Guild Wars News: Bots Banned

Where in my post is there any whining? A-net has hardly impressed me with many of their feeble attempts of making us think one thing, while they have alterior motives. If they only ban 1000 bots every 2 months, in 12 months, it adds up to over a quarter of a million dollars at $50 a new copy on average.

You do the math over the next five years and see if you wouldnt like to have that tidy sum to invest. This is my opinion...you don't like it.. thats well and fine. If these people really are selling virtual gold on ebay for real money, what makes you think a simple generic ban is going to stop any of these hardcore sweatshop owners? They will buy more copies, don't be a fool. You wouldn't stand by and allow Anet to destroy your lucrative money making opportunity, if you were these people.

I will continue to believe the corporate norm for this type of action..increased sales..the bottom line, call it whatever you want. Anet doesn't care as much about you as they do the bottom line..you can believe what you like. Furthermore, they banned over 1000, we don't know the exact number, and its going to be a continuing effort. So its not just 1000..it will be thousands and ..maybe tens of thousands, and in the end.. that will be better for A-net's profits.

Good on Anet for attempting to purge the world of chinese farming bots. They really do clog up the towns and channels with crap. Daily purges FTW

Save the Minotaurs and Trolls! Hunt down your nearest bot and kick their ass.

thanks Gaile....a journey of a million miles begins with the first step, and I hope that your journey is moving along ....

That is great advice. Though you kinda repeated yourself there on the 1000 bot ban... and... everyone already knows that... being the title of the thread and all.

Now. Could everyone turn and look away from this person^^. Now direct your attention to me please:

Now i'd rather believe the words of an actual staff member than a non-staff member who is just speculating. No offense to you Fist_Of_God, but, and I quote "believe what..." I "...like".

Thanks Gaile and ANet staff. I appreciate the game staff addressing this really irritating issue.

I think there is also a player responsibility to discourage those around us from buying gold on ebay and gold sites. It's hard to run a business with no patrons. These bot shops won't generate revenue if the game players don't buy the gold.

Sure, its your prerogative..just as it is mine to believe what I like. I am sure you would have believed the PR spokesperson for enron as well..Kudos to you sir.

If you hate the company so much and so strongly distrust everything it says, why play its game?

I have a strong level of corporate skeptism, but I don't go beyond the logical economic analysis into the realm of conspiracy to back it up. The simple economical on this one doesn't add up to a 'bans for profit' theory... and it takes some extraneous logic to pull that notion together. That just shows not a desire to have a 'good faith skeptical approach' but an active disdain and dislike that needs to justify itself. When you reach that level of hostility, you're better off just moving on.

Who said I hated anything or anyone? Where do you see that in my post? I stated my opinion and subsequently, it looks like I have knocked over some peoples sacred cow.

your figures are a flat out lie .

ANET sells to retailer for maybe 20-25 dollars not 50 to start with.

not so much now is it.

but wait ................theres still more

a few bucks for manufacturing and packaging it

even less now

they may get 15-20 per unit if lucky

now figure in the cost of all the well paid peoples time sorting them out

GAILE WAS RIGHT
BREAK EVEN OR LOSE MONEY DOING IT

back to math 101 for you

So, I am not entitled to expressing my opinion in a public forum? Its an opinion, nothing more and nothing less. I have moved on, I do not troll these forums starting any anti Anet threads neither did I ever say I hated anet or corporations in general, but that doesn't keep me from knowing the norm. You will never even find a post about anet started by me, good or bad.

If people would except my opinion for what it is, mine exclusively, and stop revolving this thread around my opinion, I wouldn't have even posted in this thread again. Maybe the topic title of this thread should be changed to, "What Fist thinks about the new anet ban, Flames welcome."

my prerogative!?? this right isn't exclusive, it is shared by all. And I already know you believe what you like I JUST QUOTED YOU ON THAT!!

And how on earth does a company that faced bankruptcy and fraud charges have "anything" to do with this thread? Bot's get banned, it costs them more money to do so, and money wasn't even their priority. You may have a point, which I believe is incorrect, but try to learn to back up your statements. I have Gaile, who/what do you have? Intuition^^?

Gaile... I am a big fan.... the last time I asked for an autograph my post got deleted.... talk about exclusive^^


EDIT: Bad language. I "except" your opinion wholeheartedly. If you're coming in here asking everyone to accept your opinion, the wise thing would be to just leave your opinion, because there would be no reason for you to back it up. But if your opinion gets challeneged, and you're still posting in here, then you are defending it. It's a good thing, but try not to use the "Im going to be the better man and walk away" it gets old.

