Guild Wars News: Bots Banned
hanwinting
gosh ppl complain too much. PPL keep b#$@#@#@ that Anet doesnt do anything about those bots. Once they took action, now ppl start questioning about Anet intentions. WHAT THE HECK DO U WANT THEM TO DO THEN?? Who cares about their intention!!!! For chirst sake. whoever use Bots should be banned period!!!
hanwinting
gosh ppl complain too much. PPL keep b#$@#@#@ that Anet doesnt do anything about those bots. Once they took action, now ppl start questioning about Anet intentions. WHAT THE HECK DO U WANT THEM TO DO THEN?? Who cares about their intention!!!! For chirst sake. whoever use Bots should be banned period!!!
Kook~NBK~
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Originally Posted by Gaile Gray
Sometimes companies do things with all the right reasons, and the outcome is completely good. Sometimes there is not a conspiracy to theorize about.
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Everyone knows that at the heart of the GW Bot situation is an evil consortium that has arranged for the real world economy to be directly affected by the economy of GW! Anyone else notice that the ecto prices dropped right as gas prices went up?And who's the head of this diabolical system?
GWEN!
edit: Seriously, thanks for doing something about the bots!
Konrow
finally they're showing some action. not too much since the bots are still here but yay! hallelujia praise the banning gods
eternal pho
gee i hope i dont get kicked cuz i frequently do runs at elona
erick5876
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Originally Posted by dargon
No, because they do not attempt to link to your guildwars account and modify the information being sent to the server. They are 3rd party apps, yes, but they don't affect what guildwars does when it is run.
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Witchblade
Elona seemed empty today 
nimloth32
kudos anet..thx..at least there are some effort..
Cassie McKnight
cool
But if you want a real economy, make the merchants pay a real price(based on player trading) then have the merchant keep those items in store for a few minutes or so(only items worth more than 200g for example). Or better still have an auction house type deal, except you dont bid, the seller just names his price and leaves it there until sold or he changes the price(like a trading post).
Otherwise when you try to sell something you stand around saying WTS over and over and over and over then you give up, because you want to play the game, not stand around trying to sell stuff.
But Yay die you bots
But if you want a real economy, make the merchants pay a real price(based on player trading) then have the merchant keep those items in store for a few minutes or so(only items worth more than 200g for example). Or better still have an auction house type deal, except you dont bid, the seller just names his price and leaves it there until sold or he changes the price(like a trading post).
Otherwise when you try to sell something you stand around saying WTS over and over and over and over then you give up, because you want to play the game, not stand around trying to sell stuff.
But Yay die you bots
mtm
*applause*
ubrikkean
Bah, still see 'em in Elona int. dist. 1 and some still in Am. Dist. 1... still, nice to know that they're taking some action
TheOneAndOnlyX
Ohs noes they are going to cut the food for the sweat shop workers to buy more games!
Opeth11
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Originally Posted by TheOneAndOnlyX
Ohs noes they are going to cut the food for the sweat shop workers to buy more games!
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Ken Dei
Who cares if the "sales" conspirisy is true? The outcome is good regardless. Because even if the botters buy another copy, A.Net can ban them again. If they want to continue to be stupid and keep paying A.Net more then once. So be it.
As long as A.Net keeps hunting down and wiping out networks, I'm happy.
As long as A.Net keeps hunting down and wiping out networks, I'm happy.
nimloth32
lol, conspiracy conspiracy..XD
arcady
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Originally Posted by robrobrob
He simply stated that Anet's underlying motivation for banning them wasn't to uphold the EULA or maintain a standard in their game, but instead to simply try to drive up GW sales. Whether he's right or not, that's what he said
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In fact, if action on the scale of 1000 ever becomes something motivated by a sales concern, it would be a sign the game was near dead. 1k accounts is only worth $39,950.00 - that's probably not even the weekly payroll at anet's offices for the Guild Wars development team. It's petty cash for a business.
1000 accounts banned is more of a 'message' manuever. It is a figure that sounds big, even if actualy small - and drives home the point that an intention is out there and that this is where it will begin.
