To give us something to report?

As the bots are getting banned for large gold transfers (and the buyers too) they have to change.

So they are killing everything, breaking them all down and selling the crafting parts for real world cash. Harder to ban as are they bots? Or could they be a group of 6 mates farming?

Also as 'bosses' have anti-farming code now, but normal mobs do not, they get more 'blues' to break down from just killing ever normal mob then they do from camping a single boss.

Welcome to the 'grey area' where you can never be 100% sure if they are a zerg of real players farming, or bots. (besides the name of the toon which is a giveaway)

This isn't really new....

It can be seen throughout Coldharbour dungeons at lvl 48-50(V1), I've already witnessed it, and while i really dislike the bots that are running around, it was interesting to see what they did to clear out public dungeons. 3 of em run into a horde of 10 mobs, and 3 seconds later, the horde of ten monsters were dead.

I assume they do this to get items to sell to stores, and or break down items, to get other players to purchase them with real currency.

@Natijur

No... you can definitely tell they're bots alright. They don't need a name, they need to be running in a specific pattern, and always following thus said pattern. Human players move, and act differently even while farming. Bots kind of "Train" in a line, one behind the other, and every one of their movements is programmed to be exactly the same. Not one of these bots will move in any different pattern. Once the monsters are killed, they auto-loot quickly, and continue moving. I was actually surprised at the one dungeon in Cold Harbour where you needed to go through portal. However, these bots refrained from going through the portals, instead, they would just jump into the water, and continue in one giant circle, avoiding all portals. Probably for good reason.

Sounds like what you are all seeing is know as a "Multi-Boxer" this can either be a bot or a player(more often a player) this is accomplished by having multiple accounts open some times of different screens but all connected to the same keyboard and mouse so that they move as "one" character.

The "Train" is cause by the delay between the command and movement on all the accounts the only way for this to work is to have all of the characters the same class with the same abilities so that when you say hit "1" all 7-8 accounts use poison arrow or whatever it is.

This is typically used by gold farmers as they can level and collect drops with several accounts at once turning one person into 8 or 10.

Regular players also multi-box though and farmers may not be bots as this is already a exploit in and of itself both of these makes them harder to catch as they may move around frequently but it's in no less way a problem.

Natjur wrote: »

With ever new MMO, its interesting to watch the bots evolve. Most bot software can be very smart including 'randomness, so the bots do not follow the exact path but take a few steps sideways ever now and then to 'look' more human.

As more and more 'anti-bot' checks get added, the bots evolve. But at the end of the day, they are trying to create as much real world cash as possible in the shorted amount of time. So for now, they appear to follow the exact same path. Once ESO start banning those ones, the new round will start.

And when its hard to tell the difference....but by then Wildstar will be out and 60% of the botters will move onto 'greener' pastures.

Sadly Wildstar has adopted Eve Online's in game item for game time this has show to completely kill any market for gold farmers as gold can be bought from the company in the form of game time sold to other players they may try at first but I think you will find they prefer here with large money sinks and no in game item for time then WildStar where there will be little to no market for selling gold.

oldkye wrote: »

Natjur wrote: »

With ever new MMO, its interesting to watch the bots evolve. Most bot software can be very smart including 'randomness, so the bots do not follow the exact path but take a few steps sideways ever now and then to 'look' more human.

As more and more 'anti-bot' checks get added, the bots evolve. But at the end of the day, they are trying to create as much real world cash as possible in the shorted amount of time. So for now, they appear to follow the exact same path. Once ESO start banning those ones, the new round will start.

And when its hard to tell the difference....but by then Wildstar will be out and 60% of the botters will move onto 'greener' pastures.

Sadly Wildstar has adopted Eve Online's in game item for game time this has show to completely kill any market for gold farmers as gold can be bought from the company in the form of game time sold to other players they may try at first but I think you will find they prefer here with large money sinks and no in game item for time then WildStar where there will be little to no market for selling gold.

Depend on the official $ to gold rate, it its high it will still be an marked for gold sellers. Also depend on how much it is to spend gold on.

ESO has some pretty huge gold sinks in horses and bag/ bank space at the start, afterward not so much until you get very high unless you bother to buy blue or purple items every levels.

oldkye wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

oldkye wrote: »

Natjur wrote: »

With ever new MMO, its interesting to watch the bots evolve. Most bot software can be very smart including 'randomness, so the bots do not follow the exact path but take a few steps sideways ever now and then to 'look' more human.

