BOTS... Who Cares

Let's do a little thought experiment.

Suppose Anet decided not to actively support GuildWars any longer. They would keep running the servers, but would stop all banning for any reason. Suppose as a parting gesture, they eliminated loot scaling and any AOE AI fleeing by mobs.

All you would have to do would be to go buy or download some bot programs. While you were at work or school all day, your monk would gather a couple hundred plat which you could then come home to. The absolute worst players could have near limitless gold. Want a medium rare green item? Set up your program to farm a boss and come home to 11 Ghial's Staffs.

A gamer's paradise, no?

No.

I would quit GW without a moments hesitation if that became the direction of the game.

The day Anet stops combatting bots is the day I find a new MMO.

I think Anet knows it's really game over if GW becomes bot-tolerant. That means the battle will have to continue even if they never wipe out their enemy. The issue is that the tactics Anet use to prosecute the war cause collateral damage. The innocent party that will take the brunt of the occasional friendly fire: the not-so-casual farmer. This fellow will be smacked about the head and face because all weapons that work against botters hit him, too.

The war on bots brought us loot scaling, my friend. Still don't think bots are a problem?

[[Warning: A bit preachy. sorry. ]]

LoL! QFT...

...although 50% of this game is about aesthetics. Honestly, there is no real longevity to PvE, therefore all pursuits after the fact are for aesthetic reasons (Armor, titles, item skins, etc). Like Rocthoh said...the GW "economy" only really affects the aesthetics of the game.

However, we cannot simply write off those such players; a LARGE percentage of gamers are mainly PvE, partly because it is difficult for the average casual player to fully enjoy high end PvP. With that in mind, we now see a large portion of GW population being affected by bot farmers.

Inflation in the economy, the depressing knowledge that you spent hours working for a goal when joe shmoe spent 20 bucks and got 20 times more then you by spending 5 minutes buying ebay gold, backlash to innocent players from game actions vs bots, hundreds of thousands of 'dummy' accounts cramming GW game servers, profits scewed away from the supporting company (less revenue for Anet to keep the game servers going?) etc etc etc. Those and many many more reasons are why botters are heavily fought against. There is not one online game out there that doesn't fight this infection to a game's community.

Personally, no it does not affect me. This is only because i do not hardly ever deal with the GW public economy. I do not worry about following such and such item being sold too high, or such and such item losing value before i can greatly profit off of its sale. I play the game as i wish... every so often i play the market as the opportunity rises and still do very well for myself in game.

In the end, it would simply be healthy overall for a game to be able to get rid of all botting. Unheard of, and possibly impossible (conundrum?), but an understandable goal.

And no, Anet will never sell in game gold themselves. That is a stupid market play because then they would have to deal directly with outsourced competition. They would then be in direct competition with ebay gold sellers. It is a lose/lose situation. If they were pro-active about competition, the prices would eventually get driven into the ground, and trade values as well as the overall game economy would be utterly devastated; and an online game without an economy can just about destroy the player community, driving away customers or any further profits. If they took the fixed method, and decided to ignore competition, they would lose sales and gross profits across the board as all competitors would be selling below them. This would again bring forth the question of, "How long can they support the servers without making any revenue?".

Not to offend, but the OP came across a little naive about this issue. Simply because it does not affect you, doesn't mean it isn't a "big deal". It is a BIG deal for many. Some people may not care that something is overpriced, but for others, part of their 'fun' is being able to attain said item. That makes it something that DOES affect them, and that is a large part of the GW population. Saying that there is no definitive proof about bots negativily affecting the game, leaves me speechless. So, if hundreds of thousands of accounts are flooding an online community with ebay gold, how exactly DOES one think that would affect the game? If one thinks it would be anything BUT negative, i would love an explanation.

In conclusion, there really is no true answer on what to do about bot farmers. Just like the real world, as long as their is the demand, so is the pursuit of profit (ergo the demand).

cheers.

EDIT:: Just saw this above my post::
Well said! Here Here!

