A warning.

Dear god, hes been spamming for 20 minutes and hasnt been banned yet. What are anet admins doing?!?
Everyone is telling anet to go ban the bots in elona/droknars. They go and ban people who play like bots and everyone is complaining.

And they're wrong for complaining that they're banning the wrong people? Uhh what?

This thread scares me.

I had some dealings with support.. it seems they only deal with your ticket once a day in the morning pacific time and sometimes the ticket gets messed up and is missing stuff- it's not the same guy that handles your ticket everyday and they go by what's on there I think.. I had to put information that was left out of the ticket after around 4 days and it was resolved

but maybe you were botting though who knows for sure

I hope you fight like hell to get them to realize their mistakes. There definitely needs to be more accountability in the support section. Not to mention that the automated email people get back in no way indicates that a person has any recourse. It's only through forums that I knew to respond and/or update the ticket.

maybe GM Trent has been replaced by GUS!

I will address your points later, but simply, no it is not possible to make a bot 'think'. It is however possible to have a bot make decisions and act on those decisions in such a manner that even active observation would reveal nothing suspicious.

Luckily, I am. Capturing packets is a bit tricky to do in Guild Wars, as best as I can remember it is all encrypted (but the last time I looked at that was when I reverse-engineered the move speed/perma regen hacks in the Prophecies Beta/early post release days).

What most amateur botters do is make a script in the language au3 (AutoIt v3), which is really just a scripting language running off of a collection of C++ functions that interface with the Windows Application Program Interface (API). This does not give them access to packets, or allow them to look into the memory of the client, but it does enable them to read pixels off of the monitor, and send keyboard/mouse movements. These sorts of bots are amongst the most harmless, as they are often simple, limited in functionality, and require use of your mouse and keyboard (ie, you cannot surf the web while the bot is running).

Alot of those functional limitations are removed when people switch to a program which hooks itself into the memory of Gw.exe, which allows them to directly call functions native to Guild Wars, and read variables in real time. Thankfully this requires more technical knowledge then your average teenager has, and is easily detectable. (Or, at least it should be - GW does not check for memory hooks, like D2, WoW, and so many other games do!) The bots which you see captured in the picture below use such a technique:



After I took that picture I was inspired to hunt down the script they were using, and see what sort of botters ANet was having to compete with. After around an hour, I found what I was searching for, and it was laughable. I obviously wont go into details of how to obtain this script here, as it would do nothing but worsen the problem (though there is something to said about making the problem SO bad it MUST be addressed).

The script was the most advanced and capable of several available at a free-ware website distributing a program that used a memory hook and the LUA scripting language to allow amatuers to make their own bots. It was capable of farming several locations (Droks, Elona, and Gates of Kryta appear to be the most common places for botting), and demonstrated some (ultimately weak attempts at) randomization.

Every time the bot walked out from Droknars to Talus, it always went to an area within the box inclosed by the points (-160, 10843) and (-150, 10883). The actual destination was randomized evenly, so each point within that box has an equal chance of being the destination. This bot also makes no checks to see if it is near the destination before it tries to walk to it.

If ANet wanted to get a list of botters together for their next mass ban, a damn good start would be watching people who path out into Talus Chute using ONLY those points for many runs a day, day after day. Also, having the server check if you were, say, next to the Armor Crafter when you began pathing to the exit (something thats impossible to do on an unmodded client, due to line of sight).

Of course this is not a long term solution, people would use different scripts, different programs, etc. But the simplest way to combat botting is through reaction: as most, commonly used, bots are publically available ANet can simply find a weakness and detect it. After that is done, it is feasible to make the move to pro-active efforts, which is where you try to find closed-exploits, bots and programs which are NOT available to the public, and you assume you are unaware of.

Your premise is right, in this explicit situation your logic is flawed.

