything, other than enjoying cookies, which might cost them a few players who own organic food stores in Portland.

Making any sort of statement that would shed any sort of light on what they value and believe in would mean they would alienate some of their players, present company included.

I wish they would. There are so many times we create these 1000+ response posts where we all go back and forth on an issue, and they could squash it all by just stating where they stand on the issue, or why they felt it necessary to make a change that had no game play effect (for example). They won’t because so long as we don’t know what they are thinking, we still keep thinking they secretly think like us, and things will get better, so in the meantime, here’s another $10 for a character slot.

I’d love an official response on AFK. I’d like an official response on many things.

Collaborative.

Just take several screenshots or a video of players afking and send them via email to exploits@arena.net . Explain in the email that you feel grieved by those players because they make it harder for you to enjoy the content.

Dont use the in game report function.

its not botting to afk.

Charak.9761:

its not botting to afk.

It IS botting. I’ve seen players in the Scarlet fight afking without wearing armor and die constantly. Then other players waste time ressing them and getting themselves killed. Are these afk/leechers not getting rewards? Their toons are getting rewards without player intervention how’s that NOT botting?

If you ever see afk/leechers just report them and hope anet does something about it.

You can complain all you’d like, throw all the information you want. Afking isn’t botting.

You can’t blame players for bad game design, why do you think its better to instance content… so you can control who shows up. Open world will always have these problems, and will continue to have these problems if they are constantly made, but it’s to simple to design, cheap to produce, so this is what you get for the rest of gw2.

But nonetheless, afking isn’t botting.

AFKing by itself isn’t against the rules or considered botting, however it has been linked to botting in the past. At the start of the game, common reasons for getting suspended were having pets, turrets or AoEs on auto cast during events while AFK.

What event AFKers are doing however is exploiting a weak contribution system while griefing other players due to how scaling works. If ArenaNet really wanted to, they could ban event AFKers for whatever reason they wanted to. I wouldn’t expect any bans however, only a new contribution system.

Healix.5819:

AFKing by itself isn’t against the rules or considered botting, however it has been linked to botting in the past. At the start of the game, common reasons for getting suspended were having pets, turrets or AoEs on auto cast during events while AFK.

What event AFKers are doing however is exploiting a weak contribution system while griefing other players due to how scaling works. If ArenaNet really wanted to, they could ban event AFKers for whatever reason they wanted to. I wouldn’t expect any bans however, only a new contribution system.

AFKing is the exactly the same as “extended unattended game play” which is against the rules. If you stand in one place, doing absolutely nothing, that is unattended game play. If you where to stand there, not moving, not contributing at all, but typing in chat, that would not be AFKing. Same as using the TP or anything else in game.
If some one wants to leech off the other players, hits the knight then just stands to the side chatting or using the TP, they would be a jerk, but not breaking the rules. If they did the same thing but u=instead just stood in one spot, not using the mouse or keyboard at all, that is “extended unattended game play” and they should be removed from the game. BTW, notice the word “extended” there, going to the bathroom, answering the phone or the door for a few minutes is one thing, standing there for an hour is another and should be punished.

I’m still wondering how ‘using the options on turrets and pets implemented by Anet themselves’ is actually against the rules, and now you’re telling me that ‘not being behind your pc and not doing anything’ is a bannable offense as well?

Guess I’d better not answer the door or get a drink then, because I might end up losing my account!

An official stance on this would just tell where Anet draws the line. Wich would tell anyone excactly how far they could go. As we can see around in this forum, people have different opinions, some exploit/abuse, some doesnt really care, and some think that anyone who lack 1% damage is leeching. And I have seen in chat that some are “bot-hunting” to find somebody to report.
I think I maybe have seen botting once, thats all. A player fell off a destroyed bridge and respawned at nearest wp, repeatedly for 5 min or so. Later I saw the same player with completely normal behaviour as far as I could see. Botter? Dont know.
The last month or so, there have been an increase in rubberbanding, wich looks like teleporting sometimes. both players and npc’s do this.