No it was Aerfs botphobia that brought the loot scalling. Funny how what you are say would ruin the game would actually improve it 10 fold.

if the lazy sobs that buy game gold with real money would actually play the freaking game they bought instead, then bots would be outta business, so you don't like some of the things anet has done to stop bots, blame the idiots that give bots a reason to exist.

The only reason bots exist is the ridiculously astronomical prices insatiably greedy players try to sell things for and the willingness of other players to go to any lengths (like buying gold on eBay) to buy those things. Eliminate the high prices and you eliminate the bot problem. It really is that simple.

Here's a modest proposal that I think would go a long way towards reducing, if not eliminating, the bot problem that is both simple and effective:

PRICE CAPS

Every dropped item in GW (except quest items) has a monetary value, it's right there in the item's description.

Simply cap the amount any item can be sold for to another player to, say, 100 times that monetary value. Heck, let's be generous and say 150 or 200 times that value.

I've never seen a gold item that had a value more than 500g; I've occassionally gotten some 4xxg items, but most decent ones generally fall somewhere in the 2xx-3xx range.

As an example of how this would work:

Let's say the cap is set at 150x. Player A has a gold sword with a merchant value of 362g. The most he can sell that sword for is 54,300g. Sure, he can try to sell it for more than that amount, but when player B puts more than that 54,300g into the trade window, the trade is disallowed. To prevent him from attempting to collect more by thowing in some bones or tanned hides, materials could not be sold for more than the material traders sell them for. To prevent him from thowing in crappy whites or blues, a series of caps would need to be implemented:
whites - 5x
blues - 10x
purples - 25x
golds - 100x (or 150x or 200x)

Now, Player A could still get more than 54,300g for that sword by throwing in 6 purples - with an average price of, say, 150g, that would be another 22,500g.

Greens would either be exempt from the cap or, alternatively, cap them the same as golds and then use an update to re-assign their merchant value from the present 35g to 350g.

When people can no longer sell items for 100k + xx ectos, people wouldn't need to buy gold on eBay in order to buy them. Anet could get rid of loot scaling, everyone would have plenty of money and, more importantly, could afford to buy nice things. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

I don't know about you but selling an item with a merch value of 362g for 54,300g represents a pretty tidy profit to my mind.

Now, I'm not a programmer, so I don't know how difficult something like this would be to implement but I would imagine that adding a price cap calculator to the trade window would be pretty rudimentary, compared to things like loot scaling, anti-farming code, enemy AI, Hero/hench AI, etc. that already exist in the game.

As a first step, maybe they should consider un-hiding an item's merch value when the item is displayed in the trade window.

I don't even know where to start... you're right, who cares about bots and people selling gold on ebay? I don't...

The people I absolutely HATE are the IDIOTS who go out and actually buy the gold from ebay, ruining the game... idiots...

So an influx of 100s of ectos a day, since most botters have multiple accounts, wont affect the price at all? And we will still make the same amount of money? What about if lets say, Saudi Arabia dumped millions of liters of oil every few hours, would not the price raise? Guild Wars economy works on the same lines, the bots will make everything worth nothing, and then there will be no items that make someone seem omgpro any more

There was never ever a problem to make gold in this game, either by farming or powertrading. The latter always worked even when more and more sharks appeared over time.

You have to be and idiot to believe that having all "elite gear" gives you an advantage and you're a bigger idiot if you actually believe you NEEd those weapons to maintain your virtual status or any of those many titles.

Did Bots really ruin the game (experience) for you or are you hunting a ghost that never bothered you?

Or are the people who complain about bots ruining the game with their complainings?

If you feel that you're having to 'work hard' to get something in the game, and you're not happy with doing so, then why are you even doing it? It's a game. Have fun.

On the subject of bots, I think that people wouldn't mind them being here if Anet didn't mind. Loot scaling for example, and the earlier anti-farming code may not have been put it place if bots weren't so active in the game.
I don't really see why Anet cares. I assume some or most of the accounts the bots use are bought in a legit way.. so they're actually making money out of them.
Because the players don't pay for in game gold, Anet aren't losing out by it being sold on unofficial websites, or on Ebay.

