Learn me about bots and bot farming

I'm not quite sure how to put this.

With the discussions regarding the loot scaling and people going on about bot farming, I'd like to have a general idea of how it works so I can make a little more sense of what it is they're going on about.

I am NOT asking for knowledge that might be considered taboo, i.e. - "how do I create a bot that will go out and farm for me?"

I've always assumed that much of the annoying <WTS> spam one sees in chat is being generated by some sort of automated program and I can sort of see how something like that might be done.

What I don't understand is how a similar sort of automated program can be used to actually go out and do the farming itself.

the whole game can be played with just the keyboard, and as such, bots are mostly just little applications that are button press combonations . so it does the same exact thing every single time which is how they are tracable on severs cause its hard for humans to so that over and over again precisly

Well, without getting too specific, Bots in Diablo II worked by reading packets of network information sent by the game to the client. These packets were then interpretted, usually in a similar manner to a maphack, so that zone locations and other important areas could be found. The program was then scripted to move directly to the boss (usually using teleport, a sorceress spell) and kill it. Note that this only worked on bosses and a few other areas which had set level designs, since most zones in diablo had 4 different spawns.

Blizzard's bot detection generally looked for multiple repeat actions. In addition, they had checks on how many times users started a new game, and how quickly it was done. If you quickly joined and left games you'd get temp banned automatically.

ANET claims to have a system that looks for repeated movements and such i.e. always running straight from the merchant to the sign and then out, but it seems rather faulty (or more bots are being programmed to make movement random, but that's not the case from what I've seen in ID1 of the various farm areas). I'm not really sure what else they can do other than have people report names.

Well it's not hard for a player to spot bots in farm areas.

For instance Bergen Hot Springs is a new hotspot for HM bot farming. Just stand at the entrance for 10 minutes and you'll be able to watch hundreds of bots running into the wall then exiting.

Players are probably the best bot detection there is right now. ANet should make use of us.

hey, i'm not sure exacly how gw bots work but i know 1 thing. anet can and does detect them. anet does not rely on player telling them who bots, that's 100% sure. since the loot scale update, it seems that they improved their detection method.

if u use a bot right now u'll get the account banned within 1 day. i have a good source for this information, namely my friend who used to bot. he tried several times to but after the update, all attempts resulting in a quick ban. changing his ip adress didn't help either. another thing that i know is that anet can somehow link a botting account to a storage account and ban both accounts even if one of them was never used for botting or anything "illegal".

i'm sure u won't be seeing ppl selling gold from botting anytime soon. i hope this info helps

BTW, beetletun has been farmed by bots for at least 1 year now, thats when I first reported it to Anet.

Though I doubt it that all the WTS spams are botters, since bots cant make the actual sells. No, its the mindless meta-seller that are spamming 3-8 hrs per day for those 5k items.

But as mentioned above, the whole game can be played via keyboard and any low-life programmer can make a simple automated keybind program.

I estimate the revenue of a bot is really low, since they sell all stuff unidentified and dont keep the for instance, green items and such. They just run straight to merchants and sell their whole inventory. To make real money, you would need multiple pc's, running for a while. Its not really worth the effort/risk of getting banned. If you farm manually in the right spots, you could make 20k per hour (at least). Spots like UW dual farm and such. Much better then botting, but it requires your attention ofc.

You should have told him not to bot

Thx for the quick replies.

Let me just re-emphasize that I was NOT asking for instructions on how to make bots (I'm sure that info can be easily Googled) and I have no interest in botting myself.

Maybe I shouldn't have asked because now I'm worried - your replies make me think that some of my farming activities could be misinterpretted as botting.

When I go farm for greens, it's because I want them for my own use; certain ones, I may want several of, for my heroes.

Torub's Wand is a good example - great Death wand and Torub is right outside the door. So I run out, kill him, no drop, I run back in, come out and try again. Over and over and over, til I get really bored and go do something else lol.

Now, to someone standing in Rihlon's Refuge, this might look like botting. But, no, it's just me trying to get a drop for myself.