Chances are, the 'bot' crowd is actually a very small percentage of the user base. Probably less than 1% of GW users, probably much less. But they have a very disproportionate impact - they become very visible and they become very disruptive to the community side of the game. In the same way that it only takes one 'serial killer' to send a city of millions into a panic, it only takes one serious abuser of the game to throw off the efforts of the masses.
1000 accounts may be a small percentage, and may not have any noticable effect on the corporate bottom line, but to that small portion of abusers it drives home a point - and they've pretty much stated it is a beginning, not an end.
Fantus
Yay - I love it when the bad guys are getting shafted!
*hands Anet a new ban stick to whack another 1,000 bot users with*
*hands Anet a new ban stick to whack another 1,000 bot users with*
arcady
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Originally Posted by shadex
A copy of guild wars for a company is around 10-15 bucks at most. They will buy them in bulk, for a bulk discount. It takes less then 3 hours for a player to get a pve character to level 20.
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level 20 in 3 hours...? That's some pretty fast mouse clicking.
Wyvern King
Anet ban bots - people say they are doing it to make the botters buy more copies of GW for profit. Every time Anet does something nice, people always like to find different motives. Although it is fun 
Question: Even if it was directed at making profit - that's a good thing! I'd rather 1,000 botters each pay some money for a new copy so Anet gets richer. If it was done on a larger scale, with enormous profit, then Anet will be very rich, and maybe they will even knock down the price of Chapter 3! :P
Question: Even if it was directed at making profit - that's a good thing! I'd rather 1,000 botters each pay some money for a new copy so Anet gets richer. If it was done on a larger scale, with enormous profit, then
Anet will be very rich, and maybe they will even knock down the price of Chapter 3! :P
makosi
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Originally Posted by Divinus Stella
I thought something was up when i went to ToA to buy ecto, not one single chinese spammer to buy from.
I'd like to see 1000 bots banned everyday, might stop the eBay madness in guildwars, seems everyone is stinking rich. Great job on the current bannings anyway, better some bans than none i supose. |
Yeah, good job removing those bots - less ebay-ing to inflate the economy!
Massacre
/bow
Thank you Anet, banning bots makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Let the ban hammer fall on another 1000 botters!
Thank you Anet, banning bots makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Let the ban hammer fall on another 1000 botters!
Kriel Drache
And lo, Anet created the Guild Wars community. And it was very, VERY good. The people of Anet said this to the gamers of Guild Wars: "You may partake of any of the blessings of Tyria and Cantha, but you may not use third-party programs." All was good for some time, until the seeds of evil were planted and the first bots came into existence. The gods of Anet were saddened that those they had created an entire world for, filled with magic, monsters and pwnage, had become corrupted by these bots. Eventually, they shouted from their desks at HQ "Enough! Away with you, bots!" And lo, 1000 bots were wiped from existence in the first week. And that was also very, VERY good.
The end
Hey, Anet. Are those afk'ers in Fort Aspenwood also bots. If so, I'd take much joy in seeing them gone as well. Anyway, kudos on the 1000 banned and keep up the good work.
The end
Hey, Anet. Are those afk'ers in Fort Aspenwood also bots. If so, I'd take much joy in seeing them gone as well. Anyway, kudos on the 1000 banned and keep up the good work.
Loviatar
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Originally Posted by Kriel Drache
And lo, Anet created the Guild Wars community. And it was very, VERY good. The people of Anet said this to the gamers of Guild Wars: "You may partake of any of the blessings of Tyria and Cantha, but you may not use third-party programs." All was good for some time, until the seeds of evil were planted and the first bots came into existence. The gods of Anet were saddened that those they had created an entire world for, filled with magic, monsters and pwnage, had become corrupted by these bots. Eventually, they shouted from their desks at HQ "Enough! Away with you, bots!" And lo, 1000 bots were wiped from existence in the first week. And that was also very, VERY good.
The end . |
cheers, wild applause, standing ovation
Prefectus
The gold farming biz pulls in about 2.9 billion a year in profit, thats after buying the games and after giveing nothing to there slaves. Biz owners are going to keep comeing back to games that make them money. That in account there not going to take a hit in there pockets, when the owners ban accounts the workers take a cut, not them. So in a way yeah were takeing food out of the workers mouths, but they need to find a better job.
