Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

Originally posted by Aerowyn

not only is there a sticky about it

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/On-Botting-and-What-We-re-Doing-About-It/first

there's another post by the lead dev

 

Hey folks,

Since it has been a few weeks since we gave an update on this, just wanted to quickly update where we stand. We recently hired an entire new team of people with one mission in mind: operation bot destruction.

They’ve been getting everything in place to accomplish our goal of making botting, hacking, spamming, and malicious behavior as non-existent as possible in Gw2. In the last few weeks, over 10,000 bot accounts were banned from the game alone. Another area of massive improvement has been in account security, where our two-factor authentication as well as your password changes have led to account thefts dropping to a tiny rate. A vast majority of account thieves use those accounts to run bots and/or perform RMT transactions, so our serious beefing up of account security has led to fewer bots, and most importantly fewer stolen accounts. That being said, we have massive improvements on the way in the next couple of weeks that help us detect, verify, and remove botters.

What we don’t want to do is have someone report you as botting, we ban the account, the bot appeals, and we have no data to prove they were botting on file so we have to give them the account back. Ensuring we have 100% clear data on bots that’s incredibly easy for our GM team to quickly verify, and when an appeal is submitted verify within seconds if the person was truly botting is our most important goal. We don’t want to ban people who were not botting, and we want to keep the people who are permanently locked out.

Bottom line: We’re doing ok, but we know we can and need to do much better on this front and are putting massive resources behind ensuring we have a permanent solution to this issue. You’ll see a dramatic improvement in this area in the next few weeks as our remaining detection and bot destruction tools and staff come online.

We’ll continue to keep updating on this front as we go forward, but rest assured we are aware of issues folks are raising and take them incredibly seriously. From FOV to bots, account restoration to more awesome stuff to do at level 80 we have teams working like mad on all of these fronts.

 

really not sure what else you want from them.. they said they just got a whole team working on it I know on Rall I haven't seen any bots in over a week now

 

You know? There really are some fans that should be paid for what they bring to a game or its community. Keep that love alive girl.

This is a big money industry playing a game for hundreds of millions of dollors. I'm sure some "fans" do get paid.

Speaking from experience ?....just don't get paid in stocks right ?

Originally posted by Aerowyn

not only is there a sticky about it

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/On-Botting-and-What-We-re-Doing-About-It/first

there's another post by the lead dev

 

Hey folks,

Since it has been a few weeks since we gave an update on this, just wanted to quickly update where we stand. We recently hired an entire new team of people with one mission in mind: operation bot destruction.

They’ve been getting everything in place to accomplish our goal of making botting, hacking, spamming, and malicious behavior as non-existent as possible in Gw2. In the last few weeks, over 10,000 bot accounts were banned from the game alone. Another area of massive improvement has been in account security, where our two-factor authentication as well as your password changes have led to account thefts dropping to a tiny rate. A vast majority of account thieves use those accounts to run bots and/or perform RMT transactions, so our serious beefing up of account security has led to fewer bots, and most importantly fewer stolen accounts. That being said, we have massive improvements on the way in the next couple of weeks that help us detect, verify, and remove botters.

What we don’t want to do is have someone report you as botting, we ban the account, the bot appeals, and we have no data to prove they were botting on file so we have to give them the account back. Ensuring we have 100% clear data on bots that’s incredibly easy for our GM team to quickly verify, and when an appeal is submitted verify within seconds if the person was truly botting is our most important goal. We don’t want to ban people who were not botting, and we want to keep the people who are permanently locked out.

Bottom line: We’re doing ok, but we know we can and need to do much better on this front and are putting massive resources behind ensuring we have a permanent solution to this issue. You’ll see a dramatic improvement in this area in the next few weeks as our remaining detection and bot destruction tools and staff come online.

We’ll continue to keep updating on this front as we go forward, but rest assured we are aware of issues folks are raising and take them incredibly seriously. From FOV to bots, account restoration to more awesome stuff to do at level 80 we have teams working like mad on all of these fronts.

 

really not sure what else you want from them.. they said they just got a whole team working on it I know on Rall I haven't seen any bots in over a week now

that post was essentially made in response to Lewis B's article about hack/exploits.  if Lewis would have never published that Anet would have stayed silient.

If people starts attacking ArenaNet with insults of course they are going to ban them and delete their threads. If they discuss like a real mature human being they won't. ArenaNet however already know of this problem and they have answered players feedback, they have banned more than 10 000 bots and that was a few weeks ago and they have fixed WvWvW by increasing server trasnfer from 1 day to 1 week. The bug that makes you invisible in WvWvW is also fixed i think.

Originally posted by InFlamestwo

If people starts attacking ArenaNet with insults of course they are going to ban them and delete their threads. If they discuss like a real mature human being they won't. ArenaNet however already know of this problem and they have answered players feedback, they have banned more than 10 000 bots and that was a few weeks ago and they have fixed WvWvW by increasing server trasnfer from 1 day to 1 week. The bug that makes you invisible in WvWvW is also fixed i think.

