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Guild Wars 2: Taking a Stand Against Botting

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129

ArenaNet has responded to the outcry from players about the seemingly 'rampant' use of bots in Guild Wars 2. The post, penned by Security Coordinator Mike Lewis, indicates that over 1,600 accounts have been banned and that the team is actively updating bot recognition protocols on a daily basis.


We are actively improving our means of detecting ‘bot’ activity in the game automatically. This includes tools for our customer support team to help them verify ‘botting’ reports and efficiently issue account terminations. Recently we have also hired a team of data specialists who will be helping us create more effective tools for analyzing reports of ‘botting.’

As a side effect, these efforts directly impact the operations of third-party gold sellers (and spammers). In conjunction with ‘bot’ removal we also take Real Money Trading very seriously and actively remove hundreds of gold spammers and sellers each day.

Read the full post on the Guild Wars 2 site.



¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


Comments

  • Xstatic912Xstatic912 Member Posts: 365
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..
  • FadedbombFadedbomb Member Posts: 2,081
    Originally posted by Xstatic912
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..

    Not with the limited inflow of money coming in due to being a B2P product. Once they burn up their box-sales repaying production cost of the product, payroll, and production costs of new content it becomes harder for F2P and B2P products to maintain a quality service over time for anything above X number of players.

    The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
    Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.

  • XzenXzen Member UncommonPosts: 2,607
    Originally posted by Xstatic912
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..

    No. Even in WoW they can't stop the bots. All they can do is keep banning them and try to remove as much of the gold they sold from the system as possible.

  • McGamerMcGamer Member UncommonPosts: 1,073
    All AN needs to focus on is IP-banning(regular banning doesn't use their IP) the bots to slow down their implementation. That, along with making it cheaper to convert gold to gems and bots won't have a leg to stand on.
  • SilentstormSilentstorm Member UncommonPosts: 1,126
    It takes the community to actively report EVERY bot it see's.
  • SnarlingWolfSnarlingWolf Member Posts: 2,697

    "We take real money trading very serious"

     

    Because we want you to buy our gems with real world money for your trading needs instead.

  • SentimeSentime Member UncommonPosts: 270
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

    "We take real money trading very serious"

     

    Because we want you to buy our gems with real world money for your trading needs instead.

     

    Last check, gold farmers were undercutting them by 75%.

     

     

    Originally posted by Silentstorm
    It takes the community to actively report EVERY bot it see's.

     

    Well the comminity is on a witch hunt and possibly reporting more legit players then bots.  So no thank you, and I paid to have fun, not to do ANets job for free.

  • VesaviusVesavius Member RarePosts: 7,908
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

    "We take real money trading very serious"

     

    Because we want you to buy our gems with real world money for your trading needs instead.

     

     

    Who gives a shit about the motivation behind it in this case?

    Then again, who gives a shit also about a company that sells gold talking about gold sellers, because they are undercutting them?

    I will be honest, in this case because I generally loathe gold buyers and see them as weak assed cheats, I don't actually care if I see a bot. ANet have already legitamised the practise of buying gold in their game so it's their issue to look out for.

    I feel sorry for the guys that have been tempted because there WILL be a wave of mass bannings sooner or later for it. Gold is just to valuable to ANet to tolerate this with a soft stance.

  • SnarlingWolfSnarlingWolf Member Posts: 2,697
    Originally posted by Sentime
    Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

    "We take real money trading very serious"

     

    Because we want you to buy our gems with real world money for your trading needs instead.

     

    Last check, gold farmers were undercutting them by 75%.

    Then clearly ANets prices are too high.

     

    If ANets prices were considered right on then people wouldn't resort to gold buying which is 1) against the rules 2) could get them scammed in real life or get their money taken without getting gold in return and 3) risk their account banned for doing it.

     

    It is far easier to follow the rules. So the better ANets prices, the more people who follow the rules.

     

     

    I also hate botting and gold farming. But I started to care less in games when the companies themselves did the same thing. If a company is going to sell you stuff instead of having you earn it, why do I care if some random chinese person does the same thing?