Charak.9761:

You can’t blame players for bad game design

Try explaining that to everyone banned from crafting/salvaging Wintersday items.

See: http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/snowflake-exploit-results-in-bans-confusion/

Of course, if ArenaNet did come out in support of AFKing, that would just further encourage people to do it. Possibly causing further issues in future events.

I think they really need to do something to discourage/prevent it in the future.

Ultimately, the AFKers are griefing the rest of us.
They’re making the game less enjoyable.

What worries me is how you police/distinguish legitimate abuse from innocent instances. I sometimes need to brb while doing the event. Maybe dinner’s ready, I have to put in the laundry, etc. I’ve never been idle during the event for more than 5-8 minutes.

Considering you can’t leave and re-enter the event when you’re back, and the frequency of chances you have to get into the Prime holo fight while you’re playing (you might only have time to sit in for 1-3 instances, and of those, some may not even make it to the holo), I don’t think it is unreasonable to take the brb and come back to the event.

How do you catch legitimate abusers without punishing people who just had to step out for a bit? Completely idling without armor is gross, but I wouldn’t scythe everyone who idles just to catch the (hopefully) few who abuse it.

That being said, if you can, reporting the really blatant trolls isn’t bad (like the no-armor folks). But keep in mind there’s a lot of legitimately innocent people you might catch if you just assume everyone not participating is leeching.

Hisuichan.7983:

What worries me is how you police/distinguish legitimate abuse from innocent instances. I sometimes need to brb while doing the event. Maybe dinner’s ready, I have to put in the laundry, etc. I’ve never been idle during the event for more than 5-8 minutes.

Considering you can’t leave and re-enter the event when you’re back, and the frequency of chances you have to get into the Prime holo fight while you’re playing (you might only have time to sit in for 1-3 instances, and of those, some may not even make it to the holo), I don’t think it is unreasonable to take the brb and come back to the event.

It happens that you afk for a few minutes during the event. I think you can put in your laundry before or after the event, if dinner is ready, you wont finish it before the event anyways. I think, if you just have to afk for a couple of minutes and want to resume the fight afterwards, at least get out of the event range (waypoint or autorun away from the event), so you dont scale up the event for others. The humble thing to do would be to to log out to character select because i think if you dont participate in the full event, you shouldnt get full credit for it.

Anet can’t even clarify that using a macro for an emote is against their ‘1 button press’ rule. They have rules against automated gameplay yet make turrets and ranger pets able to do just that.

What makes you think an official statement will remove grey areas and give players a clear guideline?

If anything, they keep things vague intentionally so they can bend the rules more easily.

Xenlai.8694:

Charak.9761:

its not botting to afk.

It IS botting. I’ve seen players in the Scarlet fight afking without wearing armor and die constantly. Then other players waste time ressing them and getting themselves killed. Are these afk/leechers not getting rewards? Their toons are getting rewards without player intervention how’s that NOT botting?

If you ever see afk/leechers just report them and hope anet does something about it.

sorry to say, though you may not understand botting at all. botting is when someone uses an external program to do or make certain things happen. the person standing around without any armor isn’t botting, they’re leaching off of the event. that’s why they’re afk. if they were botting from the event they would most like stand in the back and use a program to dodge the lightning from time to time or just dodge around like crazy like a chicken with it’s head cut off >.<

Minos.5168:

It’s basically getting rewards for zero effort.

ArenaNet has banned people for a Wintersday crafting/salvaging “exploit” in the past… And I’d argue that the AFKing is worse.

Well, setting morality aside, I think few exploits are as dangerous as economy hacks, I’ve seen more than one game that was swiftly destroyed by hyperinflation or other economic trauma…

AFKers, while negative, have a much more limited, contained impact on the game.

Minos.5168:

Try explaining that to everyone banned from crafting/salvaging Wintersday items.

See: http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/snowflake-exploit-results-in-bans-confusion/

Of course, if ArenaNet did come out in support of AFKing, that would just further encourage people to do it. Possibly causing further issues in future events.