While technical specifics of bot combation techniques should be left obscured, the simple truth is that to obtain many of the things which people like to have (15k armor, a shiny weapon or two, etc) you have to farm. Farming is what bots do, and its by its current nature a repetitive, nigh mindless task. And this is only aggrivated by the fact that bots farming gold (as most bots farm gold, not rare drops) causes inflation and drives up the prices of the things which everyone likes to have.

It is only common sense that if ANet has a policy of 'farming for 6+ hours a day 5+ days a week = ban' it should be publically known.

As the OP brings up, many (I would say most) people who are chronically ill will take refuge in online games, often playing them to excess - and I say this because I include myself in those numbers.

I have no doubt that if not the OP, then many other people, have been wrongfully banned. Case in point, a friend of mine was banned for saying something to the effect of "lol virgoods sucks" (virgoods being an ingame gold distributer). He contacted support about it, and got some bullshit answer back about how they agreed the banning was in error, but were unable to restore his account until the week long ban had run its course. The spam bot he was mocking continued to advertise in (pre zaishen) Tombs for a good couple of weeks.

Combine all this with the lawsuit pending against NCSoft for having a company policy AGAINST deleting bots on the Lineage games (for purposes of profit), and I can only come to the conclusion that ANet closes botting accounts to cause botters to buy new accounts, and generate more revenue... not as a deterrent to botting itself. [again, why I favor ANet just selling ingame gold and or items in their store over this current policy]



That answer your question?

PS: Oh, and Star Force IS a joke, and no, no it is not a funny one.

In game yesterday, I was doign a short chest run outside jade flats. Did several runs then went back to guild hall. A little later I got a whisper that simply said "Hi" from someone I did not know! I said Hi back but had no further response?

I did not talk to anyone on these runs and saw no one in the outpost before I run out, if it was a friend they would have said more and it was not a guildie either.

I had read this thread before and wondered if it was a reaction to what was being said in here? i.e they talk to you to get a response, if you respond then they don't monitor you any longer. No response then they monitor your actions a little longer.

Some of my guildies have become paranoid because of this, they have other accounts and from time to time they swap money from one account to the other. This normally is them handing over large sums of gold, logging off their account, logging on their other account and then collecting the gold! Now that could be seen as money laundering, since no items were traded!

I do also think, like someone else mentioned, ANET ban accounts but yet all they do is buy a new account and they are up and running again. Therefore more revenue for ANET.

It is a tough call for ANET and I don't think anyone here disagrees that something should be done about the bots and gold sellers! The main issue is the banning without proper evidence, how they get that evidence is the problem. If they rely on people "observing" then you get such a small amount of people caught but a large probability of them being wrong! They can use a software solution to search for 3rd party programs, this would detect a larger number but also have a large probability of being wrong! ANET are exposed to high probabilities of being wrong, whichever way they choose to go. That is their risk and if they look at it and can find a simple solution then all the better. Having a go at them is your choice and in a lot of cases people who have experienced their "support" first hand will know how well ;p it is run!

Put yourself in the same situation as ANET, and think, what would you do if faced with the same problems?

If they wanted to, they could get rid of the gold botters quite easy! They could sell gold cheaper than they do! Take away the supply for it and earn money themselves. They won't do that because it would just throw the economy ingame and items will cost millions to buy. Yes some items are getting that way at the moment, but they are rare and the market for them is small and you have to have somehting to aim for!

Personally I think that banning is the right way to go about it, but they just need to make sure they have the evidence.

I've been molested by Anet before (Items Removed), but never banned... When I farm, personally, I go on auto-pilot with my mind, i block out all the chat, and turn off the sound (put on some Rammstein) and go slaughter trolls and stuff. I can kinda see how I would look like a bot from a distance, because i go through the gate, to the merchant, to the storage, back out the gate (as i'm sure most of us do).

Anyway, you should Email ANET and ask for PROOF that you used a bot. Ask for the time, date, location, ect. that you were observed using a bot or exhibiting bot-like behavior, then when they pull some "We can't do that" BS, go sue. Or something.

