Very strong suggestion.

The bots need to be stopped. I was going to send a report with a few screenshots of people (bots) that wouldnt respond, but there was some sort of thing that said "What to do about bots"... blah blah... it didnt help and didnt state what i should do, so i figured the next best thing would be to come to a popular forum that i use, and suggest change.

I followed the same path going from suggested area's on various forums. The one i found out about tonight was seekers passage, ring a bell? Ya... you can't even walk around, and it's quite hard to make it outside... I myself didn't even go outside to go after those talked about chests (fear that maybe even i'd be seen as a bot, wow...)... seems quite outrageous to me that these people will do such things...

It actually pisses me off to see the outrageous numbers of people doing this...


I myself am ready for any action that needs to be taken to clear up this mess. I wouldn't mind a simple picture that i need to identify before coming into town... but i also wouldnt like it much... quite a problem.

I am for one sick of these things, and i hoped inside that perhaps since items and such are not needed to have fun in the pvp, that maybe, just maybe... the bots wouldnt be so bad in this game... but wow, people have been sure to prove me completely wrong.

100's of accounts are going to soon be 1,000's of accounts... do these idiots expect to never get caught, i mean... they don't respond, and run the same path through town... sure it's an instance... but you have to get to the instance first. I just don't understand why someone would pay the money for a game, accept an agreement... and go out and do things like this...

Does it help their self esteem to sell things online, or have what the "elite" or "power-gamers" have? Are they really so shallow, and sad inside? (because there's nothing competitive that they're really going to gain out of this...), heck... even the superior runes have their downfall of -75 health, so only one-two max per character can be effective... and what do they do when they unlock everything (besides of course the fall of the economy at a fast rate...)?

If i were on the team of anet, and wasnt as busy... shoot, i'd have fun just seeing if people respond, as i'm sure they can have something special in their in game name, such as "Anet, or symbols not aquired by other means (besides a little hack up into the system i'm sure...)... and i would be banning accounts left and right... i feel so helpless not being able to stomp my boot on the floor at this.

It might be useful to your health not to get so worked up over something other people are doing that doesn't affect you.

But then, that does seem to be a trend these days, one that is hardly restricted to video games.

Help their self-esteem to sell things online? Dude, this is a business, and from what I've heard it's quite a lucrative one. One of my adult students tells me that people from here go to China and set up small private pc cafes where young people are paid peanuts to run and level characters for various games. In fact, an advertisement for one of these websites managed to survive on the forums here for about 5 minutes (this was around 3 hours ago) before being locked and then deleted. People do it cuz there's loads of money involved for very minimal work. They CAN do it because people are stupid enough to buy.

The way to stop them is to apply more pressure on those who buy, both legally via the EULA and socially via condemnation and belittling of the practice.

I don't understand the issue here. It's not as though there is a finite amount of wealth and loot in GW and these people are taking from your pockets. Nor are they stealing mobs that you would be killing. You aren't going to be crushed in the arena by an eBay player. You don't even see this going on, and wouldn't be confronted with it at all if you didn't take such pains to seek it out.

I don't get it. I don't get how it affects you, especially how it is apparently affecting your blood pressure in such a profound way. Am I the only person not dogged at all times by imagined phantoms?

Ever heard of inflation?

You must be a THICK HEAD, if you do not realize if these bots continue that price of 100,000 gold on eBay will soon be worth $2, and anyone can buy it on eBay and become an instant millionaire. If you like having to buy gold online to compete, having a superior vigor rune being worth 2 million gold, go ahead.

AND SHUT UP I HATE YOU.

Sheesh. Someone has their panties in a wad.

Just worry about your own fun dude. If you want something cool, just go find it. I could give a rodent's posterior about how rich other people are. It makes no difference to me. I've finished the game, have almost half a million exp and have maybe just 3K in gold to my name.

As far as bots go? As long as the lag goes away, I don't care how many of them people use. Me personally though, I bought the game to play and enjoy, not have some chinese guy in a cafe play it.

Besides, I'd be a hypocrit to criticize other people when one of my favorite things to do is go to Fissure over and over and over again.

Dude... come on... we're here to collectively address a problem. If he doesn't see why it's a problem then explain your view in a good way. NOBODY is going to remember anything out of your post other than what I quoted. Talk nice and people listen, talk rude and people don't like you.