I think they really need to do something to discourage/prevent it in the future.

Ultimately, the AFKers are griefing the rest of us.
They’re making the game less enjoyable.

Regarding the wintersday, How was that not obvious to those players? If you can in essence craft something and be guaranteed an INCREASED amount of salvaged objects from it then something is obviously seriously wrong and you should take a long and hard ponder wether or not it is worth risking it. Then when those players chose to repeatedly use it to pretty much just conjure up free ectos, it is just plain obvious they knew what they were doing and they expected to get away with it. Serves them right.

You then have the AFKers during this event, The content itself promoted AFKing for the first couple of days as the achievements were a milage easier to get merely by not participating in the fight.

That said if afking is griefing, then we’re going up into MOBA community levels of ludicrousness.

voidwater.2064:

Minos.5168:

It’s basically getting rewards for zero effort.

ArenaNet has banned people for a Wintersday crafting/salvaging “exploit” in the past… And I’d argue that the AFKing is worse.

Well, setting morality aside, I think few exploits are as dangerous as economy hacks, I’ve seen more than one game that was swiftly destroyed by hyperinflation or other economic trauma…

And yet Anet does absolutely nothing about market players, that are the one of the main causes of accelerating wealth differential between the haves minority and average have nots players.

When players are blatantly pushing their AFK’ness in your face, time after time, it’s time for ANET to do something.

When the AFK’er flaunts his ability to AFK – all lose. The server’s honor is besmirched.

Out of all the pics I took of people standing afk at different times during the events, none speak as strongly as this one.

atheria.2837:

When players are blatantly pushing their AFK’ness in your face, time after time, it’s time for ANET to do something.

Yes, it may be, but the answer is not to make afking a bannable offense. Make it impossible to afk during an event and get credit for example.

atheria.2837:

When players are blatantly pushing their AFK’ness in your face, time after time, it’s time for ANET to do something.

When the AFK’er flaunts his ability to AFK – all lose. The server’s honor is besmirched.

Out of all the pics I took of people standing afk at different times during the events, none speak as strongly as this one.

I hope you did report him. No defense there at all and since he admitted it, anet should have just suspended him without question.

atheria.2837:

The server’s honor is besmirched.

Oh no, not the server’s honor!

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

I hope you did report him. No defense there at all and since he admitted it, anet should have just suspended him without question.

Suspended for what, exactly?

Astralporing.1957:

voidwater.2064:

Minos.5168:

It’s basically getting rewards for zero effort.

ArenaNet has banned people for a Wintersday crafting/salvaging “exploit” in the past… And I’d argue that the AFKing is worse.

Well, setting morality aside, I think few exploits are as dangerous as economy hacks, I’ve seen more than one game that was swiftly destroyed by hyperinflation or other economic trauma…

And yet Anet does absolutely nothing about market players, that are the one of the main causes of accelerating wealth differential between the haves minority and average have nots players.

If you mean successful speculators or investors, that’s not cheating/hacking, and doesn’t break the economy.

Think duping or money printing. Quite fun if you can keep it to yourself, but totally destructive if enough people know how.

So what exactly is the difference between hitting 1 and going afk and hitting 1 then sitting there at my keyboard? It’s not like i’m in any danger, my dps is the same if i’m there or not.

The game is poorly designed that is the real problem here. People are just taking it out on the players instead of Anet.

Anet made their main selling point that everyone gets equal rewards and xp no matter how much they participate in an event. That was the whole premise of this game. You would literally need to rebuild the game from the ground up to change this.

If Anet starts banning people for playing the game exactly as they advertised it then I suspect the player base would quickly shrink.

Reporting people for afking in open world events seriously? If anet didn’t want people to Afk they would have made this instanced content. Anything goes in these open world events. What’s next reporting low levels or people auto attacking? You guys clearly can’t see this is an issue with open world events

Well… Contrary to what people are saying, specific unnamed ANet staff members were going around and issuing bans for AFKers. This was back in the first phase of Attack on Lion’s Arch though. I don’t know what their stance is now, since I have yet to see that employee in Lion’s Arch.