As a few have stated the reason PVE players (for me anyway) hate BOTs is because Anet nerfs the game to stop them and in return nerfs the game for the rest of us.

It is a vicious circle. Players have a hard time acquiring gold to buy stuff. These players buy gold from BOTers the BOTers farm more gold.

Anet nerfs monster drops to stop BOTs. Now that monster drops have been nerfed Players have even less gold so they buy more gold from the BOTers.

Anet applies the anti-farming code to reduce drops from the nerfed monster drops to stop the BOTs. Players now suffer from nerfed monster drops and anti-farming code so their gold income drops even more. Players then buy more gold from BOTers.

The BOTers now see that every time Anet does something to stop them it increases their customers, so they create more BOTs.

Anet then adjust the way creatures hold argo to stop BOters. Players now have nerfed monster drops, anti-framing code, and argo management to deal with and acquire even less gold than before. These players then buy more gold from the BOTers.

Anet starts banning BOTers, but then begins selling trial keys Boters buy the keys and continue on with their booming market.

Anet then decides to implement loot scaling to stop the BOTers when they open up Hard Mode. Loot scaling is implemented but monster drops remain nerfed, however the argo management is reset and the anti-farming code is removed (I still suspect that if you were smote with the code before loot scaling it was not removed, and what they meant about the code was it would not be applied from this point on) and Players now have Hard Mode to farm gold items, runes, tomes, lock picks, ect, ect... but Players only get 1/8, 1/6 or 1/4 of the drops they were currently getting.

Farming in Normal mode is demolished, yet Hard Mode while not as profitable as farming in Normal mode preBOT Wars can turn some coin. So now new players and casual players in Normal Mode receive 1/4 - 1/8 of their farmed loot from the nerfed monsters causing them to make less money so they buy gold.

Mean while the BOTers have found out that Hard Mode is a gold mine they never dreamed of. Loot scaling caused BOTers to have to create more BOTs to deal with the loot scale, but in Hard Mode they are getting better drops and have the ability to farm it 24/7. They make just as much gold and hour, but because of the Loot scale now charge more because of the old supply and demand rule.

I believe that if Anet had seriously started banning BOTs and their buyers from the get go and left well enough alone with drops, farming and everything else the BOTers would have eventually left because in the beginning there were no keys so every ban would have cost 50 bucks and eventually it would no longer be profitable, players who bought gold would not do it again out of fear of loosing their account and honest players would have had more opportunities to make their own gold and would not have needed to buy it.

So now we are stuck with what we got and it doesn't look like it is going to get better because of the few who buy their wealth instead of earning it have ruined parts of a great game.

So I guess I can't blame the BOTs and should redirect my Hate toward those who buy gold instead of earning it.

My opinion of you may not matter to you but you cannot argue with facts.

Thank you!
If I had been drinking something I would have spit it all over my PC screen!
Or I was a a young girl - I'd prolly pee myself!
Seriously dude - I have only two words for you - and I have a sneaky feeling that they might help!
Penis enlargement!




I was always under the impression that people who are against bots are against them because of only one reason:
A.net hates them.
Thus by hating the bots also - they feel that they will get on A.net good side.
Yes, I am aware that that might not apply to all BUT judging by some posts, I can safely say - Yes ladies and Gents, some folks are really THAT dumb!

Bots don't bother me because I see this for what it is, a game. I don't give a toss about the botters, the ebayers, the whiners, the elitist, the poor etc

I play to entertain MYSELF, everyone else is of no great importance. If you entertain me then we'll get along, if you play my way then we'll get along etc

BTW - Players cause inflation not bots. It is a player controlled market after all.

Players price themselves out of the market with their greed. I swear it's inbuilt into people head that EVERY new item has to have a S/B of 100k and they won't take anything less.

Here's the thing:

With HoM coming out, we find that collecting items, mini-pets, etc. will unlock certain unique things in GW2.

It's human nature to want to collect everything. Unfortunately, unless you're lucky enough to be able to play this game many hours every day, there is no way you'll be able to collect everything.

