It is no secret that Outland is suffering from a bot plague at this point. We all see the red ban-hammer strikes daily. The Warmane staff is no doubt doing what it can to prevent botting and players strive to lend a hand when they can.
Recently however I have experienced a dramatic increase in druids bots. They are in fact so many that in just 1 day of levling, I have filled up two entire GM tickets on two characters with nothing but bot-player names and 96% of all the names belongs to feral druids.
These druids are taking what appears to be a programmed route from Western Barrens to Stonetalon, to Desolace, to Northern Feralas, to south-west ungoro and finally ending with Silithus where they seem to stay until lv 67. In conclussion they travel the paths of desolate areas where few players thread.
I decided to post this information so that fellow players can keep an eye out as well (If you can find levling route patterns, then please report them).
The botting pest is simply getting out of hand and while it is not technically the responsibility of us players to help out, it seems like it might be required in order to contain the problem (or at least cripple it).
Therefor, be mindful of bots and try to travel the world as much as you can and report any name you find acting bot-like so a GM can investigate.
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Member
Insane amounts of druid levling/farming bots.
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Member
I saw a ton of them in Winterspring the other day too
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Member
They're in every zone. HFP, Zangar is absolutely overrun with em. They're out farming and skinning.
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Member
Aye. It is so crystal clear that some of the bots even roam high trafficked areas. I believe if just one GM was sent out on the map points given, you would see a red-message-spam for more than 20 minutes.
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Member
how can I know if those are bots or real players?
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Member
they most likely have a strange moving path, they will do the same abilities in the same order every time and they most of the time have strange equipment.
i saw an orc warrior grinding the same mobs for over a day (went offline and 12h later he was still farming the furbolgs until i was gone) in winterspring, arms spec with 2 daggers as weapons..
same for some few druids as already mentioned and a few mages aswell
it was like seeing other toons with the same "brain"
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Member
The staff doesn't seem to care. I have reported multiple characters that are 100% obviously botting, only to see the same toons still out farming over 3 weeks later.
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Member
I reckon they do care but lack staff/proof to deal with all the reports. The problem is that I get the feeling players are doing what they can to help, but if it shall take several fraps or screenshots to ban one bot, then it is hopeless to do anything to prevent it.
It is too much to ask of players to make a fraps or several screenshots and post them up for every bot they see. When you traverse one zone and you list up more than 12 names it becomes more of a chore than funny gameplay to report them.
It would be nice to hear a response from the staff on this matter. How do you feel about the situation? Could GMs be dispatched to certain "levling routes" in order to execute instant bans? At least tell us if there's something we players can do better in order to weed out the bots.
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Member
finding bots is really hard especially with new generations ones. i tested a bot last year on another project and was playing way better than most ppl do.... lol even killing ppl in pvp.... what you need is a really time consuming report with person going around frapsing everythng then sending via gm... quit e a lot of work to do and not many ppl do it or feel to do it.
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Member
Warmane's stuff doesn't care.
There are several solutions. Very effective is to have 10/20/30 moderators in game. Ordinary players, who can ban bots after wispering them or asking smth. There are many ways to control moderators as well.
I know the server, where it was implemented and there are no bots.
But, overall, 'Warmane's stuff doesn't care'.
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Member
While bot programs has evolved to include new features, like PvP for example, it is still much too easy to notice if it is a bot.
The first thing I look at is the movement. A player normally has a rather "clunky" movement and seldomly tends to walk in a straight line. Bots are just the opposite of that. Their movement is precise, often involving straight-line walking with straight-turns when changing directions.
Secondly, the spells they use and fighting patterns. Bots tend to have rather odd fighting styles (just auto hitting as a warrior for example). A classic example is that bots never change their way of fighting when additional mobs appear, they still stick to one pattern, even if it gets them killed.
@Alex, the Warmane stuff does care, if they did not we would not see any red spam of mass bans. However one could make the argument that they might be short on staff (which can be understood as peepz seldomly work for free) and therefor cannot deal with the flooding of bot reports.
Like I said it would be swell to hear a response from the Warmane staff on this problem, if you have considered heeding the advice regarding these new bot routes or if we players can do something else to help.
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Member
Im not sure but i think most of the gold these bots farm will eventually end up in marketplace, so it can be traded for coins. Maybe disabling gold and item trade could somewhat ease the problem as it would kill the motive?
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Member
@Ostlimpa, Asterios.tm - these guys do care about 1) Chat Spams 2) Bots. No bots, no spammers at all + the thing i wrote above about moderators - exists and works well on their servers.
+ aye, we also love multiboxing, right?)Edited: September 4, 2017
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Member
They have banned a **** ton of people today. Just an FYI...
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Member
Yeah I've seen a ton of these when I came to Outlands.
There was a horde guild called Iceage, was 28 online, 6 were paladins, rest were druids.
I found an alliance druid doing the same thing the other night in Nagrand, I killed it 11 times, each time it rez next to be and go attack a mob..