I am not promoteing gold sellers.
I am not promoteing gold sellers.
davitsibæsj
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Originally Posted by Snograt
No, but you might get kicked
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davitsibæsj
i realy dont know
Dmc1281
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Originally Posted by davitsibæsj
What is a bot? i'm asking this cause i don't want to be kicked and or banned
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I was curious about the actual useage, since I was planning on purchasing a 2nd account, mainly to have fighting with me and to heal and what not as I do a lot of solo play, and while the henchmen are good, they can get kicked pretty easy against harder targets.
lyra_song
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Originally Posted by Dmc1281
I was curious about the actual useage, since I was planning on purchasing a 2nd account, mainly to have fighting with me and to heal and what not as I do a lot of solo play, and while the henchmen are good, they can get kicked pretty easy against harder targets.
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I recommend you get your best friend over and play on the other PC if you really want that kind of help.
arcady
On another forum I suggested:
They could just turn off running - make everyone move through an area. Keep the party together, but you don't transition to another area unless you move yourself through the gate. I believe that's how Neverwinter Nights worked. First party member through creates the instance, and the other go into that instance when they get there. If all of them but one leave that instance before that one even gets to it, that one gets a new instance...
Thus you don't leave an instance lying around in memory on the server.
A second option might be to only run other members to where the lowest level PC goes - but this dosn't work if they're all equal level.
I would just turn off running, and use the random question scheme suggested by others on that other forum at the exit from any common area.
A guard appears randomly and asks you one of a series of random questions with five possible answers given, and it randomly sorts the correct answer (sometimes it is choice 1, sometimes choice 3, etc...)
Until the answer is given, once the guard shows the chance of showing for the guard becomes 100% for any attempt to leave a common area, and make it a question with five possible answers, switch the order where the correct answer appears each time it is asked, and have the question switch between some 10-50 questions that are obvious to any human - switching each time (And they would have to be ultra-obvious, like: what is the gender of your character? - which might be hard to make 'game world relevant... but possible with some thought).
If a character fails to answer more than X times, the account is suspended just like with these forums if I type in my password incorrectly more than 5 times...
A suspended account then requires the usual means to re-activate (no idea what those are...).
Would such a scheme work without being a hassle on real players?
They could just turn off running - make everyone move through an area. Keep the party together, but you don't transition to another area unless you move yourself through the gate. I believe that's how Neverwinter Nights worked. First party member through creates the instance, and the other go into that instance when they get there. If all of them but one leave that instance before that one even gets to it, that one gets a new instance...
Thus you don't leave an instance lying around in memory on the server.
A second option might be to only run other members to where the lowest level PC goes - but this dosn't work if they're all equal level.
I would just turn off running, and use the random question scheme suggested by others on that other forum at the exit from any common area.
A guard appears randomly and asks you one of a series of random questions with five possible answers given, and it randomly sorts the correct answer (sometimes it is choice 1, sometimes choice 3, etc...)
Until the answer is given, once the guard shows the chance of showing for the guard becomes 100% for any attempt to leave a common area, and make it a question with five possible answers, switch the order where the correct answer appears each time it is asked, and have the question switch between some 10-50 questions that are obvious to any human - switching each time (And they would have to be ultra-obvious, like: what is the gender of your character? - which might be hard to make 'game world relevant... but possible with some thought).
If a character fails to answer more than X times, the account is suspended just like with these forums if I type in my password incorrectly more than 5 times...
A suspended account then requires the usual means to re-activate (no idea what those are...).
Would such a scheme work without being a hassle on real players?
Dmc1281
Oh well
Like I said I was thinking about it. I do know on other games you can have as many accounts you want and run them all at the same time as long as you aren't using 3rd party programs.
I actualy had 2 SWG accounts and I was so good at running both of them, that between my 2 accounts and other people in the area I can hold multiple conversations without responding from the wrong character. fighting was a different story, I usually fought with one character and the other one usually ended up getting killed if it was close to the action.
