Beating Hakors with a Stick?!

Well I posted in the recent thread about possible hackers in the game ruining it because there is no monthly fee. The suggestion I had no one responded to. So I thought I'd make a poll just to see what you all think. Keep in mind im not attatched to any game developer or anything I am simply creating the possibility of bot prevention.

This would IMO help prevent a loot bot.

What if:
when you zoned into / or out of a town- you had to enter in a 4 or 5 digit alphanumeric code that was randomized by the server. So if I started a bot that was meant to go out and search / kill for items and I had to go back into town to sell theres pretty much no way a bot is going to be able to pick out the random number placed on the screen. Much like you have to do now when you sign up for many forums. This shouldnt be too difficult to code since the code like it oviously exists for forums.

I am just looking for feedback here.

I know that it wouldnt bother me to take .5 seconds to type in a random number or similar in an attempt to keep out money launderers.

Whatcha think?

I don't really see any problem with people using hunter/gatherer bots. There will always be people who play the game more than other people, and Arenanet have said from the start that this game isn't meant to be about having an advantage from playing for longer than other people.
So in short I don't see any need for such a mechanism.

So your poll answer would be ' other '.

I am a bit curious about your answer .. I know what Arena has said about the game I've read pretty much everything I could about it. But I can't believe you think that there is no need for prevention. The time to fix a problem is before it happens. In game money may be nothing much right now, and during beta's people tend to be more generous anyway. Since we know it isnt going to last. But, since you did reply without hittin the poll .. I just wanted to reply.

Nevermind I just hit refresh and it counted.. my bad!

Im sorry, that idea wouldnt work and it all it would do is make it harder for the people who are really playing.



the bots of witch you speak of are called autominers, or atleast for runescape. These programs can scan the screen and they would be able to decifer the 5 letter code.

It shouldnt be able to if that code was a picture and not actual text.... pretty sure.

No seriusly how do you think the programs found the rocks to clicked on? Or bones to pick up. The auto miner searched the screen for images or colors. Then they built an auto sleeper, sleeping in runescape required that you typed in a code to wake up. It was programed to scan and type that code.

My answer to the poll would be "No". For two reasons. One, as I said, there will always be people who have more time to grind than you do, so what's wrong with people having bots to do the grind for them when Arenanet have said over and over again that they don't want the game to be about grinding anyway.
Secondly, you're starting to sound like "Dubbya" and his War on Terror. You're over reacting to a threat that hasn't even really been confirmed yet.

my answer is: "No, it's a waste of time for the people who are actually playing."

And a waste of the developers' time which could be better spent on other things.

Ok then,

I asked for the poll and you voiced your opinion thank you. I guess my problem with bots is simply that it is taking advantage of a flaw in many Online games that allows one person to acquire capital of some kind over someone else.

Pardon me for asking Darkmane but have you played any of the betas yet? I am not trying to be insulting if you did. I just can't see a need for a loot bot or any other bot in this game.

IMHO there is so much random possiblity through the missions, even many mob placements or the ones that patrol an area aren't entirely static. I know there are some virtually invulnerable warrior builds that might lead to that kinda thinking...<ahem> but for what I have experienced you gotta have a person managing the character. I mean, henchies tend to die and their attack remains directed by a human player. Interesting consideration yet I find even if it were to work somehow it would be a form of cheating.

Just considering how difficult it would be to map out a course, both in skills you would need and auto mode to use (and without the inside track on what the opponent monters skill are or what will be used for certain) and the actual traversing of the maps would lead me to believe such a bot would be far more unsuccessful than is worth the effort if one could be made at all.

It is my understanding from playing other "grind" games the bots result from tedium, the boredom with redundant activities to get that next level. As that doesn't exist in GuidWars a loot bot would be truly absurd. Where is the fun in passing through the mission or explorable area, or killing that family of bone dragons that no one else knows about by bot? And at level 20 you can't just waltz through them all just because you are level 20 or have this item or that armour.

A bot like you are trying to "prevent" would be looting low level items if it worked at all. These really won't help you much in the larger scheme of things unless someone were going to scam the lower level players with these items as though they are special some how. What feasability there is I believe is so well tracked that the account would be banned rather quickly. Also if these guys at Arena.net decided to develop some sort of random event to end such a bot, it would be really easy, just some level 40+ assassin monster that appears (or maybe gwen with her inferno ), is invincible, and disappears when it completes it's task and no more bot. These bots aren't that hard to detect.