 

 

sure...

The moderation team does a poor job on those forums. They hand out infractions like candy until people get suspensions for point accumulation. If some one reports your post, you get an infraction. It's that bad.

They used to tell you the reason and alert you if you got an infraction with poor reasons like 'wasn't adding to the discussion of the thread' when it was but taken out of context because you can't hit the quote buttons. Now they don't even alert you if you get an infraction. The only time you find out you got a bunch of infractions is when you're suspended. Even then they do not tell you the reason.

Their e-mails for appeals don't even respond. It maybe their forums, but they certainly doing their best to prevent their players from using it as one and instead turning it into a second wiki.

Pretty much made an official complaint to their support team and moved on. The forums be whack there. Only post rarely with a robotic mono-tone, because any other tone can be interpreted as hostile. Fun isn't allowed there.

Another example, they recently locked a thread in general discussion, about new whale corpses on the beaches of Lions Arch.  Mod said it was "off topic"

Sure, it was a terrible thread.  The OP was being ridiculous.. but off topic?  They use that as an excuse to lock anything, it seems.  Doesn't create a good atmosphere, when posters never know what'll get an infraction, locked, or deleted, no matter how well they try to follow rules.  It just creates a facade, and I'm disappointed in them for being ok with that.

Originally posted by Vhaln

Another example, they recently locked a thread in general discussion, about new whale corpses on the beaches of Lions Arch.  Mod said it was "off topic"

Sure, it was a terrible thread.  The OP was being ridiculous.. but off topic?  They use that as an excuse to lock anything, it seems.  Doesn't create a good atmosphere, when posters never know what'll get an infraction, locked, or deleted, no matter how well they try to follow rules.  It just creates a facade, and I'm disappointed in them for being ok with that.

Seriously, that guy was complaining about pixel whales in a video game viewed by a 12+ year adolescent... there's more violence in an episode of clone wars or some random japanese manga kids watch today.

What comes next - PETA trying to remove all animals from the game because we can kill them? Hell, GW2 also has use of alcool, what about that?

The moderator was perfectly right to lock that thread - it could have gone nowhere good, and was just an example of typical selective hypocrisy of a specific supset of the population.

EDIT: I went to have a look at the whales - there a NPCs tending them, and you have water buckets all around them - you can be pretty sure there will be an event to save them.

Originally posted by cptndunsel

Players have been pointing out issues with bots, bugs, in-game changes they don't agree with (nerfs, class changes, monthly achievement changes, dungeon loot etc) and for the most part it had been polite feedback.

 

Now, however, as Anet has failed to address basic items like bots and bugs, has not listened to feedback around their changes in game, and have made other odd moves (such as the recent change in WvWvW to remove Orbs because of hacking issues and Anet inability to fix the game - so poof - gone now along with the bonus to stats they provided) people have become more vocal.

 

Moderators are now taking a very heavy hand, deleting threads they don't like, issuing bans etc. even if the "complaint" is voiced in non-hostile, non-vulgar way.

 

This is never a good sign. Moderators have far too much power, restrict the honest exchange of ideas and feedback, and the forums become the realm of fanbois. Same thing occurred with TSW - its not at all player friendly.

 

Restrict vulgar people -yes. Shut down discussion and feedback on broken elements of the game? Epic fail.

Sounds like a cover up to me, they dont want too many players knowing about bugs, as it will lead to even more players giving up and moving on to another game!

Originally posted by zastroph

Originally posted by cptndunsel

Players have been pointing out issues with bots, bugs, in-game changes they don't agree with (nerfs, class changes, monthly achievement changes, dungeon loot etc) and for the most part it had been polite feedback.

 

Now, however, as Anet has failed to address basic items like bots and bugs, has not listened to feedback around their changes in game, and have made other odd moves (such as the recent change in WvWvW to remove Orbs because of hacking issues and Anet inability to fix the game - so poof - gone now along with the bonus to stats they provided) people have become more vocal.

 

Moderators are now taking a very heavy hand, deleting threads they don't like, issuing bans etc. even if the "complaint" is voiced in non-hostile, non-vulgar way.

 

This is never a good sign. Moderators have far too much power, restrict the honest exchange of ideas and feedback, and the forums become the realm of fanbois. Same thing occurred with TSW - its not at all player friendly.

 

Restrict vulgar people -yes. Shut down discussion and feedback on broken elements of the game? Epic fail.

Sounds like a cover up to me, they dont want too many players knowing about bugs, as it will lead to even more players giving up and moving on to another game!

GW2 has more bugs than star ship troopers. I really doubt they can cover something of such magnitutde. I believe they are just getting frustrated because even they know that its been 2 months since release and players are now getting impatient.

Originally posted by evolver1972

Originally posted by Baseline

(...)

You haven't been to the GW2 official forums have you?  There are many threads about in game issues.  Many are locked because they've either been addressed or because they are duplicates.

 

I have yet to see ArenaNet do one dishonest thing.

Agreed, people are just blowing things out of proportion and until I see substantial proof of the contrary, I will keep on believing in Arenanet.