I beg to differ. they use software to detect bots and not as much of human resources as you might think. As far as the math goes, yes I was refering to the retail value being purchased. Either way I don't think you would balk at the total sum if it was available to you.

Try to keep up please, I was refering to your statement in rather believing everything or anything a PR person would say.

And you know this how?

====================

Im sure detecting macros is fairly easy. But processing and banning should still be left to a human being.

Anyone remember a little while back when several members of the community got banned for botting? But they later got their accounts back.

I dont think i want an automated script telling me that im an automated script.

As long as they keep the thread open, I wouldn't walk away from rebuttles.
I never said I was walking away from anything. This makes the second time you and a few others have read way too much into my posts.

the fact is you stated flatly Anet did it for profit then gave figures that were not just an oopsie but deliberately inflated.

I have played other games where this type of activity was prohibited, and they did say they were using up-to-date software to detect botters. I am not a programmer, but I am sure you can find someone to ask.

Still, even though my calculations were on the higher end, even if you lower the over all average, they still make millions in the long run. I was not considering the wholesale price, but that doesn't change my opinion. whether its 250k a year or 500k a year, you still wouldn't turn a closed hand to this sum of cash.

Thought I would paste this here too, try and get it as much attention as possible, a new and even more irritating kind of bot:

Im a pretty avid player of fort Aspenwood, so ive gotten to recognise the names of the regular AFKers (read leeches) fairly well. Tonight I entered a game, and spotted one of them right away, but this time they actualy moved, great I thought their going to play for once, so carried on the game thinking we had a full team for once.
Round 2 starts, this time im (1) on the list, and the same leech is there, i moved off teh start position a little, they followed me, so i moved again, same happened, long story short, this player continued to follow me for the duration of the match, never using any skills or attacking, they were basicly a minipet that I could use as a meat shield.
2 rounds later the same thing happened, asking arround in the start area, it turns out that the same bot has been following players all day. so watch out for this one. report them when you see em, lets get the bots out of thegame all together

Shame on A-net acting for their own self interests! If they keep that up, they may be able to keep servers up and running, adding new content, and even holding special in-game events that their paid developers come up with!

But here's the thing: 1,000 copies of GW is less than 1/10th of 1% of the number of copies they've sold - a mere pittance! The banning of the bots has more to do with keeping the vast majority of their customer base happy so that THEY will continue to buy additional chapters.

50% or more of players not buying future chapters because A-Net shows no regard for the community by letting the bot problem (among other problems) go > selling 1,000 more copies (or even 20,000 for that matter) to bot farmers.

I see the witch hunting continues.

It still amazes me how much anger and disbelief people show towards the very game that they play.

There are many games around, and my personal opinion is that ArenaNet made a very good game, and they addressed many of the issues that I as a player had with other games. I also find them to be much more friendly, and they have a person dedicated to in-game communication with the players. They also DO read the players' opinions and DO come up with a solution to most of reasonable ideas/complains.

I see however, that still some people think they are very smart by saying, in short, "they just want to win more money, everything they do is another way to sell more games". It's usually the people that at first place whine about bots, then when a ban comes they start whining about the ban being only a means to boost sales.

Anet depends on making money. That's how the developers get paid, that's how they are able to pay their rents, cars, whatever. Still, there's huge differences in the way companies treat their customers. Ever tried to get an official reply to ANY issue from Blizzard, let's say?

Also, Anet designed Guild Wars. It's their game. Your characters, in game items, gold etc are their property. I think it's schizofrenic to start saying , more or less, that the same people that designed and are running the game that you like so much (since you even take the effort to involve in lengthy discussions about it) are bloodsuckers that think only of how to make you spend more money, to update the game so that it becomes worse and worse, and to "nerf" (another word that I'm starting to hate) everything that people like about it.

They have made a great game and they put lots of effort in making it run smoothly, in responding our questions and requests, in keeping the economy of the game healthy, in keeping gameplay interesting, in keeping a target for players regardless of their preffered side of the gameplay.

They do make mistakes, but they also know to admit and correct them.

Lastly, "PR" is very different than what GG does. And honestly I don't understand why some people's point seems to be to offend someone. PR is a function, and you make it sound like an insult. You can do PR and be a good professional, with moral values and moral boundaries, and you can have the same label and be immoral and manipulative.