But yeah, people have been banned for AFKing.

If i have to go afk to take a leak, grab the phone or refill my coffee then I am going to. No game is going to dictate to me when I can and cant go afk because real life calls. This is an oversight on Anets part where they should have implemented an autoboot system for afking too long. How about the employee that failed to integrate this into the system gets a suspension from work? Whoever was banned for afking should have their accounts reinstated because this is becoming a total joke.
Why not ban all the afker’s in all the cities while they’re at it? morons…

You cannot ban an afker. And if so there should be a long investigation into it. We are human and things may occur in our personal life. I myself have done it a few times rushing to work or even fell asleep laying next to my son cause he wants me to lay with him so the Cookie Monster don’t eat him. I’m 3 legendaries in and put many hours in all it’s modes just to be banned for simply forgetting. Stuff happens and it’s not the norm for me at least. It’s hard to even prove someone is afk intentionally so to be marked guilty until proven innocent is just plain wrong.

Boysenberry.1869:

AFKing and Botting are separate issues. They can be combined, but one doesn’t mean the other is taking place.

You can AFK without a bot by just wiggling your character every 20 minutes or so.
On the other hand, you can use a bot to wiggle the character for you.

It would be difficult if not impossible for a player to tell the difference and properly report it.

We know that afking is not the same as botting. The point is that the list of options to report someone for is limited, so botting gets used as the “other” category. Here is an example where a dev said to use the botting option to report someone for an offence other than botting.
The question that remains is whether or not we should be reporting afkers at all.

EDIT: Found a case where they said to report afkers as botting, though it is in reference to PvP and so not entirely applicable.

I have a newborn baby…whenever she start crying and I have to quickly run up stair, should I have to worry about be suspended?

Minos.5168:

I’d heard in-game from other players that we can report the AFKers as “botting”…

But then, when I mentioned it in an overflow, people started verbally accusing me of “spreading lies” and “impersonating an ArenaNet employee” and threatening to ban me.

So is it inappropriate to report the AFKers as bots?

What’s the official stance?
I don’t want to be banned for “false claims”.

Edit: Sorry, I wasn’t clear. This is about people that AFK at the Knight events (taking up slots in event) with the intent to gain rewards with no effort or gameplay.

I’m responsible for this one, I think. It was a snarky response to overly long, heated, and increasingly stupid argument, piggy-backing off of a legitimate reporting issue: If you see someone sitting about farming things just by their presence, it is quite possible that they are being script-driven (something that only requires a bit of input every hour doesn’t take a lot of programming know-how) and feeding a larger bot-farming operation. As such, it could be reported.

Hisuichan.7983:

What worries me is how you police/distinguish legitimate abuse from innocent instances. I sometimes need to brb while doing the event. Maybe dinner’s ready, I have to put in the laundry, etc. I’ve never been idle during the event for more than 5-8 minutes.

Considering you can’t leave and re-enter the event when you’re back, and the frequency of chances you have to get into the Prime holo fight while you’re playing (you might only have time to sit in for 1-3 instances, and of those, some may not even make it to the holo), I don’t think it is unreasonable to take the brb and come back to the event.

How do you catch legitimate abusers without punishing people who just had to step out for a bit? Completely idling without armor is gross, but I wouldn’t scythe everyone who idles just to catch the (hopefully) few who abuse it.

That being said, if you can, reporting the really blatant trolls isn’t bad (like the no-armor folks). But keep in mind there’s a lot of legitimately innocent people you might catch if you just assume everyone not participating is leeching.

You’re correct to be concerned. You look for patterns. Someone who gets momentarily distracted isn’t running in and out the door every hour on the hour and then sitting at said doorway. If it does happen, but only once, you can give them the benefit of the doubt.

A.Nets stance on this topic is exactly what you see.

Nothing, they don’t care.