Perishiko, why do you find it difficult to make it out of town? And why is it hard to walk around?



My rant about economy (which has to do with bots):

Go take a look at the trade forum, its unreal. Why are you mucktards paying so much for this crap? Let me tell you why, your a moron thats why. Yes, your stupid, and I will enlighten you. Most of the junk going for 80k+ is WORSE then the stuff you get from vendors. I really need to start selling this junk to you, because your just so unbelievably stupid to be buying it.

I keep saying this trend will die, but its not.. Stop buying weapons, they are NOT worth it. There are a few weapons with really good mods that are going to go for alot, but all this trash thats not even as good as the collectors....

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=25260

Check out that sword there, starting bid 100k. And it's WORSE than a collectors sword! Unreal, you can get a longsword with a cool graphic that has 15% damage while enchanted. A 29 pommel goes for about 25k, and the 3/1 goes for 10kish. Everyone knows the vampiric stuff is junk anyhow, and you can get a 25 hp pommel (4 less health, ooowwweee) for 8k.

So, you get the collectors sword, which takes you about 10 minutes. You spend 8k for a hp pommel, and then put a hilt on it that will actually help you. Saves you around 90k.

YES! KILL THE BOTS!

We the farmers farm with our very hands day by day, and those lazy punks use AI to collect money while they're sleeping and relaxing? Not fair!

With a post like that it's only a matter of time until this gets locked!

I think that's the actuall scary part. People are buying.
I read a statistic on the internet that sais, that about 10% of people, who get spam, actually buy the stuff being advertised.

It's like that StevenSegal Character sais in "on deadly ground": As long as people make profit by doing bad things, why would they stop?

They only thing, that can make people stop is, if others stop buying their stuff for overrated prices.

As far as I recall, I never sold any item so far. I once trade a Warrior Rune for a Ranger Rune. And a few days ago, I gave away an elementalist's rune for free, because I liked the person.

Believe me, I will always sympathize with directionless rage, but I think you overestimate the willingness of the average gamer to put real money towards this game beyond what he's already spent at EB. Try mentioning monthly fees and watch the lynch mobs form on your lawn. A few dumb noobs buying cash that they will probably end up blowing on pennywhistles and beer is not going to send the economy into a tailspin.

How about the fact that it's kind of....wrong?

And what gives you the right to horde imaginary currency or commodity (that doesn't actually belong to you) and sell it?

It's like back in the day when EQ first launched and the end game material was so sparse that nearly EVERYTHING, LGuk, SolB, etc was locked up tight by Ebay farmers who would downright **** you over if you tried to "move in on their propery". I remember trying to do trades to get a SSoY and a FBSS and other gear because getting them the "legit way" was impossible. i couldn;t even trade for them though because the ecnomy was so degenerated to the point where no one wanted anything for trade except other high profile gear that was being farmed 24/7 by Ebay farmers.


There is another group of people in this world that run business nearly the same way, and it's called the Mafia. If you can't see and aknowledge the probelm, then you need to be castrated. You are never going to be a help to any world, real or fake. you will always be a detractor.

"I don't know why people have probems with things that don't concern them". Oh please. You make me sick.

Oh yeah, well YOU shut up. And stop touching me. And stay on your OWN side. So THERE. Nyaaahh.

LOL Garric. Bad day or just making a joke?

--Nokomis

Don't a lot of bots muck up the servers or something? I don't know a lot about how these things work, but it seems like it would HAVE to be a drain on A-net hardware and therefore impact the real gameplayers.

--Nokomis

Why don't they simply move the chest?

It would be alot simpler wouldn't it?

Glad to hear it.

Sadly, if that comparison was a man, his bones would snap in a weak breeze. EQ was not instanced, eBay farming was actually a problem because equipment entered the world at a fixed rate that they monopolized. As I pointed out in my post (which it seems like you only skimmed) an instanced world like in Guild Wars means no one can muscle you off their turf, so that argument is worthless. And on a side note, the early economy of EQ was not nearly as horrid as you describe - I don't remember eBay farming becoming a tangible problem until right before Kunark, at the earliest. Most of those people were just hardcore players, as I'm betting most of your "botters" are, and you're just seeing what you want to see.

