Talked to a former GM

I know! I know! It soulds so shitty to say "I talked to a former GM", but I really did and I asked him some stuff Ive been woundering about for some time regarding botting, and I figured Id share what I learned. Maybe u knbow this stuff already, but anyway heres what I asked:

Whats the most commen way to detect botting: "Besides real hacks? Using the same keystrokes over and over. Like a rutine being used the same way over and over. This is something Warden does"

Do all reports get checked in to? "yes, and even if no proof of botting was found, it still gets a note saying; investigated for; botting, nothing found"

Do the GM look at the char reported for botting or just what-ever char is online at the time they check?
"Depends on the GM. Most will check the char that was reported, but they can just as well check the char that is online."

Do GMs/blizz in some way scan your PC to see if it has a bot program on it? "Some say they can, I have never done it and didn't knew how to do it. I know when u sign up for beta they scan your PC to see its specs, but after that they dont really scan your pc"

So thats what I asked him. If u want me to ask him something feel free to pm me or write here. He is not working for Blizz atm but did 2 years ago, so it may be outdated info, but I hope it helps in some way.

Happy hollyday to u all!

p.s
Sorry about my bad english.

 

You can ask him about how they test players if they are botting.

Like do they lift you up and then drop you so they can see if you instantly eat and drink? Do you teleport you away and see how your bot responds?

All stories I've read here so I'm curious to that

 

Ok so I did ask him about that, and he said they like "hover above you" and are invisible. They CAN lift u up and teleport you and stuff, but mostly they just look at you and the data (keystrokes and such). Also if the person has been doing the same thing for "abnormal time". I also asked if they can, like, see what we se on ouer screen, and he told me they needed to login to ouer char if they wanted to see how we have put ouer UI up and such.

 

Ah that's cool, I didn't know they could see your keystrokes as well. Thanks for asking.

 

I also asked if they could see ouer graphic-settings, like, do we use click-to-move and such or do we run in x86 or x32 and he said he never had any way to tell.

 

Im gonna call this bullshit. For one whenever a person leaves a positions like this they cannot speak of it. Whenever they are first hired they have to fill out paperwork because its confidential information on how they detect botters. If you did indeed speak to a GM which is possible in real world I doubt that they would talk about it because the chance of being hit with a lawsuit would be substantial!

 

this.

 

How are player reports handled?

 

This is correct! They sign a contract not to talk about ANY of that stuff. But he really did tell me any way. Also Im not trying to be a smart ass, Im just telling u guys what he said. Im not claming to be some "under-cover, cool-dude", Im just trying to be helpfull.

 

Ill ask him when he gets back on skype.

U wanna know like how they react when a report is placed on a player if I undestand u correctly? Like, what is to be done with an reported player?

 

Not really we military people sign the dotted line also but that doesn't stop me talking about it publicity, some of us people just don't care if I was a former GM I would be happy to talk about my experience in such an organisation.

 

Ask him, if he is botting himself. If so, for profit, or just for the fun out of it.

Because it is pretty obvious the Blizzard Customer Support employees are humans too, they play online games, and they are tempted to cheat ingame, or at least to make their gameplay easier

 

i thought if blizzard would scan your whole pc it would be illegal for them to do it

 

Ill try and explain in the best way my english allows me.
They get a note saying there is a report. Then they investigate. If its a harrasment-report they look in chat for both players 1 houer back and forth from the time of the reporting. If it is a bot, they wait until the char that is reported gets online (sometimes they look at whatever char is online, even if it was not the one reported), then they follow the person for some time while invisible, and may come back at another time once more to see if they are having botting-behavior. They also look at some data, like keystrokes and things repeating ovber and over agien. They also always make a note on the reported players accouns saying whatever they found/did not find.

 

He does not use bots

 

They only do it if u sign up to beta for things, and then you agree to it yourself - try and read the terms for signing up for betas.

 

Idk about the whole lawsuit thing and GMs unable to talk about it. I mean I know they're not supposed to, but if you open a live chat they'll sometimes tell you a lot about how it works and they're still current employees!

For instance, I told a gm in live chat how I used to bot, and how now I wanted to come clean and just play the game that I loved oh-so-much and I put in a lot of time into my characters and would be heartbroken if it stayed banned etc... (was on my main). He told me he was proud of me for coming clean and would try to help me by getting a supervisor to approve the appeal. I pretended to be scared of getting banned from behaving like the bot would, and asked how I could avoid doing that while I play legit in my new ways. I also told him the computer was shared and my "room mate" still botted and wouldn't stop so would that auto ban me for just using the same computer. He told me quite a bit, and the more I'd play ignorant, scared, and willing to change the more he'd explain how it worked and why I had (almost) nothing to fear playing legit.

They sent me a "after reviewing your actions your ban will not be overturned" kind of email after, but I could log in again. Felt a bit bad because the guy was a sweetheart and trying to help, but yeah they do talk.

 

One question, when GMs finds bot, how do they link the accounts? (on the same PC, in the same IP, same payment method, trade history, under same guild etc) what are the parameters they look for that ban the whole group of bots owned by the same person? I ask this because in ban sections there are ppl reporting 10/10 banned in the same day although they are not using the same profiles. I wonder how GMs link these accounts.

 

I will ask him asap.

 

You know how many times a coworker has said to me "I'm not supposed to talk about this" then proceded to tell me more than i ever wanted to know?