Botting requires a 3rd party program to do things on your behalf while you are away. Leaving the computer running with GW2 open isn’t botting, even though it gives other users hell in this case. It’s leeching, not botting.

kokiman.2364:

A.Nets stance on this topic is exactly what you see.

Nothing, they don’t care.

Their stance seems to be split. One one hand none of them comments on it. On the other, some of the staff were seen running around Lion’s Arch during the previous event arch, booting and suspending people who were AFK.

I love the smell of frontier justice in the morning.

Minos.5168:

Boysenberry.1869:

AFKing and Botting are separate issues. They can be combined, but one doesn’t mean the other is taking place.

You can AFK without a bot by just wiggling your character every 20 minutes or so.
On the other hand, you can use a bot to wiggle the character for you.

It would be difficult if not impossible for a player to tell the difference and properly report it.

In this case, you can hit “1” and attack the boss at the start. Then leave.

The AFK time-out is longer than 15 minutes, so the AFKers will get the reward when they come back (and can get a free ride to the Scarlet battle as well).

It’s basically getting rewards for zero effort.

ArenaNet has banned people for a Wintersday crafting/salvaging “exploit” in the past… And I’d argue that the AFKing is worse.

Since, well, AFKers are essentially taking up slots that could be filled by actual participants.

6 Minutes to Knightfall seems impossible with AFKers and such.

You can make the argument, you’d be wrong, but you could make it. The crafting exploit was literally duping. It was copying an item to make unlimited profit. AFKers are a minor nuisance getting minor rewards.

AFKers are not ruining your chances to get 6MtK. ANet and their inability to make the event work properly in a timely fashion is what ruined your chances to get 6MtK.

There are a number of people in this thread who aren’t understanding how bad some others are. When you run up to get your baby or put out a fire or let the cat in, it doesn’t take you a week to do it.

There are players on Tarnished Coast who have been afk at the blue knight for over a week. The NPCs sometimes rez them, players sometimes rez them, and they enter combat with the menders and aethers around often enough that they don’t ever AFK time out. I could name names, but I have already reported them in-game. Botting was the closest thing.

EDIT: When I say ‘enter combat’, I mean something attacks them and then the other players around kill it. The AFKer doesn’t do anything. Ever.

Magnus Godrik.5841:

It’s hard to even prove someone is afk intentionally so to be marked guilty until proven innocent is just plain wrong.

Personally, I think removing your character’s armour to avoid reparation costs and placing him in the exact same spot near the Static Knight on each fight for multiple days is a fairly strong indicator that is intentional. So is bragging about it in map chat afterwards saying that “they won’t do anything about it”.

The problem is not how often people AFK, because they do it only once. The problem is that it lasts for multiple hours/days, in precise key spots. It’s not the usual ‘brb phone’, it’s targeted, repetitive, and intentional. I’m not even sure you can call this AFK since the character is replaced manually in the same spot after each event.

I do not think AFKing itself is an offence (stuff happens), but griefing definitely is. And this kind of planned and repeated behaviour, is griefing :

Let’s get some definitions straight here.

What is botting?
Botting is using a second-party software that issues commands that are then executed in game so that the user doesn’t have to be physically present and control his or her avatar.

Is AFKing botting?
With that definition in place, no AFKing is not botting, because it doesn’t require a second-party software.

Is auto-running into walls botting?
The same applies here as with AFKing. As long as they are not using second-party software, they are not botting.

Should AFKing or auto-running be bannable reasons
No. At least not on their own. You can not ban people simply for being away from keyboard, Most of the time their AFKing doesn’t even affect other people.
I myself like to afk through the Crab Toss activity, because even after all this time I find it a horrible game (personal taste.) The thing is, just by standing idly by, I’m not spoiling the game for anyone. If at all, it’ll be easier for them, because there’s one less person competing.

