Guild Wars 2

They should have a couple GMs go thru each zone daily and ban the botters right then and there. Just have the GMs look like normal players no special tags or anything, and just go from zone to zone and ban the botters.

Thanks for the update!!

Good, I’m sick of signing in and getting a message. Thinking I’ve got a friend THEN WHAM! Gold spammer.

Topix.6974:

They should have a couple GMs go thru each zone daily and ban the botters right then and there. Just have the GMs look like normal players no special tags or anything, and just go from zone to zone and ban the botters.

it takes time to determine who is botting and who isnt.
Half the bots people have claimed to see are probably players. i have been accused of botting simply because i didnt reply to a player. i wasnt paying attention to chat at the time, but was most definitely at the keyboard

Milner.3128:

Good, I’m sick of signing in and getting a message. Thinking I’ve got a friend THEN WHAM! Gold spammer.

he could be your friend. that could be the solution. befriend them and wean them off their wicked ways!
all gold spammers are after is a hug after all

darkehawke.1269:

Topix.6974:

They should have a couple GMs go thru each zone daily and ban the botters right then and there. Just have the GMs look like normal players no special tags or anything, and just go from zone to zone and ban the botters.

it takes time to determine who is botting and who isnt.
Half the bots people have claimed to see are probably players. i have been accused of botting simply because i didnt reply to a player. i wasnt paying attention to chat at the time, but was most definitely at the keyboard

Whilst I will agree that having someone permanently checking zones on EVERY server isn’t feasible. However, it IS more feasible to actually have people employed to deal with the mountains of mails and reports that get sent to Anet about potential violators.

Such reports could be naming particular individuals, and if said character / player has had numerous reports made about them, then that should be flagging up that they need investigating.

Also, I think the game NEEDS to start disconnecting people who are AFK / not actively playing for longer than, let’s say, 20 mins. That would also help with not only botting but also issues connected with over population and potential leg in zones.

thank you to everyone at Arenanet for working so hard on all of this : )

Can we please have an option to “report gold seller” added to report e-mail button?

I’ve been reporting them for SPAM but I guess it would help to direct it better if we had that other option.

Xelosu.4675:

Can we please have an option to “report gold seller” added to report e-mail button?

I’ve been reporting them for SPAM but I guess it would help to direct it better if we had that other option.

There is one already. The last option of the list is Gold Seller.

For those of you who STILL see the same bot you reported a week ago, I believe this is due to the tactic of gathering all bots at once and terminating them altogether. This eliminates the botters from figuring out what gave them away thus they are not able to adapt their tactics. If ANet IMMEDIATELY bans a bot, they’ll know exactly what gave them away.

but but buy…. you sell gold too?

I tend to collect a lot of items in my bank and bags, and then mass-sell in the market. However, when I sell what seems to be too many items in one shot, I get an error posting. I assume this is to prevent botting, too.

My workaround has been to buy something on the market after receiving this message, which seems to reset my ability to sell, and then I continue selling and repeat these steps.

The big question: Will I be flagged for botting in error as a result of this behavior?

The problem is that A-net is trying to implement these “automated systems” to catch these people, instead of actually going down into the trenches and banning these people manually. Every system they put in place, the botters are going to adapt to.

Considering how much money ArenaNet made off GW1 and GW2 – I don’t think full or part-time GM’s on each server is out of the question. GM’s would be able to monitor situations in real time and actually act on information in a reasonable, human way.

I got 3+ gold spam mails a day, every time I log in. They’re not doing anything about it because they think they’re gonna be clever and implement auto-ban algorithims to try and quantify this behavior… It doesn’t work that way. The minute you set up an set of variables to identify a gold seller or a botter, they switch their game up. The only way this problem will be solved is actual real-life GM’s on each server keeping an eye on things. That’s the reality, folks.

I have already noticed a huge drop in gold spammers and gold scamming mails in game. Thank you so much for all the work you put into this Anet!

They definately need:

1) A “Report Gold Seller / Bot” facility in the right click menu for the chat window. Quick select. No need for additional windows to click through. Just click and they are auto reported AND put on the ignore list. See WoW for details (yes, I went there).

2) Start banning these characters more. Report how many you did on a weekly basis if you want. Put the word out that you’re active and not just “talking the talk”.

and most importantly…..

3) Authenticators: Seriously Anet, this should be your HIGHEST priority right now. And when you do implement them, don’t forget those people who DON’T have a smart phone. I know you guys mentioned Googles authentication system, but that talks about smart phones (althought Gmail sends codes to any phone).

darkehawke.1269:

Puffin.5436:

darkehawke.1269:

None of these player suggested solutions are viable. Not without destroying the game.
its hard to track people who buy gold. if i send 20 gold to my alt, will i be classed as a gold seller?
All these quick solutions are terrible ideas and i will give Anet credit for going about this the correct way, slowly and methodically, rather then charging in and making more of a mess

Transferring gold between characters should NEVER have existed.

