Guild Wars 2

10k in the last few weeks he said.
Proof AN does more than Blizzard?
I’m just giving you a hard time, hehe.

Actions>words ArenaNet, let’s see this in practice.

Not to be a kitten, but I’ll believe the bot problem is being addressed when the value of dropped crafting mats starts going back up. 400-skill dropped mats shouldn’t be selling for 17c.

Great post and love the sound of: “more awesome stuff to do at level 80”! Not that I doubted that Arenanet was working on all these things of course.

I’ve noticed a large drop off of bots this past week, fwiw. Small sample.

I barely see the random gold seller anymore if at all, which is a great first step.

Bots are slowly turning rarer at least in WvW, I will keep reporting them in hopes they keep getting reduced.

As for the article goes, sounds very one sided lol, if he thinks a guild with KKK is racist, he would think WoW community is the KKK itself, or the Nazis party as going there and not seeing a kitten racist joke or sexist comment is like not seeing a kitten Tauren paladin in Ogrimar lol.

“Not to be a kitten, but I’ll believe the bot problem is being addressed when the value of dropped crafting mats starts going back up. 400-skill dropped mats shouldn’t be selling for 17c.”

Bots aren’t the only reason for the low value of crafting mats, hopefully that’s another area that will be addressed, but its part of some interrelated issues to do with the economy as a whole I reckon – for instance its already cheaper to buy many things on the market than to buy the materials needed to craft them and one wouldn’t want to exacerbate that.

Swag.4923:

Not to be a dick, but I’ll believe the bot problem is being addressed when the value of dropped crafting mats starts going back up. 400-skill dropped mats shouldn’t be selling for 17c.

Claws/Bones aren’t ever going to be worth anything until recipes use them. Right now, the gear they craft isn’t in high demand, and that’s all they’re really used for. They also drop a lot in Orr, the place to farm, so they’re over-saturated.

in reference to the racist names issue mentioned in the article,
i saw an afro-haired, dark skinned human named “Kneegroww” (might have missed some e’s and w’s there, he had a few) stood next to the Mystic Forge in LA for ages,
he was level 36.

Blatant.

+1 to Anet for Operation bot destruction.

A company can’t really do much better than hiring a full team just to ban bots.
I salute you Anet.

Over the past week about half of the bots I had been keeping track of have become continuously offline (I block before I report so I report more easily and keep tabs). The problem is that I was reporting every day for up to two weeks before I saw any change.

I would really like to start seeing more GM’s in game. When Warcraft started I remember the GM’s in game when they would find a bot or “hacker” they would sometimes park them outside of a major city and transform them into some kind of “fuzzy animal” that couldn’t move. This way we knew that they atleast had GM’s in game watching and we knew they where there!

I am not saying AN has to do this type of thing, but to see a an actual AN employee in game would be a good feeling. (Or even when you report an issue you get to talk to a LIVE person)

Also IMO the Ranger nerf to Crossfire was because of the bots. The way that was handled by AN was bad. They said it was an due to an animation glitch which if you have played a Ranger you have never saw it. Also it was a DPS decrease by at least 7% with a Shortbow, something that was left out of the patch notes.
Thats not how you fix a boting problem and not fair to the REAL people who love to play the Ranger profession. (ArenaNet has denied this btw, so I am just assuming)

(And yes I am “assuming” cause I am sure i’ll get a PM for “assuming”. But this whole thread is “assuming”.)

its nice to have bots being pressured.
but whats your response to cheats, i m more worried with dupe cheat and undetectable WvW orb ninja hacks.
i would love to see bots we reported being executed by GM reaper form like ones in GuildWars1 vid

cant you have a system that will trace back any ilegal program was launched while guildwars 2 running ?

I think I saw some of the bots who were banned… there’s a spot west of the last Waypoint in Malchor’s Leap before Cursed Shore where there’s a insane respawn of Risen Thralls attacking the Pact in the shore.

There were always a bunch of bots stacked together attacking everything, from level 20~80. The 80 would surely kill the mobs and the low levels would Rally even if they get down.

