How does Blizzard identify bots?

[Азриил-deathguard (Азриил)]

@Idaboo-alonsus

As the title says …

Warden snipes them. Warden sniffs around users active apps, compares them to known cheating softwares. When there’s new code and software, warden update takes some time.

Blizzard 1st detect software, reverse engineers it and teaches warden to recognise it.

@Idaboo-alonsus

how can Blizzard actually tell the difference between legit players such as myself, who need to get a life, and a bot?

few things - they track averages. I.e. your IP, play times. If the averages are high (i.e. I used to have very long sessions back on days due reasons), they may run a scan on you. It is likely automated.

Then there’s Warden as mentioned above. Warden detects if you bot, or if you likely bot. Warden does NOT flag you for using most common multibox programs, but there’s certain scripts/automation snippets its not liking .

Legit players have nothing to fear. And in case automated systems pin an innocent, simple e-mail to Blizzard for review would quickly sort this out.

Also there’s flagging/account history they tend to follow in case of doubt.

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

@Idaboo-alonsus

Regrettably not. I wanted to, but by then the conversation had disappeared from my chat window, possibly because I /ignored him. But I doubt I’m the only one he did that to, I suppose there will be multiple complaints about him (or her).

I’m quite annoyed thinking that players might actually give him gold.

Ignoring would indeed hide the conversation. However, if you wanted to report the behaviour to Blizzard they would have been able to investigate, you would need to give them a rough estimate of time the exchange took place and the name of the player and their realm.