The way the missions are a bot as you have described couldn't exist, and once a person went to the trouble to make a high level character, so it would be feasible--as far as not dieing before collection,--they'd have no reason to do it. Between the identifying, salvaging, etc. I mean, the selling things this way is really unthinkable to anyone that has gotten into playing the game to get through the missions and attain level 20, gotten into PVP. The draws of the game to not do it, to me, far outweigh anyones reason to try. If they are going this way they will get caught and banned, and good riddance as they didn't embrace the game. Games are made by their rules not the breaking of them. Chess has no purpose without it's rules.

What capital? The bots can't do anything a dedicated player can't do too.
And also you should get into the habit of checking your spelling. It's spelt Al Qaeda, and also it's haxor, hax0r or h4x0r, not hakor.

Meh, I was just annoyed that there was yet another ill-informed person attempting to pettition the devs to waste their time on something that doesn't make sense.

Whatever we as members do stay out of real world politics or the thread will probably disappear.

Yes I did play the last two beta events, and this is why I see this as a possiblity for people to create an influx of money into the game. I know that right now money does not mean much (what can you buy with it) besides maybe a nice item that someone else has that you want. But in the end we all know that if you got the cash you can get whatever you want. I simply see that as unfair that someone botted to get their cash.

I do see your point. And although I think it a good one, I think that the need to protect against the worst case scenario and hope for the best is the best way to go about preventative measures. Lets face it .. we know bots of some kind will exist. Simply to show how it can be done.

I bet if from the begining that this was implemented it wouldnt be such a big deal. Your sitting in front of the screen anyway, whats the big deal of typing in a code to get into or out of town.

Lets take a look at how this mega looting could be done. The why is now obvious as I am talking about financial or even Item gain.

I grab me a few henchmen probably a warrior and a healer and setout into an explorable area that I know has many treasure barrels or treasure chests and minimal threats. I cast my speed buff repeatedly until I collect all of them or even just a few of them and use the map teleport back to town sell /rinse /repeat....

This could be done so easily with a simple macro program. All I am trying to do is suggest ways to prevent it from happening.

I've read the comments on another thread in this forum about the risks of bots and how to deal with them, Darkmane, and I think your proposal of how to deal with them has merit. If the bots develop into a problem in GW, and only time will tell about that, I wouldn't have too much of a problem using your method, or any other effective means, to eliminate the problem. I just hope the necessity doesn't arise. I have hated giving up freedoms in other more real areas of life because of the "bent" actions of others, if you know what I mean.

Okay, let's stop with the personal attacks here.

Anyway, the discussion at hand is the random #'s thing. I would find this a large annoyance to type in all the time. I think Anet could probably find the abusers easily enough if they were making any worth while money. They could even try to send a few messages (possibly even obscure ones like, "What does a cow say?") to check if they respond, and if they don't log them out. They wouldn't really even need their accounts frozen, just a stop to their use of a bot.
He's right you know. Oh, and thanks for putting up a link to the "phone book" on your sig, it should really help out.

Hmm all I can say is there really isn't such a necessity to prevent those types of bots where they ebay stuff. This isn't a MMORPG so the economy in my opinion isn't what is going to break this game. In fact it'll make it easier for people who really want to get a quicker action to spend money on what somebody really worked hard on to find or not.

The only hacks that worries me are things that changes attributes, hp and so on to make someone fighting basically invincible. I hardly care if someone uses a bot to be able to level up to 20 for an rpg character because the game isnt about attributes as much as it is with skills. In WoW, FFXI and stuff of course I'd be pissed if someone used a bot to fish nonstop to flood the market with inflated prices that make it harder for me. Though its different for GuildWars.

As far as I can see you haven't really endeavoured into the game to the point that a group of henchies isn't gonna get you anywhere without a human being controlling your hero--where the treasure to captilize is located. Henchies don't attack until you focus an attack unless they are defending a fellow henchy.

Now in those instances like getting to lyons arch, where there are a number of chests one could go after. Some are freely available--most of the time--depending on where the skeletal sorceror and/or archer are patrolling. I have never got a good item of any real value from those chests, maybe 10 gold at best. There are other more often more valuable ones on that mission guarded by level 16 bone monsters and some skeletal mages and archers. The bot with 5 henchies isn't getting those, and those once and a while have better items, ones of real value, not excessive, maybe 45-70 gold.