I reported all of them at least twice.

Then I checked yesterday/the day before, and they weren’t there anymore.
Instead, there were others… ahahahaha!

But I reported them all again =p

MrLee.6892:

I would really like to start seeing more GM’s in game. When Warcraft started I remember the GM’s in game when they would find a bot or “hacker” they would sometimes park them outside of a major city and transform them into some kind of “fuzzy animal” that couldn’t move. This way we knew that they atleast had GM’s in game watching and we knew they where there!

I am not saying AN has to do this type of thing, but to see a an actual AN employee in game would be a good feeling. (Or even when you report an issue you get to talk to a LIVE person)

At first when i read your comment i was like that be nice but then i said wait.

Last time i was in WoW and a few other Games that had GMs They get swormed with people. everyone sitting and bugging them etc etc etc. i wouldn’t mind seeing a Gm but i’m glad there not in there. there be too many little girls crying to them or even begging them for crap.

its like There’s a big event going on. someone knows a GM is on and put it out there. the event is empty and all is near the GM asking can you send me this can you do this. this is broken fix it etc etc etc just getting spammed when there TRYIng to do something.

I read articles like the one referenced above and I just shake my head… That alarmist article was written for sensationalism, not information or discussion.

OTOH, thanks for the 10K banned bots and bot-ban update. I’ve been noticing banned bots from many part of Aurora Glade. But Sparkfly Swamp (or whatever it’s called exactly) has been having some increases.

I think the suggestions of in game GMs with ban-power have merit.

That sounds great!

10,000 in a week or maybe even less….. but, don´t you all think it´s about time that the game gets a some sort of -exe protector in the future? Would that help at all?

After reading this article*, it seems to me the “gangsters” have no hard time to adapt them to the new build version of the game.

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/underbelly-hacks-cheats-bots-and-exploits

It isn’t sensationalist at all. If it just impacted the economy it would merely be frustrating, but I was in Gendarran Fields on the left side where the 4 Centaur DEs take place. Tons of (usual identical looking with obvious similar naming) rangers running in a line with speed boosts going to each DE point killing everything – if you are an at level character chances are by the time you reach each event it’s over; only one I was able to do was the Rock Dogs DE by slamming a speed boost and “going around the back” instead of through the gate.

Colin, you’re the man! Now let’s see that smile

I love the sound of “bot destruction tools” it sounds… effective

-High Five- on that FoV work too.

Colin:

Thank you for responding to this. By both the tone of this thread and the Gamespy article, the community is very concerned about the botting issue especially and keeping us all abreast of what’s going on goes a long way.

I think Ponzu had a great point about having GMs lurking in bot-heavy places like Cursed Shore, etc. where they can proactively catch them in the act. I know last night I must have reported at least ten in 30 minutes, while karma grinding.

so thats one servers worth of bots? Congratulations i guesss? Y’all were somehow expecting bots would completely leave you alone because you’re special and didn’t have any tools to deal with them? The incompetence is just staggering, this and the final boss being bugged for over a month from launch are in a dead heat for most mind bogglingly stupid failures in support.

The time to stop botters is before the game is released, not after. You don’t ban the botters you cut them off from the system entirely. You stop botting by designing an economy in game which does not allow them to trade easily. By establishing a gold based economy from the start is inviting the gold sellers and botters to join your game. The closer the game economy resembles wow than the more likely it will be abused by bot gold sellers.

As it stands there’s nothing to be done because it’s too late. So who will pay for the bots? The players will because anet screwed up from the start and will now punish it’s paying customers for what’s been done. The staff designing this game happen to be the same type of stupid people playing it. So nothing effective will be done.

But do you really want the bots gone? They’re here because they can make money from players buying the currency. Hey, at least they believe there’s enough players still playing this game to warrant botting it. That won’t be the case in the near future. So consider the botters as the proverbial canary in the mineshaft.

10,000 bots banned? so how come I see the same bots and all those I reported weeks ago still in action, I’ve had all those reported added to my friend list to see if those accounts have been banned, but no they are still active.