Thus is the temptation to ebay.

It's hard to say it's "cheating", since buying gold will not give you much of an advantage over someone who just buys what they need to play (max armor, max runes, Green weapons, etc.)

But as long as there are things that people want, and there is an easy way to get those things, then ebaying will exist. It's called supply and demand.

I don't really understand the difference between buying Gold directly from Anet or buying a CE or Magazine just to turn around and sell the mini-pet for 100k +. It's the same thing, really.

Hell, Anet doesn't even have to sell gold. Just sell us 15k armor and rare mini-pets online. Cheating? Just because I have a life, and can't play Guild Wars 24-7?

If they wanted to make botting non-profitable, they could increase the rate at which certain desirable items drop. With a market flooded with goods, there is no room to charge a lot because someone will always be willing to sell for less than what you want.

In any supply and demand structure, to keep prices low, you need to have the market flooded with a certain good. IF there is more than enough to meet the existing demand, the price will remain low. If the demand is greater than the supply, the price will be higher.

To defeat bots, you need to flood the market with the good they want to profit off of.

Bots don't hurt my game play experience. Leechers, quitters, assholes, racists and generally unpleasant people are the ones who do. Bots don't play with anyone, so they have yet to actually ruin my game play.

Which I agree, they're not exactly a good idea on Anet's part. But forgivable because they're still within an "expense range".... besides collector's editions, magazine merchandises and cross promotional items are cheap enough for most people. Still it doesn't prevent bundle purchases in order to make profit, so if Anet takes this marketing strategy even further, it would indeed be a sign of hipocrisy.

people who farm and try to get lots of gold selling rare items care. gold farmers/bots lower the prices by flooding the market and selling things for less. so generally, high-end farmers are hurt and people who buy the items are helped. those of us who do neither are minimally or not at all affected. 13k sup runes i guess was a good benefit for that grouop i guess.

Increasing the drop rate again solves nothing, it will only lead to more threads here on GwG complaining about the quality of drops instead of the quantity of drops.

Also, by increasing the drop rate you will only make certain items more desirable. The price of a perfect HoH item would rise, the price of nerfed items would rise etc

Blah blah all this rage... fact is anet likes bots oO when a bot gets banned, what does he/she do? BUY A NEW ACCOUNT, o my anet makes money off of them, if anet didnt want them they could make superior runes not stack with the - health and make some minor changes, nuff said

Even if botters steal or crack accounts, it still means that someone will have to get a new one.

This won't change prices. If an item sells at 100k now and you cap it at 50, after the change people will just sell it for 50k + 50k worth of ectos. The 100k price cap is already in effect and it doesn't curb prices for items people really want.

This is incorrect. Currently Anet makes $0 on online gold. So it's impossible for them to lose sales and gross profits on online gold sales.

You also have to keep in mind that if Anet sold gold online, they could always undercut competition without a thought. Third party gold sales have to spend time getting accounts and farming the gold. Anet's expense is effectively 0, they run the server so they can just conjure gold out of thin air. Nobody at Anet is going to be sitting there farming trolls... not even a bot.

Adding a bunch of extra gold into the economy is a bad move. But it's important to realize that THIS ALREADY HAPPENS TODAY. It's just that the driving force is third party gold selling organizations rather than Anet.

Yeah, what you don't realize is that not a lot of people actually buy gold. Everything justs gets made 100x worse when it hits the fan sites.

There was an article on what people bought with their bought gold, most of it was a one time purchase for 15k armor. Yes, thats right 100k..not millions.

Granted there was reports of people buying millions over the space of months but in most cases it was shown the online purchase of gold was a one time thing. I can't remember where the article was, I'll try and dig it up.

QFT

I have to completely agree. I think everything gets blown out of proportion when it comes to bots. Everyone seems to be an expert on them. I see reports of "hundreds of thousands of bots" and "almost all of them are chinese" as well as "when they get banned they buy more accounts" and other comments like these all the time. I'd really like to know how everybody seems to be an expert on bot issues? The only way you would know so much about bots is if you were running one yourself.

