Originally posted by EagleDelta2

Just as a note, here's a link to a post from the official forums from yesterday with an brief update on how many accounts were banned yesterday just for botting:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/support/account/Botter-reporting-any-way-to-find-out-the-result/first#post391228

They're keeping people updated, some just don't know where to look

Nice try but I posted that 2 pages back and no one cared. Everyone on this thread has made up their mind already and would rather just keep arguing about why their particular brand of craziness is the best one. This ranges from "bots don't exist" to "it's part of the NCSOFT business model."

All this from an ANET post that said: 

1. We are doing something about it

2. Stop addressing questions directly to us on this forum and just saying the same thing, you morons! Except they said it nicer than I would have.

3. Whoever thinks it's a good idea to post ambiguous screenshots with other player's personal info in these bot threads...give your head a shake.... Except they also said that in a nicer way than I would have.

i swear this forum is getting crazier by the day.

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by EagleDelta2

Just as a note, here's a link to a post from the official forums from yesterday with an brief update on how many accounts were banned yesterday just for botting:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/support/account/Botter-reporting-any-way-to-find-out-the-result/first#post391228

They're keeping people updated, some just don't know where to look

Nice try but I posted that 2 pages back and no one cared. Everyone on this thread has made up their mind already and would rather just keep arguing about why their particular brand of craziness is the best one. This ranges from "bots don't exist" to "it's part of the NCSOFT business model."

 

All this from an ANET post that said: 

1. We are doing something about it

2. Stop addressing questions directly to us on this forum and just saying the same thing, you morons! Except they said it nicer than I would have.

3. Whoever thinks it's a good idea to post ambiguous screenshots with other player's personal info in these bot threads...give your head a shake.... Except they also said that in a nicer way than I would have.

 

i swear this forum is getting crazier by the day.

 

Ahh, I didn't see your post.  People just want to complain then.... I'll leave them to it.

I'm so happy that NCsoft released Lineage 3. 

I so missed playing with all the bots and grinding out my weapon like a madman.

Originally posted by Macecard

1 question;

how do you identify bots? if you answer is I pm them with "are you botting" and they dont reply = bot. then id like tp point out that if you pmed me in game with any like you demeanor in your post then id ignore you 100%.

 No I use common sense. Look at the countless yt videos on this subject. Normal players do not run in a tiny circle, in exactly the same pattern 24/7. Did you look at or read anything at all?

[mod edit] No one is exaggerating the problem. Botters are definitely an epidemic on my server, which is Yak's Bend. Go to the ridges along Trionic lattice In Frostgorge and there are 17 bots there most of them multiple accounts related to each other. There are about 5 more on the road just to the north killing the moas and mooses.It is almost impossible to farm there because they kill most mobs before you cna get to them. At both ends of the Penitent Path there are so many bots  that they instantly obliterate most mobs before you can tag them. It is very hard to get loot there.

Botters are like other players in that they can pull mobs on you, and sometimes do if you're playing in their area.

Botters don't have to infest every single area of the server to be a major problem, just the ones most people are playing in now.

The remark from the developer was snide and condescending. Hourly updates? That's completely ridiculous. This from a company that had been silent about the issue for weeks and done nothing substantial to deal with it other than the DR crap, it's a pretty brazen statement, considering how angry they have made many players over this and many other issues.

Originally posted by Jyiiga

Originally posted by Macecard

1 question;

how do you identify bots? if you answer is I pm them with "are you botting" and they dont reply = bot. then id like tp point out that if you pmed me in game with any like you demeanor in your post then id ignore you 100%.

 No I use common sense. Look at the countless yt videos on this subject. Normal players do not run in a tiny circle, in exactly the same pattern 24/7. Did you look at or read anything at all?

Sadly, I think anytime there has been an issue with account security on a popular game you are going to see an issue with bots. I'm glad to see they are taking an active stance to resolve it.

I do tend to agree that day by day updates on the matter are counter-productive.

Just report players you see botting and try not to let it vex you too badly.

Originally posted by ennymith

Bots drive down the profit regular players can make from farming.  This makes gem sales more attractive than fruitless grind.

For all we know the bots and gold sellers are independent contractors hired by Anet,  providing a cut rate gold alternative to the the gem shop, either way Anet/NCSoft gets thier cut.

Asian cash shop based games always degenerate into GW2's current state where the only observable actions taken are those to further curtail player income (nerfing drops, dungeons, and farming in general) while bugs and unfinished content are rarely touched. 

