Guild Wars 2

Swagman.9013:

You are insane if you think the $60 from each sale goes right into anets pocket. Each one of those $60 sales gets divided up into a ton of different chunks.

I knew a company owner who’s main product sold for $30. Out of that whole 30 he directly got $1 all the rest went to pay for all the expenses and people his business had. Now of course he had several offices selling several hundred a day so it was still good money but the point is that’s how money is broken up.

I don’t know exactly what anets costs are but I’m sure ncsoft takes a healthy portion of that money.

To the extent that they can’t afford paying people to come into the game and police it, if that’s what people are asking for? If that’s what the game needs?

It’s a tried and tested method. Introducing DR as a bot prevention system is untested in MMO games. I’ve seen DR in other games, but I’ve never seen it used as a blanket anti-bot measure. Normally as an effort to stop casual and hardcore gamers getting out of reach of each other in terms of game progression. I can’t say I’ve ever seen it used in this way before.

It would appear to me after a month (which is a decent amount of time for a test) it’s not working very well, if at all and the only concrete data we have is that 1600 bots have been removed. 0.08% (and that’s a massive underestimate) of total global population!

Calling people insane is unecessary hyperbole and you know it. Or you don’t know what insanity is.

If their current means to stop bot proliferation worked we wouldn’t be asking to them to do anything.

I appreciate there’s design, R&D, advertising, distribution and myriad overheads that have to be taken into consideration.

Taking all this into consideration they have turnover (not necessarily all in profit) of One Hundred and Twenty-Something Million Dollars in a month.

This sole project as ANet isn’t their only revenue stream. Then there’s gem sales, which I’ve mentioned.

It’s still a valid point.

I’m also intruiged by the “it’s all part of some masterplan” posts and that if we’re just patient there’s going to be some big reveal. Hypothetical.

The way it looks to me right now is that the servers and especially the PvE (for obvious reasons) are literally suffering an infestation of bots. That’s not hypothetical it’s a reality and the feedback on the forum is overwhelmingly negative and diasappointed with this aspect of the game.

We’re not asking for something to be done to be annoying or antagonistic, not at all, we just want to play the game as it was marketed to us and intended. Without bots everywhere you turn.

That’s not so much to ask for.

Current anti-botting systems and measures seem ineffectual to me. There’s nothing wrong in asking them to do something about it.

I don’t want to hear about hypothetical ban hammers we cannot know are coming.

I just want to see bots gone. Bots I’ve noted and reported weeks ago. Bots that get in my way.

If you’re (generalization) so insistent on your server not being affected by bots, say which it is and we can come and have a look and see if there’s no problem.

If there isn’t a problem I’ll come and stay on that server permanently.

Sounds like heaven.

Voqar.2349:

ounkeo.9138:

A pattern is starting to form here.

You can see that Anet has put in, what looks like a lot of effort into tools and systems to combat bots and farmers when the simplest solution would have been to hire GM’s to roam the world and deal with bots.

Instead, they’ve developed these automated systems with some effort that not only doesn’t work properly, but is inconveniencing the player base quite a bit. the Gold sellers and bots and farmers, none of this matters one iota to them.

GMs are an ongoing expense. This game doesn’t have a sub so it’s ongoing income is less fixed. That’s why they try to automate stuff and/or fix stuff with code.

I do think they need to do more, even if it’s hiring some people temporarily, to deal with some of the growing pains (due to poor design and/or underestimating problems that would arise).

I’m all for message suppression but it does seem wonky. Some people ramble like school girls in map chat incessantly to the point that I usually keep map chat disabled because I simply don’t want to watch conversations between a handful of mouthy brats.

Yet in WvW I had /say supressed when I used it maybe 3-4x in 3-4 hours while relaying pertinent tactical info.

+2,000,000 (quite a lot over) box and digi sales @ ~$60 a pop.

+$120,000,000, in addition to daily gem sales and you can read in the forum people do purchase, I haven’t personally but I would imagine they have daily income. They’re pushing us towards micro-purchases quite blatantly.

I definitely think they can afford it, even on a permanent basis.

RoninsBack.4023:

I’d really like to know if ANet go in their own game you know.

Hey ANet. Do you log into your own game other than test servers? Do you have the ability to do so?

