A warning.

Human eye probably won't see a difference if there is a bot or a very routined human player but a computer program can. ArenaNet has access to all data including character movement points so they can watch it and see if it is too accurate. Humans can't move exactly same way everytime but a bot can. Some bot programs might have a bit random movement commands everytime but they still would be too clean.

Haha, if only that were true... Google "starforce copy protection" and, although it's considerably less intrusive, "world of warcraft warden". GW doesn't appear to have any such nastinesses, though.

How can you possibly know how many bannings there's been, or how many of those were by mistake? Or even that there's any mistaken bannings at all?

Don't believe that all who complain are honest; when Valve banned pirated Half-Life 2 serial numbers and people who'd used a bug to download HL2 for free, there were literally HUNDREDS of people in the Valve fora screaming about being unfairly banned, all of them swearing on their mothers grave they weren't pirates.
And again, Valve _only banned known pirate serials_, straight outta the bittorrent .inf.

We have the OP's word that he's innocent, and we know that both users and ANet can make mistakes - and that's all we know.

Hmmm, yeah, this is kinda worrying...looks like my Mesmer will have to do less Kirin Farming in Pongmei from now on....doesn't sound good. I do tend to go to the same group of Kirin every time and use the same spells...I think if Anet cut me off for "looking like a bot" I would start to get the shakes if I did not get my GW fix! Although, personally, if they did it to me and gave me my account back (congratulations to OP by the way) and then they did it again for any reason...I would fight them even harder, because it's just not right. I would demand the proof from them for the first ban anyway, just to see what their "proof" was. I'm waiting for them to ban anyone who kills anything in GW, "just in case they're a bot". Really, "Just in case" or "that looks like" or "maybe it is" is just not acceptable reasoning to justify a ban.

I don't think anyone here has a problem with them getting rid of bots? The issue is as soon as the "think" something is not right they ban the account! No attempt to ask questions, no actual proof (if they had it then he would still be banned!)

They need to look closely at their banning policy and rather than just ban someone for "looking" like they are using a thrid party, they should only ban when they are 100% sure they are in breach of their terms and conditions and have proof.

If they are accusing you then they should have evidence to back it up! Otherwise it becomes a "shoot first and ask questions later" culture which is not going to be endering to your customers.

Yes anyone can make mistakes! But what they should be doing is minimising the chances of mistakes happening.

They have made the same sorts of mistakes on a regular basis, so why are they not actually learning from their mistakes?

As I said, the bots are a problem but I think that the better way of targeting the bot farmers who are using them to sell gold via ebay etc... is not the just aim at the bot farmer but the buyers as well. Take away the demand for buying gold and the supply will dry up! Of course you have to find a way to remove the demand. I feel that if they fed back to the community that they have banned x amount of people today for buying gold or items outside of the game (i.e for real money), that would send a signal that this sort of thing is, not acceptable and is being watched for. Banning the bot farmer, just means they go out and buy another account! If you think about it, not banning the bot farmer means you can watch them better, and find who they are dealing with!

I don't think they have a problem with people farming as it is a legitimate way to get enough gold to pay for the ingame items! The issue is with people farming for gold or drops that they then sell online for real money.

This bit is for fun and not to be taken seriously, unless others agree?

They should have some new events!

Public stoning, buy stones from town merchant and stone the people proven to be buying gold!

Public hanging for the bot farmers!

Anyone falsely accused is publicly pardoned and carried around the town on a guards shoulders!

LOL

Starforce, is a joke, anyway, When you installing the game, you are informed such program exists and need to be install, as well as WoW, they have to inform you before installing anything like that.

But, i have never heard anything from A-Net planning to and have already install any sort of 'protection' program on my computer, and thus, they cannot do so, that is the point of with out me agree to, or rather, without notifying me.

Yes, starforce is a joke, but not a funny one, and no, they don't inform you.
Not only is it stealth-installed without ever informing the user, but when you uninstall the game, Starforce is left running. Go google.