/signed (if only this was a pettion to get this poor person's account re-instated)

PRIEST HAS SPOKEN

Gus is a new one to me...

Anyways, I too hope you saved those emails so that you can rub them in their faces! And I too would fight for it....

I think ubermancer posted the most completely intellegent post I have seen in here and I agree that their banning of botters is likely for further profit rather than to clean up the game. I too have see that line of bots running in and out from point A to B and back... And they are all still there! I've had some guy wisper me over and over for days on different accounts about virgoods (I WAS IN THE GUILD HALL!). Finally I told him that he and his company could either stop messaging me or I would report them.

The fact is even if they do ban these gold farming bots - unless they are just your typical one person didn't know bots were illegal "blah blah" then I am willing to bet that by now they have well over enough money earned from farming and selling on ebay that they could go out and buy more accounts to cover the one lost... Hell for every ONE account that they lose to banning, I'm almost willing to bet that they can afford 3-5more!
So I guess until Anet comes up with some fool proof way to stop botters from even being able to enter the game, then banning is netting nothing but trouble since they can't seem to ban the right ones -_-

I'd be so angry if that happened to me but in al honestly I probably wouldn't have it in me to fight them.. maybe i would try to have one of you guys fight them for me Its just scary that it can happen to anyway. That being said if they want to stop 3rd part programs the FIRST place they should do it as is Elona or Dronkar or what not. It's foolish in my opinion for them to do it randomly all over when it's so clear what's going on in those farming spots.

i hope some from anet will say something in this thread...cuz this is scaring me because like Priest say, i too put myself offline and put music on wen chestrunnning/farming and i dont want to be banned for no reason because i missed a "hi".

So that's who those randoms whispering once and never replying were....


*looks around paranoid*

I would hope that if a Mod is PM'ing you to see it you are a bot that it would be "god" colored or something. I can easily see how I'd look like a bot - zone in, click one the merchant, click on the door. I could also easily miss a PM if it's in the middle of a battle.

I had that happen too! (also yesterday)

he/she said "hi" and i said "hi" back... but then there wasn't a reply for a few minutes until i asked "who are you?" and then it kinda devolved into nothing - the person claimed he/she didn't exist or something... i got a good laugh out of it, but it was still freaky and i never found out who the person was.

No further response as of yet.

I have a copy of all emails. I have just sent them a copy of the one that I posted earlier in this thread that clearly states they will unlock my account.

I sincerely doubt that saying "Hi" is something A.Net would do to check for a bot. I recieve many PMs, mostly I think due to Items I am auctioning on guru, that I completely ignore. I know there are many other traders who do this also.

Maybe this coupled with other checks, but still, I know exactly what I have andhaven't done, and anything that A.Net could witness me doing that would seem automated would have to be based on a massive assumption.

I'm really quite bemused with the way they are treating this situation.

Mod's can choose to speak in a Violet color.

The exact same thing happened to me! I ran GuildWars with nothing running and I don't use any kind of that stuff... I would never wanna run the risk of wasting 1000+ hours... I got the same message. Extremly frustrating!

I can't find the support e-mail adress any help?

http://www.guildwars.com/support/

Follow the above link.

Oh man i really gotta stop running with those bots looking like im cool ><

Also if Anet start to do those random checks like pming you "hi" then waiting to see if you respond, then what will happen if they do it while your afk? or if your on dnd? what would be the point of this if the bots could just go dnd mode before they start botting? And if they do get banned they can say some guy and his friends were spamming them and it was very annoying...

Well Tuna I seriously doubt that most farming botters (ebay gold *hores) actually take the time to read the forums or keep up with "current" events. That being said, they wouldn't know if mods were randomly messaging them on dnd as they are usually never "really" at the computer. Thats the whole point of a bot program - you can just up and walk away!

*sighs* I've stopped farming even though I was just fixing to start back up with my 55 necro, but meh now >_<

A bot program is better at reponding to a Hi, if the only requirement is a Hi back.