As more and more 'anti-bot' checks get added, the bots evolve. But at the end of the day, they are trying to create as much real world cash as possible in the shorted amount of time. So for now, they appear to follow the exact same path. Once ESO start banning those ones, the new round will start.

And when its hard to tell the difference....but by then Wildstar will be out and 60% of the botters will move onto 'greener' pastures.

Sadly Wildstar has adopted Eve Online's in game item for game time this has show to completely kill any market for gold farmers as gold can be bought from the company in the form of game time sold to other players they may try at first but I think you will find they prefer here with large money sinks and no in game item for time then WildStar where there will be little to no market for selling gold.

Depend on the official $ to gold rate, it its high it will still be an marked for gold sellers. Also depend on how much it is to spend gold on.

ESO has some pretty huge gold sinks in horses and bag/ bank space at the start, afterward not so much until you get very high unless you bother to buy blue or purple items every levels.

Honestly from seeing this in several games now I completely disagree why would anyone risk getting banned buying gold when they can do it completely legitimately from the company that makes the game and it costs less the actually price of the item doesn't matter as it balances with the in game economy and reaches a equilibrium price.

I have a degree in economics and have written papers on this topic cause I find it fascinating lol I honestly believe your trying to be optimistic to feel better but the fact is a game without the in game item for time will always be a better target they will just adjust their own prices for gold to match the in game economy there is no room for profit on WildStar that much I would bet money on for the long run.

Think we talk past each other, 100K ESO gold cost $15, fast google.
I don't think the official gold price would be so low.

However say 50k gold for $20-30 would kill off most gold sellers going after low level players, so here you are correct, ESO also have a lot of one time gold sinks for low level players. Don't know how Wildstar is here, know that you did not need much gold at low levels in WOW.

Next place you need lots of gold is the economy at high level.
Here it depend a lot on how the economic works, if its a lot of trading expensive items at high prices gold sellers would find its niche, unlike the producer they are not worried about damaging the economy and never underestimate the stupidity of people, EVE is niche, Wildstar is mass marked.
Interesting to see how it works out.

zaria wrote: »

oldkye wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

oldkye wrote: »

Natjur wrote: »

With ever new MMO, its interesting to watch the bots evolve. Most bot software can be very smart including 'randomness, so the bots do not follow the exact path but take a few steps sideways ever now and then to 'look' more human.

As more and more 'anti-bot' checks get added, the bots evolve. But at the end of the day, they are trying to create as much real world cash as possible in the shorted amount of time. So for now, they appear to follow the exact same path. Once ESO start banning those ones, the new round will start.

And when its hard to tell the difference....but by then Wildstar will be out and 60% of the botters will move onto 'greener' pastures.

Sadly Wildstar has adopted Eve Online's in game item for game time this has show to completely kill any market for gold farmers as gold can be bought from the company in the form of game time sold to other players they may try at first but I think you will find they prefer here with large money sinks and no in game item for time then WildStar where there will be little to no market for selling gold.

Depend on the official $ to gold rate, it its high it will still be an marked for gold sellers. Also depend on how much it is to spend gold on.

ESO has some pretty huge gold sinks in horses and bag/ bank space at the start, afterward not so much until you get very high unless you bother to buy blue or purple items every levels.

Honestly from seeing this in several games now I completely disagree why would anyone risk getting banned buying gold when they can do it completely legitimately from the company that makes the game and it costs less the actually price of the item doesn't matter as it balances with the in game economy and reaches a equilibrium price.

I have a degree in economics and have written papers on this topic cause I find it fascinating lol I honestly believe your trying to be optimistic to feel better but the fact is a game without the in game item for time will always be a better target they will just adjust their own prices for gold to match the in game economy there is no room for profit on WildStar that much I would bet money on for the long run.

Think we talk past each other, 100K ESO gold cost $15, fast google.
I don't think the official gold price would be so low.

However say 50k gold for $20-30 would kill off most gold sellers going after low level players, so here you are correct, ESO also have a lot of one time gold sinks for low level players. Don't know how Wildstar is here, know that you did not need much gold at low levels in WOW.