Yeah, WoW tells you. So did Sony with their rootkit: http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/sony-eula.htm

And my point is that you're wrong. It is not only possible, it is commonplace.

When i install game with starforce, they asked me do i want to install it or not, and if i chose not to install it, i cant play the game, so, i assume starforce do ask you about it. And starforce is a Pain in the butt. i actually need to reformat my computer just to get rid of it.

We should all boycott starforce games^^

we are not talking about protection software but system scanning software. which they sent the result back to the company.

I can't think of any other way. How can Anet have absolute proof of botting?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by areanet
Hello Bracken,

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars customer support team. 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. In this case, as you are a one-time offender, we will remove the ban. However, please be aware that if we notice similar behaviour in the future, we will have to close your account permanently. Please allow 24 hours for this to take effect.

Please feel free to contact the support team again if you encounter any other problems.

Regards,

GM Trent

Guild Wars Customer Support
NCsoft Europe
http://www.guildwars.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
That a game moderator "witnessed" behaviour that "indicated" the use of a third-party progam is a clear admission by Anet that they don't have a definitive way of detecting whether or not a third-party program is actually being used. In otherwords, they are just guessing.

While most everyone agrees that getting rid of bots and hacks is a good thing, no one would want their account banned soley because it "looked" like they were using a third-party program. IMO, Anet has royally screwed up on the banning issue and should halt any bannings based only on a GM's opinion.

If they wish to continue such bannings, they should at least include what behaviour "looks" automated in the EULA so that players know how to avoid doing things that may result in losing their account.

^ Exactly. ANet have not, to my knowledge, put down in writing what they consider to be "automated behaviour". That would be a first step to cutting down the number of mistaken bannings. Secondly, the attitude of the response the OP received from ANet is just pathetic. Paraphrasing - "OK we're not sure you actually were using a 3rd party program, but even so you've been warned - dont do it again!" For a company that's business involves continued relations with it's customers, their PR is frankly very poor.

How come he gets banned yet there is a CLEAR stream of bots in Elona that have not been? I ll tell you why, ANET wants to make sure their overseas sales continue to rise. How many copies of US server GW have gone to China? No matter how they got there ANET still gets the money. Yet average "Joe-Farmer" gets banned for playing on his own server? The only thing this company seems to do is piss US players off (and AUS, NZ) and at the sametime bends over backwards to kiss Asia's butt. Where were are Coca-Cola promotional skins that Korea got? If that stream of Squirrel Farmers in Elona are allowed to be there with no ban, by God we better be able to Farm. I dont see US players getting the option to go Farm on Asian servers. I wont be buying Nightfall, they might as well go ahead and ship my copy over to the Bejing sweatshop.... all i have to say

Does this mean I can get banned for dancing with a male assassin? Q_Q

congratulations; you're only like the third person to make that joke

That would actually worry me more. Ingame gold traders have to get their gold from somewhere. In my mind, gold traders get gold in the following ways: (1) kill monsters, pick up gold coinage and items that are sold to NPC merchants; (2) Good drops will more than likely be sold to other players, as a whole or as salvaged mods. (They probably have a network of bots and low paid human farmers doing this).

I rarely trade with other players, as I tend to go out and farm for mods and weapons that I want. However, if I farm for hours and fail to get such items and I see someone selling something I wanted for a reasonable price, I would jump at the chance and buy it. Now if that trader is part of a ingame gold selling operation, could I be banned? Would anet just assume that I'm part of the operation because I have had dealings with a marked farmer/gold seller?

its actually nuts that anything "vaguely resembling bot behavior is getting caught up in the bureaucracy, I'm almost scared to look the wrong way at the moment

A friend of mine has this bloody *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* Problem to. I wonder how they're going to do this in the future. If they kepe banning everyone that ''Acts like a robot'' than there will almost NO players left. I quited this game due to my friends ban.