I'd agree with you, but then arenanet would ban me.

I dont know who cares about this topic, the only ones who support this whining are the other bot farmers, and that lil history at the beggining of the topic... what a joke.

Let me say you all something : NOBODY cares if your stupid money bot farming accounts got banned except for others like you, it WILL NOT, no matter what you say, reduce the ammount of players that will buy nightfall and if your account gets banned for good, GJ ANET, 99% chance its a bot acount anyway.

To bots, heavy farmers and other stupid players that cheated and got their account banned : Boo-hoo-hoo!

Wow. Blantant flamebait. Or you really are that dense.

Isn't it obvious? He was one of the unfortunates that DIDN'T get banned with the mass banning stick, so he wouldn't understand. I'm sure those that were smacked with the mass ban stick are just waiting patiently till its his turn.

Logic states that most bot farmers don't frequent the boards, but yet the OP has been a member here for a while now even if not as long as others he was indeed here before he was ever banned which gives him a bit more credit than those who register just to complain that they were banned. Obviously he didn't read the entire thread which does indeed leave him open to tons of flames.... *giggles* If he wants to call all of those that were banned during the festival bot farmers... Well then that shows how little his post really means now doesn't it?

Damn I feel for you... for what you say my acount aint even half as good as yours is and Id be really devastated if that happened.

But these mods piss me off so much... How can someone make such a fantastic game and not be able to detect a trojan or a keylogger/bot whatever when they see one =S what the...

this is just so fundamentally wrong....
so do we all get a first chance at being caught for botting? or is this just anet's way of saying 'i'm sorry we screwed up' but are just too tuff to admit it in the right words.... v disappointing.. =(

or maybe what Anet said was the simple truth and they are giving him/her a second chance.

you dont know
i dont know

remember when this happened?

You have to wonder how many wrongful bannings are simply a case of mistaken identity. Seems like it happens a lot.

I think Anet is doing what they are supposed to do.
Looking at suspicious behaviour and deciding if its a bot and taking action.
Now, Im not saying every ban is correct and every ban is not correct.
I'm just saying they are doing their job. Looking for bot-like behaviour.

Wether or not a person or a bot is showing bot-like behaviour is irrelevant. (feel free to disagree)

The fact is Anet is looking at it. I think we can all agree on this.

Its the decisions and actions they choose on accounts thats questionable in SOME situations.

Some questions that should matter:

How many real botters get caught and get banned daily?
How many real botters dong get caught dont get banned daily?
How many real botters get caught and are ALLOWED to exist to catch more accounts in the bot network?
How many honest players get caught in the crossfire?

--------------------

Now some things we can find out:

How many players who go to guru have been banned?
How many players who go to guru have been banned and unbanned?
How many players feel like they MIGHT get banned?

afaik, the above statement does not equate to "because you have chainmailed us and/or pleaded with us we give u a 'second chance' "

i'm talking about the principle behind a pban or a temp ban and the logic or non-logic behind "giving him/her a second chance."; not about whether the OP is guilty or not.

why would anet change a pban to a temp ban after a few emails being see-sawed if they were so sure he was guilty (and thus a pban at the start)?

also, if anet enforces a banning protocol that has no room for error (as we might have witnessed from anet's first reply) why change their mind?

as i mentioned earlier, it is FUNDAMENTALLY wrong, not a question of who's guilty and who's not.

Not the most well written post but probably the closest to how much of us who believe in wilderness's innocence feel. I've read other cases of banning and they usually fall the same way, after a few emails Anet lets them off the hook. I think that this in large comes from the fact that most botters won't argue the point as they likely have enough money to go out and buy another copy or still have multiple copies still in fine working order. Most botters are in it for the money. Granted I am sure there are your regular smojoes who have a bot program for their farming just to get gold and better items and keep them in game.

