Hfff bot --> Lutgardis

Gold sellers put money in Anet's pockets by buying new accounts. HFFF bots just soak up bandwidth. You don't need a Ph.D. in economics to see which is more deserving of a ban. An EULA violation is an EULA violation is an EULA violation.

Um: Gold sellers are illegal in some parts. Not merely against the rules, but against the LAWS of that locality. Hence i ti s A-Nets best interest to patrol and respond to reports of Gold Sellers (bot or otherwise), whether they are actively developing the game, or just days short of retirement. Similar can be said of account sellers depending on how the sale is handled.

As for Bot farming: Quite possible this is being done, but I haven't watched closely enough. And besides, in this instance, a good farmer will look rather similar to a bot -- Running out the door every 80 seconds or so.

I'm thinking if any permanent fix is to be done for bots, it will be done to the client/server interface. I haven't looked at cryptography enough however to tell if this is even possible in a reliable manner, but if it were easy it'd have been done before now.
Any other attempts to fix bots are window-dressing. Make it physically impossible to use a substitue client, sure. Fail to operate if any program is setup to 'submit' keystrokes (to the detriment of those who adore macros...) Short of those 2 things happening, bots won't go away.

As for HFF, it is a major influence on the economy inside the game. You take this out, you cut the legs out from the economy as well (Think: Less gold = 1 gold has more value. Rare-mats prices would plummet. Rare skin item prices too). Because of this, I doubt the gold reward will be removed. I don't see the faction reward getting removed -- If that were to happen it would have happened more than a year ago when FFF was running on it. I likewise don't see any justification for taking the time to nerf the xp reward.

In short: The costs of nerfing it would outweigh the costs of retaining it, and any action to nerf it would have happened over a year ago if any nerf was going to happen.

/not-signed

//Yamagawa
If bots can't farm this, here, they will be used to farm that, there. While I would rather they not exist, I would also rather that they farm this here than that there.

if u're set as offline but u're online, GM sees u and can whisper. it's not like GM are regular players

Not sure how much I can add to this thread but I do hero fff and I've seen plenty of bot users there. When they first appeared, I reported a couple of them and haven't seen them since. Not there nor on my friends list. And I came across someone in the game who claimed to have been wrongfully banned for this, then fought to get unbanned. And there are people here who confirm the same. So Anet is, or at least did, take action against this. I think simply putting another object, like the sign post, in the Lutgardis outpost would be great. Something in the middle of the outpost so it's the closest object no matter where characters appear when they zone or map in there. I'm all for anything like that to fumble up the bot users.

I remember with humor me and a few others trying to stand in front of the sign post thinking the bot users will target us instead. But then realized that targeting objects like the sign post is different from targeting other people. If only that worked!

Until there's some change, there's a few things I advise doing. I may have put it in my Notes on Hero FFF thread in the farming forum here(check it out anyways, for anyone who wants to learn hero fff). They are:

-When in the outpost between hero fff runs, participate in local chat every now and then. Even briefly. Sometimes people joke in there. That way anyone looking for bots will see that you're actually at the keyboard.

-Always stay away from the sign post when going to the portal for another run. Or if you target the sign post, break away from that targeted run before you get close to it.

-Whenever anyone self invites to me, I stop and reject their invite and I'll say in local chat something like, "sorry, I'm not taking anyone right now." That way it's clear to anyone observing that you're at the computer and you reacted. And they may appreciate a courteous response and be less likely to report you out of jealousy towards hero fff'ers(which is always a possibility).

I know of another hero fff'er who often takes a break by standing on the stairs and uses the /excited emote and says hi when I'm there. And I'll stop and do the same and chat in locat chat. People can see that I'm obviously not a bot. A bot would have to have some pretty good AI to be able to do all that.

Not when it doesn't exist? That would be the meaning of the word "nuke".

Actually... GM's don't exist in this game... so yeah they are regular players.

well technically they do...ever been to one of Gaile's shindiggs? She's got a big "GM" over her head. whether they've got the "God" powers GM's in other games or just pretty text has yet to be seen thou...

[QUOTE=Esan]Also, faction farming, unlike most other bot activities, is essentially victimless. (The only victims are the alliances hoping to control the capital cities, but this late in the game's life what is the point?).QUOTE]

Well they make 3k an hour more or less and since there farming alot and theres more then one there making a ton of faction and a ton of gold for botting.

as you mentioned
ITs also not allowing hard workign alliances from getting the chance to own a town kinda like the whole double ram thing that caused uproar a while back.

lmao you think that just because they use the sign post they are bots? i have my keyboard setup so that i can do the HFFF with one hand while i watch tv. its all in the customize setup. also, since we are on the topic, how about they fix the dam faction grind then maybe people wouldn't want to use a bot? also are they gaining anything that you cant do? is it a unfair advantage? no, they could sit there and get their 10k an hour or they could have a bot do it, no difference. all this is, is you QQing cuz you dont know how to make a bot to do it.

^Go buy Anet, then you can decide that it's okay to bot.

Not everyone who uses the sign post is a bot. But it's still wise to stay away from it to avoid being seen as a bot user or being reported by someone observing. Even if you don't display other patterns of a bot, it's still better to not be watched closer by Anet.

EDIT: I re-read my reply here and the one liner I started with may have sounded dismissive, which I didn't mean to do. I do see your point in that in a way it doesn't make a difference if a gamer or a bot is doing the work. That is, when you look at it that way since the game mechanics itself isn't being manipulated like a Game Genie does to a console video game. But still the usage of bots makes it possible for one person to run multiple bots to gain ingame money. Money to be sold on websites for real money. Most hfff bot users probably aren't into that kind of stuff, but rather than draw a line on some grey area, the integrity of the game should be enough to take action against all bot users.

Also bot usage is simply against the rules in Guild Wars and respecting that rule alone is enough for me to not use a bot.