Is it okay to report people who are afking or auto-running?
Yes. Absolutely.
AFKing or auto-running won’t keep you logged into the game. People who afk intentionally have to take some measures that keep them logged in the game. These measures would either be coming back to the PC ins regular intervalls and moving their avatar or using an automated program (timed macro) to do it for them. Now the latter case would actually be considered botting.
The point is, there is no way for any player to see whether people who are AFKing excessively are using bots or not. But ANet can see it. And that’s why I think it’s okay to submit reports if you see people afking over a long period of time.

JBDanger.2603:

This is an oversight on Anets part where they should have implemented an autoboot system for afking too long.

They do, in fact, it just takes too long for these peoples’ liking (it’s at least an hour in PVE).

Well AFK-ing isn’t BOTTING, BUT it can be considerted LEECHING now and then depending where and in what case it happens. During the scarlet knights events of temple events it is leeching, not walways but often…

Where BOTTING means:
Ppl use other programs or scripts to keep working in an area consistently utilizing the same mechanics to farm/kill/travel thereby gaining benefit while not being behind a keyboard
Use of 3rd party programs or SCRIPTS is forbidden by the EULA wether or not it gives players an (unfair) advantage over other players.
it differs from leeching:

LEECHING is the act of parking a character without spending any effort in cooperating in the progress of an event, dungeon, or any other content.
(Mis-)Using the standard mechanics of the world, just being asocial and generally deminishing the (game-)experience for others, just for own benefit. This is generally not punished… In a social environment this could/should be countered by massive blocking by other players, denying them acces to chat and LFG’s with ppl who do play fair, but this is never done… In practice this could be seen as a breach of the code of conduct (Fair Play) and therefore be punishable… But how do you differ between ppl who do it constantly and someone who was called away from KB by parents or a parent who needs to help out with the children…. So this is extremely difficult to check…

So my guess would be A-net would be against it but has no good means to track and trace perpetrators… And therefore cannot act upon it.

And I’ve been kicked out of lion’s arch (before whole attack anyways) so often just standing around looking nice needing to cook, walk the dog or putting my daughter to bed…. Now it also happens only in gendarran fields

And it’s afk-ing, not leeching or botting in my case. I sometimes just do n’t make the time to log out, even when it’s just a simple alt+F4… most of the times I just thing well I’ll be back very soon…. And I’m back way later then previously expected.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Let’s get some definitions straight here.

What is botting?
Botting is using a second-party software that issues commands that are then executed in game so that the user doesn’t have to be physically present and control his or her avatar.

Just from the context of wanting definitions to be straight, it’s third-party. Your client and ANet’s server are the first two parties. The third party program is a program outside of both of them able to cause changes within them. That is the #1 reason botting is illegal.

Kal Spiro.9745:

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Let’s get some definitions straight here.

What is botting?
Botting is using a second-party software that issues commands that are then executed in game so that the user doesn’t have to be physically present and control his or her avatar.

Just from the context of wanting definitions to be straight, it’s third-party. Your client and ANet’s server are the first two parties. The third party program is a program outside of both of them able to cause changes within them. That is the #1 reason botting is illegal.

My understanding (note: not knowledge, as I haven’t used such software) is that “bots” are just third party applications that interact with the game in a systematic way. (Simulation particular key presses or mouse movements.)

The reason botting is detectable is that it’s generally a pre-programmed pattern at specific intervals, whereas a normal human would be more random with their key-presses.

The third-party software does basically what a macro would do (but with lots of repetitions). It doesn’t have some weird way of interfacing with the game servers without the game, it basically just simulates keyboard and mouse movements.

There was an argument by some ANet staff during the citizen rescue events (when they were actively kicking AFK users from the maps) that using a pre-defined “push a key once an hour to defeat the AFK timeout” script could get you banned, because it is (in effect) botting.

So, in all honesty, how is a player returning to the keyboard once an hour any different? Or how is it differentiable to ArenaNet? Keeping in mind the fact that computer programs can, effectively, have a RNG to mimic “Oh, well, the player doesn’t always return at EXACTLY 15 minutes past the hour.”

People that report AFK players (most players go AFK occasionally during play) as botters have….issues.