I'm going bot hunting.

Seriously...who's with me?!!!

I'm going to every outpost that might have bots and i'm going to get every last one of them lined up and shot.

Let's unite our forces and smash their presence and their inflicted misery.

No more nerfing. Let's start acting like the true guild wars fans which so many of us proclaim to be.
I aim to catch as many as possible and report them all to ArenaNet so we can have our chests/wreckages, farming spots, loot back and hopefully, get rid of the nasty shatter enchants on the scarabs too.

Those bastages have ruined Guild Wars too much and have gone way over the line.

IT'S TIME TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE BOTS.

Forget "Guild Wars"....lets take the fight to the bots.

you're avatar is impressively humerous

however, i'm not wasting my time attempting to stop a limitless supply of bots that will never go away...sorry

So how does one "Bot hunt"? I choose to substitute Algren's pessimism with curiosity.

Would be fun to at least kill a few...

You dont, only way would be body block the exists so bots would be stuck (as everyone else).

The bots became a larger issue withe nerfs and even if we could end bot presence in the game (highlt doubt it) Arena Net would continue to nerf areas because of farmers.

Yeah how do you spot a bot? If the devs can't find em and get rid of the biatches, then how the heck can a player? heh.

Wrong Drakron.
ArenaNet have nothing against "honest farmers" as Gaile Gray stated in the "petition to stop nerfing the hell out of us" thread.

I just went to ember light camp district 1 and announced that i would be reporting all spammers and potential bots.
Within seconds, the spam reduced by half.

The rest, i whispered and some gave no response. I did have a response from two of them.

One said "sm shi ?"

The other said "what?" (i ended up having a converstaion with this person...although i had to wait a while for him to translate into chinese)

Some definitely proved to be bots because of their lack of response and overwhelming ignorance.
/report

err they go outside right? how do u spot if they have their own private map?

idk why everyon'es so anal about farming, ya there's bots, but GW patches every five minutes so who cares, tehy get what's coming to them, and besides, it makes trading prices go down cause more items are on the market. I dont' bot, but i like low prices.

specifically in ember light. there are the "regulars" there, spamming away. (same names all the time)

the sad thing is it seems like they want to sell something from what i gather from their msg, but at most times probably only 3 "live" ppl can actually understand them. I dont understand their common sense on why their doing this and of all the places to do it...weird...(what again is the purpose of the international districts again? change the name to "ghost town". )

but again, I wouldnt want the intern. districts to be spam city. I believe they need a probation on these specific accounts.

Actually, I believe bots generate more gold. They can't do sophisticated UW or FoW runs because no bot is smart enough. They do chest runs and stuff which can be simply done by moving toward one direction and detecting and clicking on the chest and then picking up the gold and items. If they flood the market with Fellblades and Chaos Axes, I won't mind because I might have a chance to buy one, but when they flood with gold, those cool item's prices shoot up to millions of gold, because you can buy 100k gold for a dollar or two.

The "bots" in Ember Light Camp are Chinese (I know from being a Chinese-Canadian myself). They are saying, "Buying all your gold weapons! Paying well"

I was curious, and found out they offer ridiculously low prices for good weapons (like 3k for something worth 80k). And they don't want just ANY gold items, they actually have to be decent.

Perhaps they are not really bots, maybe they're just desperate kids trying to get a good deal. Either way, it's really annoying.

their whole process is....buy with gold...that THEY farm....sell on the net for REAL money!! simple as that. Even when someone pays 500k for a perfext sword...they dont care....its money basically free money all you have to do is farm. we cant stop it....they will try to sell it on the net for $150. that right there is three more accounts....12 characters.... and well...unfortunately a whole lot more farming. You get the idea...the pro places that are doing this just suck!! oh well there isnt much a person can do except deal with it!!

i'll hunt bots with you

I blame Gold Sellers and Gold Buyers far less than the climate that allows them to thrive.

