botters
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GDC China 09: Netease speaks on combating botters
GDC China 2009 is currently in high gear until tomorrow, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about some of the panels today! One of the highlights for the MMO industry was certainly the talk given by Yunfeng Lin, the design director at NetEase, on keeping up with botters and bot programs.NetEase, the operator of the three Westward Journey games, Flyff (and here's the American version of Flyff), and the 100 pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft, is in a very unique position to speak on the troubles botters present to online communities. Westward Journey and World of Warcraft both draw huge numbers of people in China, but that also means they draw a huge number of botters.
Silkroad Online says no to botters
No botters! Bad botters! Down! Ban! You're banned!Well, that's not exactly how bannings go, but Silkroad Online is starting to crack down on their botting problem. The game has recently changed their anti-botting rules, converting over to a three strike policy. The first instance of your account being suspected, you get a 7 day ban. The next time your account gets flagged, it's a 14 day ban. And, if your account gets flagged a third and final time for the use of illegal programs, you can kiss your account goodbye.It's a pretty strict system, doubly so for a free-to-play game. Usually we see larger MMO developers, like Square-Enix and CCP, moving towards initiatives like these. However, it's clear that Joymax is interested in cleaning up their game, a move that many will undoubtedly enjoy.
High-Rated PvPers do the robot
We've gotten a bunch of tips recently that claim some very e-famous PvPers are botting in BGs. If you aren't familiar with the term "botting," Dictionary.com provides us with the following definitions of bot: Bot: –nounthe larva of a botfly. Bot: –noun (Australian Slang)a person who cadges; scrounger. Bot: –nouna device or piece of software that can execute commands, reply to messages, or perform routine tasks, as online searches, either automatically or with minimal human intervention (often used in combination): intelligent infobots; shopping bots that help consumers find the best prices.
YS Online wants you to bomb botters
Botters can be a hassle. Trust us, we know. We too have felt the sting of automatic programming when waiting for that quest monster to spawn, or for that rare monster pops up on the battlefield. Sure, we can report the problem to Game Masters for them to fix, but that's not even a full guarantee that the problem will be taken care of. Plus, don't you always love the satisifaction of dealing with botters yourself?Now you can take matters into your own hands in YS Online, the currently Europe only MMO based off of the popular YS series of RPGs. YS offers all players the ability to carry items known as Auto Bombs, which are available from all vendors for 1 copper a piece. All one has to do is simply take the bomb and throw it at the supposed botter. Once it hits, they'll have a small window to complete a simple captcha -- a word shown in picture format that they have to type into the box below the picture. If they fail to complete the captcha, they'll gain a debuff where they can't do anything for 30 minutes. Painful, no?
WoW botter tells all part 2
"I never thought of playing WoW like that!" neither did we, until we talked with these players. Check out a whole year's worth of player profiles in our "15 Minutes of Fame: Where are they now?"
15 Minutes of Fame: WoW botter tells all
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Daedren (not his former WoW character's name) ruffled more than a few feathers with an internet "confessional" (was it, really?) last week about his experiences botting in World of Warcraft. (To "bot," a term that comes from the word "robot," is to use a third-party program to play the game for you.) He initially declined an interview with 15 Minutes of Fame but was back in touch a few days later, after the comments and reaction began piling on.With a measured, reasonable approach (somewhat at odds with the abrasive tone he takes with commenters on his blog), Daedren visits with us about botting. Is botting a blot on the soul of gaming humanity or a benign, time-saving technique for busy gamers? Read Daedren's post to learn what his botted characters were up to in WoW, then join us after the break to learn why his botting post was actually a farewell "ode to WoW."
SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms
Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games
Do botters really matter?
Blizzard has had the big botting ban now in place for a couple of weeks, and there are a few people I've noticed who are not online. Additionally I've noticed a change in the auction house price. There are some items like low level enchanting mats that are going for tons more, and others such as high level crafting mats which are going for much less. This is outside of the normal market fluctuations on my server, and many people attribute to the removal of botters.This could be a fallacy of causation – the removal of botters might not have lead to the shakeup at the auction house. There really is no way to prove it, other than the circumstantial evidence of price fluctuations timed with the removal of often-botted items. And in the end, these price fluctuations end up being a wash anyways – the extra that is spent on the lower level items is more than likely offset by the cheaper higher level items. Between the recent wave of bannings and the seemingly nominal impact the ban has had on the overall economy, this begs the questions – do botters really matter? And should Blizzard just ignore them?While it might seem like the answer is a firm no, let's take a look at some of the underlying reasons and assumptions that people bot and why it's considered bad. In particular we'll look at reasons surrounding leveling, playing the economy, and engaging in PvP.
