To those unfortunate enough to have experienced a ban, or who are in the loop. Does blizzard actually use any proof when issuing bans? I know they can't detect the software (or aren't allowed to) so unless - a GM had eyes on you running into a wall for half a minute - you were online (and active) 22 hours of the day - you are completely antisocial in game? do they ban on just suspicion? Will they ever provide a reason? I'm not a gold seller. I have just one account, and let gatherbuddy / honorbuddy run round 4-5 hours. With plenty of breaks and non continuous. I feel if they every sent me a mail I would have a very strong case. ie. without proof, they really can't know for sure. Or is that wishful thinking?
They actually never send a email when you get banned, they just do. and no matter how persistent you are in finding out the reason they will not tell you.
IMO, blizz doesn't want to ban you. Most bans seem to come from player reports (Not saying all do). A lot of people bot for over 22 hours and don't receive bans. Also, I have had blizz tell me why they banned me before. If you call they usually try to get you unbanned (at least in my experience), more money for them. They do hand out 72 hour suspensions for suspicious behavior though.
it states in the terms of service that blizzard entertainment has the right to strip all access to your account at any time. In other words, if a gm does not like you, he has the right to ban your account for calling him/her a cotton-headed-ninny-muggins.
Since Blizzard can't detect the bot itself, any ban you receive is "without proof" and based entirely on speculation and suspicion. Why do you think every other thread in the Ban Section is "help me come up with a believable story" ? Actually, the part about "not allowed to detect it" is not true at all, as Blizzard may still scan WoW's memory space in your RAM for traces of the bot and eventually discover it, but they fail, or choose not to.
Even if they can't detect the software, "speculation" and "suspicion" can be proof enough. I recently moved into the .com area of my company, and we host a lot of flash games where theres the possibility of winning money/prizes. We can see things like how long spent playing every game, your score, etc. We can't "prove" that you had 10 browsers open (against the rules) while playing Bingo - but if a game of bingo takes 2 minutes and your logs shows you are completing a game of bingo at 5:55, 5:56, 5:57 obviously you're using multiple browsers. If you win a game with a score of a million points and you spent 4 minutes playing, and normally the highest score 99% of people get is 100,000 - chances are you won't get any cash/prize that was to be awarded for that game; we can't prove it but common sense dictates you cheated.
You are mistaking "proof" with "reason". Suspicion and speculation can be a reason, but never proof, and that's why there is this part about "any reason, or no reason, with or without explanation" in the Blizzard ToS, or every botter in the US would have kicked their ass in court by now. Basically, we are saying the same thing but in different ways.
Plain and simple, you don't want to get busted then Don't bot afk, if you have to go afk for more than 10 minutes stop the bot. Put all your pst's/whispers on a separate tab so you don't miss anything if you have to be afk for more than 10 minutes. This all depends on the popularity of your server and the area you bot in. Always pay attention to the local chat of the area that you bot in. If it appears to be active try to be active in chat for a few minutes then drop off and only reply to pst's/whispers. Blizz had made it easier for ass hats to report people for botting, name and language almost like it nazi germany all over again. Be smart and always look over your own shoulder because no one will do it for you.
Indeed and thats how it works atm. Blizzard has two systems they use to enforce the servers: 1. Player reporting, this system is costing a ton of money as the GMs need to personally go to your location and check if you're a bot. I know first hand that this is done. They will then teleport you to some wierd location where a bot would have a hard time getting out and open up a dialog with you. If you get banned by a GM the message will be as different as the GM that wrote it, some write "cheating", some write "third party program", some write "botting". But ofc they need to fill out a form to send you and also have a log in their system why your character got removed from the servers...This is what they then review when you send your ticket "omgz my brother played...or whatever lie you can come up with". 2. This is the automatic way and it will always send you the email "Economic abuse". If you get the economic abuse it basically means that you botted for too long and you got stuck in some filters, exactly like Paddy is talking about. However he wants to rid these 10x browser people whilst blizzard has other filters. These could be, online for more than 100 hours in a 5 day time, or it could be online in the same zone for longer than 20 hours...Or it could be online in the same district of a zone for longer than 5 hours (like at some grind spot). Or it could be that the character has passed the same exact location 500 times in the last 2 days. These filters also change over the course of the game to be narrower or broader depending on how much load there is on their support. When they are releasing MoP I can assure you that these filters will be less strict because people will play a ton and blizzard will get a lot of false positives if they have strict filters. Who am I and why do I know this? I'm a fairly smart guy who has 10 computers and have botted with over 50-100 accounts at a certain time. I no longer do WoW botting as diablo3 is much more profitable
this totally ! Even if you are a botter, you are a paying customer ! If "real" players get annoyed, they might leave so they have to act on it. Most bans are player reports, since it costs blizzard a shitload to actively search for bots. They give "you" new features to report faster. So the "annoyed ones" see blizzard is... o wait, think blizzard is fighting botting. The court case is just a formality, to show "the world" they dont take this, but same as with glider, they know this can take years and the outcome is probably 0 for them. Even if they win another bot will rise within a week. Think of it, a blizzard employee runs the profiles, and makes scripts. If player X follows x-y-z more then 10 times in 1 hour - insta ban. Player D raids with 1-3-2-2-2-1-2-1-2-1 rotation every single attack, wich concludes in using singular CC. The bot aint "smart" It follows a routine you feed it. Those "routines"can be scripted aswell to flag someone. now think of the above in a wider perspective, and you know, blizz could ban all our asses if they realy want to. They are not, player reports gets theyre attention, then they can see your pc, as you gave em acces by agreeing to game agreements. They see HB running, or svn, wich stays on after the bot even is shut down. And u got a ban. Even if your offline, they check your logs. Killed npc x - 250 times ,or quested 28 hours in a row... yes.. ban. My 2 cents are, dont be afraid, bot wise. Aka, not 24 hours... still im doing so again, lvl a pally 1-81 now in 5 days using diff profiles... why... im bored. Bring it on blizz, i aint afraid of you!
I call that bullshit. They dont come see if your a bot. They know from exp how to see it in your logs. Yes they teleport you to some weird location from time to time but thats so rare aswell. Blizz has theyre hands full with the 1000's of tickets a day made to answer, they dont visit you in Uldum to see if your a bot... thats just lol.