As for the "but it's WRONG!!!" facet of your defense: I will never, ever sympathize with or support interfering with other people based on blind idealism. What gives you the right? Oh right, nothing.

Whatever games companies do it will still happen as long as there is a demand. I personally can't really see the point as stuff in GW is pretty easy to come by (especially compared to most MMO's) and I'd guess that the people that buy stuff/use bots have a history from other MMORPGs of doing the same.

The only thing that affects me is the inflation on some products from the traders. I'm sure that if this becomes too much of an issue anet can alter the supply/demand curve accordingly.

Botting and buying gold with $ is bad, m'kay. But it happens and isn't likely to go away any time soon. Just be glad that it affects you personally far less than in many MMO's.

If you were on in that area last night, you'd see a million bots coming in, and straight out... it causes horrible lag in that zone, and inside of seekers passage. It was unbelievable at about 12:10-12:30 last night central time, before of course... i just got off to report a few of the screenshots. Then noticed they didnt want people to report... so i figured i'd start up a heated discussion regarding this situation on a forum, in which they actually like us to do... they like to see the communities response, and the way more then one person thinks about it.


Personaly, in the long run, i know... not think, but know this is going to trash the economy... i mean heck, all these people sleeping, using some program to run scripts just to open chests over and over, and sell all un-runed items to the merchant... that's a Ton of gold to be gotten, and i'm sure there's an easy script to run in order to put gold into your storage after you get 100k on your character.

I think an easier fix to this would be puting random spawn locations of something that knocks people down into that zone... it would be alot harder to make a script that has to avoid things (I don't know quite all the details in making these scripts, but to my knowledge, it's nearly impossible to go after random placed things.)

I think that chests and wreckages are already randomly placed (perhaps not in the heavely bot'd area's? but i don't know for sure, havent even checked these places out.)

Apart from anything anybody has said yet. That has to be the smartest response. And it's completely true. It puts a horrible strain on the servers, and well... it's going to be costing them more money in the long run. And with the thousands of people using bots, it seems like the numbers are growing...


Soon, my responses will be to find the websites, and people giving out these bots and letting them get downloaded... i will report them directly to anet.

Have a problem with that, and you're more then likely a scared bot user that doesnt want to be banned for life. Tough crapola.

No, and... no.

No, it doesn't. No, it isn't. No, they aren't! That's five total untruths in a row!


Yeah, just like anyone who has a problem with the Bush administration is a terrorist. Grow a brain.

Darren, could you explain to me why bots wouldn't overload a server? I'm not arguing with you, or saying you are wrong, I just actually want to know why it wouldn't be a strain on servers if hundreds of characters were running automatically hours at a time. I truly don't understand how this stuff works.

--Nokomis

Because MMO servers (especially the really really good ones that ANet has acquired) are designed to handle thousands of players. A few hundred more, even another thousand, is not going to make an impact. But that isn't even happening, because the bots are not new accounts, they are alts of the players who would have been playing anyway! So the imagined, non-existent lag would have been there, bots or no bots.

Any lag you might experience from a bunch of people congregating in a single zone is just a framerate slowdown from all the polygons on the screen. Go to a different district, problem fixed. You cannot reasonably claim that bots are giving you crippling lag, their impact on the server (if any) is negligible, and such claims are sensationalism at its worst.

Were you born stupid, or did it grow on you?

No joke, these bots are people that would normaly be not playing, you moron... it's why they're at work/sleeping, while they have a script play for them. And the "imagined" lag, is not imagined, your still just a complete moron. I've talked with many other in-game players, and quite a few are seeing lag, if you go into seekers passage, especially at a time in which people wouldnt be playing (night time), you can notice the lag.

Sure, i could go to a district where people arent getting "auto-placed" into, as the bots won't be zoning in there.

I am not stating it's causing a "whole" server lag, it's causing zone lag, a problem in seekers passage that i know of, heck, i don't know the other areas these people are going.

Perhaps your bot using self will have fun when he gets booted.

Not only is it un-needed crap that the game designers don't want... but it's also against the terms of agreement.

Now reply telling me how my statements mean nothing, and how stupid i am... reply to me how you're right, and reply to me telling me that you don't use bots. But it won't make a difference, because you think your right, and i know your right to a certain extent... but that's ok.