Why not?
transferring money between characters has been a staple of mmo’s as long as i can remember. take that ability away and thats a crap load of content for me removed too

Because mailing gold to other characters in your account is impossible. In order to do this you have to put the gold in your bank and take it out on the other character. You can mail gold to different accounts, but those aren’t alts then. That’s an entirely different account.

“Is the **** idea I ever heard in the mmorpg history. :P
The next step will make a rose triangle near the avatar if the player is ****…”

This is for sure against forum rules and your account is you game account so you better watch your words.

Keep up the good work

Glad that it isnt being ignored.

1600 seems like a small dent though. Hopefully we can get this number raised. Bots directly impact my experience in the game more than anything else, including bugs, broken exploration nodes, and downtime.

This is all very well and good, but is enough action really being taken and do certain countries and servers have priority?

As has been mentioned in this very thread, how difficult can it be to set up and police individual servers?

On Desolation EU there are three bots working the Harathi hinterlands, these bots are STILL THERE! Even though they were reported two days after the games release in the EU.

I have a particular dislike of bots and RMT’s, which goes all the way back to FFXI and the near complete destruction of our server because of these parasites!
SE bought in GM’s who would appear ingame and remove the bots and RMT’s on the spot once they had been reported and identified, why is this so difficult to implement in GW2? Needless to say once these measures were taken bots and RMT’s practically disappeared from the server.

Enough is enough Anet, GW1 was plagued with bots right up to the release of GW2 and still is, i did some pvp yesterday and over half the players were bots, we need action not words, i for one do not want to see this vile plague destroy GW2!

Pull your fingers out! Bot’s and RMT’s should be priority number one!

great news i have had a lot of mail say buy gold from us

Hi i just wanna report some bots.
I did it also via the in game option (right click on the bot and reporting it).

I hope i wont get any trouble about that cause they were many (around 10) and have kinda similar name so it made me kinda spam the report option to be sure to report them all !

Should I post here screenshots of them ? Or is there any other formal way to do it than the in game reporting system ?

Thanks.

I’ll know something is being done when the teleporting bots that have been in game for the last 2+ weeks are finally removed.

I can only assume that atm detection and confirmation is all done by one staff member actually checking them out individually because 1600 seems to be a drop in the ocean.

How about listing their names and servers so we can see if our local bots have been removed or just changed locations.

Thanks for addressing it.

Thanks ArenaNet! I have personally seen about half a dozen bots and reported them all. In my case, they were a bunch of bots standing in a known DE spot and spamming their no.1 skill. To top it off, they were not being very clever… there was 4 characters in one spot using the default Charr Ranger skin (i.e. “skip to end during character creation”) and all four had almost the same name but one character was different.

These guys were just farming the measly 30 copper the DE would give out every 5 minutes. I’m glad to see that work is being done to purgue these bozzo’s.

I think someone suggested above to kick AFK people after 20min… well in the case of farming bots I don’t think this would work because they are activating skill no.1 so GW2 would view them as being near the keyboard. I’m totally cool with perma bans on these guys.

ONE SUGGESTION: Please implement the Dhumm animation on banning. Holy cow was that awesome to see in GW1!!

guys, not only do you have to get rid of bots, you have to fix the damage they are doing, esp to the market and gem store the flood of gold to the market has driven the trading for gems to gold way way up because no one is buying gems and converting to gold, and more importantly… we need to get rid of the flood of items the bots are putting on the market. prices have been driven so low they are almost not worth selling for most things at this point … prices need to be readjusted or everything is going to be selling for npc price.

I suggest once you really hit the bots hard and limit them to maybe 20ish % of what they are now you buy up everything in the market at rock bottom rates

player demand should drive things back up – right now thousands of bots playing for 24 hours a day farming up mats is really killing it

Good job guys, keep working on it. I myself have been reporting them endlessly. A great place to focus them down is Cursed Shore. I’m sure you already know about this though. After playing Runescape back in the day for quite a few years… (yes, I said Runescape) I can tell you without any hesitation BOTS WILL RUIN THE GAME UNLESS THEY ARE STOPPED! So in other words! Keep it up!

This is very good, ‘cus the bots made me quit alot of mmo’s… which I though was good. And thosekittengold sellers spam the chat, and noth enough with just that but they spam my mail too! It’s so annoying -.-
Thanks guys, keep up the good work! I have not seen a post great like this in a long time!!

dirtyklingon.2918:

i’d also like to note that when a guildie was hacked with 90 ectos and 30 gold due ot the at launch bug with email authentication and validation, although his account was recovered in a timely fashion(less than 24 hours- which is very good turn around)…

in the worst sort of victim blaming i’ve seen to date in this genre, none of the stolen items were restored to his account, and we was left to restart with 0 gold and 0 tradeable assets.

he’s lucky he got his account back before his gear broke, vendored and then relegated to ad spam bot.

as a guild we’re lucky he didn’t simply give up at that point and quit the game.