Like I said I was thinking about it. I do know on other games you can have as many accounts you want and run them all at the same time as long as you aren't using 3rd party programs.
I actualy had 2 SWG accounts and I was so good at running both of them, that between my 2 accounts and other people in the area I can hold multiple conversations without responding from the wrong character. fighting was a different story, I usually fought with one character and the other one usually ended up getting killed if it was close to the action.
Blade_falcon
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Originally Posted by arcady
On another forum I suggested:
They could just turn off running - make everyone move through an area. Keep the party together, but you don't transition to another area unless you move yourself through the gate. I believe that's how Neverwinter Nights worked. First party member through creates the instance, and the other go into that instance when they get there. If all of them but one leave that instance before that one even gets to it, that one gets a new instance... Thus you don't leave an instance lying around in memory on the server. A second option might be to only run other members to where the lowest level PC goes - but this dosn't work if they're all equal level. I would just turn off running, and use the random question scheme suggested by others on that other forum at the exit from any common area. A guard appears randomly and asks you one of a series of random questions with five possible answers given, and it randomly sorts the correct answer (sometimes it is choice 1, sometimes choice 3, etc...) Until the answer is given, once the guard shows the chance of showing for the guard becomes 100% for any attempt to leave a common area, and make it a question with five possible answers, switch the order where the correct answer appears each time it is asked, and have the question switch between some 10-50 questions that are obvious to any human - switching each time (And they would have to be ultra-obvious, like: what is the gender of your character? - which might be hard to make 'game world relevant... but possible with some thought). If a character fails to answer more than X times, the account is suspended just like with these forums if I type in my password incorrectly more than 5 times... A suspended account then requires the usual means to re-activate (no idea what those are...). Would such a scheme work without being a hassle on real players? |
i think it would work just a simple question like "what shape is my shield" wich is very hard for a bot to detect i guess or there could be one of those letter detection things you have on websites. and some kind of time limit so every so many hours your automaticly logged out ( nothing small like 15 hours or somthin)
All in all gw Anet
Tijger
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Originally Posted by Fist_of_God
Maybe, but in the end its all about the bottom line...$$.
Anet bans 1000 accounts for botting, so they whom have been banned, have to buy 1000 copies. Next thing we will hear is another PR BS message about how much GW sales have increased. |
Anet has marked some milestones of sales but they hardly send out press releases for selling a 1000 copies of GW nor does a 1000 copies significantly impact the sales figures for GW or GW:F, 10,000 perhaps but a 1000? puhleeze, grow up.
With this kind of BS there's no winning, you whine if Anet doesnt do anything about bots yet when they ban a 1000 it's regarded as padding their bottomline.
Count to Potato
Free the Chinese sweatshop slaves, go ANET and NCSoft, i believe the FTC is behind you!
fb2000
1000 bots is drops in a bucket... I really do think that in order to be even able to boost for having banned bots u need at least 10 times that number, and we do know that theres a godly number of bots around.
a poster here had a nice (in my opinion) idea, make the players type say a single digit number, thats recognizable on some kinda texture or so upon exiting an outpost, one that the bots wouldnt pick up (it being a texture duh). this does sound pretty clever imo
and for the guys that are laughing their asses off with joy, if 90% of the bots get banned, kiss ur "godly" items trades and fow armors good bye
a poster here had a nice (in my opinion) idea, make the players type say a single digit number, thats recognizable on some kinda texture or so upon exiting an outpost, one that the bots wouldnt pick up (it being a texture duh). this does sound pretty clever imo
and for the guys that are laughing their asses off with joy, if 90% of the bots get banned, kiss ur "godly" items trades and fow armors good bye
Loviatar
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Originally Posted by fb2000
and for the guys that are laughing their asses off with joy, if 90% of the bots get banned, kiss ur "godly" items trades and fow armors good bye
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basic college economics says that without the bot companies doing ebay the excess gold wont be flooding the economy and things will not be 100k and 400 ectos.
they call it inflation when they start printing money without anything to back it
Anir
lol... "drive up sales"...
the salary they payfor the programmers to do this probably negates any revenue generated from people "re-buying" the game -- if people even do that... seeing how successful GW has been, i'm willing to bet their business team has better ideas to drive up sales...
the salary they payfor the programmers to do this probably negates any revenue generated from people "re-buying" the game -- if people even do that... seeing how successful GW has been, i'm willing to bet their business team has better ideas to drive up sales...