Wanna know what every instance is that is created by these guys? Oh yea... that's reasonably one million zones being created within one night, where none of those would exist without the bots. Hmph, shux... i'll end on that note... goodbye sir.

Perhaps you do know what "More then likely" means? ok...

And to that, i don't know what to say, you sound really frustrated with something... perhaps problems with your significant, now go on and play. I hear it's healthy.



*i wish i could be as "for bots" as you, but i do suspect that the reasoning for this post is more of a discusion on how bots are wrong, and should be out of the game*-- This has not gone that way, and this thread diserves to be closed.-- Another good arguement ended.

This is the same as someone leaving their computer on AFK all the time and never logging off. You think that lags everyone out, even if hundreds of people did it? Maybe I need to explain the scope of this concept again.

So you admit that you can solve your problem with a few mouse clicks, but would rather just complain.

LOL. Even if I did use bots, no one's getting booted. Sorry.

I'll break it down for you once more. Server impact = negligible

I am not "for bots". I don't support the people who do this, nor do I oppose them. I support people doing what they please with the money they've paid as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, and I oppose people trying to interfere with business that doesn't concern or affect them, based on imagined infractions or some kind of misguided moral compass.

You posted this as a discussion on how bots are wrong, and should be out of the game? That's an opinion, not a topic. So basically, you consider your thread to have gone awry because every reply was not agreeing with you?

rofl, bots are against the rules and should and will be removed. dont care how it does or does not affect other players... if it's against the rules and players who agreed to abide by these, breaks part of the rules, then they are subject to have their accounts banned

I actually think it may affect server performance in a non-negligable way. If you consider the network layer probably only has a single bit for AFK users as a keep alive bit, it probably costs almost nothing. The translation to the application layer would likely be unaffected. However, suppose a hundred users are running bots, the amount of processing that a server would have to spend calculating the appropriate path finding, for example would be far from negligable. Also, you could consider that within a town, the number of entities currently with nonzero velocities and their collisions have to be calculated in what is likley a factorial function. These calculations are CPU intensive and will affect the application layer, even if the network layer is unaffected. In fact, factorial functions are the most CPU and memory intensive. Furthermore, it's possible that bots process information faster than humans. A human can only issue a few commands per second (say heal, run and attack). A bot can easily issue thousands of commands per second. A bot could buffer a sequence of 7 skills and cancel based on the changing situation(s) - and do so 20 or 30 times a second. Each instruction is contained within a packet of data and any frame lost will have to be retransmitted. Obviously, the more packets that can not be processed, the more packets that will have to be retransmitted. This also affects the amount of processing the server will have to keep track of - since the distribution of processing is probably delocalized by map . . . which means a few hundred bots issuing a few hundred commands could effectively lag all districts. At this point, even the session layer may be overwhelmed with transactions.

I would love to help, rather than complain. Unfortunately, I lack the source code :P. I'm sure A.net has bot protection policies, but, realistically, the bots will always be better. Memory mappers are ever present and legal. Anet could look for specific threads or processes - but those can be arbitrarily chosen and corrected dynamically no less and fairly easily. Bots can always simulate mouse movements, if memory verification or process authentification occurs.

Doesnt affect him? Really? haha. Really? Haha. HAHAHA. Ok, see. The thing is... people like this are selling superior runes left and right. So.. i have a Sup. Ranger rune of Expertise. Thats a shitty run really. So im sitting there with my shitty rune thats worth maybe 5k... Someone starts farming using bots ALL DAY every day. They get 10 of those Sup. Expertise runes... sell them.. now my rune is worth 3k... a few days later... 2k.. a few days later.. 1... later... 25g to rune trader. Doesnt affect him? Really? haha.

What have I taken from this topic. Here are the two arguements as I see them.

Side A: Bitches.

Side B: Bitches.

This is all I take away from what I have read. O_o

I agree with DarrenJasper that you might want to cool your anger on this issue. I doubt it will do your health many favours, and at the end of the day: it's a game. It's a proven fact I'm affraid. If the worst comes to the worst, and it really is that bad, stop playing and do something more positive with your time. That's what I would do.

