Was I bot tested?

I developed a (non-bot) farming technique in plains of Jarin. Anyway after 30 runs a group of corsairs spawned to the north of the sunspear great hall in the water. I do not have quests active and according to wiki if you dont have quests active corsairs aren't suppose to be there. Now I can see my technique triggering bot alarms because I only pick up ccs, roots and legs and cash. Also I take the same path and kill the same creatures. So was this spawn a test to see if it was using a script and seeing how I reacted? Or is there a 1% chance of these corsairs spawning? Just got me curious. I took a ss too.

That's odd... Anerf is worrying too much about bots and they fail to understand some people need gold now after they destroyed desert farming... At least that's the case for me. But then I just go to FoW unless Europe controls favor which they usually do, so annoying...

I also think it's ridiculous of them to ban random people who go in a similar pattern every time they farm. It's not like you're going to take a different route if your previous farming run did well...

I do the exact same thing you do, only I don't go north of the Sunspear Great Hall. I haven't noticed anything odd. I do the same pattern with little variation each time. But my mouse clicking and keyboard use isn't always the exact same. I'm always adjusting the view by holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse. I'm sure if my gameplay was monitored, it would be obvious that it's not a bot.

Ive done about 50 runs in the plains

I run the whole area, but mainly attack the trees / termites

Ive seen the corsairs twice, and was wondering what they were doing there.
I just looked at it as a chance to get the copper (whatever they are)

Now, I farm outside of noalai academy, much more profitable, runs take less time, the drops are worth 10 - 30 gold each, and the gargoyle heads / charr carvings drop about as often as roots / legs

it's been a while since I played but, is it possably a patroling group, or a bug?

Sounds like A-Net and NC-Soft are getting serious about bots to me. Those corsairs never come for me but I have never done the same route 2 times in a row.

Mega Mouse

I've encountered those corsairs in the water north of the great hall a few times. Its random, as far as I can tell. I wasn't farming, so couldn't have triggered any bot-alerts.

I was under the impression that the bot scripts were so simple that basically they don't/can't differentiate between items. So essentially they will kill everything, pick up EVERYTHING and sell everything to the merchant regardless of their value or mods. At least that's my impression of them, but they could be smarter than that who knows. But seeing their rather simplistic nature of zone in, walk to point a, walk to point b, walk to durham, walk to merchant.... they sure don't seem all that bright.

The fact that you selectively pick up what you want and leave the rest is probably a pretty good indication you're not a bot as there doesn't seem to be an in game mechanic to bind a key to say "select nearest gold drop" or to only target specific item drops.

Umm... bot detection programs don't monitor your keyboard usage and mouse clicks... if they did, there'd be helluva privacy issue. Why don't they? Well, mostly because bots don't use keyboards and mouse ya know.... these detection algorithms are all server-side.

I do pretty much what the OP does...Take my ele for a swift run round the plains for items for alcohol... I did worry about being thought of as a bot because they do seem very "Ban-Happy" from time to time. But really, I go by the idea that if they were looking for bots are people REALLY going to make vast sums of money from the plains? No. Not really. I'm willing to bet that other than people "farming" the Plains for money to open storage (that is, if they don't beg in town first) and their "20g Kamadan Armor" people will be farming this area for the collectable drops.