Guild Wars 2

So I’m sure by now that many people have hit level 80, explored the Cursed Shore zone and have passed by the ‘Shelter Gate’ area. It’s a real convenient location, there’s an armor repair NPC, a karma vendor and a waypoint, all located just above Noose Road. Heck, there’s even a couple Dynamic Events that start in/from Shelter Gate, it’s a real good place to farm karma and items… And boy do the botters know it.

There are countless bots in the Shelter Gate area (at least, in the Sanctum of Rall server), some simple variations of an ‘autoclicker,’ pressing 1 button at a time (mainly the auto attack) in order to get the gold participation ribbon in a Dynamic Event. However; there are more sosphisticated bots that may even allow for the automation of multiple skill use, automated loot, and preset patrol patterns.

I know the report option is there, and I know that not everybody farming Shelter Gate are bots. However; I find it hard to believe that many players would be running the same patterns and still pressing their auto attack key 3 hours later in the exact same way.

I’m wondering how both the community and ArenaNet should respond to this massive use of bots. I realize there’s no game that can be rid of bots— there’s always going to be a workaround (hell, most bot programmers ENJOY that kind of challenge). I’d just rather not have GW2 become another Silk Road Online, where the bots were so numerous and in plain sight to the point where one could run a Google search and have the first result that would pop up be a 100% legit and working bot.

What do you guys think? Am I overreacting to this? Should I just wait for Guild Wars 2 to get its bearings before the mass purge of bots inevitably occurs?

Aiber.5091:

So I’m sure by now that many people have hit level 80, explored the Cursed Shore zone and have passed by the ‘Shelter Gate’ area. It’s a real convenient location, there’s an armor repair NPC, a karma vendor and a waypoint, all located just above Noose Road. Heck, there’s even a couple Dynamic Events that start in/from Shelter Gate, it’s a real good place to farm karma and items… And boy do the botters know it.

There are countless bots in the Shelter Gate area (at least, in the Sanctum of Rall server), some simple variations of an ‘autoclicker,’ pressing 1 button at a time (mainly the auto attack) in order to get the gold participation ribbon in a Dynamic Event. However; there are more sosphisticated bots that may even allow for the automation of multiple skill use, automated loot, and preset patrol patterns.

I know the report option is there, and I know that not everybody farming Shelter Gate are bots. However; I find it hard to believe that many players would be running the same patterns and still pressing their auto attack key 3 hours later in the exact same way.

I’m wondering how both the community and ArenaNet should respond to this massive use of bots. I realize there’s no game that can be rid of bots— there’s always going to be a workaround (hell, most bot programmers ENJOY that kind of challenge). I’d just rather not have GW2 become another Silk Road Online, where the bots were so numerous and in plain sight to the point where one could run a Google search and have the first result that would pop up be a 100% legit and working bot.

What do you guys think? Am I overreacting to this? Should I just wait for Guild Wars 2 to get its bearings before the mass purge of bots inevitably occurs?

So far I have seen more bots on my server, in areas that I am doing hearts than actual players (no joke). It’s a little discouraging seeing this many running around, unchecked, tagging my targets, and looting for no effort at all. I report each and every one that I see, but I end up reporting upwards of 20 per day, not to mention gold scammers (more than 20 per day, and I block each any every one of them), and they spam up the chat channels more than legit players.

I wish this was an exaggeration, but sadly, it’s not. I have been playing MMO’s since Ultima Online, and I have never seen it this bad all at one time. Even in new releases of games, I rarely see this many gold sellers in chat at once. Oh, and at least 3-5 scamming mail attempts in my inbox (in game). If it keeps up like this, I think anet will lose a lot of potential long term players. It’s enough for me to say “no thanks”, because I’m literally being bombarded with this, day in and day out.

They need to do something – and quickly. So, no, I don’t think you’re overreacting at all.