I don't, however, agree on the stirring and hucking of certain smelly substances throughout this thread. Come on guys, there's a difference between 'positive debate' and 'handbags at dawn'. O_o

Of the two things of note I have read:

Do either of you work for ANet? In fact, what qualifications do either of you have to comment on this subject? Verbatim. To comment on this, from what I have seen neither of you have any qualification to argue either point about this subject. If you do, then by all means lay your cards on the table so we can come to an educated decision on our own. Otherwise you can both hold your tongue when talking about what is fact and what is not. *Bows to squiros.*

There we go. That's independant arbitration for you. Neither of you have any viable say in it without credentials. Both are a statment of personal opinion from what I can see, and not based on any substansiable facts. Am I a mod? No, but if a mod wishes to tell me I am wrong in pointing any of this out, then I will recant whole heartedly.

Furthermore I spotted this:
Hmm, funny the personal opinion thing came up given me last point. Anyway, interesting or not, this point is not correct either. Where as it may not have been constructive, there were voices of agreement for the idea. Besides, practically every topic in this part of the forum is here because of personal opinion or ideas. If you don't agree with his right to share his, then maybe we should strip many more posts from this board, not to mention some of the useful new features that we have seen introduced into the game as a result.

What do I wish to say? If you are going to play, play nice. Handbag matches aren't going to get us anywhere for anything.

As for my take, I haven't seen any indication of bot use from playing in the game myself; though I can appreaciate it is possibly an issue, and if so requires discussion. I side with DrSLUGFly though. The people who do this must be pretty stupid. Personally I prefer the fun and amusement of playing the game myself. Also any solution should be via the EULA and positive use of peer presure, again as per DrSLUGFly.

I've been watching this Thread for a little while, and I've been able to find something interesting in regards to the Whole "Do the bots produce LAG" question. Well, I highly doubt that they lag up A-Nets Servers to be honest. They wouldn't let too many users be on a server at a time (that's what districts are for.)
Ok on to what I've found. I have three computers. One is a Best that money can buy hard core gaming computer. The Second is a Laptop with Integrated Graphics. The third is an Old P3 866mhz with a PCI Gforce 4 card.
I can enter a REALLY crowded district (bot's and all) with my Good computer and I have NO lag at all. Runs great. But if I enter that same district with my Laptop of Old computer I get a LOT of lag. So what I think is that the LAG is not from A-Net's servers not being able to handle it, but from our Graphics cards/processors not being able to keep up with all the movement and People.
Just an Observation.

As far as lag goes, it wouldn't be something noticable on your machine, per se. The effects would be seen by a load on the server, which in turn will also have a certain affect on the ware of the machine, the amount of connections it has, and data flow between players. When these get to their limits (more connections and data flow than ware, the server will last a while ) then people will start to see the results. I don't think ANet would be as stupid as to let it get to the point where people would witness any lag or low quality of service due to them, but obviously it may incur getting to higher limits more quickly. This means ANet has to spend time and money organising and purchasing upgrades to their services, which takes time and money away from further development and maintenance of the game, potentially. I work at an ISP, so I know/have to think about some of these things.

A comment about the Lag ideas. I would be inclined to believe that the effect bots have on server lag would be near non-existant. Why? The server infrastructure would have been designed from Day 1 to be able to support as many active users as copies of Guild Wars they were planning on selling. To do anything less would be taking a great risk in being unable to adaquately support the service you are trying to sell. The only way I could see the bot problem equating to some lag on the servers would be if they were using 'pirated' or 'hacked' copies of Guild Wars, and that's assuming its even possible to do that with this game. I suppose also as mentioned before the fact that a bot can perform many thousands of operations per second could play a role too...

Either way. As for morality of bots and what is right and wrong that one is easy. Aside from the fact it is clearly in the EULA, which therefore makes it wrong, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the intended use of this program by those who would purchase it would not be to 'farm' virtual objects (using bots or otherwise) to make a profit of real currency. So yeah it quite plainly is wrong, to say otherwise would make me suspect one supports such activity.

The only thing a mmorp server computes are numbers. Let's say there's a hex code for a combination of a player with this armor, that weapon, that dye applied to the armor, etc. etc. It forms a large number. Your computer calculates this number into a visual player. The only thing the mmorp servers do is combining this number with a two number location on the map. Vertical and horizontal number and the current action it's doing, using this spell (a number) etc. etc. It sends these numbers to your pc and your pc calculates it to a visual image.