~Boy

Maybe I should be a little more creative in my LFG calls so they don't think I'm a bot Usually I just repeat the same generic call over and over...

Well Alias, the email back to him said that he LOOKED like he was using a 3rd party program, not that one was detected or noticed. Basically they stated he "looked" like a bot, so this whole 3rd party program he had whether legal or what have you is not the issue. Or at least not the issue they had with him, so it is a moot argument.
He was witnessed IN GAME looking like a bot, but they seem to not want to tell him the specifics of what that means. So in the end, I think Anet is covering their own arses for banning him with no real evidence.



And to whoever it was that asked if you could get banned for afking for too long: yes!

Back when I played Parallel Universe (almost 4yrs ago), there was a bot type program you could download. At the time I knew nothing about bot programs or that this is what it was. My friend told me how to use it and so forth and basically you run the farming area once and it copies your movements and repeats those movements over and over... Sometimes it just up and stops or you set it to a timer of how many times you want it to repeat the process and thusly it does and then it stops.
So you repeat the same farming bot type action over and over for 3+hrs and then say you decide to go have dinner and leave yourself afk for a long period of time and then come back and shut it off without ever moving further OR you continue back to your farming just as you had before.. This equals to bot activity

Now any bot user who wanted to be smart about how to use this, would just run it longer and do different things or 2 different zones or what have you... Changing the whole dynamic of the way it runs. However when you do that you run more of a risk of not getting the program to run in full, because you can inadvertantly screw up somewhere and that will cause the program to glitch and stop running.

Now what I think Anet fails to see is that most bots can make the run so friggen fast that its just to unlikely that its a human doing it. When I watched the bots coming in and out of Beetletun they were doing so in an uncannily fast manner and you could tell that they were bots... Some were better programmed than others, but you could also tell which person had more than one bot, because they were running the same bot for their other character and thusly running in the same path.

I don't think I could farm that fast if I wanted to! On a couple of occassions I would actually see the bots run their course and thusly stop and then would come the other bots running on that same program (you can save the way it works so that you can use it for others) eventually stop also on the spot as the others always running in the same manner and so forth.

It's so simple and yet so complex, but that is the general idea of how it works. While I think Anet made a mistake in this case as well as others, they are "trying" to get rid of bots and for that no one can blame them (not even the OP). But I think they need to be a little more certain, or at least be willing to explain with conviction and certainty what was witnessed. If they truly believe that you were using a 3rd party program or acting like a bot, then it reasons that if you really were they would not have allowed you your account back so easily and with such little explination.
If you WERE using a bot program then you know what you were doing so them explaining how it looked bot like would not have been news to you. However their email lacked much conviction and sounded more like they were trying to cover their own arses. *shrugs*


(sorry for the long drawn out post with lack of grammar, spelling, and punctuation!)

people making that statement are not thinking, are botters, or just plain bandini for brains.

*ok botters here is exactly what we are looking for in a bot so you can avoid doing any of the above to avoid being detected*

/total complete bandini brains (bandini-the finest name in fertilizer)

A few months ago, a chinese dude joined my guild. One day he told us he had been selling gold, and explained us how it works.

Basically there are two kinds of "professional farmers": bots, and individual players/farmers. Companies selling gold usually perchase botting programs to do the farming. A few underpaid employees are there to check the drops, sell the valuable stuff, transfer the gold to other accounts in order to sell it for real cash etc. This is well known.

But there are also poor guys in China farming for money. Usually that's just poor dudes who would like to play the game as anyone but have financial problems and have to find a way to make some cash. Most of them don't use bot programs - they just farm like crazy, buy low sell high etc. Most of the chinese traders in droks int who are believed to belong to the first category actually belong to this second category. They do sell their cash to gold selling companies, but not directly. One common trick is to sell gold via forums: you exchange gold for forum points (which apparently is not illegal as you don't sell gold for cash), and with enough forum points you are "rewarded" with real cash. Of course, the owners of those forums either sell the cash to companies or are owned by those companies.