  • botrytisbotrytis Member RarePosts: 3,363
    Originally posted by Sukiyaki

    Yes

    ANet will run out of money if a botter is banned yet keeps buying another game client to retry botting everytime he's banned again, because its B2P and doesnt hold a subscription tag like the favorite game of some delusional MMORPG virgins and ANet isnt wasting almost a hundredmillion Dollar of your "well invested" money on ads instead of game supervisors or content development.

    Make perfect sense!

    Sorry - most of the bots and gold sellers use stolen accounts. They will not spend the money to buy the game, they steal or use free trial accounts. That is why in RIft, trial accounts cannot trade with players that have  a sub account, etc. Botters still get around it but, it just makes it harder for them.


  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,957

    Nothing but a PR stunt to appease the players.

    They don't even have any tools nor infrastructure in place to restore hacked/stolen accounts, lost data (due to rollbacks, etc).

    So how in earth are they going to combat botters and removing excess gold from the game?

    In pretty much all NCSoft games botting has been rampant to no end.

    /shrug

  • KingJigglyKingJiggly Member Posts: 777
    Originally posted by Xstatic912
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..

    They need runescapes data team.... They have done wonderfully in removing bots.

  • LydonLydon Member UncommonPosts: 2,938
    Originally posted by Fadedbomb
    Originally posted by Xstatic912
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..

    Not with the limited inflow of money coming in due to being a B2P product. Once they burn up their box-sales repaying production cost of the product, payroll, and production costs of new content it becomes harder for F2P and B2P products to maintain a quality service over time for anything above X number of players.

    Do you realise how that makes no sense? As they're banning accounts for botting, so the botters need to buy new accounts in order to keep botting. So either the bots fund the anti-botting team, or no one bots and it isn't necessary.

    1600 accounts have been banned so far...you do the math.

  • ThumbtackJThumbtackJ Member UncommonPosts: 669
    I don't care about botters as much as I do spammers. Bot/multi-box all you want for all I care, just don't spam up my chat box and I'll be a happy camper.
  • OzmodanOzmodan Member EpicPosts: 9,726
    Ah if you ban accounts, $60 is an expense that gold sellers are going to be hard put to make up.  Same for botters.
  • dotdotdashdotdotdash Member UncommonPosts: 485

    Here's an idea:

    Why don't they deliver detection pay loads with the streaming tech they use to send game data to the client?

     

  • KuppaKuppa Member UncommonPosts: 3,292
    Originally posted by Lydon
    Originally posted by Fadedbomb
    Originally posted by Xstatic912
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..

    Not with the limited inflow of money coming in due to being a B2P product. Once they burn up their box-sales repaying production cost of the product, payroll, and production costs of new content it becomes harder for F2P and B2P products to maintain a quality service over time for anything above X number of players.

    Do you realise how that makes no sense? As they're banning accounts for botting, so the botters need to buy new accounts in order to keep botting. So either the bots fund the anti-botting team, or no one bots and it isn't necessary.

    1600 accounts have been banned so far...you do the math.

    And I think people fail to realize just how the CS(F2P or B2P) model actually works. They gain their revenue of the shop more than the initial purchase prize. You and your 1000 friends might not buy a single thing of the CS but many others do to compensate for the people who don't.

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  • roo67roo67 Member Posts: 402
    Originally posted by Xstatic912
    Was expected really, and with the game f2p more will come.. Saw it in D3..

    Question is, can you ban faster than bots can be implemented..

    I think your confusing your buisness models . Guild Wars 2 is not free to play its buy to play .

    Free to play games normally are either like very long free trials( the western ddo model)  where you have to subscribe to them or there is a cash shop selling weapons and armor etc that you need to continue beyond a certain point ( the asian model ) . Free to play essentially means you dont buy the client .

    Buy to play games mean you spend a one off fee on the client .Most of what follows is included in that fee , There can be a cash shop but its usually for cosmetic items etc all of which can be brought by converting in game currency to cash shop currency . ( they also can be brought for real money )

     

  • TomBaker_fanTomBaker_fan Member Posts: 131

    I think your confusing your buisness models . Guild Wars 2 is not free to play its buy to play .

     

     

    It's free to play, Buy to play is a silly term for OCD people who feel the need for pointing out technicalities.

    image

  • TokkenTokken Member EpicPosts: 3,547
    at this point, i would rather see the gold spammers go away b4 the bots.

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