Mass Bannings?

they are not "new"

They may not be "new" in the sense that they operate in a fundamentally different manner but there is a "new" generation of interrupt/bulls dodge/cripshot dodge/prot bots around.

they are not new in the sense they are in gw for a long time. they are just not so popular because they are not for free. you have to pay and buy them. some are still made in gwca, some in gwa2. and no, this not a new generation of bots (at least those made in gwca). gwa2 is a new engine.

It's not even a new engine. It's almost entirely the same as GWCA, just written in autoit instead of cpp (which makes it slightly less capable).

Most notably it avoids the auto detection that the old .dll injection had.

Even then its really about the waves of botting. The first mass wave of PvP bots ended after the mass bannings. What we are seeing now is a separate wave, hence new.

There is also an interrupt bot that is (or at least was) free.

there is a third engine known as gwmi. not the best one but totally undetectable imo.

ps. free bots will always be the one that will be detected and then banned as the first ones

People actually pay real money, so they can bot/cheat in a game?

That's possibly the saddest thing I ever heard.

for the best ones? yes
they go for around 30$ or 300 ectos

I suspect it's the prospect of making a profit from selling in-game gold/z-keys etc that makes the initial outlay of buying a bot programme so appealing to them.

I remember someone on this forum made a reason for botting to be acceptable because some people don't have time to get everything in the game due to work and/or outside influences.

I'll say it again: Don't have time. Sad thing about that is it is very much the common "excuse" used. Due to the fact one's job/life is more important, he/she resorts to botting so they don't feel like they're missing out on anything and obtains the important stuff for later use.

In fact, some people bot because they want to be prepared for GW2 when it comes out. I would bet at least 75% of those who do this will, most likely, resort to botting in GW2 thanks in part to what I just said up there. Too busy to play, but too lazy to try when given the time to do so.

Concise Description: People bot because they can and figure ANet's too busy with GW2 to give a GO RED ENGINE.

Kotaku said it best when they reported on the bans last year.
If so many players find content in your game so boring they are risking their accounts and resorting to botting to complete it (faction titles, old school drunkard etc) then you've done something wrong in game design. No-one enjoys grinding faction to level up their EotN titles every time they make a new toon. People don't love that speck of dust on the horizon that is the Luxon or Kurzick faction title - if they did they'd keep farming Mount Quinkai once they got it, but they don't.

I get most of these bans were for PvP botting, and aside from increasing the number of players in the arenas resulting in more matches taking place this harms real player's experience, but not all cases of botting are some big mystery where you think; why did they do that? Sometimes it's really obvious why people botted and maybe the developers should stop making boring content that makes people want to bot.

Just like gold buying, bot programs will cost less than the money they earn when compared with a minimum wage job. The time it takes to farm the items or gold or complete the boring and reptitive grind titles in the game could easily be spent flipping burgers at McDonalds for minimum wage to pay for 100 times the amount of gold or time saved not killing raptors.

Put into that context, who is sadder - the one who has enough of a real world investment to save time and money (in the form of opportunity loss) by purchasing an in game objective that was built around intense time sucking grind or the person who spent hundred of hours in front of their computer grinding out the same content they didn't enjoy but felt passively satisfied by (aka near catatonic state) achieving something in a virtual world in the form of multiple GWAMMs?

I don't support botting and I think it's important ArenaNet action those accounts but I'm not going to pretend it's a big mystery why people bot instead of "play" the game. I think a more important focus for ArenaNet would be to create more engaging gameplay with far less intense grind. It's a shame every time the botting issue comes up, people don't look at what ArenaNet could be doing to positively discourage botting - or here's a thought - what are they doing wrong to make people bot in the first place?

Funny thing about using the excuse of no time, you have time to get said ill-gotten goods from your botting, and time to show them off... you have time to play... also, if you find the game so boring as to use that excuse, don't play... Did you get to use a bot in school when you were bored? How about at work? Those things can be far more boring... don't feel like listening to your wife yelling at you about not doing houshold chores? Get a bot to listen to her, heck, get one to do those chores... oh wait.... Come on, if you don't have time for the game, don't play. Or bot, get banned, come on here and bitch about it. I'll keep reporting botters, they'll keep getting banned, we'll keep on seeing Dhuum!

When you're optional recreation activity is held up to the same standard as work, chores, relationship management and study it's time to get a new game. You've completely missed the point of why most people play computer games. They play games to escape work, chores, nagging, study etc, not so they can experience those things in virtual reality.

Im going to go with this. There was never an outcry from the banned people like when Anet banned 3700 accounts a while ago. They probably hit a big support ticket & the banned accounts happened to be in between maps in town.

Also Anet isnt gloating that they suspended X number of accounts.

I doubt there was a mass banning.

Don't see how this is relevant, considering we're talking about PvP bots here. This isn't Runescape or some BS like that where you set up a bot to go grind for you because playing the game is too damn boring.

There's bots in every game, to get the far-off achievements that are given. ANet doesn't provide those so everyone can get them (the odd assumption), they're provided so the people that really enjoy the game have goals to complete.

And then people (in WoW, Runescape, and other games) go and bot to buy off everything or complete everything. The entire point is so they can feel better than others who don't have those titles/money/etc. I know, I had a buddy who was that type. Problem is they don't enjoy the game enough (there's plenty who do, though) to complete everything, so they pay out the money for it all. Sad, but true.

I can understand chinese gold farmers using bots to make real-world money.

But I cannot agree that the developers "force" ordinary players to bot.

If people find a game is crap or it doesn't suit their lifestyle... the smart ones simply walk away. Find another game.

Players who turn to bots instead of walking away... aren't being forced into it by the game or the developers. They make that choice all by themselves - I can only presume because they are either morons, or the saddest of low-self-esteem BillyNoMates... who need in-game "achievements" at any cost, to makes themselves "special" or pretend that it earns them respect.

what he means is why get the game when ur not going to play it to enjoy it? no reason to bot unless u want to get a load of money just to brag about something u didnt earn...least they could do is bot professionally and make the team they are on win.

on another note, anyone seen my bot reports in post 10?

I am of the opinion that if people are so lame they need to bot let them. No skin off my nose. :P Personally I think it is just as bad when others resort to buying gold etc.. If they would stop paying real world cash for power ups etc., then your bot population would drop considerably.

Also as far as detection software goes, you can't detect custom bots that are not sold or given away. Without the source there is just no way to detect something like that. The tried and true method is the GMs. GMs can always detect a bot by common sense. Chat with the person, no response might be a bot. Watch them follow them around in the game and see repeatable odd behavior then more likely a bot. Playing for 24 hours a day etc..

Not that I am into buying multiple accounts, but do they allow people to multibox this game? I know some WoW players who had/have up to nine accounts going and I thought that was pretty lame behavior as well. But Blizzard allowed it. Mainly because of the money they were making off those fools.

Yes we saw the three different pics of bot reports. *pat on the back* GJ