Correction: I actually started staying in the international ds. @ ember today and this is where these players originate in the 1st place. hehe
while 2-3 of their guildmates spam the heck out of the american ds. some of their other members stay in the intern. ds. and to my surprise its sooo quite...

their just lucky americans dont do this to them. (im canadian btw. im not choosing sides, but im 100% against spambots)

Every single honest farmer should be on board with this. Why? As I, and many others including the OP and ANet itself, have been trying to get across... it's not FARMERS ANet is out to get, it's BOTTERS. ANet doesn't care really if you want to go out and slaughter every griffon in the desert over and over again to unlock runes, pick up weapon mods, or earn cash to buy a Sigil. They care about the botters who do this and then sell what they get for REAL money on eBay. That is the primary reason drops are getting nerfed. That is the primary reason why EVERY AI mesmer and necro carry enchant removal, and use them at every opportunity. The more people that understand this, the more likely it is that a community effort like the OP is proposing can HELP ANet and try to do something about the botters that are ruining OUR game.

well this is not always the best way to make a guess... first of all there are complete morons who play this game and they will act stupid (that may look like a bot) but they are just immature.. Second the lack or talking isnt really a good way to base anything off of, i never talk to people and im not a bot at all

Right now Anet is taking care of the bots with "nerfs", and i think thats good enough right now

They can fool me since they nerfed UW and FoW drops and not tell me ToA is overrun with bots.

ArenaNet have a anti-farming policy or they would not have made a code the registers how many times you been on a map and adapts (raise) mobs and (lower) drops based on it.

Its good to see some are aware of who is at fault here and not GW for having to make changes
the more gold there is on ebay then the higher the prices are for gold weapons etc, why? because it becomes easier to buy gold off ebay and people are willing to pay for it
Having bot spammers selling items at high prices new people see it and think there is no way they can pay those prices so they go off to ebay
the same can be said for black dye and shards and obsidians they buy up and sell on ebay
So where does that leave the honest player basically screwed
People who buy gold or items off ebay are supporting botters and stuffing up the game for themselves as it get to the point we have to depend on ebay for gold etc
the best way is not to sell at those high prices but if you have any good items sell cheaper at a fair price the more who do this will help lower the prices and less are likely to buy at those stupid prices or go off to ebay to support botters
I did notice in Seekers when they had botters running there, they would have an idle char next to the way point these bots would be able to use the idle char to click on and locate the portal there are some guilds involved too
a number of bots will run off one idle char. they wear the cheapest armour
Stupid names (as if they dont know English) random vocal msg which doesnt mean anything. if you stand in the right place they click on you as if to group up (its not its to find their idle) then they get confused
Yes I do believe they are running them in the American and European servers so they dont screw up their own server
you will notice an increase in lagging
They run through the same district usually district 1 and you will not see them on any other district

Riverside is hard to spot as the group is standing some distance off from the portal but its possible to run a bot down a path once they local a idle
Do think it will be easy for GW to make some change in Riverside to widen this area like the other towns
you will see some bots trying to run down the path but start to run up the hill then stop and try again
Go back after 2 hour intervals and see if they same bots are running and then again after another 2 hours
Its no good to say to Gw there are bots in Riverside if you keep a log of the district and times and note the idles in the town and the names of bots and the guilds they are in
Than I really think Guildwars should also make it known that any guild that is supporting or running bots they are at risk of having their guild disbanded closed
Also anyone who is involved in any conversation with people running bots should log that conversation and report it
Some people dont seem to understand how bots are really screwing the game up for us all
I for one an against bots hacks cheats etc because it takes away the fun of a challenge and the spirit of team play in all fairness
Nothing better than to high five the team mates and say we beat them fairly with skill thats a buzz not having to cheat or rely on something else

So who's up for a good witch hunt!

Correct me if I am wrong, but after nearly a decade and a half of programming experience, I am faily certain Anet has the ultimate solution to bots:

Hard-code into the game engine itself, their implementation tools, their live client support applications, and their network (server side and client) framework a block that prevents ANY applications whatsoever from accessing Guild Wars executable while it is resident in the user's system memory.

Now I want to ask: Why have they not done this for every single GOD DAMN MMO out there?

And I answer:

They refuse. It seems to support diversity and reasons for doing major things like nerfs (which I have not yet SEEN much of, despite all the screaming about it).

I mean seriously. These guys are coding guru's (hehe) and they have the ability, resources, tools and staff to program such an amazingly complex game world, keep it running live, and maintain all the bells and whistles, why can they not seem to figure out that bot programs only work as spoofers, which seek out the game client they are specifically written for, and null their access to the program as a whole, even with it NOT running? It makes so much sense, and yet no one has bothered to say this out loud, and I have kept silent about it for months. It simply is a shame.

Cmon you coding badasses, kill the bots in the womb, so we can end the tirelessly stale debate!

Do you mind if i email this to support? That's a masterpiece.

Beats my idea i was sitting on...tell the FBI.

As long as you can play the game, you can write a bot/macro to do the clicking for you. I sincerely doubt the current bots go anywhere beyond simple macro'ing, and this method is hard to distinguish from a regular player playing the game - someone suggested making sure actual keys were pressed checking keyboard interrupts, but I'm not sure this is a good idea considering the rise of alternative interface devices these days.

