Just saw this on MMO-champions this morning. Nothing surprising, but always interested in what Blizz has to 'officially' say re bots. --------------------------- World of Warcraft Bots Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums) There's a lot of threads on this topic in here, but this one had the most entertaining premise, so this is where I'll say this. We wage a constant battle against bots. Blizzard has an entire department devoted to tracking down bots, hacks, and the like, and punishing those who make use of them. In fact, if/when you have something to report, you can email that team directly at hacks@blizzard.com. They'd absolutely love to hear from you. That goes for more than just bots, as well. Exploits, cheats, hacks -- any such behavior you see, send our Hacks team an email. Any evidence you can put together is great as well, video in particular. Toss something up on Youtube (can be unlisted) and send us the link. Make sure character names and realms are included. Getting in-game reports of bad behavior is good, but it's even better to have hard evidence of said behavior. We probably can't completely wipe bots from existence. We sure as hell try, but the fight continues. We can, however, punish as many of those who use them as we can catch. And the more we catch, the better our ability to detect them gets. And seriously, if you catch someone in the act, email hacks@blizzard.com. (Also, juuuuust to be clear, we did not "create bots to speed up the BG queue process." That's silly.) People are told SS/videos are not enough proof. We won't outright ban someone out of the blue based on one screenshot. But typically, players that are using these sorts of obvious exploits have several reports against them as well. It's often difficult for us to catch those players in the act, so seeing visual evidence really helps. Videos also help us learn more about how a hack or exploit operates, so we can know what we're looking for in the future. In short, screenshots and videos aren't enough proof on their own, but they certainly help us pull the trigger. If an individual cheating or exploiting, and we record videos or take screenshots. They "cannot be used as evidence". Many years ago (2 at least) I stumbled upon a thread with two blue posts backing up that screenshots and videos cannot be used as legitimate evidence since they can be easily be modified. Can you please; confirm or deny is this is still true in 2015? Regardless of PvE or PvP. I do understand calling out individuals on the forum is against the CoC/ToS however; if one were to properly follow through with a proper report, could said images and videos be used against the accused party? Or do we only give you guys our word and from there you do your investigation? I've only been at Blizzard just shy of 2 years, so I'm not sure what the policy was before I got here. I just know what it is now, which is what I said above. Calling out individuals publicly on the forums (aka "naming and shaming") is against the ToS largely to protect innocent players from harassment. As you can imagine, there are a lot of false reports. We'd hate for someone to be subjected to harassment in-game because some troll is pretty good with Photoshop, for example. It also helps us fight back against the bots if the surly individuals who create them are less aware of the exact evidence we're given.
all this tells me is I'm going to have to run my bots 24 7 oh wait I already do and I'm not worried about this i mean because that's the last thing that looking there looking for is chump change the only thing they're trying to catch is users with multiple bots 4+
Just think, if someone can get into a bg where they're practically the only player in there, how many people are really botting? Must be a lot for those odds. Makes you wonder how many bgs are 100% bots that nobody ever knows about
I don't get why people in this thread is acting nervously (If it aint troll) I mean, this is the same shit blizzard have done for years. Just keep going
Blizzard are obviously against bots. However.. in the 10 years WoW has been around, there have BEEN bots. They aren't going anywhere. In fact, I would guess a good percentage of Blizzards subscriptions ARE from people who bot. I've seen posts like these since the days of Glider. As Tefyx said, just keep going.
i wonder how much of what the blue said is truth. they may just be saying it to keep their anti-bot image up. The bottom line $ would be much lower if they really banned all bots. I can see them wanting to go after the incredibly obvious bots, the hack type exploits, or any bot/3rd party program that could possibly ruin the game or drive large #'s of subscribers away from the game, etc I want to believe blizz made this 'press release' just to keep good public relations--considering the # of bot form threads in general on the wow forums lately; but i do not know for sure. it just seems this way to me because this bot phenomenon did not just suddenly appear recently and if they really wanted to detect bots, i believe they could with all the money they have. Then again, considering blizzard is suing HB; thats one reason to suggest blizzard is telling 100% the truth in their blue post. I have conflicting logic. personally i wont play WoW if I can not at least combat bot. I'm not going to pay blizzard $15/month to get carpel tunnel. and i actually find the game much more enjoyable when I have a combat routine running because I can focus on the mechanics of the fight and the animations , lighting, environment, etc banning me or banning bots, both will achieve the same goal. no more sub. Also I have multiple active wow accounts now because of HB. I would have only 1 if there were no HB
All they did was confirm that they have no automated way of detecting bots and that they rely on players reports.
wonder what they will do when we have android people like in so many movies willl they be considered bots? good enough to work for free but not pay a sub to play a game lol?
I used to think blizzard was a really smart company. Like, they absolutely had to be monitoring the HB forums and the hack/exploit forums, testing out the bots and various exploits. But then I saw their looking for group video where they talked about how they never hired an economist to help them flesh out and balance their in-game economy. Made me realize they have some seriously stupid policies regarding their game, and they probably don't allow anyone to run various bots so they can see how they work, which would of course make detection incredibly easy.
