New Bot Spotted...

Sarenia

(Feel free to ignore, this isn't actually new after all. See the edit at the bottom.)

So, here's a weird one.

And no, in advance, this isn't a bot rage post, or something that's already been posted on the forum AFAIK. It's something new.

I've seen flying bots. I've seen teleporting bots. I've "seen" invisible bots harvesting nodes. What I haven't seen until now is a rock sliding around at breakneck speed and harvesting them.

Yes, a rock. Or something similar looking. Small, brown, doesn't show a name tag when highlighted. No, this wasn't a coincidence and I'm not trolling -- I managed to follow it between a few nodes, but couldn't do anything about it. I'm not even sure how to report this, and obviously a screenshot would be worthless since all it would show it a small brown object. I have no name to report.

Has anybody else seen this? I was on Bleakrock Isle just now when I saw it. I would really like to get some more information compiled about this to submit to the devs. At the moment I just can't offer them any sort of useful bug report with this.

Edit -- Later discovered that the "rock" was half of a bot's head sticking out of the ground. They were sunk into the ground and it was a fluke that I saw them at all. So fortunately, they aren't actually changing their character model, but they are travelling around below the normal walkmesh, hence seeming "invisible" to us when they steal nodes.

universe555

Sounds like the dreaded "Brown Rock of Nodal Doom"... lore speaks of it but not often seen.

Sarenia

universe555 wrote: »

Sounds like the dreaded "Brown Rock of Nodal Doom"... lore speaks of it but not often seen.

I'm trying to figure out how the heck they would even do it. Warping around I can wrap my brain around, but actually changing their character model as displayed server-side is in a whole new ballpark.

devolutedub17_ESO

I would still take a screen shot, so everyone can see what it looks like. Even if it does just look like a rock, try to get one of it floating around and one at a node if possible. The more we can distinguish it the more of us can watch out for it and catalog it.

Sarenia

devolutedub17_ESO wrote: »

I would still take a screen shot, so everyone can see what it looks like. Even if it does just look like a rock, try to get one of it floating around and one at a node if possible. The more we can distinguish it the more of us can watch out for it and catalog it.

Yah, I was too slow. I followed it between a few close nodes but it couldn't have been more than 10 seconds, then it dashed off faster than I could follow. My brain just didn't react fast enough to the weirdness of it all to take a snapshot. =/

I'm hoping I see it again...

devolutedub17_ESO

Sarenia wrote: »

devolutedub17_ESO wrote: »

I would still take a screen shot, so everyone can see what it looks like. Even if it does just look like a rock, try to get one of it floating around and one at a node if possible. The more we can distinguish it the more of us can watch out for it and catalog it.

Yah, I was too slow. I followed it between a few close nodes but it couldn't have been more than 10 seconds, then it dashed off faster than I could follow. My brain just didn't react fast enough to the weirdness of it all to take a snapshot. =/

I'm hoping I see it again...

At least you saw it and it's something the rest of us can at least start to look out for

zaria

Sounds a bit weird, an harvesting bot with an normal name running normally between nodes would be far harder to spot, make it stop from time to time and post random WTS in zone and it would even be hard for bot hunting traps to catch.

saw a group of bots yesterday in Reaper mash, they was trying to scale a cliff, first one then three more came. they had random sentences as names.

demendred

Wow, just wow.

Getting creative in their methods, I'll have to give them that.

Rotherhans

Sarenia wrote: »

but actually changing their character model as displayed server-side is in a whole new ballpark.

This points to the server trusting the client with actual character code and is nothing short of a disaster in MMO client programming terms.

I already heard rumors that the client is unsafe in that regard and thus basically broken.
Tl;dr the client is programmed like this..

which is bad

Shimond

If this is accurate it's seriously disturbing. They shouldn't be able to do this. At all.

Sarenia

Somebody here on Bleakrock mentioned seeing a "speed bot" as he called it who was sunk far into the ground and he could only see his head.

That could be what I saw, the top of a bot's head who was underground. They did manage to snag his name, so hopefully it's the same one.

Being sunk into the ground is weird, but makes a lot more sense than changing the character model. It could also be how some bots seem "invisible" when they steal nodes -- maybe they are in fact under the node.

SchrodingersKitteh

Deleted

lycanslerwb17_ESO

i saw something that looked like a head only, as i approached a node, the node vanished, then this "head" zoomed passed me to another node.