For the record (before I get accused of running one myself) I know very little about the bot problem myself. I don't think its right to sell or buy online gold but that really isn't causing a problem to the way I play. I have played quite a few MMOs and everyone has problems with online gold sales. No company seems to have found a good way to combat it. But however the company chooses to fight it needs to have the concerns and welfare of its customers in mind also. Don't fight the bots and fight your customers at the same time.

Has anybody ever seen a report on how many "suspected" bot accounts there really are? Just wondering.

this may have been posted by someone else, but i dont have the time nor patience to look thru all these replies. if u havent noticed, just about EVERYTHING is going down in price. i remember back in the day when sup vigors were like 38k, how much are they now? 12k?. remember when dead bows and sephis axes were worth a ton? now they are worth a handful of plat? this is because of bot farming, continuous farming of a certain area and monster(i.e. undead at bergen)by a computer controlled character/account using some sort of script(i kow, i used to "bot" on runescapex.X). and it makes honest farmers like many of us, including myself, work that much harder to get 2 and even 3 of something that will suffice for that item's worth originally. in all basics, Guild Wars economy is going down hill. oh, and for the record, i dont play Poonscape anymore.

Umm, you do realize i was talking theory correct? It was all COMPLETE conjecture **IF** Anet sold in game gold for real cash. You are arguing as if i said that they *do* sell in game gold, which is a very silly thing to argue.

Again in theory::
And yes, Anet could simply undercut third party gold sellers, but do you not realize how competition works? One will always compete with the other. As it is it is quite cheap to purchase in game gold. If they went back and forth undercutting eachother's prices the value and worth of in game gold in the game itself would drop to nothingness. In-game gold flooding 10x faster through ease of purchasing at rock bottom prices then drowns the game in a dismally dead market: Effectively killing GW economy.

cheers.

I bolded the part you said which was

You can't lose any sales or gross profits in an area if you currently have no sales or gross profits in that area. This is the current case for Anet both in theory and in reality.

I get that you weren't talking about the current situation but about reduced projected profits if they did. But the point remains that even reduced projected profits are still above what they make in the area today so it would still be a win for them financially.

However, this is beside the point. I agree with you that Anet directly selling gold and adding new gold directly into the market would be bad. Fortunately that simple case isn't the only way to tackle the problem. Here is what I think would be a better solution, I dropped it in a new thread since I'm running on a tangent from the OP.

Banning bots is just marketing trick. In reality they are banned very likely mostly because doing "good deed" like that give a lot "happy customers". Yet most from combating against bots in MMORPG games does maybe blizzard.

1. Go to granite citadel or bergen hot springs
2. Notice the line of monks with names like 'Szh Zhyrz'. None of them have guilds, all of them have the same tattoo armor and they all seem to amble in a line from one targetable object like a merchant or sign to another, then finally stumble out of the town.
3. Notice that you can see a constant line going in and out of town at any time of the day.
4. Send a letter to Anet with screenshots. Do this as often as you like. Check again next week and notice that the line is still blatantly obvious and just as populated as last time.

Bots that are less blatant could be set up. The fact that none of them bother suggests that they don't really worry (or have to worry) about anything being done to them.

Best solution I've made since before the game came out. Remove the trade button and customize every drop in the game to the person that finds it account. problem solved. As long as they allow trade of any kind without regulation there will be people cheating the system.

Alternatively I would suggest a NPC appraiser. That you take an item too that allows it to be sold for the amount the appraiser sets its value at. So if you want to trade something it has to be appraised. And that appraisal is the max you can get for the item. Again Problem Solved. REGULATION. If that means people that cheat leaves the game... all the better.

Malice has it. I play the game to have fun. It kind of adds a 'real world' aspect to things. I think the PvPers sometimes have it better. They mostly play for the fun, fame and accomplishment. True competition. It doesn't matter if your armor is 1k sunspear or the stupid Ziggurat armor from FoW. As long as the runes are unlocked you are set. And you don't need gold to unlock them, just faction!