Also, it helps a bit to try to get in their shoes: Assume you ARE anet. What's your objective, to destroy your very own product? To remove functions/features that keep player in the game? To sell 1000 more copies by banning people? Buy a management book (or hell, search online) and find out why this is a no-no.

Sometimes, there are no black evil monsters everywhere. And we have to credit people who are not. Not throw mud.

Regards.

Sorry but your logic fails here, just as much as some think mine has at this juncture of the thread. I have yet to see 1 person quit because of others botting. I am sure you lose no sleep at all, as well as many others, over how many botters are in the game at any give point in time, much less quit the game because of that particular reason.

You make some valid points, and I do agree with some of them(ie..anet making a great game and such). However, just as in any corporation, its all about the bottom line, its not so much about how well they are treating you, as it is what they want you to believe to be so. Unfortunately, some of the early posts by a few whom quickly jumped in to defend my opinion were deleted, because they were somewhat abbrasive to the mods I would suppose. They understood that my opinion was based upon their(anet) underlying motive over the long run(not that they agreed with me, but understood why I was inclined to believe what I did). Everyone keeps throwing around 1000 banned as a nonaccumalitive number, but I reiterate that it is on going and will reach into the tens of thousands, if not more.

The only thing I have ever been angry about is not putting auction houses in chapter 2 and larger storages. I like A-net's product, but that doesn't mean I whole-heartedly believe everything they do is for my benefit, and not theirs. Yet, I never started a thread about it. Sure, I may have mentioned it in response to an Anet thread, but you would be hardpressed to find more than 2-3 anti anet threads that I have ever even posted in, and I have been a part of the gw community for almost 1 year now.

You make some valid points, but nothing that would change my opinion about the corporate bottom line.

Botting ruins the game economy, and when the game economy's screwed, it isn't fun anymore and people will quit.

You do realise that sticker price does not equal profits, right? The actual profit per game is very likely less then 5 dollars which makes your grand conspiracy theory rather...well..laughable.

Going by your math that would come to the incredible amount of $30,000 a year, w00t! They can employ a part time coder for that!

Sorry, but your theory is silly beyond belief.

Spawns do adapt - when I first did a run from LA to Sanctum it was very easy using holy veil to protect against wises but within 2 runs the wises were stripping holy veil before hitting me with their spells - still very easy but it shows that spawns do adapt very quickly if given the correct spells.

Plus of course Anet keeps nerfing stuff. Recently I have seen a lot of spawns actually pulling players into traps and larger groups. I reiterate my point that everyone's first character should be a ranger and then you get warriors with brains.

But, like someone earlier I am concerned as to how you know it is a bot and not someone farming legit? spell it out in layman terms because I can sometimes repeat the same run several times if strapped for cash (which is most of the time) and was one of the first to do Elona after the Queen arrived; although I prefer other areas since the bots arrived, I sometimes still do Elona if a guildie needs a firewand. I am a bit concerned that Anet will nerf the solo 55 monk out of existence if people complain about farming too much. Lets face it 55 monk is the only chance monks get to kill things.

Nym

$5 a unit the only profit they make, and this being post-production and development? There is no way that could be correct, and I might be inclined to believe you if this was pre-development and production. Every copy that Anet sells at this point and time is more profit than $5 a unit. There is no more Prophecies development going on, every copy they sell now is padding the bottomline more than $5 per unit.

Question:
Why do you care how much extra money Arenanet makes as a result of this banning?

development costs were not even figured into the sales price.

lets have at it from a totally different angle shall we?

how much per copy do you think Anet gets after the following

MANUFACTURING COSTS
WHOLESALERS PROFIT
RETAILERS PROFIT

then subtract the costs of catching the botts and sorting out the few who were caught by accident who are not bots

AND THE BOTTOM LINE IS........?? (per copy)

I
Hate
Bots
.

Re-read what I said. I was careful to include the phrase "(among other problems)" The fact that A-Net deals with problems like bots, game glitches, skill imbalances, scammers, cheats, etc. helps to keep a satisfied customer base. Customers will stop patronizing a business if the services and products that business sells are unsatisfactory, simple as that.

If you go to a resteraunt and get bad service and/or bad food, you'll think twice about visiting that restaurant anytime soon.

Hmm i think there is some serious evil person behind the screens...

Gwen = Glint = Blind Seeress in Bukdek Byway =Gaile Gray

I dont know how the Seeress is called, but I wouldn't be surprised if her name started with a G...