Blizzard loses a round in the fight against botting
In Blizzard's attempts to get rid of gold farmers and hackers, one of their most annoyingly persistent enemies has been the WoWGlider bot, now known as MMOGlider. They've been throwing suits and countersuits at each other for a few years now, but the latest salvo seems to have gone against Blizzard, the Game Activist reports. Blizzard was trying to subpoena Joe Thaler, owner of Lavish Software LLC, maker of programs such as EQPlayNice. While Lavish Software's programs do not appear to be cheat programs on their own, they did make a deal with MDY Industries, maker of MMOGlider, to use the programs within MMOGlider. According the judge's decision, Blizzard was hoping to obtain all documentation related to the deal, all communication between Thaler and Lavish and MDY and its owner, Michael Donnelly. They also wanted a list of all WoW accounts owned by Thaler and Lavish, as well as the contents of the WTF folders of every installation of WOW used by Thaler and Lavish Entertainment. Unfortunately, the Judge ruled that Blizzard was demanding information that could compromise Lavish's trade secrets and client confidentiality, and that the demand for the information within 9 days did not give Thaler and Lavish enough time to respond an gather information. It's worth noting that the judge did specifically say that Blizzard could file another subpoena that would be more narrow in scope and allow more time for Lavish and Mr. Thaler to respond, so this is probably not a fatal blow to Blizzard by any means. I personally hope not. I've never had much patience for bots, or people who feel they have a civil right to cheat at games, so I'm rooting for the big bad corporation on this one. What about you? Thanks for the link, Tyrsenus.
Are gold sellers the key to WoW's continued success?
On Monday, Blizzard banned several thousand accounts found using third party programs to fully automate killing and looting, aka botting. These programs are largely used by gold selling companies employing farmers to speed up the rate at which they can supply gold to the many buyers out there. But a columnist at the Lightspeed Ventures site has a different take: he proposes that gold sellers are actually the independent application developers that are integral to the success of any online venture.No matter where you fall on the gold farmer debate ("they ruin the game" vs "they fill a need the developers refuse to acknowledge"), you have to stop and think about this particular premise. Lightspeed, a venture capital company that funds technology companies, asserts that any platform needs three critical elements to succeed.
Blizzard suing WoWglider creator
I know what you're thinking: haven't I read about this before? You've probably read something similar, but we've moved on to the next phase of ligation: the counter-suit! Back in November MDY Industries, the creators of the automation software WoWglider, was suing Blizzard over an alleged attempt to prevent the distribution of their software. MDY wanted a court to assert their right to create and distribute WoWglider. And now Blizzard is fighting back with a lawsuit of their own. Besides asserting that the sale and promotion of WoWglider violates both the World of Warcraft EULA (end user license agreement, which you re-agree to each time you install a patch) and TOU (terms of use, which you agree to when creating your account), Blizzard claims that...Blizzard has suffered damage in an amount to be proven at trial, including but not limited to loss of goodwill among WoW users, diversion of Blizzard resources to prevent access by WoWGlider users, loss of revenue from terminated users, and decreased subscription revenue from undetected WoWGlider users.And Blizzard is asking not only for MDY to stop selling and distributing WoWglider, but also that Blizzard be given all rights and titles to the application, the source code, and all sales information. And while I'm not a lawyer, I think someone just got pwnd by Blizzard's legal department.If you are a lawyer, or if you just enjoy reading dense pages of text, you may like to see the full text of Blizzard's counter-suit and MDY's initial complaint.[Thanks, Prissy]
To /afk or not to /afk...
Right now, at least, I'd recommend not. It's hard to walk into a battleground these days without noticing at least one player who's not doing anything but sitting quietly near the battleground entrance gaining honor and reputation. Perhaps they're using a bot or perhaps they're watching a movie and occasionally pressing the space bar -- either way, they're a nuisance at best. And when this post showed up on the customer service forums, I couldn't help but be surprised. Because while Blizzard would previously take action against players using bots or hacks to prevent them from going AFK during a battleground, now they seem to be prepared to act against any players "who are not actively participating" in a battleground. The wording is still very vague, but this could mean a crackdown on AFK players -- regardless of method.