This has nothing to do with bots or the removal of bots. There was a security leak at launch and that was recognized and reported to us within a week or two. And there have been a ton of posts from ArenaNet saying not to use the same password as other accounts, so I feel they’ve done there best to rectify their mistake.

It is a bummer that your guildie was hacked, but at least it happened early on. Can you imagine if you had spent 1 year building up your fortune and loot only to be stolen!? Yes 30g and 90 ecto is alot, but if the guildie farmed that within the first 2 weeks of play then I don’t see the issue of starting over. It stinks, but it is doable to restart.

That is one reason to have a strong guild to pick up a member when they’ve been knock flat. Your guild would come together and help out a fellow mate, right? That is the power of a strong community and I think GW2 has one of the best communities out there in the MMO world.

Shorebluff Camp in Hiranthi Hinterlands on Stormbluff Isle is where I see most of my bots…. Been abusing that spot for weeks now. A group have been doing it since this past weekend… While it is great to read this post and see work to shutting them down, to see that nothing has been done about these people in that spot for nearly a week is disappointing.

YES! Thank you!

sorrow’s furnace usa, cursed shore, penitent camp and shelter gate, mostly at shelter gate. you’ll find a few there.

Here´s the ultimate solution to botting and gold sellers:

Just remove the capability to send gold through the ingame mail system.

If someone wants to trade gold between his characters, the person can use the personal bank.

If someone wants to help out a friend with money, they both could use the guild bank. One is putting the money in the guild bank, the other takes it out right away.

If you want to sell something, use the BlackLion Trading Post.

Really there is absolutly no need to send gold through ingame mail.

No more Goldsellers able to earn money through illegal means.

No more incentive to hack GW2 accounts.

Just my 2 cents…

“Recently we have also hired a team of data specialists who will be helping us create more effective tools for analyzing reports of ‘botting.’”

I’m surprised you didn’t already have this team hired. I realize Guildwars 2 isn’t like other MMOs but surely someone at ArenaNet realized there would be similarities? :P

Grishnak.8021:

Here´s the ultimate solution to botting and gold sellers:

Just remove the capability to send gold through the ingame mail system.

If someone wants to trade gold between his characters, the person can use the personal bank.

If someone wants to help out a friend with money, they both could use the guild bank. One is putting the money in the guild bank, the other takes it out right away.

If you want to sell something, use the BlackLion Trading Post.

Really there is absolutly no need to send gold through ingame mail.

No more Goldsellers able to earn money through illegal means.

No more incentive to hack GW2 accounts.

Just my 2 cents…

The other way to sell gold in game is to post a crappy item for a large (or large enough) amount on the TP that only a few people would buy it, including the gold seller.

Although the mail system is one enabler, it isn’t the only way that gold is sold. And I like the ability to help my friends out even if they’re not in the same guild.

i have a question and I’m not defending bots or anything like that.

If the loot is shared event is shared everything is shared then how can bots ruin the game wouldn’t they contribute ?

You can bet ANet will go after botting and gold farmers relentlessly, as those are the people who are selling gold to players for less than what ANet charges, so it’s a very definite hit to the bottom line.

ANet is a gold seller themselves, but at least that money goes back into the game we love.

I don’t normally post on forums, but I’m posting to show that I and most of us who are playing this amazing game appreciate that something is being done to combat this known issue.

Thank you and please keep us updated.

@VasaliTor

You got some points there.

But if you would strip the goldsellers from a very convenient and quite anonymous way of getting their gold to the wrecked person who circumvents the ingame store by disabling gold transfer from the ingame mail, the goldseller will have much more trouble getting the gold to the wretched customer.

Crappy items for too much gold in the BLTP will draw notice.

And correct me if I am wrong, but each of your 5 characters can be in different guilds in GW2, can´t they?

So your friend could at least be with 1 character in your guild, or you in his guild.

OK, maybe it´s still best to let some tools do the cleanup afterwards instead of making it a pa-in in the kitten for goldsellers to get rid of their illicit spoils, don´t know….but don´t come complaining about the bots rushing in time and time again..

