Can’t figure out how to quote, for some reason.
Anyway, first off, as for the suggestion that hypothetically if ArenaNet were to “ban” the ranger profession botting would disappear, I think that statement actually shows a lack of awareness. If you haven’t noticed that nearly just as many bots now are actually greatsword warriors as are rangers, you aren’t effectively identifying bots.
As for some anti-botting measures, a few potential ways to handle it come to mind. First is the notion that a majority of botting could likely be circumvented simply by implementing an automatic, instant ban for “players” who have received, let’s say, 5 botting reports. I mean, why not? Keep in mind that abusing the /report feature is a bannable offense under the game’s ToS, so it’s not like it would be practical to falsely report people for botting just to grief them, because once the player’s validity is confirmed and his ban appealed, all the players making false reports would be banned, so I think that would be a non-issue. Even though cases of griefing via report abuse would inevitably occur, having to ban a handful of players each day would certainly be a step up from having to ban thousands of bots each day instead. If we’re going to fight botting, then implementing a measure such as this would give players direct power over bots, and consequently, the power to moderate the game to a good degree. This would probably be the most direct, most significant as well as the most easy-to-implement anti-botting measure of all.
Another that comes to mind at this point is something like what FallenAdvent suggested above. Random verification. Have them automatically distributed among players who have been online for a matter of a few hours within the same day (not consecutive hours, which could be circumvented simply by having the bot scripts log off and then on again intermittently). Prompt players randomly, between, say, a minimum of two hours to a max of five hours. This would devastate the botting scripts, which would be prevented from logging on again for a few hours if they either fail to answer the prompt correctly or fail to respond at all. Worst (or rather best) of all, the bots would be booted in the middle of the night while botters are sleeping, which God knows they likely will be doing until 6PM the following day when their mom brings dinner up to their rooms, leaving a significant amount of downtime. What about players who are simply AFK when their prompt comes up? Well, don’t prompt players that haven’t had any keyboard input for 10+ seconds. Queue those players for a prompt to appear the moment they input again. This way you theoretically prevent bot scripts from being directed to AFK for an hour or two at a time when it’s most likely they’ll be prompted (because AFKing does not exempt a user from verification, it simply delays it). As for player convenience, it really wouldn’t be such a big deal. In a way it would kind of remind me of Guild Wars 1’s “please take a break” messages, and hey, maybe it would even encourage players to actually take a break.
As far as I can discern, a combination of both these measures would effectively destroy the botting and quickly, if not instantly, make it a humorous memory from the game’s launch. Most botting initiatives would be nipped in the bud by players — who currently report bots in droves but never actually taste the satisfying fruits of their efforts — and the few who ever somehow make it past player moderation would inevitably be shut down soon after by the automated verification system anyway.
Of course, ArenaNet probably thought of all this on day one and are probably already in the middle of implementing something similar or better. But still.
