The Daily Grind: Do you feel companies do enough to fight bots?

@(Unverified)

Yes, I remember this from WotLK, with bots farming elementals, the same toons, for weeks on end after reporting them numerous times.

Was it a part of their investigation? Where they trying to break up a ring? Or was it something else?

@dudes

Sadly, there are bots now that can make replys to GMs and play an Alarm to warn the person watching 40 computers or even wake the user up so they can talk to the GM.

Now you have China using prison inmates to farm gold.

@dudes
It's not that difficult to:

- hook one of the various available conversation engines to the bot in order to have it respond to questions and "chat" to the GMs.

- Hook the in-game chat to some instant messaging software. The bot "owner" might be able to command the bot, and chat through it, from any computer or smartphone connected to the internet.

- Use passive methods to acquire information. There are some reasonably "safe" methods of extracting information from a running program, and no sure way of preventing them. Plus, 3D video capture together with better computer vision algorithms might enable completely passive bots that don't invade the game in any way and might not even need to be running on the same computer, making detection that much harder.

If someone that is actually a good programmer makes a bot, and don't try to market it, detecting the bot is going to be almost impossible.

@Knoxrun : given that all the action in GW takes place in private instances of zones, how would you ever expect to see a bot?

@real65rcncom

Actually, as I do work in the gaming industry this comment is false.

The accounts that bot are not able to be counted towards concurring subscriptions. The reason is that almost 100 percent of the time, the account is being funded by a stolen credit card or a game time card purchased with a stolen credit card.

The end result is a charge back where the company actually loses money. These "botting" or "Farmer" accounts (aside from the actual players who use botting software) are not counted in the total subscriptions due to never receiving money for the targeted account.

@Vanir
Sorry, didn't realize you worked for EVERY gaming company in the industry.

My mistake.

@real65rcncom

You seem to know a lot about it?

Do you work in the gaming industry?

Where did you pull your information from?

Are there official documents that state this is the case?

@Mcsniper

I'm sorry. I think you have this confused with a debate forum or a class on Gaming Statistics. That is -------> way.

This is an opinion forum.

@real65rcncom

So you are saying you are allowed to claim bunk here and get away with it? That's funny coming from someone who kept badgering me to name those "unamed" devs that left ArenaNet at one time. Just saying.

@Utakata
Badgering you? I don't know what you're referring too, sorry. :(

I wish our conversation (whatever that may have been) could have made more of an impression on me as it apparently did to you.

Honestly don't know what you mean.

@Wisdomandlore

You mean the game where there are no quests per se and there is no penalty for merely taking part in zone-wide events? Versus the more traditional game with tagging and crafting/gathering done by companion NPCs rather than the player character?

I just don't see the impetus for botting in either game. A "bot" that sits and gives out crew commands would be indistinguishable from a player sitting there and doing the same thing, and wouldn't be stealing resources from actual players or wrecking the economy. BioWare could even build that functionality into the game and advertise it as a perk: your companions level up their crafting while they're offline, as long as you find a "skill book" or whatever.

And in GW2, the bot would simply take part in the dynamic events throughout a zone, maybe killing smaller mobs, etc. It would never fully participate in the event, but it doesn't need to in order to get a chance at rewards. But that would be horribly inefficient as a way of getting something that GW2 isn't going to require you to need.

Bots exist for the same reason gold farmers and item sellers do: people do not want to farm, grind, etc., to get cool stuff, and are willing to take shortcuts. If you remove those boring parts of the game (like SWTOR and GW2 are doing) and focus more on fun, engaging, story-based activities, then there's little reason for people to bot.

Now, this will not stop gold-selling and power-leveling done by less-than-scrupulous companies. Nothing will, not until people change and stop looking for shortcuts.