1) anet has said, loudly and CONSTANTLY, that there are multiple methods whereby accounts are being hacked. newly hacked accounts, and botted accounts, are NOT all owned by folk who’ve purchased gold from gold sellers.
2) anet has said, loudly and quite repeatedly, that they are enacting new security measures but it requires activity on the gamers’ parts. for instance, other games have had their information stolen, including account email/names and passwords, and hackers are systematically attempting to use these stolen email/names and passwords to get into gw2 accounts. much of the time, they’re lucky because silly players don’t pay attention to what anet posts, and don’t follow the instructions — like, set up a different email solely for this game. change your password. you know, SIMPLE things that can make your account safer.
3) i submit that after rift enacted coin-locking on accounts, gold sellers became nearly non-existent. i see anet’s attempt to do the email authentication as much the same thing; if you log in from a different isp, you’ll need to confirm this is your account via email. well and good … but if gamers use the same password for their game and their email? not so good. think about this, players, and act accordingly.
4) as has been pointed out, anet is researching the best method to handle this. sure, we get frustrated. but then, we also go frustrated, waiting seven years for this game to launch … and in the end, we had to admit that anet knew what they were doing. so let’s let them handle it, guys; they know their code. we don’t.
5) anet, this is to you. i need to point out that any of your armor/weapon crafting is HUGELY mats-intensive, and you’ve decreased our ability to farm them. honestly, i’m frustrated that i HAVE to farm them, just to be able to keep my characters’ toons in their own crafted gear from level to level … but the mats-intensive nature of leveling does require farming. now, due to botting, you’ve decreased the drop rate after a period of time? can we have another solution, please? farming is not something i enjoy doing; i want to play my game. not have to spend an hour, or two, seeking places to farm mats to level crafting. i left this in this topic because the decrease was a response to botting.

overall? thank you so much, guys, for everything you’ve done, given us, blah blah blah. i, for one, have faith in you.

My opinion about this topic?
Empty talk. I made a ticket about some guild issues….it’s been ~3 weeks now and stil no fix….so I doubt they can manage some bots!
I saw bots with teleport farming mines….so…empty talk!

Bots happen. There is no way to absolutely eliminate bots right off the bat. Keep in mine that people who create bots can have up to (or possibly better) programming backgrounds. It takes time to integrate an ever-adapting anti-bot system.

Keep in mind that Anet isn’t some uge company. For their size, they have put TREMEMNDOUS effort into all aspects. They may not be able to resolve everything the day of, and that is fine. If your social security card is stolen, it will take you two weeks just to get processed. And that is only 1 task. Now, add that time frame in, with the face that many occurrences that are happening are errors, that need to be tracked down individually. There is no line of code that says “fix me.” You can check if a string ends where it is not supposed to, but you cannot easily find an error embedded in a large source. It takes time. I’m sure that support currently still has their hands full with hacked accounts. No offense, but if your guild is connected, you should be able to communicate via outside sources. I am not sure as to what issues you are having, but this is a game. And they do have priorities. Botting is far more game-destroying than your guild.

As for myself, I am very proud of the effort that Anet puts into it’s error-restoring ways. Keep up the work guys/girls!

if i send 20 gold to my alt, will i be classed as a gold seller?

You can’t mail gold to yourself, it’s done through the bank.

They can try to catch as many as they can, but we always have gold sellers as long as they’re making a profit.

I came up with a way to eliminate that profit: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/I-have-a-way-to-get-rid-of-gold-sellers/first#post275243

botting is an issue with all persistent online games. mmorpg’s, moba’s, action rpg’s like D3, even online fps games – all are suffering from botting/hacking/cheating

the problem is that we – the end user – continue to make it profitable for these people by buying their gold and services.

until the end user starts to play legit, this problem will never actually go away.

Beeker.5817:

You can bet ANet will go after botting and gold farmers relentlessly, as those are the people who are selling gold to players for less than what ANet charges, so it’s a very definite hit to the bottom line.

ANet is a gold seller themselves, but at least that money goes back into the game we love.

I think Anets pricing on gems is KITTEN KITTEN KITTEN, and KITTEN KITTEN my KITTEN. So.. a one use set of gear for visual looks is worth… $[insert inflated actual cost here] If they got their pricing and product availability in check it wouldnt be such a joke.

Awesome news, thanks a lot Anet.

Very good news indeed, thank you, I look forward to seeing the result in game soon
Despite my whining about bots here on the forum, I’m very happy that Guild Wars 2, a game I enjoy very much, has an active staff behind it that will respond to the community when concerns are raised. Keep up the good work! Automated anti-bot IMO is where it’s at, as it will address a large majority of the bot population. I know that botting will always be a cat and mouse game, but the automated system will keep less mice in the game.
I kittening love this game!

PS- Sea of sorrows server

Anet, appreciate the update and the ongoing battle with the abusers/bots/scammers in GW2.

On a related note,

Saw the best player done in game anti-botting by a couple of guys the other night.

Can’t remember the name of the zone, bot standing there swinging; 2 players came around the corner kiting a champion troll over to the bot, got it to engage and slaughter the bot-er. Is it bad I was cheering for the Troll?

Good job. I also hope you take some actions against gold buyers. In my books gold buyers are at least if not even worse than gold sellers. Whitout buyers there would not be any sellers. If you catch some1 buying gold, that should be instant permanent ban automaticaly.

Cheers.