I think a lot of players are treating PvE like Second Life. "Heh, that sin has Seitung armor. I have Vabbi." The only...ONLY ones that are hurt by this are those who want to be all Prima Donna and not worry about the achievement of finding new ways to beat a Mission in HM. Gold doesn't help you cap elites. It doesn't help you beat bosses.

Anyway, I think Seitung just looks better. Who wants to look like a Swiss Army knife?

I been saying this from day one. I mean bots make the same amount of money by running more accounts, and normal players get, less and less gold.

There is now a deep divide between people who prot bond farmed, exploited the two trader resets or stocked up on candy canes at the 1st Christmas. Now new players have no hope of getting the cash the older smarter players had. No 10k ectos with zero effect. No candy canes for one goyle skull that sold for 1k. No sup absorb runes for 100g, seeing them kit 70k or so in a week or two.

So new players get almost nothing, and older players are still sitting on stacks of ectos and 900k or so in the stash. I got 550k left from all the old exploitive gold making ways.

Yes, but I'm willing to assume that you pretty much have everything you want, and thus don't buy very much. Prices are pretty low for most items already, the ingame economy is actually a pretty good place for casual players at the moment.

Honestly, just let bots be an arenanet issue, they hardly effect you as an individual at all. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and go smack the crap out of some charr.

So?

I think people are happier now then back then...

1million for a Req8 15^50 Chaos axe..
50k for a sup vigor..
80-90k for sup asorb (100k was trader price)

Granted the sellers were happy, but theses drops were few and far between. Unlss you were either a good trader or a hardcore farmer such items were never within reach ofyour average joe, now everyone can afford a decent gold.

The game evolved to be more casual player friendly, we all knew it would come eventually.

I could see how your first suggestion could solve some of the bot problem since there would be no need for large amounts of gold for rare items and weapons. But you still need alot of gold for vanity items like armors and such. So there would still would be a market for illegal gold for that. Also if you do away with trade system completely then i'm pretty sure quite a few customers would simply leave the game. Some players like to find that rare skin to simply sell it.

I don't see how your 2nd suggestion solves anything at all. The appraising system would have to set all prices pretty low in order to reduce the demand for large amounts of gold. Then you could also just take that low price and demand that large amounts of ecto be required also to purchase it anyway. Sort of how it runs now. If the prices on all rare items were kept that low why would anyone really want to spend all the time to get it in the first place. Isn't that the point of having a rare item - the perception that its alot more valuable than a common one?

Either way I think would drive players out the door. Bottom line is don't let the bots running around bother you unless they are somehow affecting your gameplay. I think there is simply too much hype about them. Let Anet deal with them.

LOL .. coming into Kaineng Internation yesterday (Friday) I see this:

http://hidebehind.com/4E9E79
(I'm the Rit on the right )

Gotta admit that is pretty funny

Wow, complete fail.

What you described is what stupid governments do to combat a poor economy, only to plunge it into total inflation, making money absolutely worthless, skyrocketing inflation. This is the joke that are told in intro-economic courses.

If you gave everyone easy access to gold, then everyone will value gold less. If you gave everyone too much (as you suggested), gold will be worth NOTHING, which introduces your next suggestion. But...

...if you remove gold, some other currency will be in effect, like ectos, or materials, and then you are back to square one. Now, instead of controlling currency A (gold), you're controlling currency B (Rare Material X, Keys, or something else).

Sorry, Enteri, but you seem to have missed the part where I said that if the total amount of gold + items that the buyer puts up exceeds the cap amount on the item(s) the seller has put up, the sale is disallowed.

Now, that's not to say that Seller A couldn't sell something for 50k + 10 ectos, but that would involve him selling that something + other somethings whose total price cap amount would = 50k + 10 ectos.

Players care about bots because they have a negative effect on the economy. They spam farm something and then it loses it's value...Anet tries to fix this by doing whatever update so then a)Players make less money off things they casually farm to sell and b)bots simply just run and get their stuff either way. It all negatively effects players because we get screwed over at the same time.


In terms of easier access to gold...no thank you. I'll just go ahead and say Diablo II and many should know what I mean.