Just like I am sure that Anet makes mistakes ...
Now I am not saying that every goon that comes here is innocent, but in the case of wilderness, I think this was another innocent banning and should be examined far more carefully and dealt with a lot better than "You looked like a bot" - ever seen someone lagging? They look very much like a bot glitching all over the place. If they are going to ban everyone who looks like a bot then we are all eventually doomed at some point and time.

That program I talked about has a variable in it that automatically records what you were whispered, and by who. While I dont see any of the public scripts utilizing a log of whispers (save one which is nonfunctioning due to a logic error), much less an automatic response, I am sure that it is just this which the infamous '30k ok' bot traders use.

Actually I've just noticed something of a contradiction.....

From the GM Trent E-Mail quoted above:
"A game moderator did witness automated behaviour in game while observing your character, this indicated the use of an automated third-party program, which is why we closed the account."

From Gaile Gray's response to the 'Mass Banning Fiasco':
http://forums.gwonline.net/showthrea...16#post4222216
"By the way, no one is banned solely for observed behavior. I'm sorry that you're confused by the response from support, but that is what triggers an investigation, not what results in the banning! You are 100% right: A bot cannot be detected simply by visual observation!"


Anyone else find these two mutually exclusive?

I think we can play semantics a little.

Anet logs our actions and text. This is a fact. Im stating this as a fact because NOT logging things would just be complete and utter idiocy...i dont even wanna consider that for Anet as possibly not logging out actions and text. Just on the legal merits alone. Logging covers their asses.

Anyway....

Someone "observing" could be someone keeping track of the log of your character vs "observing" as in watching your character while you are in a town or outpost.

I think thats what the two meanings we are seeing here. But this is speculation.

Yep. Also it seems that in other cases they do no observation of behaviour. When I got banned during the Dragon Festival (I was afk gambling for 2 days) it was obvious that there was no GM actually observing me standing in the rings, instead they used some automated detecting system to conclude that I was some bot.

It seems they're very inconsistant in their methods, using only one or the other instead of using them all to be double sure.

EDIT: Of course, Lyra could be right that their form of observation is no more than just looking at logs.

Thanks for all your support guys, really appreciated.

And I'm not here to argue my innocence, this thread is merely what the title suggests: A warning.

To those players who frequently spam/go afk/farm robotically etc, and also a reassurance to those whose accounts have been unjustly banned, that if you protest your innocence, you will get your account back.

Saying this, it has now been 8 days since Areanet said they would unban my account within 24 hours.

In this time they have duplicated automated emails (slowing the process considerably), 'unbanned' the wrong account (one my roomate bought me after this my first account was locked. This account was never banned to begin with...), passed my case between two different GMs who appear to have no idea how to read my tickets discussion thread and now simply appear to be ignoring my mails.

Apparently this is progress...

The problem I have with A.net is not the way they ban people, sure it's inconvenient, but if you're innocent I have faith that your account will be reinstated, eventually. The problem I have is the way they have dealt with me as a customer.

It's like they don't care.

Lyra, I tend to agree the statement is rather vagye, but then that's the point. Read literally, either Gaile or GM Trent is either misinformed or simply lying. The point seems to be that they don't actually have any clear and reliable method of detecting players who bot, but rather people whom they suspect (using some arcane and utterly opaque criteria) are immediately slapped with a ban, a sort of 'fix it later' mentality. I'm not suggesting they inform us how they detect bots, the problems there are both obvious and well discussed above, but I would like to have confidence that tehy have a rigorous and reliable system based upon something more than the fact that I get stuck on one of the guards in Kaineng Centre every time I auto-run from the Henchies to Michiko.

The whole thing just seems so, well frankly shoddy. I have a somewhat personal interest, as one of the people banned permanently (for around two hours in fact) during the Dragon Festival. After sending several worried e-mail to support, my account was unblocked, but I'm still waiting for an apology, or even an acknowledgment to the messages I sent.

Many of the arguments here are interesting, but there are a few points thatquite annoy me.