Anyway... probably in the later chapters we the mysterious driving force of all this evil will be uncovered to be Glint. Who has been orchestrating everyting from the start of prophesies as Gwen. Glint is ofc the alter ego of Gaile...

And then ppl realize that finally GW has a storyline that can almost rival the Legacy of Cain series...

I just hope Anet wont ban me from the game for publishing their secret plans.

5 dollars a box? You must be joking right?

The cost of developing guild wars is capped, they only have to pay these devs so much money a month, they probably worked out how much bandwidth an average player would utilise over his or her lifetime, the storage used for each user account is.. as you can see from your inventory and stash.. minimal.

So it costs $45 to press a CD and print a tiny piece of paper with a access key on it? I certainly don't think so. In large enough quantities they can probably do it for under $2, and factor in maybe $10-20 for R&D, but the rest would be pure gravy.

This is intellectual property you are talking about, so don't act as though for the $50 Anet is actually producing something. It doesn't.

OK guys/ladies I have a question plz, I have been playing for about 4 months now and had to work my but off to get my characters where they are and enjoyed doing it too. I hear a lot of ppl talking about the bots (robots) but still don't really know what the heck they are, do they actually go farming or do they just stand around towns selling stuff?? I know this propably sounds really noobish but i would like to know.

Furthermore I am not trying to knock anyone here plz, I think everyone is entitled to their opinions but making such a big argument about it then for me is not necesary. Fist that is not only directed at you but a lot in this forumn, why does it always have to end up in arguments about whos oppinion is right and who's is not (does it matter, or is it a macho thing)

Well 'bots'can be a bit confusing, because the designation is used for different things:

1) Bots: aka hench, NPC, the computer controlled characters that help people during missions. For instance someone can shout: 'no bots plz!' when you are forming a party, he simply implies he doesnt want the hench players but real people in it.

2) Bots: aka 3rd pary programs controlling human players characters with computer scripted commands. These are the kind that are being banned, since they are owned by people that let them kill things and get loot 24h per day. Usually you can recognize these bots, when they keep running into walls, because the NPC merchants have been shifted (they can also sell loot to merchants if scripted so), or do other stupid things.

Lets see.

Cost of development. Something $$
Marketing. Something $$
Shipping and handling. Something $$
Labor. Something $$
Taxes.Something $$
Marks up from secondary parties.Something $$
Maintainance of server costs.Something $$
Game piracy overhead. (most games calculate their cost with the loss of money from pirated games already)Something $$

Dealing with a bunch of whiny players on a forum: Priceless.

Thx Cain for the explenation, just still don't really know how they do it though. I have gone farming a bit with my w/mo and i hardly ever get the same spawns, so if these characters are scripted how do they know what to hunt and what if they die and get rezed, this guy must be some scripter to take all of this into consideration to make it all work. How about Anet employ some of these scripters to improve on the AI of the henchies (just a joke

Still think they must be exelent scriptors to take all these changing factors into consideration when running a char with scripts only

i dont mind genuine stupidity because as they say stupidity happens

but when you deliberately twist facts that is different.

pure gravy?

you are assuming the wholesale distributor is working for free and does not have employees to pay and facilities to maintain for distribution to the retailers.

oh yes we cant forget the retail cut can we?

they have employees and expence to pay as well.

so how much is actually left after

manufacturing costs
distribution costs at all stages
wholesalers profit margin over costs
retailers profit margin over costs.

2 pc game magazines a year or so ago actoally gave profit figures (offline games to be precise) and the company was happy to get 4-8 dollars clear profit per copy

You forgot Taxes and Advertising!

Hi,
While i completly agree with the banning of bots and various game cheats how can you be sure the correct account gets closed???
Whats the trigger / search criteria that flags an account to say - "bot" or "sells in game items for £2.40 on e-bay" or some such.
My point comes from the fact that after nearly 900 GW hours gaming the 'net of capture' (elite ranger skill) seems to have snagged a few innocents. Of which i am one!!! My has been closed for the selling live rule - which i have never bothered/ or need to do.
I dont farm - dont collect - anything i dont need i give away (usually to guild buddies)
So - how much (or what) is a player allowed to give away without the account being flagged?? This is the question.anyone know???.
Ban the bots - waste of space anyway. I'm not even sure how they can benfit a player anyway? explaination anyone?

The last two weeks discussion with the Support team ( or really the automated response server) is on www.starcainam.com - forum. If anyone wanbts to check.

Anyone aware of any other threads of this nature - the fight for reinstament continures.!!!