Next place you need lots of gold is the economy at high level.
Here it depend a lot on how the economic works, if its a lot of trading expensive items at high prices gold sellers would find its niche, unlike the producer they are not worried about damaging the economy and never underestimate the stupidity of people, EVE is niche, Wildstar is mass marked.
Interesting to see how it works out.

Once again you seem to think the company sets the conversion rate lol you are wrong that's the point is they don't let's take the Eve Online example 30 days is between $10-15 depending on buying bulk so how much in game money does that bring?

Well it depends on the time of year and the rest of the economy in the summer with more players the price can peak up to 600,000isk or so per 30 days in the fall when people work and are in school it can drop 30% as low as 400,000isk at either price it works out to about the amount of in game money a "typical" player is able to accumulate in around a month of play and is enough to buy some of the big ships in game.

This of course is due to a equilibrium price once supply meets demand due to it having a strong and well grown economy gold seller have no room for profit.


I like to think about this in MMO's like a apple orchard as the company you give me $15 and you can go into my orchard and pick and trade apples with others in the orchard I don't sell the apples and say I will fine you if you try to sell them for real money outside the orchard lets say $50 the cost of a new game.

Gold sellers notice I don't sell the apples just the ability to pick them so they set up a store outside my orchard and sell my apples the only thing I can do is fine them the $50 if I catch them or fine people I catch buying them the $50 and take away the apples.

But they sells thousands of apples lets say a $1 each so getting hit with $50 here and there doesn't hurt them and people with lots of money but no time to pick apples are willing to risk the fine.

Now let's use the Eve Online and wildstar example as the company I don't like them selling my apples rather then spend money finding them I go "I'll sell my own apples" so I set up a shop near theirs only with a bigger sign cause it's my orchard and I sell my apples for the price people wish to pay for them.

Here's the trick because I fine them when I catch them the gold sellers apples always cost a little more then mine cause they have to cover that cost when their price comes down mine comes down when theirs goes up mine goes up but always a little less cause I don't have a fine.

Now why would people risk a fine and having their apples taken away when I sell them for less no fine? and now the gold seller only sells a few dozen apples not thousands so each time I catch them the cost is huge.

But there are other orchards down the road like ESO who don't sell their apples just the ability to pick them how long do you think the gold seller will say at my orchard with that one down the road?

Before you try to claim it's a bad example or nit pick at it because you like ESO and don't want to think it's going to be a problem down the road know I like it too and hope so as well but the answer is still the same the orchard that sells it's own apples isn't a friendly place for gold sellers.

Mortelus wrote: »

I have noticed that farming bots no longer teleport but follow a set path and their names are no longer things like 'fhfhfhf'. I saw three the other day, one ran past, then a few seconds later another then another. I know they are bots because the each took the same path, jumped into some water then ran straight for the same tree.

I guess they have set pathways to run between nodes at the optimal distance/time.

You know, it's almost touching, it seems that behind the scenes ZOS have made some changes somewhere, maybe they finally managed to squelch at least some of the methods tele-bots used.

What we're seeing now is traditional 'pathing' bots, seen over the years in most MMOs .. it's because this is 'old' tech that ZOS clearly didn't bother thinking about building in anti-bot tools to detect this kind of thing from the outset.

KerinKor wrote: »

Mortelus wrote: »

I have noticed that farming bots no longer teleport but follow a set path and their names are no longer things like 'fhfhfhf'. I saw three the other day, one ran past, then a few seconds later another then another. I know they are bots because the each took the same path, jumped into some water then ran straight for the same tree.

I guess they have set pathways to run between nodes at the optimal distance/time.

You know, it's almost touching, it seems that behind the scenes ZOS have made some changes somewhere, maybe they finally managed to squelch at least some of the methods tele-bots used.

What we're seeing now is traditional 'pathing' bots, seen over the years in most MMOs .. it's because this is 'old' tech that ZOS clearly didn't bother thinking about building in anti-bot tools to detect this kind of thing from the outset.

Simple bots are simpler to make, they are also harder to catch client side with bot detection programs.
Downside it that they are easy to catch server side as their behavior stick out a lot. Simplest possible bot is probably an keyboard macro who clicks on an node and harvest it. This can be done on an advanced keyboard.
Can not be detected by client side software but can be caught by analyzing the log files.

Now an advanced bot is the wow battlefield bot who is pretty hopeless to catch as its sign up on random battlefields and fight while the player is afk.