Understand that I agree what you are saying isn't impossible, however, what is important is how a level 3 of any profession isn't gonna be able to pull it off. So with that in mind, you can only be talking about someone who has a level 20 character, or maybe 4 of them. Maybe in presearing ascalon for items of no vaue or consequence at all but that would be a lousy target. Back to the level 20, once they have played and reached that far into if not the end of the tutorial they remain as vulnerable as they were when they were level 3 in being able to go out to those post Lyon's Arch areas with good items that would have enough value to meet their capital needs. 25 gold a run isn't enough for them to carry on this way about by bot.

I reiterate my assurance Arena.net will have random events start to just happen, a streamed in system, to bring and end to this type of exploitation quickly. Maybe something that happens in town like at the end of the beta events but only kills the bot user to make a public spectacle of them before their account is banned by email and ip address for violation of the terms and conditions of use--that's 4 characters gone all at once if they happened to get away with this for a while. To me THAT is how you address the problem and discourage others from doing it. Not adding burdens to legitimate players, the server system, and the game's programmers. The violaters alone should be penalized in a clear, concise and meaningful way for being lowly punks who only seek out how to cheat and, as a matter of consistency with having no curve in the back of their skull, wonder why they are bored with games.

Having said all this, one really important consideration...Why? What is so God awful expensive anyone would need to do this? What real benefit are they going to get but maybe more skills to choose from, but then again they haven't the skill points to buy em huh? Nope because they been running a bot in lower levels to loot gold so now they got all this capital and no where to spend it. Darkmane you gotta take a real look at the game's structure and I think you'll see the discouragements and down right prohibitions, although unspoken, are already in place, and, those are the ones we know of. The game hasn't released yet and it is my understanding Jeff Strain and company are well experienced and versed in these things. I highly doubt bots would be overlooked.

I just don't understand all this concern over cheaters and botters. They haven't destroyed any of the major MMORPG's available at the moment, so they definately won't destroy Guild Wars. Yes, there will be people who attempt to cheap but 1) Even though bots and hacks are possible in GW, they're going to be far less useful and far more difficult to use because of how the game works and 2) ArenaNet is better equipped to deal with problems like this than anyone else at the moment. Instead of waiting for a patch, we'll get an instant fix as soon as the staff is made aware of the cheat. So, why all this fuss? This is an issue that all mmorpg's have had to face, most of them have dealt with it admirably, and it will be even easier to adress it in GW.

I don't know if a bot would work all that well in this type of game. It is very difficult for a single player to go though any area by themselves and still get anything of real value (i.e. - gold or experience). In any other area that you can get something of value is extremely difficult solo, and I doubt that it would work like the ones for Diablo 2, where you can do solo missions.
I think the real hacks that ANet have to worry about are those that give a player an advantage either by something like MapHack for D2. All of these things should be more difficult as the game is mostly on the server and only temporary files on a drive. I don't know if it will be a problem, but I'm sure Anet is doing everything possible to prevent hackers... perhaps we'll just have to wait and see

EDIT------------------------------
I guess Sin has about the same view as me

Maybe having come from many online games that were very easy to bot and become rich beyond belief and wishing in my mind that I had the kind of cash to 'do whatever I deem fit with' -but don't because I have morals and refuse to cheat while 'some other player' purchases anything they desire; Kinda has me tainted to want to do everything possible to help prevent it from happening in this great game I plan to spend my time and money on as I buy the expansions. I know this game is different .. I've played it. But as I said before I dont' see how entering in a 4 or 5 digit code or anything else for that matter to enter a town to help prevent botting is going to deter said gamer from playing. If your in front of your computer anyway.... whats the big deal. Think of it as a key to get into town .. lol

And as a final word thank you for your posts

As far as beating these peoploe with a stick, baseball bat, golf club etc.; I'm all for it, those people really "cheese" me off(would perfer to use sronger words, but I don't want to get banned )

Well I understand where you are coming from, but it will seriously be difficult to be botting in this game and even if it is done in this. You shouldn't really be that mindful of it. Entering digits just to enter in and out of town all the time. Over time it will become repititive and to me annoying. Its a great idea, but maybe when botting does get serious. At the moment I can't imagine conventional methods of botting to be able to be used in GuildWars. I mean the only way is to bot against really low level mobs. Which is useless loot for those that are level 20.