It's a shame this generation has no experience with traveling sideshows, carneys, schills, so called games of skill with cheesy prizes, this is just the digital version. 

Enjoy being fleeced.

good thing this isnt an asian game then(Anet are based in belview washington....not asia)

good thing that the cash shop isnt like those asian f2p games where you p2w and have no option to trade in game gold for cash shop currancy....

btw, your not a very good troll, you lack subtlety and grace, your post is blatant trolling......sorry but....your fail it.

Originally posted by jpaprocki

I got GW2 a week ago as a gift.  Since I didn't have to pay for it I decided to give it a shot.  I only have a toon to lvl 15, but I don't play often and when I do,  no matter when I logon or where I am I awlays see bots.   It doesn't affect my harvesting, but it screws up the economy.   The way it is now if you want to craft for the sake of crafting then it's all good.  If you want to prehaps do it as a source of income then don't waste your time.  It's just not the bots, but a poor design as well.

It just amazes me how GW2 on this forum seems to get a pass on nearly anything that could be considered a negative, but those same problems on other mmo's get amplified on here and the mmo destroyed.  Funny how that works.

there are reasons for this, one major one being, other mmo's that get alot of crap also charge you per month for the privlage of playing on top of the box price.

the game just came out and is still being debugged let alone polished and balanced.

the game isnt full of WoW kiddies who just want to be leet....you see alot of these "wow kiddies" here badmouthing gw2 for not being WoW, yet the same people claim to want something different from WoW......

I give most of the bugs a pass for now because, I have played other major and minor mmo's at launch(and before) and this is the smoothist launch I have seen for any mmo EVER, sure there are bugs, but no hours in que/cue, servers are stable, anet has been doing good at dealing with the few jerk players i have come across.

Yeah they are still working on bot issues, but honestly, even if they get rid of the obvious ones, they wont get rid of all the "stealth" ones(ones that are more human like.....the first bots for any mmo are very....noticeable, later bots tend to be harder to decern from real players)

on a side note: i enjoy crafting but I dont think its really bad that the game currently isnt revolving around low level crafters making bank off crafting.....even without the bots it wouldnt be like that because its to easy to get mats either from farming or from tp.....this isnt a game with artificial scarcity, they want people to have fun crafting not have to struggle hard to craft each item they make.....

Normally I would applaud Anet but 3000 bans (and 1600 about a month ago). Is not enough. Whilst it is hyperbole to say they are everywhere they are clearly running rampant. Anet need to ban at least enough to deter at least casual botters. Hell I've been tempted. 

Incidentally to those that say they have not seen them, that does not mean they are not there. I was playing an alt with my son in gendaran fields yesterday, he was oblivious to them until I pointed out a few. They where all over the place still incidentally.

Another mis conception is they use stolen accounts, this is just not so in the vast majority of cases. Casual botter might buy a second account to feed their 'main' but certainly don't steal accounts. Gold sellers want to retain botting accounts for as long as possible, using a stolen one is going to get them shut down quicker on balance than a bought one. Buying accounts is an operating cost. They might use stolen accounts to disburse purchases but not from botting.

I really don't understand why it is taking them so long to ban the obvious bots, at least the unsophisticated ones which take seconds to identify, even the better ones have jerky obvious movement though that will of course improve  over time.

Originally posted by Gorilla

Normally I would applaud Anet but 3000 bans (and 1600 about a month ago). Is not enough. Whilst it is hyperbole to say they are everywhere they are clearly running rampant. Anet need to ban at least enough to deter at least casual botters. Hell I've been tempted. 

Incidentally to those that say they have not seen them, that does not mean they are not there. I was playing an alt with my son in gendaran fields yesterday, he was oblivious to them until I pointed out a few. They where all over the place still incidentally.

Another mis conception is they use stolen accounts, this is just not so in the vast majority of cases. Casual botter might buy a second account to feed their 'main' but certainly don't steal accounts. Gold sellers want to retain botting accounts for as long as possible, using a stolen one is going to get them shut down quicker on balance than a bought one. Buying accounts is an operating cost. They might use stolen accounts to disburse purchases but not from botting.

I really don't understand why it is taking them so long to ban the obvious bots, at least the unsophisticated ones which take seconds to identify, even the better ones have jerky obvious movement though that will of course improve  over time.

Dude, that's 3000 bans in one day.... go back and reread that.  I can't imagine they're handing out bans once a month.

Everyone gets annoyed and frustrated. That is understandable. Devs and forum mods more than some because they have to 'suck it up' and listen to the frustrations of the customers.