Originally posted by muffins89

Originally posted by Aerowyn

not only is there a sticky about it

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/On-Botting-and-What-We-re-Doing-About-It/first

there's another post by the lead dev

 

Hey folks,

Since it has been a few weeks since we gave an update on this, just wanted to quickly update where we stand. We recently hired an entire new team of people with one mission in mind: operation bot destruction.

They’ve been getting everything in place to accomplish our goal of making botting, hacking, spamming, and malicious behavior as non-existent as possible in Gw2. In the last few weeks, over 10,000 bot accounts were banned from the game alone. Another area of massive improvement has been in account security, where our two-factor authentication as well as your password changes have led to account thefts dropping to a tiny rate. A vast majority of account thieves use those accounts to run bots and/or perform RMT transactions, so our serious beefing up of account security has led to fewer bots, and most importantly fewer stolen accounts. That being said, we have massive improvements on the way in the next couple of weeks that help us detect, verify, and remove botters.

What we don’t want to do is have someone report you as botting, we ban the account, the bot appeals, and we have no data to prove they were botting on file so we have to give them the account back. Ensuring we have 100% clear data on bots that’s incredibly easy for our GM team to quickly verify, and when an appeal is submitted verify within seconds if the person was truly botting is our most important goal. We don’t want to ban people who were not botting, and we want to keep the people who are permanently locked out.

Bottom line: We’re doing ok, but we know we can and need to do much better on this front and are putting massive resources behind ensuring we have a permanent solution to this issue. You’ll see a dramatic improvement in this area in the next few weeks as our remaining detection and bot destruction tools and staff come online.

We’ll continue to keep updating on this front as we go forward, but rest assured we are aware of issues folks are raising and take them incredibly seriously. From FOV to bots, account restoration to more awesome stuff to do at level 80 we have teams working like mad on all of these fronts.

 

really not sure what else you want from them.. they said they just got a whole team working on it I know on Rall I haven't seen any bots in over a week now

that post was essentially made in response to Lewis B's article about hack/exploits.  if Lewis would have never published that Anet would have stayed silient.

Even if Lewis B's article was solely responsible for this response--and there's simply no way you can possibly know that; asserting otherwise is fruitless speculation--are you implying that this somehow invalidates Anet's response?  A criticism was raised, and Anet addressed it in a professional manner.  What more would you have liked? 

I'll add that not only is it only speculation that Anet wouldn't have addressed the issue in absence of Lewis B's article, but the numerous personal responses they've given to dozens of issues and questions raised by mere fans on their forms and elsewhere demonstrate exactly the opposite. 

Another recent example:

guildwars2forum.com/threads/13980-Issues-with-GW2

(was going to post to the more recent thread on the subject, but it got locked for some reason.)

There is a tradition of free speech in the West and while some may try to justify censorship as Anet's right, censorship has always been viewed as cowardly at best and dishonest or sleazy at worst. Trying to stifle free debate is not going to keep players from learning the truth or spreading the truth about the game; it can only lead to an angry backlash particularly among those who have been gratuitously banned for even the mildest criticisms or questions.

I only noticed threads about the same topic getting merged. I receive regurarly emails from forum moderators saying that my post was in a thread that was merged with an already existing thread. Including the link to my post in the new thread.

Originally posted by Vhaln

Another recent example:

guildwars2forum.com/threads/13980-Issues-with-GW2

(was going to post to the more recent thread on the subject, but it got locked for some reason.)

 

i ws banned a few days ago for "staff callout" after quoting an employee.  at least they're consistant.

Originally posted by Redhawk2006

There is a tradition of free speech in the West and while some may try to justify censorship as Anet's right, censorship has always been viewed as cowardly at best and dishonest or sleazy at worst. Trying to stifle free debate is not going to keep players from learning the truth or spreading the truth about the game; it can only lead to an angry backlash particularly among those who have been gratuitously banned for even the mildest criticisms or questions.

This. They seem extremely unsecure to criticism, where their peers in general understand and deal with it. This is one thing I'm very against in their ways. I've been warned a couple times and both really cup-cake issues for forum par. Way over-moderated, totally un-Fonzi cool.

I'm not defending them for possible excessive moderation on the forum, but that "free speech" nonsense is always funny.

There's no such thing as free speech in a private space, and their game is a private space. Of course, they can't break the law by e.g. discriminating and forbidding game access to (e.g.) people with a specific skin color, or of a specific gender for instance. But on their forums, they can moderate as they want, just like you can do in your home.

You come in my home, behave in a way I don't like, or say things I don't like, I can throw you out, and no laws can stop me from doing that. I can actually kick you out without any reason if I choose so, it's me who controls who comes into my house. Same thing if you behave inappropriately in a restaurant, a bar, or any other private space open to public. And same for ArenaNET and their property, both on forums and in game.

I'm always hoping that the posters who abuse that "free speech" card are very young and therefore need more experience in life to realize what it's all about, but sadly most of the times it's adults. It makes me wonder in what world those people are living.