Khandi

This thread is gonna give me nightmares

Ashigaru

Sarenia wrote: »

Somebody here on Bleakrock mentioned seeing a "speed bot" as he called it who was sunk far into the ground and he could only see his head.

That could be what I saw, the top of a bot's head who was underground. They did manage to snag his name, so hopefully it's the same one.

Being sunk into the ground is weird, but makes a lot more sense than changing the character model. It could also be how some bots seem "invisible" when they steal nodes -- maybe they are in fact under the node.

Have seen it in other games, they change the x and y axis of their character, pretty much putting them below the ground so they cant be seen doing what ever. Looks like they didn't have the axis right or you wouldn't have seen them.

Sarenia

Ashigaru wrote: »

Sarenia wrote: »

Somebody here on Bleakrock mentioned seeing a "speed bot" as he called it who was sunk far into the ground and he could only see his head.

That could be what I saw, the top of a bot's head who was underground. They did manage to snag his name, so hopefully it's the same one.

Being sunk into the ground is weird, but makes a lot more sense than changing the character model. It could also be how some bots seem "invisible" when they steal nodes -- maybe they are in fact under the node.

Have seen it in other games, they change the x and y axis of their character, pretty much putting them below the ground so they cant be seen doing what ever. Looks like they didn't have the axis right or you wouldn't have seen them.

Yah. =/

And just confirming, what I saw was indeed the top of somebodies head that looked like a rock.

Updating the OP to make that clear.

That spot where I saw them earlier seems to bump the bots up higher, because I just managed to catch another one in that same spot. Managed to get a F > report on them this time though at least.

Giraffon

I'm still trying to understand how these things work. This is my first MMO, so I'm still learning the lingo, but from what I can tell it seems that bots are simply characters that have been put on "autopilot" to harvest in game resources. If that's true then they are tied to real people with real credit cards and stuff. In theory very easy to stop someone after they get caught.

Is there a bigger issue here? The chatter in the newsgroups seems to imply that botters simply come back after their account is disabled. How is this possible? Are they using stolen identities and credit cards?

Khandi

irre_greg wrote: »

I'm still trying to understand how these things work. This is my first MMO, so I'm still learning the lingo, but from what I can tell it seems that bots are simply characters that have been put on "autopilot" to harvest in game resources. If that's true then they are tied to real people with real credit cards and stuff. In theory very easy to stop someone after they get caught.

Is there a bigger issue here? The chatter in the newsgroups seems to imply that botters simply come back after their account is disabled. How is this possible? Are they using stolen identities and credit cards?

The way I understand it is when you buy from the gold sellers you are giving them carte blanche to your money.

Sarenia

irre_greg wrote: »

I'm still trying to understand how these things work. This is my first MMO, so I'm still learning the lingo, but from what I can tell it seems that bots are simply characters that have been put on "autopilot" to harvest in game resources. If that's true then they are tied to real people with real credit cards and stuff. In theory very easy to stop someone after they get caught.

Is there a bigger issue here? The chatter in the newsgroups seems to imply that botters simply come back after their account is disabled. How is this possible? Are they using stolen identities and credit cards?

Well, they're hard to put down because most of them are liable to be run by criminal groups. They use stolen credit card information to purchase serials, and in some cases compromised accounts. Any network activity would be transferred through multiple VPNs, among other precautions, to ensure their location remains secure.

devolutedub17_ESO

irre_greg wrote: »

I'm still trying to understand how these things work. This is my first MMO, so I'm still learning the lingo, but from what I can tell it seems that bots are simply characters that have been put on "autopilot" to harvest in game resources. If that's true then they are tied to real people with real credit cards and stuff. In theory very easy to stop someone after they get caught.

Is there a bigger issue here? The chatter in the newsgroups seems to imply that botters simply come back after their account is disabled. How is this possible? Are they using stolen identities and credit cards?

The credit cards are usually stolen. The bots are using a script and not really controlled by a human all the time. One botter could run multiple accounts and computers with minimal effort.

Selstad

Yeah, there are some pretty nasty hacks in this game, no-clip and speedhacks are just 2 of them. It's a bit bad of them to have the system as open as it is, normally when you change a file on your local computer, the game shouldn't even start as the servers should already catch that there are something wrong with the file structure.

I do hope they manage to get these things sorted quickly, I know they are manually trying to sift out as many bots as possible and ban as many exploiters as possible, but I think they're fighting a loosing battle unless they close the loopholes.

