AH Bots

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April 5, 2020
MadLemon

AH Bots

My suggestion is, how about you assign someone to monitor the auction house to prevent botting?
I do not want to diminish what the administration does against bots, but this is getting ridiculous. I reported some of them and they got banned, but as you can imagine, there is nothing stopping them from making another character and botting again. There has to be someone monitoring the AH 24/7 and banning them as they come, not 3-4 days later.
I recorded videos of behaviour which you can classify as bot-like. Still I just logged in and the character is still posting every few seconds, not answering in /w and blocking everyone who messaged him about every 30-60min (which obviously requires player input for free bots, otherwise it would be done immediately).

What I think warmane needs is a team of admins dedicated solely to the bot-problem, so our favorite server is finally purged from this plague. Also you could pick volunteers who monitor the world chat 24/7 and instaban people advertising to sell gold on 3rd party services. That way there would be less incentive for them to make those bots, if they start bleeding money.
April 5, 2020
Anyone0

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

not answering in /w

Is every player obligated to reply to your whispers?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

blocking everyone who messaged him about every 30-60min (which obviously requires player input for free bots, otherwise it would be done immediately).

Then maybe it's an addon not a bot? Auction house API in wotlk allows scanning auction house and cancelling and posting auctions without interaction from the player. The player would only have to make some manual action once in 30 minutes to prevent the character from getting logged out. If it's done entirely with addons, without external programs, there is nothing wrong with it since Blizzard intended it to work that way.

To prove that the player is botting, you would have to monitor his movements. For example, to the mailbox to retrieve items from cancelled auctions. If it always uses the exact same path, that could prove it's a bot. If the player controls the character when going to mailbox, there is no botting involved in that part and you can't prove whether the rest is botting or not.
April 5, 2020
NovaProxima

I am agree with Anyone0. Yours "proofs" aren't enought.
As a big AH player, i sometine need many minutes to see that someone /w me and i don't need to move often when buying items.
April 5, 2020
MadLemon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anyone0

Then maybe it's an addon not a bot? Auction house API in wotlk allows scanning auction house and cancelling and posting auctions without interaction from the player.

No it doesn't. That is why TSM and Auctioneer sets up a scrollwheel bind. You have to click for every unique itemid. People with addons maybe repost every 30min. People with bots undercut you within a minute.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anyone0

Is every player obligated to reply to your whispers?

Why would you ignore someone /w you "Hey"
Have you ever had a character you NEVER bought anything from AH with? Or did not jump an offer to buy 10 saros at 300g/each (Icecrown)?

When you check those characters on armory (the lowlvl ones) they usually have 100k auctions posted and 0 auctions purchased. Also people don't play this game for 24/7, because it is just physically not possible. Show me one guy who sleeps 1h every day and sits the other 23h on the AH constantly scanning.

It took me 5 seconds googling "AH Bot" and the very first result is "Salesman - a very powerful and easy to use ah bot". The exact behavior I am reporing you would see on someone using that.

I am not saying that any one of these is an indication of botting, but the combination of all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anyone0

To prove that the player is botting, you would have to monitor his movements.

Bot1 posts.
Bot2 logs every few hours and places MOLL-E.

No movement needed.
April 5, 2020
MadLemon

Quote:

Originally Posted by NovaProxima

I am agree with Anyone0. Yours "proofs" aren't enought.
As a big AH player, i sometine need many minutes to see that someone /w me and i don't need to move often when buying items.

As a big AH player, do you sleep?

Is there any guide on that? How much evidence and how good it should be? How many video clips/screenshots/etc I need, what should be visible in those?
You say you need to see botlike movement, what about those who do not need to move at all? How can I collect evidence on them to get them banned? I would love to hear from an admin what exactly I need to do step by step to get those donkeyholes banned.
April 5, 2020
Anyone0

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

No it doesn't. That is why TSM and Auctioneer sets up a scrollwheel bind. You have to click for every unique itemid. People with addons maybe repost every 30min. People with bots undercut you within a minute.

That was added in Cataclysm. TSM for wotlk is backported from a newer expansion. In wotlk those actions don't require a button press. You didn't specify which expansion you are talking about but I assume it's not MoP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

Why would you ignore someone /w you "Hey"

Maybe he gets those all the time and got tired of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

Have you ever had a character you NEVER bought anything from AH with? Or did not jump an offer to buy 10 saros at 300g/each (Icecrown)?

The amount of auctions just shows that the char is only used for selling on AH. I have had characters for similar purposes so all the items don't take bag space on characters I actually use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

When you check those characters on armory (the lowlvl ones) they usually have 100k auctions posted and 0 auctions purchased. Also people don't play this game for 24/7, because it is just physically not possible. Show me one guy who sleeps 1h every day and sits the other 23h on the AH constantly scanning.

16 hours would be doable by having the WoW client open while doing something else and just making sure it does not get logged out. If it's really 23 hours, make sure you mention that when making the report. Not sure if they would need some kind of proof for that or they can monitor it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

It took me 5 seconds googling "AH Bot" and the very first result is "Salesman - a very powerful and easy to use ah bot". The exact behavior I am reporing you would see on someone using that.

I am not saying that any one of these is an indication of botting, but the combination of all.

I could achieve similar result with a custom addon. Except the part about it being active 23 hours a day, if that's accurate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

Bot1 posts.
Bot2 logs every few hours and places MOLL-E.

No movement needed.

That does sound like something a bot would do. But it would still be difficult to prove.
April 6, 2020
Obnoxious

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

What I think warmane needs is a team of admins dedicated solely to the bot-problem, so our favorite server is finally purged from this plague. Also you could pick volunteers who monitor the world chat 24/7 and instaban people advertising to sell gold on 3rd party services. That way there would be less incentive for them to make those bots, if they start bleeding money.

I don't see we ever increasing the Staff just to monitor AH behaviour, and we won't ever have "volunteers" with power to ban people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

Why would you ignore someone /w you "Hey"

That was what I did by default when I played on retail. I wasn't there to socialize.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadLemon

How can I collect evidence on them to get them banned? I would love to hear from an admin what exactly I need to do step by step to get those donkeyholes banned.

You're probably better off asking that in a PM to the Head GM or the Ask the Staff section.