Talking about resurrecting a dead horse... mods, please close...

The reason it affects everyone's game play is that, soon, inflation will be so much, like other people said, that you could buy 1 mil for under $5, and at that point, anyone who feels gold buying ruins the game and refuses to do it, will either be forced to buy gold to even compete, or will leave the game in frustration.

Farming ruins games, it's a fact. Anet could have done a lot about farmers from the beginning, but they have chosen not to. If nothing is done, I sure won't play GW2.

Resurrecting a dead horse this may be, but it is a huge issue that is not being addressed. As one that does not support gold farming, it is ruining my game play experience.

Lag comes in 2 different forms, basically. FPS and Ping, if you are having low FPS problems, but not Ping problems, it is your computer. If you are having Ping problems, it is the servers fault. I don't know what specifically causes things like Error 7, but I am pretty sure that is an Anet related issue.

Basically, anyone who says it's not our business, they are wrong. Gold farming and duping has ruined the game itself badly, and there seems to be no way to resurrect it without some serious changes, which no one feels like doing with the GW2 beta on the horizon.

As long as there are still bots in the game, the horse will not die. Prepare to hear this all through GW2 as well. I'd get used to it if I were you.



Arenanet has many educated programmers/anaylists on their side. If there were a more effective way to deal with bots that didn't effect the community it a negative way then I'm sure they would implement it.

Do hundreds of people go AFK and leave their computers on overnight in the same town? I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen.


Maybe some people want to be in American Districts to find people for their party, or some reason like that, and there aren't that many people that PvE in Intl districts


This is the one point in your thread that makes sense. No significant impact has been implemented on the botters since Day 1 (barring farming code, which was quickly removed). I may be considered a "conspirator" but, the only reason that there could still be botters around, at least the way I see it, is that there is money being passed under the table that the community doesn't know about.

Guild Wars has one of the most advanced tracking systems in any MMO, it records every chat log, and every keystroke you use. If it notices someone using the same exact keystrokes, to the same exact millisecond, for every instance they use, Anet should, in theory, be alerted.


About a million (give or take 100,000) instances are negligible? Anet is using up server space to create these instances, meaning some memory is going to be taken away from legitimate instances.

Lately, I've seen huge lag for American GvGers. Not often, but about 2 or 3 GvG's I do per week, all the Americans on my team will freeze, and on the opposing team, but most Euros will be fine. It may be related, but it probably isn't. It's just an example.


Buying gold from gold sellers/farmers does hurt everyone in the community, a little at a time, and it does add up. Duping + Gold Farming = Today's economy (which sucks, if you didn't notice)

I would have to agree with most people, that if you support botting, you do not support the community that plays fairly. I can't imagine any non-botter in favor of what has become of Guild Wars today.

Or like anyone who supports Bush is a racist, homophobe who wants the borders closed.

Unfortunately there are all kinds of preconceived notions out there.

Such a heated debate!
I love it!
Anyway, ANET should just have an option to where you can send in a name with a "suspicion" that he/she is farming. After that ANET could observe like how long the person was online for. If he/she is moving and he/she has been online for 89 hours, something is wrong unless if the person just loves leaving the game running while their AFK.
But that just sounds like a pain...
The ANET people could also run "undercover" investigations...
Buy a small sum of gold from one of those websites... when they find the guy who's dishing out the gold... BAN!
But that's just kind of unreasonable to an extent of ethical crap...

Overall this is an unsolvable issue and requested solutions are just too extreme or just stupid or inapplicable. This is just a topic that I'd advise people to stay away from no matter how much you hate those bots.

Ok first my credentials: I have a Degree in both Programming and Networking, I have been involved in one way or another with computers since 1981, I have set up small to mid-sized networks.

Bots have no impact on anet's servers = FALSE
Bots have a big impact on anet's servers = FALSE
Bots have the same impact on anet's servers as a human player = TRUE
(the only difference being a human wouldn't play as long)

The 'lag' that's been discussed that players experience from crowded districts is caused by your computer hardware, specifically your GPU and CPU and to a smaller extent how much system memory you have.

Since most gold farming bots are overseas, I would expect asian and european players to see a greater impact that american players.

I would not put farming in the same category as someone who exploits a bug or hack to create copies of items that should have never existed in the game.