1) Innocent people banned tend to be farmers of one variety of another.
Quite true, and so what exactly? The game purposefully includes Elite Missions which take anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to over three, depending on how good your team are, so A-Net can hardly blame people for farming over entended periods. Urgoz's warren is little more than a Giant Farming Run anyway!

2) No one 'needs' masses of gold and rares, so it's the farmer's own fault!
How a company can purposefully create Massive gold sinks (and before anyone starts, for Non-Ebayers FoW armour is a HUGE expense!) then punish people who develop efficient ways of acquiring the resources needed to acquire them is just beyond me.

3) It's really hard to tell who is and isn't a bot, and so some innocent people will be caught up in the crossfire.
True to an extent, but how on Earth they can fire shotgun bans at people they suspect of botting, while obvious botters operate day in and day out with impunity is beyond me. I sell a few items on GuruAuction, and when the buyer is in another territory we usually mee in Ascalon/Kaineng/Shing-Jea Interbational 1. Every visist, and I do mean EVERY visit, there's someone hawking gold for real world cash and advertising their website. Ever visited Droks Int 1 and looked at the Army of Mo/W marching in and out of the Talus Chute gate, all following precisely the same path? Or how about the people who can miraculously type ~1600 words per minute spamming every channel with WTS, (W)TS, Selling, \/\/TS etc etc. If these people AREN'T using a 3rd party program to automate their powerselling, they must be very close friends of Mavis Beacon!

4) The actual responses from A-Net posted here beggar belief. They can be summed up thus: 'We're not sure if you were botting, you might have been, you might not, and given that we're giving you back your account, we accept that you probably weren't. HOWEVER don't ever do that thing you were doing (you know, the one we haven't told you we have issues with, and therefore can't possibly know what you've done to earn our wrath this time) or so help us... You'll be sorry!

I suppose I really want to see three things.
1) A more robust approach to bot-detection than 'What you were doing looked automated.'
2) A recognition that, given the in game economy A-Net have knowingly created with rare skins and perfect weapons, farming solo for several hours in one or two locations IS perfectly normal behaviour for a significant number of HUMAN players.
3) Perhaps just a little more contrition and recognition of error in A-Net's support department. Apologies for the length of this post, I tend to babble on once I get going.

In all actuality I disagree with the statement A-net is doing their job, because it seems clearly that they are not. First of all this is a crime; not a small one, but a pretty large crime in FRAUD. As a customer I can see the point of license agreement, to keep the program(s) (or product(s)) from being manipulated by the public or even stolen. The fact is how well does that agreement hold up, and if it does not bend towards manipulation of the customer (to otherwise benefit the company instead). A-net knows that what they are running an MMO and for that reason alone they should know, of what the customer goes through while establishing that online connection (i.e. Hackers, Software Viruses, Identity Theft, and etc). What they did to this particular customer sounds like an assumption by one individual, (a human being (flawed if you will)) seeing a particular pattern; then establishing it as breach in contract. Furthermore they did not only band this customer, but they stated that the customer is a liar and a thief. After which the customer goes to the public, and then actions are changed stating: even though your account was permanently band we are giving you a second chance, but if we see this breach in contract again you will be permanently band (no apology or reasons of). Now if this customer had certain specialists go through the computer and state that there was no evidence of these so called “third party programs” running in the background; and furthermore if there is evidence that “Guild Wars” was a key entity to bring in this third-party program into this customers computer (that there was a hack from their servers brought back to the customer) A-nets fully liable.

This brings me to what the customer now feels, two big emotions paranoia and anger. Some people will go the rout of forgiving A-net for its supposed mistake in their minds. However other people (and including myself) sees one thing, “being taken advantage of as a paying customer” (with a company dealing in Fraudulent Affairs); which will inevitably lead to one major setback to the company: “LAWSUIT(S).” This will also lead to people being wary of the game where people will lose their faith in the company. Finally bringing them to canceling out all together; of course when you have no customers, you have no product, and you have no company.

This opinion of mine does not reflect this customer thought(s) or feeling(s), but are my opinions alone.