I’m not going to hold my breathe. I just logged out after witnessing 10 Hunters with names like “kldhsmsd” botting around destroying an event. Worst part is they have been there for days, probably weeks.

I’ve already decided to not spend any more money on this game until I see a meaningful impact on the bots and the ease this game is exploited. How can you expect to be taken serious as an esport when your game is being exploited/hacked so easily.

Honestly, the stuff in GW2 is nowhere near as bad as the rampant cheating, botting, etc in other MMOs.

WoW has much worse problems with players DDOSing other teams in arenas and rated BGs, bots all over, and exploits having destroyed any semblance of anything worth anything.

Posted Today, 03:00 AM

Dunno why you guys still care about rbgs … Most of time you queue wintrade chinese teams at -700 mmr or exploiters/teleport hackers and obviously gms don’t give a kitten.

There is also a popular rbg irc channel where some guys are looking for 9 ppl “ddos run” :

This season promise to be kittening good for drama, since ddos booters are now 100% free/secure and kittening easy to use.
There is also a tons of free hack going on atm like interrupthack, laghack, teleporthack, totem hack, much more XD

Say thank you to mmowned and a known hack forum. They both ruined whole WoW PvP.
Edited by Bonjourhihi, Today, 03:33 AM.

Why am I seeing so many user was infracted for this post notes? E.g. on the OP’s post. This is the third critical OP that has been ‘infracted’ that I’ve seen since I started seeing it the other day. I can somewhat see it for the other two topics/OPs where the OP was perhaps being uncivil. But this one? Its looking like you get infracted for just being critical.

Or is it that you get ‘infracted’ if someone reports you?

People think they do nothing because sometimes bots stay around for a week or more.

That’s clearly because they ban in ‘batches’.

You are more likely to catch a botter if they all start using a certain bot, thinking its not being detected.
If you quickly ban a botter, their bot will be quickly tagged as ‘detected’ by the community of bot-coders and they’ll stop using that and develop something else, and the faster you do that, the better they get at quickly making new ones.

It’s like fighting a Saiyan. You don’t really want to put them near death very often.

Wreave.2138:

Why am I seeing so many user was infracted for this post notes? E.g. on the OP’s post. This is the third critical OP that has been ‘infracted’ that I’ve seen since I started seeing it the other day. I can somewhat see it for the other two topics/OPs where the OP was perhaps being uncivil. But this one? Its looking like you get infracted for just being critical.

Or is it that you get ‘infracted’ if someone reports you?

Because posting/highlighting things that show GW2 in a very negative way, even if its true and phrased in a civil and constructive manner is frowned upon I guess. It’s why I don’t come to these forums as and always afraid i’ll get banned for something silly or speaking the truth in c constructive way.

Danicco.3568:

I think I saw some of the bots who were banned… there’s a spot west of the last Waypoint in Malchor’s Leap before Cursed Shore where there’s a insane respawn of Risen Thralls attacking the Pact in the shore.

You know, it’s a little tricky, but with enough skill you can pull the Eye of Zhaitan that’s patrolling through King’s Passage to them and watch them get obliterated. It’s quite finicky but very rewarding. I had a strange experience where a bunch of players from a known botting guild farmed there, and after I got them killed a few times, they seemed to have “upgraded” their particular macros so they would automatically get notified when they are death. I say this because after killing them I they came running back a few minutes later in a clearly unmechanical, human-like way, and scouted the area for anyone that might have crashed their botting. I stood there watching them, and when they saw me, they were hesitant to get into position(he or they, multiboxing is always a possibility) farming position again, but eventually decided to when I pretended to leave.

Danicco.3568:

I think I saw some of the bots who were banned… there’s a spot west of the last Waypoint in Malchor’s Leap before Cursed Shore where there’s a insane respawn of Risen Thralls attacking the Pact in the shore.

There were always a bunch of bots stacked together attacking everything, from level 20~80. The 80 would surely kill the mobs and the low levels would Rally even if they get down.