Come and have a look guys, it’s a bit of a mess in here. Thanks a lot.

I just had a think about this and bugged DEs, SPs, whatever else differ from server to server.

To examine or determine the nature of the bug, they’d have to log into the server would they not?

Or can it be debugged without having to login to the game? Does anyone know the answer to that?

Otherwise, they are logging into their game to debug and aren’t even looking at bots. We’re bringing more than enough attention to it, it’s the hottest forum topic by far.

That’d just be a really bizarre thing to do, not even have a look. As if they did look you’d be really annoyed with that you saw as a dev. Surely!?

Anyone know?

Maximus.6945:

RoninsBack.4023:

Maximus.6945:

@VendettaDFA:
Bots could even drop loot after they’re killed, everything that was farmed.
It would be called PvB(Player vs Bot). Speciall feature, unique to GW2…
How that can be a bad idea?

Because innocent people will get caught in the crossfire.

There’s already people that pull Champions or other such menaces into packs of what they think are bots.

Chances are not everyone you get will be a bot and you can never guarantee it.

If you’re on the receiving end of MPK as an innocent it’s not fun and if you’re on the receiving end of unwarranted death in a PvE(P) (as there is in EVE) enviroment it’s equally bad. Fact is even EVE has its safe areas.

If you can show us a way to categorically round up everyone that is a bot and only them without having any collateral damage, I’ll gladly come on that server with you and become death, destroyer of worlds.

There’ll always be collateral damage and it’s unfair on the innocent people that get affected.

The omlettes/eggs quote won’t wash here. It’d need to be 100% bots.

You’d also be creating the perfect griefing environment.

I don’t think the original suggestion was a serious one anyway, more of an extreme opinion to make a point.

And it’s a very fair point to make.

Bots ruin the PvE at the moment. The problem’s getting worse.

For GW2 right now the only way I can see is a presence in the game. It really isn’t hard to organize. Well, it shouldn’t be hard.

That visual presence will make lots of people happy. It kills lots of birds with one stone.

Do eet ANet. You know you want to!

I was just being silly. I’m aware that open PvP have no place in cooperative world of GW2…

But you need to admit that bots wouldn’t survive a day on PvP server…

Yeah I did say you weren’t being serious just a moment ago.

I don’t think the original suggestion was a serious one anyway, more of an extreme opinion to make a point.

Yeah, we’d destroy them but you’d also run the risk of destroying people who are new and impressionable and you could ruin their gaming experience. That’s my point.

Bots will never go in an environment where they will not thrive. It’s just bad business practice. They’ll only ever proliferate where it’s profitable and PvE will always have to exist.

As I said, GM, god-mode, whatever.

I’d really like to know if ANet go in their own game you know.

Hey ANet. Do you log into your own game other than test servers? Do you have the ability to do so?

Come and have a look guys, it’s a bit of a mess in here. Thanks a lot.

Maximus.6945:

@VendettaDFA:
Bots could even drop loot after they’re killed, everything that was farmed.
It would be called PvB(Player vs Bot). Speciall feature, unique to GW2…
How that can be a bad idea?

Because innocent people will get caught in the crossfire.

There’s already people that pull Champions or other such menaces into packs of what they think are bots.

Chances are not everyone you get will be a bot and you can never guarantee it.

If you’re on the receiving end of MPK as an innocent it’s not fun and if you’re on the receiving end of unwarranted death in a PvE(P) (as there is in EVE) enviroment it’s equally bad. Fact is even EVE has its safe areas.

If you can show us a way to categorically round up everyone that is a bot and only them without having any collateral damage, I’ll gladly come on that server with you and become death, destroyer of worlds.

There’ll always be collateral damage and it’s unfair on the innocent people that get affected.

The omlettes/eggs quote won’t wash here. It’d need to be 100% bots.

You’d also be creating the perfect griefing environment.

I don’t think the original suggestion was a serious one anyway, more of an extreme opinion to make a point.

And it’s a very fair point to make.

Bots ruin the PvE at the moment. The problem’s getting worse.

For GW2 right now the only way I can see is a presence in the game. It really isn’t hard to organize. Well, it shouldn’t be hard.

That visual presence will make lots of people happy. It kills lots of birds with one stone.