Same with Bolten's Recurve or Chedekir's Deliverance.

Well I can show you how to SPOT (not become lol) bots at Granite Citadel. They are Mo/W that run to the yellow sign that says Tasca's Demise. They then do a few turns and side step to the middle of the gate (to zone to TD). They then do another turn and run forward.

Despite what some think, that watching an outpost and picking out bots is easy, once you have a ban stick in your hand, things change.

No, it's not easy to determine. Banning 1 regular player for every 50 bots is very bad. And with some people behaving in manner indistinguishable from bots, this happens quickly.

Many bots also aren't unnamed, unguilded in default armor. Many (or most that I've seen) have dyed non-default armor, are in guilds, and yet display the exact bot-like behaviour, down to spinning around signs.

Usage patterns may be one indication, more than just movement patters. If someone is active and online for 160 hours, they are likely a bot. But then again, they could re-log every hour, and switch zones. And so on.

It's really not that trivial, given the very impersonal nature of GW, and simplicity with which most obvious patterns can be confused, it's not just a matter of mass banning everyone in granite citadel.

But above all, it comes down to how much harm they really do. So what if they are making profit on the side. Giving players ability to buy money simply keeps them interested in game. And since companies cannot do that, or don't want to do, they look away from these shady markets.

Games are about fun. If some feel that spending money on virtual items enhances their fun, there's nothing wrong with that. There is no regime in virtual worlds, so saying what is right and what is wrong is irrelevant.

I know bots are against the rules of play anet set out for Guild Wars, but why are they frowned upon? They don't exactly interfear with playing the game? Though I have read elsewhere that they cause problems in other online games as they are not instanced.

Just Say No!

The reason they are frowned upon William is because all the money they farm adds a vast amount of money into the economy, thus creating inflation. All items that cost 100k +80 ectos would have cost about half of that if bots didn't exist flooding the market with money that becomes essentially worthless.

I'm just happy to go to Fort Aspenwood and not see Holy Healer Hiroshi standing there all hours of the day bot-farming faction. He had a Dervish brother with a 3 worded name too, but that was gone much sooner than he.

Sadly, that is 99% actual humans using copy+paste.

Up Arrow more like. Much easier most of the time.

Scythe Slayer Seth I believe.

I farm areas like Bergen, and I tend to simulate bot actions. Once I enter town I click on the merchant, then click storage, then click near portal/outside portal/on sign. It is a good thing ArenaNet is careful with their ban stick, or many regular players would get banned.

Most of those spammers who say "gold unid7=10k ok" are bot farmers. They use bots to farm, and even spam, but bots can't respond to questions (unless, of course, they reply the same thing every time) or complete trades (way too easy to scam one). These farmers use bots to do the repetitive tasks, such as farming or spamming, and they complete the more complex tasks, such as trading.

OT
If they really wanted to stop/trace the accounts of the bots they should also do something about the people/bots?
that stand in ascalon city for hours day after day after day spamming WTB the Cities of Ascalon -50HP Grim Cesta
I mean they keep buying them day in day out they must be used for the 55 monk bots or am I wrong?

Precisely!
I alwasy thought they were related because of the three-name-same-first-letter pattern.
I'm now starting to report the following bots on Fort Aspenwood, since leechers may not necessarily be bots (unless they are on all the time like those two were).

Or just jump to the extreme and nerf the 55 grim, I'll be fine I can 105 most places better

Bots, unlike what most people think, aren't out there farming for items and gold drops. Elite items and gold drops are just the bi-products for bots, they just want loads of mobs with lots of chances to get anything that sells! There not wasting time getting the 15^50 weapons to sell on, they just want that corrupted cleric collar that merchs for 50g, or in rare cases collector drops that actually trade at a higher rate. Elona reach mino horns

if nerfing 55hp solved bot problem once and for all, it would have hapened ages ago.

Because if it happened, all egold company would have to do is it check local farming forums and accept several hours of downtime while new bots are being leveled and ran to their elites.