Why doesn't Blizzard care about the health of its game anymore?

[Katherinee-gehennas]

Hello
A lot of robots are working in Botinca.
Why doesn’t Blizzard do anything to reduce the number of bots?
Watch this terrible video in the link:
Video Bot Farm botanica No ban
Why should we see such a scene in the game?
What do you think?

[Saneko-ragnaros (Saneko)]

They do ban them either by own detection with Warden or player reports but generally the botters recreate the bots with slightly different names returning at the exact same spot hmhm making it appear like no action is being taken.

[Katherinee-gehennas]

Bots operate in an area where players are not present and never report

[Ôlóhngjóhsón-mirage-raceway]

Not rly a problem, reported AH bots who online for 14-18 hours day+ bots who was milling herbs for 12 hours day in capitals in grps of 3-4+ bunch of guildies did like 10-20 reports a day, they still there 2 month later, guildies reporting them by habbit, noone cares.

[Saneko-ragnaros (Saneko)]

If you’ve reported them for that long they’ve been generally investigated by now and not botting.

There are players who exclusively play the AH - yes for very long but not impossible times.

@Babastiltz-outland

I really hope you are paid

I really think your troll posting is inappropriate here. I am stating a fact: A player reports someone or something, and over a timespan of (2 months) has likely been investigated and not been found botting or otherwise marked for a banwave.

Most bots farm in very large groups. One single player can definitely farm one or specific mobs for a very long time, legitimately, for extremely rare drops or resources to sell without it being illegal. I have seen players to it for their twinks for eternities, it really isn’t new or anything. It does resemble botting since it is boring and tedious to hit the same stuff.

@Ôlóhngjóhsón-mirage-raceway

They wasnt banned even for a day, ive got banned for “botting” for a week or 2 before ive got checked by blizz staff

So on one hand, you want them to check. On the other hand you claim Blizzard doesn’t care. Which one is it?

I believe they do care, and can make mistakes. And err on the side of caution too or we get cases like yours, that you get banned while being a legitimate player.

@Ôlóhngjóhsón-mirage-raceway

noone cares.

[Babastiltz-outland]

@Saneko-ragnaros

I really think your troll posting is inappropriate here. I am stating a fact: A player reports someone or something, and over a timespan of (2 months) has likely been investigated and not been found botting or otherwise marked for a banwave.

I’m not sure how the MVP-title is even “awarded”. But assuming you are a regular player and have no actual insight in Blizzards work with bot prevention, how can you 100% say that every suspicious case is investigated, and banned if confirmed botting? How would you know if you don’t have inside knowledge?

I can for certain say, as someone who plays the game daily, I’m certainly not seeing in-game what allegedly happens on the inside.

[Saneko-ragnaros (Saneko)]

@Babastiltz-outland

I’m not sure how the MVP-title

You can read more about that here:

Welcome, Please Read!

MVP Program Q. Why was the MVP Program created? A. In many cases, the answers to questions posed on the forums have already been provided by Blizzard Entertainment employees, or are common knowledge for many in the community. However, answers by fellow players often go unnoticed while the original poster seeks a more official response. In order to address this, we have instituted a program that has shown great success on other Blizzard forums: the MVP (Most Valuable Poster) program. A dis…

I personally used to have the same problem as you, “botting” cheating and others and then saw other people with the same questions and decided to help with some other variety of mage, common technical issues and Blizzard eventually approached me with it.

In the years after that I continued to collect Blizzard statements, press interviews and so on to present an informed stance on the workings of Blizzard and advise players on what to do to get help (if their case warrants it) and so forth or just post my opinion.

@Babastiltz-outland

I can for certain say, as someone who plays the game daily, I’m certainly not seeing in-game what allegedly happens on the inside.

As a regular player, you will not get to hear the internal workings of the anti-cheat as that is information botters would like to know.

@Babastiltz-outland

and have no actual insight in Blizzards work with bot prevention

Blizzard often posts information like this that I then chose to re-post including info from other game developers:

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

The botting problem is prevalant in all games/MMO’s, not just WoW. If there was a solution there would be one by now.

An ex-dev that worked at Blizz:

Banwaves Are Smart

You may suggest any methods you may think of through the ingame feedback box but it is not likely that it will be groundbreaking new suggestion.

@Kaivax

We hear folks say things like “just ban the bots” a lot. We ban tens of thousands of bots a week. It’s not visible to you just how much we do, and that is absolutely another problem in itself; we need to be better at surfacing these actions (more on this later). The truth is we’ve never been better and more effective at identifying and actioning malicious accounts, and our Game Security Operations (GSO) team that handle these actions are iterating and innovating on a nearly daily basis.

Unfortunately, in the history of WoW, the people perpetrating this illicit trade have also never been better at coming up with new methods, schemes, farms, and exploits to work around our efforts. As much engineering and analytics effort as we put into this, illicit RMT “workshops” put the same amount in, or more, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of these workshops out there all working around the clock to develop new technologies and techniques to counter our new technologies and techniques. It’s an arms race, and it never, ever ends.