Do eet ANet. You know you want to!

beren.6048:

Going easy on botters because of complains that destroys the game. Anyway GW is so easy that I don’t understand why anybody would want to bot. Everything is so balanced that equipment or level doesn’t really make a difference in PVP and the thats why most people bot, to be the superman in PVP.

Most people want to bot to make money.

Real life money.

Players will use bots to assist their gameplay no denying that. That’s not the real problem.

You know what RMT is right?

Just stop! Hammertime!

Oh and no talking!

Just drawing up the plans for no smiling, jumping, laughing, running around, general shenanigans.

Pikafan.3792:

RoninsBack.4023:

Pikafan.3792:

Cursed Shore is an unofficial South East Asian server, and players there fall under a few categories:

1) They are bots
2) They are unintelligent sub-humans
3) They are smart, but extremely selfish and arrogant.

I transferred off Cursed Shore for those reasons, went to the “real” NA/EU servers and never looked back.

Players on servers populated by a majority of westerners are smarter and kinder in general, it makes me feel embarrassed that I have to call myself one of those SEA players.

Apart from the racism, is there some hidden meaning in this post?

Cursed Shore isn’t a server, it’s a location on the map. The level 80 area.

What do you mean? I don’t understand any of what you said.

Yes, there is a hidden meaning in the post. 3 guesses, prize for guessing is a tray of peach pies.

Ok can you tell me where the real NA/EU server is so I can transfer there? I’m intruiged now.

Peaches? Blech.

Pikafan.3792:

Cursed Shore is an unofficial South East Asian server, and players there fall under a few categories:

1) They are bots
2) They are unintelligent sub-humans
3) They are smart, but extremely selfish and arrogant.

I transferred off Cursed Shore for those reasons, went to the “real” NA/EU servers and never looked back.

Players on servers populated by a majority of westerners are smarter and kinder in general, it makes me feel embarrassed that I have to call myself one of those SEA players.

Apart from the racism, is there some hidden meaning in this post?

Cursed Shore isn’t a server, it’s a location on the map. The level 80 area.

What do you mean? I don’t understand any of what you said.

I have raised people at Grenth, not a last minute-coming-to-the-party raise, a full resurrection raise, for them to dance all over my corpse for 5 minutes when I’ve been hit by an icicle.

Yeah thanks, bro.

I still raise people though. I just realise you can’t make everyone grateful and you can’t make them raise you.

This isn’t a new moral dilemma, it’s as old as the mountains this one.

I’m an athiest and the only thing I think the bible is accurate about is the Golden Rule.

I raise people as I’d like to think they’d do the same for me, circumstances permitting.

Just some quick mathematics while I’m here.

Approx. 2,000,000 box sales.

1600 bots caught.

1600 divided by 2,000,000 (and this is far less than total box sales now) x 100 = 0.08%

It’s not even one tenth of a percent of the global population.

Just sayin’.

gurugeorge.9857:

Snip

I very much hold the opposite opinion to you george on most things, especially DR and the rampant bot problem (which is, you must agree, getting out of hand.)

However, I can’t knock a well articulated and well-meaning post down when I see it. You also say you agree with several negative effects of the controversial systems used by ANet to “police” the game and that made me smile.

You’re quite right, could I really be unhappy with the purchase I made for the price I paid? Not really. 1-80 was really fun. Really really fun. Each new vista I made sure I watched in full. Each new level was a heart flutterer. Each new mob an eye-opener, each new zone a challenge.

It’s these moments of brilliance and sheer joy within the game that started to make me believe that this game was the one.

That special game that would fill the void this genre so badly needs.

It seems ANet had done their homework and had laid out this solid plan.

I got sucked in. Sucked in big time. I had this silly smile on my face over a weekend from Friday to Saturday, that happy feeling you get when you find an experience you can enjoy in the privacy of your own home that’s all yours.

Then this novelty started to wear off. Not because I reached the cap. Not because I managed to put together my exotic set relatively fast.

Bots. Rampant bots.

Everywhere.

I have seen the same bot names from 3 weeks ago. I’ve mashed that report button like a hyperactive whack-a-mole fanatic. It’s not working.

I hear what you’re saying about CCP and their business practice. I’ve played EVE for 3-4 years.

EVE and GW2 are massively different. Polar opposites of the MMO scene.