Gaile Gray
I am pretty sure that the money we spend banning the botters is higher than the money we make if they purchase another copy of the game. This isn't a profit-driven decision but one of... dare I use the word "morality?" Well, if not that word, then perhaps "fair play" or at least "keeping the economy solid for the vast majority, who don't use bots."
We're keeping on keeping on. Sure more will appear. Sure we may even be doing the equivalent of shooting at a tank with a pea-shooter. But we'll continue to improve the systems and continue--usually without any sort of comment at all--to do the right thing.
You might not hear from us on this subject for another several months, but be aware of this: Bots are banned daily from Guild Wars. And so they will be, daily, in the future.
We're keeping on keeping on. Sure more will appear. Sure we may even be doing the equivalent of shooting at a tank with a pea-shooter. But we'll continue to improve the systems and continue--usually without any sort of comment at all--to do the right thing.
You might not hear from us on this subject for another several months, but be aware of this: Bots are banned daily from Guild Wars. And so they will be, daily, in the future.
arcady
A staff of 110 coders, on even entry level wages in the Silicon Valley, is going to be more per week than the money made on 1000 sales of this game - even if anet got 100% of the cut rather than having to split it with distributors and retailers.
Lowest I ever got when I was a programmer was around $45k/year - and I didn't stay there long as that kind of wage is just offensive to a coder... If you paid 110 people that, you would have a weekly payroll of $95,192.31. Now add in management, human reources, IT, admin assistants, janitors, electric bill, facilities, security, etc...
Even if you assume the entire coding staff is in Korea, that isn't going to cut more than 30% off the figure for staff, but it might cut about 2000% off of executives (American management is highly overpaid by international standards, but Korean labor is not much cheaper than American from what I've seen living over there). However even if just look at how much it would cost to field a Korean team of coders...
The idea that it could be about driving up sales starts to look a little silly.
Lowest I ever got when I was a programmer was around $45k/year - and I didn't stay there long as that kind of wage is just offensive to a coder... If you paid 110 people that, you would have a weekly payroll of $95,192.31. Now add in management, human reources, IT, admin assistants, janitors, electric bill, facilities, security, etc...
Even if you assume the entire coding staff is in Korea, that isn't going to cut more than 30% off the figure for staff, but it might cut about 2000% off of executives (American management is highly overpaid by international standards, but Korean labor is not much cheaper than American from what I've seen living over there). However even if just look at how much it would cost to field a Korean team of coders...
The idea that it could be about driving up sales starts to look a little silly.
Eviance
I say to each his own.... I was so mad when I emailed them and they didn't even bother to read my email and told me to do the legwork for them. I left a nasty comment to the effect as well >_> Maybe they actually read that! Time to go see if Beetletun is a bit emptier now ^_^!
Hoyt
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Originally Posted by Gaile Gray
I am pretty sure that the money we spend banning the botters is higher than the money we make if they purchase another copy of the game. This isn't a profit-driven decision but one of... dare I use the word "morality?" Well, if not that word, then perhaps "fair play" or at least "keeping the economy solid for the vast majority, who don't use bots."
We're keeping on keeping on. Sure more will appear. Sure we may even be doing the equivalent of shooting at a tank with a pea-shooter. But we'll continue to improve the systems and continue--usually without any sort of comment at all--to do the right thing. You might not hear from us on this subject for another several months, but be aware of this: Bots are banned daily from Guild Wars. And so they will be, daily, in the future. |
Turn your laptop off right now and go have fun, seriously. The last thing we need is for you to burn out.
Come by my house if you want, I just lit the grill. Soon as the coals are ready there'll be plenty of hot dogs, burgers and cold brews for the taking. (Unconditional & no req.)
EDIT:
PS - Grats on the Bot ban!