No its not smart enough to win fights however you get some points also for losing the fight. As i understand it move towards enemies and attack them making it hard to differentiate from an very bad player, for an server side program it would be pretty hopeless, more so as its an active player who also play normally.

ZRage wrote: »

oldkye wrote: »

ZRage wrote: »

very bad example

Lol your still way off base and clearly just like arguing the PLEX can be bought for money but not converted back to money this isn't second life lol your acting under false assumptions as well that it's a two way street it isn't I played EVE online 10 years ago and I played it less then 10 months ago and a number of times in between in that time I have not seen a single solitary gold spammer, not in mail, not in chat, and not in a station I have not found a successful site and I have not see anything resembling a farmer.

You know the terms but have you played it? lol wow still has spammers, ESO clearly has spammers where are EVE's spammers?

Your example is very bad lol and has no information base ^.^

You assume there is no RMT just because there is no spam in game? LOL, just google it, RMT exist in EVE as much as in any other economy MMO. But yes they have some of the best anti-spamming tools in EVE.

"No its not smart enough to win fights however you get some points also for losing the fight. As i understand it move towards enemies and attack them making it hard to differentiate from an very bad player, for an server side program it would be pretty hopeless, more so as its an active player who also play normally."

This is main reason why the botting crap is going on in every MMO, it is either completly jokeish economy or everybody wins mechanic that allow them to earn more currency with a bot than real player.

Lol so your happy with a ton of spam as long as people can't buy time in game and your also ok with gold sellers taking money out of the companies pockets that they could be making themselves?

I can't argue with that your clearly in conciseness with the rest of the community *cough* the fact of the matter is that gold sellers will not make near, close, or even a fraction of the profit in games with in game time items saying you spent hundreds of hours to hunt down one in EVE does not equal thousands in other games that make incredible amounts of money lol.

Most common human fallacy "if I can find one exception they entire point is invalid" this is sadly very common though used for things like "since one child had adverse allergic reaction to a vaccines no children should take it." thus leaving millions at risk to certain death in order to avoid one or two getting sick you argue the same here you'd rather millions of spammers to avoid the risk that one or two might spam in spite of the precautions.

ZRage wrote: »

oldkye wrote: »

ZRage wrote: »

very bad example

Lol your still way off base and clearly just like arguing the PLEX can be bought for money but not converted back to money this isn't second life lol your acting under false assumptions as well that it's a two way street it isn't I played EVE online 10 years ago and I played it less then 10 months ago and a number of times in between in that time I have not seen a single solitary gold spammer, not in mail, not in chat, and not in a station I have not found a successful site and I have not see anything resembling a farmer.

You know the terms but have you played it? lol wow still has spammers, ESO clearly has spammers where are EVE's spammers?

Your example is very bad lol and has no information base ^.^

You assume there is no RMT just because there is no spam in game? LOL, just google it, RMT exist in EVE as much as in any other economy MMO. But yes they have some of the best anti-spamming tools in EVE.

"No its not smart enough to win fights however you get some points also for losing the fight. As i understand it move towards enemies and attack them making it hard to differentiate from an very bad player, for an server side program it would be pretty hopeless, more so as its an active player who also play normally."

This is main reason why the botting crap is going on in every MMO, it is either completly jokeish economy or everybody wins mechanic that allow them to earn more currency with a bot than real player.

For the battlefield bots its not about being more effective than an player its about grinding points while afk, similar to my node harvesting macro idea.
Assume respawn rate is 5 minutes or 12 each hour, if harvesting while I'm not playing can harvest 18 hour day who give me 216 resources day for almost no work.
(warning do not try this, high chance of getting trapped by anti bot search functions)

On the other hand I did never hear gold seller spam in WOW, but many sell wow gold.

Natjur wrote: »

Welcome to the 'grey area' where you can never be 100% sure if they are a zerg of real players farming, or bots. (besides the name of the toon which is a giveaway)

I was 'just' about to jump on you but you added the brackets :P

Yesterday I saw several odd bots in Stonefalls. A pair would camp one harvest node and the node would somehow re-spawn in a couple of seconds and they would just stand there harvesting over and over. There were several bot-pairs near Davon's Watch but I encountered a few scattered here and there in other areas of Stonefalls too. I always have time for botters, so I reported them all, of course.

TLDR there seems to be some kind of new bug or cheat with which they can make harvest nodes come back right away.