EVE has a stable population of ~30,000 per day and if you’ve been in their world recently you’ll know it’s full of nasty dangerous spam messages. They have spam for contracts that, if you’re uninitiated and new, can clear you out. It’s nasty the way the scams target new players. You must know this.

EVE is no paragon of virtue, not by a long shot. There’s myriad things CCP does right, but it’s bots are definitely not one of them.

All I want is action.

As is said in the OP they’re proud of 1600 and relay these glad tidings to us as if it’s some major cleanse operation.

It’s not, it’s a drop in the ocean. You must be able to see this.

You say there’s a ban hammer coming which will affect swathes, leagues, multitudinous bots.

The fact is you don’t know this is true at all and MOST importantly you don’t know what ANet protocol is going to be for dealing with these bots.

They could just tempo-ban them as opposed to perma-ban them.

The real fact of the matter is bots are proliferating and it IS affecting the way I play right now.

They are in my way in the PvE environment and very noticable.

I challenge anyone from any server to prove me wrong and we’ll go on to your server and spend time in Cursed Shore around the trinity of waypoints and see if there’s any truth to what you say.

This isn’t even taking account the chatlog spam and PM spam.

I’ve noticed an increase in PM spam, up from 1-2 per week to 1 per day. You can’t ignore this. You must be seeing it!

I would love, nay, I would pay hard cash – 1 week’s full wages of my own money – to take someone from ANet (not fourm staff) into the the areas affected on the 3 servers I’ve played on.

Just show them. Open my arms and say “This is what I am talking about.”

There’s no way they’d be happy with what they saw.

ANet, please log into your own game, please visit these places and see what we see, we’re not trying to mislead you, we really have problems, we just want you to see how we experience the game as a player, we just can’t play

I love so much about this game. It’s so stylish, so fresh, so… je ne sais quoi.

The bots really ruin it.

I’ll even play with DR.

Just have a bot cull. PLEASE!

tOss.9024:

Snip

What a long and incoherent pile of rambling drivel.

The DR was implemented after the game was released! It wasn’t part of any vision.

It was a knee-jerk reaction to some serious desgin flaws that became apparent after the game was released.

Vision!? Yeah, right,

I’m all for you putting across a reasoned and balanced argument, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to you make things up, because it supports your short-sighted views on what “good” a DR system does.

Not only that, but the official line we get from ANet is that DR exists to curb bots and automated play. It’s nothing to do with trying to get legitimate players to alter their playstyles to suit a “skin oriented game.”

As has already been said in the thread, quite rightly, the DR is punitive in many different ways.

Your assessment is so far wide of the mark it’s risible.

If you can’t see by the overwhelming community response to DR, that’s it’s hated, then you must be spending all your time in other forums, are trolling or haven’t even bothered to read anything anyone else has says.

What a load of rubbish! I needed a good laugh.

The most imporant and damaging aspect of DR is that is alters standard bot behaviour and forces them into our DEs and has also caused bots to increase in number to fight against the effects of DR.

It’s been explained many times already. There are serious unforseen consequences of DR that ANet just didn’t think about.

They caused a big big mess with this and they’re not doing much to reverse it.

It’s going to cause serious damage. It is causing serious damage right now.

If you can’t see that, then I can’t help you. We’ve said all we can say about it.

Either it’ll get fixed or this game will falter and fail, before it’s even had a chance to be a success.

It is that simple.

juiceman.2870:

Well I was saying only captchas for someone reported as being a bot by multiple people then only that person or bot gets the captcha not everyone. It could be automated since I mean players are really the best defense against bots since we are everywhere.

To you, juiceman and others calling for the implementation of captchas. There have been automated captcha solutions you can purchase through Google for years.

You send the copy of the image of the captchas to a company in Russia, they read it, send back the code and this is then entered in the required field. All of this is easily automated. I’ve seen them work.

Captchas are not a line of defence against anything.

What you will do by using them is really really annoy people. People hate captchas in the more mundane areas of their life. Let alone while interacting with a game.

Anyway, the whole captcha argument is totally invalid as automated captcha solutions have existed for years.

If you’re having trouble believing this, Google “Antigate Captcha” and be prepared for some sobering edumacation.

It’s a totally flawed premise.