Thank you for creating this thread. If nothing else the potential cheater knows we as players will not tolerate them and are gunning for em and--WE TAKE NO PRISONERS!

I am pretty much coming directly form runescape, my mining is level 76, so i know of what you speak. They do nothing about it there though, in fact they penalize the legitimate players everytime they try to "fix" the problem--so you see why I am not all that keen on intervention systems.

Also if you haven't put your in-game info in the Unofficial GWG Member "Phone Book" please do. My signature has a link to it.

Thanks again Darkmane

I played that game once and only once. I want my ten minutes back. Of course it's all personal opinion, but I don't know how anyone could stand playing that game.

For me, my biggest experience with bots had to be while playing Ragnarok Online. Some of them got horrible, and it was just downright annoying at times. You have to feel bad knowing that someone is sleeping/at work and still making tons of money and experience while you work hard for each and every kill. However, there are better ways to address the problem than bothering every player active in the game world. It's an interesting idea, but simply not a viable solution.

One of the golden rules when formulation anti hack/bot methods is that it must inconvience the botter/hacker substantially more than it does legitimate users. Ideally, it shouldn't influence the users at all, but if it does, then it should have a major imact on the effectiveness of bots/hacks.

Punching in a random code is increbily annoying form the users perspective, and is only a minor slowdown for a botter once someone comes up with a function to quickly extract the required code (not insanely difficult if you've got a bit of time and knowledge). The cost/benefit doesn't cut the mustard.

Several Alphas are actively making bots where they see an opportunity or need to do so, and the devs are making changes to break those bots. I've had several bots and macros broken within days of passing the code onto the devs. It's something they take very seriously, and expect that to remain the same after release. I also trust that they'll keep botting down in ways that won't impact too much on legit players.

I'll be really annoyed if I've got to write a macro to enter a code whenever I warp to a new instance

I think this is an interesting idea, Darkmane. I'm not sure if bots can zone in and out. For some reason, perhaps my rather light acquaintance with bots, I thought they were started up and run in a specific map or mission or whatever. But if they can traverse from zone to zone, then what you've suggested is interesting.

Thanks for the creative thinking. We're always open to ideas, particularly those that will keep the world safe and the economy solid.

I have to add that though there is this sudden admission that bots have been going on during alpha testing, that indicates Arena.net's committment to the GuildWars community. When seen in light of what pharalon has said abover regarding coding that is broken in a few days tells me even moreso that this has been well considered and there are methods in place, both known and unknown, to maintain the integrity of the GuildWars game and in-game economy.

Someone had a thread about what's wrong with the community, about people that don't talk in a team on a mission or do everything you told them not to do...I wonder if some portion of that was some "bot" testing by BWE players and aphas.

Just with all I look at of how the game is as far as items, battles, etc. and the ease of the game as a normal player, even the ease of having enough to buy all you need. I personally see anyone even trying a bot on release of GuildWars as just stupid. It's not like anyone has to buy some armour that is 2 or 3 million gp and all because it is "trimmed" or named after one of the "gods." This all has to be addressed at the programming level too because any gameplay adjustment is a return to the grind system in one way or another.

I think this is a great idea. I'd prefer if it only asked every few instances/zonings, becuase each and everytime could be annoying. Bots would not be able to scan the screen and find out what the code is for the same reason that it doesn't work on sites like Fileplanet, which makes you do this when you register. Computers sucks at decifering patterns, plain and simple. The human brain is WAY better at it. Simple distortion in a random pattern would prevent bots from entering instances.

Again, every single zone jump might get annoying, but I wouldn't mind typing 'x7ntf' once an hour.

EDIT: As long as the solution is kept on the servers and just the image sen to your client everything should be okay.

I dislike this idea, it would be annoying, make the game less immersive and it would be unlikely that any type of "hacking" or bots would be stopped by this measure. Besides, in a game where there is no real grinding or farming, what would the point of a bot be anyway?

I voted other.

I think it would be a good idea if bots became a problem. I hate those bots that stand in the streets and tell you to go to such and such website, they drive me insane. I don't want the game devs to waste time on something that might not even happen through.

All I want is a game where people aren't A**es, there is no hacking or cheating and is fun. Is that to much to ask?