That said, they (particularly forum mods) are Customer Service reps. If they don't know how to post something politically 'correct' (as much as I hate being PC) when 50 or 60K of their subscribers (Okay, users since there aren't any subs) are hanging on thier every word, then they shouldn't be posting. Or let a good HR proofread before posting.

The last Mod statement before they closed that thread (which they made people use in the 1st place) could have said EXACTLY the same message, stated slightly differently and no one (well far fewer, some will always get their noses bent) would find fault in what was said.

It was unprofessional and stupid and it made me wonder for the 1st time (well openly wonder) why I would bother with thier forums.

I am glad they 'smote' 3K botters. Does that mean 3K botters are gone/banned? Warned? Temp lockout? We don't know. If they were banned, I think they would have said banned. Banned is final (well, semi-final in some cases but generally it means gone).

Also note that the Mod who said that later had to stop her 'cheery words' (needed badly at this point) because she was overstepping her mandate. She was rolling in the good will, then someone internally probably reminded her to stop encouraging the posters as they were again putting actual pics/links to pics on the site. That's a no-no.

End goodwill.

Positive and disappointing all in one go.

Edited - typo/missing word

Haha funny.. I decided to play some GW2 today and went ahead and made a thief, hoping it would keep me entertained.

So I'm level 3 and i see this train of 7 players and was like wow, are these bots?  multiboxing maybe?

Its just too bad.  I was hyped up for this game since a year ago.  Bought the pre-purchase when it was available.  All in all, good game, but disappointed

Originally posted by kluu

Haha funny.. I decided to play some GW2 today and went ahead and made a thief, hoping it would keep me entertained.

 

So I'm level 3 and i see this train of 7 players and was like wow, are these bots?  multiboxing maybe?

 

Its just too bad.  I was hyped up for this game since a year ago.  Bought the pre-purchase when it was available.  All in all, good game, but disappointed

my advice is to just report them and keep playing, they arent harming your gameplay exp any, and who knows how well the masures anet has been emplimenting server side are working to cut down their profits, it very well could be that they are getting far lower returns for their time then they where early on, and eventually many will leave for other mmo's where the time to profit margin is higher.....i mean, if in an hour they can make 20bucks rather then 5bucks, that would be a good reason for them to move to another game.(i have seen this happen)

one peice of advice, dont start a human if you dont want to be bored, among my friends we have agreed human start area is the worst of them all....sylvari and norn are the best, char and asura are in the middle(tho a couple are in love with the char....damn furries :P )

Originally posted by EagleDelta2

Dude, that's 3000 bans in one day.... go back and reread that.  I can't imagine they're handing out bans once a month.

The 'ban wave' might have occured on one day but that is from the imformation thay have gleened since the last 'ban wave' (which was end of september and 1600 accounts).

In any case what matters is they are still prolific and proliferating. 

________________________________________

Oh and it does effect my game in numerous ways. Immersion as already mention.  Also in some particular places it's hard to even tag a mob. The big one however is the economy which already has issues.

I am sure they will get on top of it, its hurting them more than us, it comes straight off their bottom line (undermining the gem store).

well  Anet  is a title provider for NC-Soft. No  funds  for monitoring staff from NC.

If you ever played any other NC-Soft  published titles you know what i mean  they dont give a flying shit

bout bots n ploiters  in general , when one is caught he doesnt get IP banned or anything ...hes still free to buy a new copy .

b2p&p2p  maxed out  at its best :P

Ok.  I'm officially someone who is seeing bots everywhere now.  

Frostgorge Sound was covered with bots today.  Everywhere I went, literally, as I was getting map completion of the zone.   Until  the Claw of Jormag event started up I didn't even think other players existed.  But then suddenly there was a surge of people there, like out of nowhere.   Which didn't really make me feel any better actually because prior to the dragon the only things in map chat were "is dragon up?", "ETA on dragon?", or "how soon drag?"  

All feeling of immersion is gone when all I see is camping bots with bears, or a trail of guardians that all look like clones of each other, or an army of people swarming every dragon when they spawn, asking when they spawn, knowing when they spawn, waiting for them to spawn...  

When Colin Johanson said, "We think Guild Wars 2 is one of the most enthralling online worlds ever created..." I'm now starting to question which definition of the word enthralling he meant;

1.  to captivate or charm: a performer whose grace, skill, andvirtuosity enthrall her audiences.

Because right now I'm feeling more like number two with "dynamic" events being nothing more than an illusion of an immersive ever-changing world and all I see is a bunch of mindless thralls roaming it.  

Wow...I really went negative.