We will never completely beat “bots” or illicit RMT. It’s an unwinnable war as long as there is money to be made by third parties. The ubiquitous nature of this type of thing in online games is an objective fact. It has always been a part of WoW, and every other popular online game for the past 25 years, and it will always be a part of online games going forward. It’s frustrating to fight this fight, but we will not stop fighting it.

While we can’t completely “win” the war, what we can do is mitigate the impact it has on the game. Is WoW Token the be-all and end-all to solve this? No, but it is a tool. It’s just one tool, though, among many. There is clearly a demand for gold for certain types of players, and that demand is only increasing. So, we are engaging a tool that we’ve used before to help mitigate the impact that illicit RMT has on the game. The more tools we employ, and the less lucrative we can make it for third parties to do what they do to make a profit, the less likely it is that new malicious actors enter the illicit RMT scene, and the more likely that existing malicious actors will exit the business. Ultimately, it’s taking incremental steps and using a multitude of tools that will reduce how impactful those third parties will be in Wrath Classic and beyond.

Source.

[Ôlóhngjóhsón-mirage-raceway]

@Saneko-ragnaros

I really think your troll posting is inappropriate here. I am stating a fact: A player reports someone or something, and over a timespan of (2 months) has likely been investigated and not been found botting or otherwise marked for a banwave.

It obviously wasnt investigated saw few bots doin botanica in WOTLk for like half year , just that guy probably could report me from his dozen accounts more activly then my guild. They still there, still afk milling in grp of 3-4, even if thats not actual “BOTs” it cant be done w/o “software”/scripits that can be googled in 10 sec, whole realm know who is that guy, he also spam WTS “darkmoon” for like 10 hours a day from same capital where bots parked, and he for sure involved in RMT.

[Babastiltz-outland]

From what I gather, you’re still a regular player and have limited or no access to Blizzards internal information.

So then again, how can you claim with 100% certainty that suspected bot cases are investigated and banned if confirmed botting?

It’s very easy to detect a bot just by using your own eyesight and general game knowledge to identify botting, weird movement etc. A bot will differ in behaviour from a real human player. And if the same character goes on for months and months, it’s quite clear to me that the character hasn’t been investigated properly, even though it’s been reported, by me personally and most likely others in the area aswell.

I was also listening to an ex Blizzard employee on Metagoblins Youtube channel a while ago. There’s no way for me to verify the information he talked about on the subject, but what he said regarding botting is directly going against that Blizzard would be looking into every reported case. Which is contradicting your initial statement.

Edit: Just to clarify. I’m not saying Blizzard are doing nothing in regards to bots. I’m fully aware of the concept with banwaves. My issue is the wording of this:

@Saneko-ragnaros

If you’ve reported them for that long they’ve been generally investigated by now and not botting.

[Freemind-pyrewood-village]

I think a good comparison on this “cat & mouse” game is AD block and Google or Youtube.
Google & Youtube, work hard as hell to block Ad blocker, still not blocked.
There is a massive money incentive for them, but they’re just not able to block the adblocker.

The ones who create bot programs arn’t just angsty teens, they’re many times developers with years of experience. Who are specialized within these areas. Fighting vs other developers in blizz or other game departments trying to get rid of the bots.

It’s like Anticheat system vs cheaters aswell.

@Babastiltz-outland

So then again, how can you claim with 100% certainty that suspected bot cases are investigated and banned if confirmed botting?

Where do you expect this argument to lead? If Saneko can’t prove it & you can’t.
Then aight, argument dead from both sides.
But it’s probably in blizz interest to not flood the game with bots.

@Babastiltz-outland

but what he said regarding botting is directly going against that Blizzard would be looking into every reported case.

Considering the mass amount of bots, any handling of them is probably done in chunks.
There won’t be a case of you reporting one bot, it goes into a servicedesk employees ticket, he goes & check it, then banns.

All reports probably goes into a pile, it then gets checked, how? I don’t know, then all verified botters gets banned in a wave. So seeing a bot for 1 or 2 or 3 months is not THAT crazy. Banning them to fast or to few at once, just gives the bot developer a headsup to fix the weakness.

[Babastiltz-outland]

@Freemind-pyrewood-village

Where do you expect this argument to lead? If Saneko can’t prove it & you can’t.
Then aight, argument dead from both sides.
But it’s probably in blizz interest to not flood the game with bots.

I’m not expecting anything really. I know I can’t prove in detail how Blizzard is working internally against botters, but I’m also not making such claims. Which is how I interpret the MVP posters response in this thread to the player concern.

[Freemind-pyrewood-village]

Aight ye i see your point.
My guess is that we’d see ALOT more bots to the point of being completly unplayable, if they did nothing.
Edit: And people who do bot, probably lie through their teeth on how they’re not being banned. To create uncertainty & to ruin Blizz reputation & to increase a “hate” towards them.