I reported all of them at least twice.

Then I checked yesterday/the day before, and they weren’t there anymore.
Instead, there were others… ahahahaha!

But I reported them all again =p

Yep, me and my bro go to this exact spot to just have a big killing spree, the mobs are thick but right in the middle of our fun, a train of 5-10 bots, all identical, will run down onto this beach and kill everything in sight on their way through. They are obviously are running on a loop because every 10-15 minutes here they come again. It’s really frustrating.

My solution to the bot problem? Flag them as mobs – allow us to kill them. Now that would be some fun.

Tyops.5894:

Over the past week about half of the bots I had been keeping track of have become continuously offline (I block before I report so I report more easily and keep tabs). The problem is that I was reporting every day for up to two weeks before I saw any change.

I’ve been doing the same only putting them on my friends list and then watching to see if their little green light goes out. As I’ve mentioned in other similar threads, they are not doing anywhere near enough to curb the problem, and the longer they fumble the ball the harder it’s going to get. NCSoft and Anet have a track record with this sort of thing long before GW2 came out, and nothing they are doing here at this moment indicates that they are going to improve on that record.

roqoco.4053:

Great post and love the sound of: “more awesome stuff to do at level 80”! Not that I doubted that Arenanet was working on all these things of course.

They’ve been saying for a while that we’ll get another big update in November on the scale of the one we got this week, or even bigger.

That being said. 10000 bots banned is a nice number. Sadly it doesn’t really show in the game. Why do you need to gather data when you can clearly see that a train of 20+ rangers all with bear pets and all running the same exact circuit are bots?

Just park a gm in the popular botting areas and it will be more than obvious within 5 minutes.

People that say banning them in waves helps are wrong. It doesn’t take the botters long to figure out a way around their detection systems and when a week or two goes by with no action that’s plenty of time for them to make enough money to recoup the lose of an account.

Doesn’t matter how much automation they think they can implement to deal with this it will be circumvented by smarter people than the devs who created the system. Why? cause there is always someone as smart or smarter than you eager to break what you have made.

Nothing beats a human GM taking care of business. MMO’s have had GM’s since the dawn of MMO’s. Unfortunately for Anet that would cut into their profits but so does the mass of people that will leave the game due to this.

Where do I sign up for the Bot Beaters? I’d be happy to give bots the smack down!

I am very happy to see ANet is addressing this problem. It is just unfortunate that money needs to go to fighting these kitteny kittens (self censored) than going into more content for those of us that just want to play the game.

@Weave

It’s time to stop with this “anet infracts posts they don’t like” bull.
A lot of fanboy posts get infracted too, it’s just a matter of reading the rules.
Reposting a thread even though there is another on the same subject – which is even a sticky – is against the rule.
Moderators really only apply forum rules literally. They don’t care for the context.
Like-wise, there are a ton of huge walls of tears around that were not infracted, which proves this point.
You can cry or be a fanboy as long as you word it within the forum rules.

At my company security is one of our number one selling points to our clients so I truly appreciate Anet’s efforts in account security. From personal experience I had recieved an automated email from anet last month saying that there was an attempted login from some unknown ip. I googled the ip and found that it was from China. The two-factor authentication not only saved my account but also served as an alert for me to proactively change all other passwords associated with that email, including steam.

Thank you Anet.

“operation bot destruction”

I like it

Racism…. Honestly I believe it’s less today than most people make it out to be. If you see a racist guild tag then just move on. The less people react then the less you will see it in game and in life. These small minded racist people get a kick out if it when they make a big stir like this and big news media. Why else would they do it?

Racist people today no nothing more than a bully. The more attention you give them for what they do the more they do it. It’s sad really.

MMO makers getting flak for botters: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/10/26/botters-how-do-they-work/

Say it ain’t so.

fellyn.5083:

roqoco.4053:

Great post and love the sound of: “more awesome stuff to do at level 80”! Not that I doubted that Arenanet was working on all these things of course.