I think a better bet is to check for repetitive behavioural patterns rather than technical aspects since this would be a far lower-tech approach to stopping botting, although it could probably be made a lot more complicated with sufficiently randomized behaviour. Monitoring eBay/similar venture gold auctions and taking measures against sellers (ban account) / buyers (remove purchased gold?) would also work to push the cost for botters to buy new accounts higher than the returns they get before they're caught. Careful trade logs should show where the money comes from, to make sure it's not just intermediates getting banned. If botters need to spend more money than they can earn, you can bet they'll be gone before you know it.

Or maybe they implemented that to stop botters who continuously go into and of a zone? Just maybe?

Where does this idiotic notion that all Chinese people are bots come from? This is all just some mass fear of another culture. The same way you act with the Koreans. The same way alot of people did durring the Cold War.

Maybe it's because in the Ember Light Camp there is the same 20 people that constantly say a chineese phrase and exit the area for days at a time.

So do farmers when they find a nice spot, they will raid it over and over again.

Bots (in GW) just automate farmers activities.

I'm a farmer but i don't spam the channels with hyroglyphics...it's disrespectful, unneccesary and sticks to fingers up at ArenaNet and ourselves.

I've got six names written down. Tomorrow i'm returning to ember light camp and if they are still there, my report will be sent.
I'm sick of not selling/buying from the merchant there incase i buy too much of X or click "sell" too many times during a latency spike. It's not nice to delete those collector items and spare pieces of droknars armour.
It is almost as bad as seekers at times...and we all know about that one!

Well, you are on an honorable mission, but I dont think you are going about it in the best way. Prevention is better than cure.
Until ANet does something to either
(1) technically make it impossible to run bot programs , or
(2) Modify the current game environment and economy to make botting not worthwhile....
Botting will go on....

...and so will i.
Until my last breath or until my inbox is full of support case replies.

I'll tell you one thing. I prefer to farm peacefully. And if I get tells asking if I'm a bot, the reply is either going to be

a) None
b) You'd wish you hadn't whispered me
c) I'd report you for harassment (if I got more than one tell)

If other people join your crusade, I'm sure this problem will grow larger. As it did in FFXI.

Granted I don't speak in tongues in trade/allchat, but this is still very irritating to see forming, knowing it'll grow to the fear/witchhunt ffxi turned into.

Bot=hunting, a new form of farming, should be nerf-ed!

Fight monsters, people! get back slaving on monsters! you are slacking off!

Would it not also help if we tried to report as many of these ebay sellers as possible?
I just did a search on "guild wars gold" and came up with 1092 listings!
One seller had 614 feedback and a 99.5% positive rating...along with this unbelievable line in his auction...
"DisClaimer:All items related to Guild Wars are the property of NCsoft."
Hunting ebay sellers would be easier since you don't have to guess if they really are illegal...

Legally, I don't think that would be possible. It's fairly easy to begin an auction under a false name if you really wanted to frame someone else.

Everything Anet works off of they have to base on transactions occuring within the game. This includes trades, chat, etc. The person must say some form of "I sell/buy gold for real money" for action to be taken upon their account. This also comes up in FFXI regarding RMT.

Anet just needs to catch some of the ebayers, delete their accounts, and the rest will soon realize they stand to lose more than they stand to gain.

I find your ignorance very curious.

This is perilously close to flame bait. Unless you explain further in respectful disagreement, I will have to delete the above quoted post.

Thanks for sticking to forum guidelines.

The only realistic approach (beyond perhaps getting the Chinese authorities to do something (yeah, right)) is to ban accounts found using bots, and it seems obvious that is exactly what Anet is doing.

3 weeks or so ago I added a bunch of suspected (and reported) bots to my 'friends' list to keep track of what happened, and today they're all offline. Unfortunately they may well have generated enough gold/items that the botter not only can replace the account, but still turn a profit by selling on ebay.

Also I cant help but wonder if the botters have anything to do with all these keyloggers intended to steal GW accounts that keep getting posted everywhere. I mean, that's definitely another way for them to lower the cost of replacing banned accounts.

Exactly my thought yesterday. There was one chinese guy who was spamming lots of stuff over and over and he had a curious number in his sentence.

What would happen if curiosity got the better of you and you googled that number and got taken to a website?
I'm thinking keyloggers too!!

Yes, definitely. No one has something against chinese/korean people, but I do have something against the same sentence spammed 24/24 in the trade/local channel by bots. And I guess someone agrees with me.