Tawn

Disappearing nodes are a bit sad, any sort of position hack means the server isn't armoured enough.

But they have done well against the gold spammers as far as I can see, so hopefully this will improve too.

I've always considered these botting accounts come from three places.

• Buy gold, use your credit card... expect to see some weird charges later.
• Buy gold, get phished later, so that they get your password.
• Buy power leveling and they use your account without care.

SadisticSavior

The only time I see gold spammers is in the starter zone, and yes, they have been decreasing. So there is progress being made there.

Also I have noticed fewer email spams.

Selstad

You don't have to dig too deep to find threads about user interface APIs to run alongside with your ESO. One of these I saw, had the option to grid-mesh all harvesting nods (including skyshards), and with the press of a button, teleport to that locked location.

So they might be working hard to get gold sellers off, but they really need to secure their client/server side speech. Right now, the client and the server are more open than a lady on the Red Light district in Amsterdam, as client hacks translate to server hacks. It's too easy to exploit and I'd say this have to be a top priority for them. I know the HeroEngine is capable of limiting this a hell of a lot, so either they figure out how to do it or they give Bioware a call and have them talk them through how they did it with Star Wars: The old republic.

Giraffon

Thanks everyone for your insights. It seems that most of my suspicions were correct, but it was nice to get it all clear in my head.

Saihung423

Eww eww eww.

I really don't like the implications of all this.

Apophiss

SadisticSavior wrote: »

The only time I see gold spammers is in the starter zone, and yes, they have been decreasing. So there is progress being made there.

Also I have noticed fewer email spams.

The spammers hit the starter areas while the Harvester/script bots level beyond and continue into higher maps/dungeons.

Higher level resources sell for more money.

Ashigaru

Sarenia wrote: »

irre_greg wrote: »

I'm still trying to understand how these things work. This is my first MMO, so I'm still learning the lingo, but from what I can tell it seems that bots are simply characters that have been put on "autopilot" to harvest in game resources. If that's true then they are tied to real people with real credit cards and stuff. In theory very easy to stop someone after they get caught.

Is there a bigger issue here? The chatter in the newsgroups seems to imply that botters simply come back after their account is disabled. How is this possible? Are they using stolen identities and credit cards?

Well, they're hard to put down because most of them are liable to be run by criminal groups. They use stolen credit card information to purchase serials, and in some cases compromised accounts. Any network activity would be transferred through multiple VPNs, among other precautions, to ensure their location remains secure.

I think you are blowing it out of proportion really, I'm not saying that is not the case sometimes but the majority of them are just the average joe or young kids. The average joe doesn't have time to farm mats so when hes at work he sets his character to auto kill stuff for xp and loot or hes doing the harvest thing to make some cash or have mats for crafting. The young kids just do it for the heck of it and excitement of maybe not getting caught most of the time.

The majority of the way an account gets stolen is databases on popular game forum sites get hacked and it seems a lot of people use the same login info for these type of sites as the game accounts for the said game. In all honestly i have been a dumb ass at a time and did this (had same login info to a site as i did to the game of the site) and my account was stolen and abused and is currently under review (since december) seems my account was used to spam chat for gold selling, well thats what the company told me anyway...

Iam not saying its ok to bot or anything but i am saying the majority of them are not the evil gold farmers that people build them up to be and if a person buys gold from them unless they use a personal cc there isn't really anyway that the gold companies can harm you and i am not advocating buying gold at all either lol but it just seems to be a lot of tin foil hats around this stuff.

But if you think about it and i am not a pro on breaking passwords and stuff but it seems that with our @name being our account name that someone could make breaker (lack of a better term?) that could auto input password info till it was found. Like i said i dont know a lot about this kind of stuff but it seems possible and with them having our account name half the work is already done.

rawne1980b16_ESO

Sarenia

Ashigaru wrote: »

I think you are blowing it out of proportion really[...]

Like i said i dont know a lot about this kind of stuff[...]

That's okay. I don't know much about a lot of things either. Like glassblowing. I saw a video on it once, but the specifics of it still elude me. I suppose I'd have to try it myself to really understand.

Of course, if somebody who had knowledge of glass blowing were to tell me that free blowing is a higher art form than using molds, I wouldn't try to argue that they're wrong.

Just a thought.

Blackwolfe5

Are you talking about bots that are below ground? Not really new.