They’ve been saying for a while that we’ll get another big update in November on the scale of the one we got this week, or even bigger.

That being said. 10000 bots banned is a nice number. Sadly it doesn’t really show in the game. Why do you need to gather data when you can clearly see that a train of 20+ rangers all with bear pets and all running the same exact circuit are bots?

Just park a gm in the popular botting areas and it will be more than obvious within 5 minutes.

I report a lot of bots and take care not to make mistakes. However, the other day I did report someone who was running with a squad of bots and looked like a bot. 5 minutes after doing that I got an odd reply to my earlier checking whisper. Maybe the guy was a bot with a few simple replies built in, maybe he was the bot overseer (a common practice is to have an overseer multi-boxing lots of bots), but maybe that one guy was just someone who spoke no English and liked the company of bots. I don’t know. Similarly, I whispered a ranger with both a bear pet and an odd asdfassdfd type of name the other day and got a convincing reply – didn’t report that one. But, maybe some people are less careful than I try to be on who they report.

Anyway the moral of this story is that Arenanet need to be sure and have full documentation backing up any bans, because otherwise there will be very many false positives and that will cause even worse problems with aggrieved players asking to be reinstated – were they really bots … or not, Arenanet needs absolute certainty and the documentation to prove it.

Omega, I said it on another thread but tbh, if botters want to bot, they shall. If people who couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo in fps need to use aimbots they shall. We can only hope Anet keeps on top of it but botting, hacking yadda yadda is in no way only happening in GW2.

After all my moaning and whining about the game I’m on Anets side with this one. it gets out of control in so many games these days!

As for the racists thing, I think most people with KKK or Guilds with the N word etc. are probably just kids trying to be funny, cool and outlandish (look at me!). I can’t imagine a moronic KKK leader thinking “I know how I’ll spread my racist stupidity, through GW2!”

I expect a lot of people in Europe and Oceanic areas probably don’t even know what KKK stands for. In fact it took me a while to click and I could easily have used those initials without thinking of the connection with the US cult.

roqoco, lets be honest. If you were Polish and from Krakow, you could make a guild called Krakow’s Killer Klowns [KKK] as a fun homage to that 80’s film ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’ and your country. I think the person whinging about racism is without a doubt American.

I’ll be honest I only know about the KKK from watching American films.

DieScream.6972:

10k in the last few weeks he said.
Proof AN does more than Blizzard?
I’m just giving you a hard time, hehe.

Actions>words ArenaNet, let’s see this in practice.

The thing is they have done more action then words as you put it just now they are using words to tell you what they have done so ArenaNet is doing action over words just look at all of this how ppl reacted to not being given info. They as in these ppl who post on these forms want words well before action because they want something to talk about.

@Wreave – I was given an infraction because of my original title for the post. While I don’t necessarily agree with the moderator, I respect his or her decision and let it be at that. It’s not a big deal. More important was the message was heard by those who needed to hear it.

Paul.4081:

roqoco, lets be honest. If you were Polish and from Krakow, you could make a guild called Krakow’s Killer Klowns [KKK] as a fun homage to that 80’s film ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’ and your country. I think the person whinging about racism is without a doubt American.

I’ll be honest I only know about the KKK from watching American films.

Exactly.. I live in America and knew what it was but at the same time it’s just three letters that could mean anything. I do not believe having KKK as a guild tag name should be bannable offence. I remember back in my WoW days there was a guild called “Together We Are Terrific” but everyone called then “TWAT”. After years of them being around someone complained and Blizzard forced then to change their guild name.

if i name my guild “Kids Killing Kittens [KKK]” will i be banned too?

I would agree about the bots but I didn’t read that article because the author is someone that I don’t care for. He’s one of the more opinionated writers you can find. Some people love his stuff. Some hate it. I’m one that doesn’t care for him.

alcopaul.2156:

if i name my guild “Kids Killing Kittens [KKK]” will i be banned too?

Seems forced and for only one purpose so yes!

I’ve done the math.

Over 10,000… is also…

…over 9,000.