Who the hell pays for the bots

Pele · May 2014

Bhakura wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Cool. Call us back when you find that.

tell that to zenimax
And already found that, TSW has no bots, played it since closed beta, did every content times over, havent seen a single bot.

The only reason TSW has no bots is because the player population is low. If it had anywhere near the population ESO had, there would be bots and gold sellers. As it is, the botters and spammers don't care.

zaria · May 2014

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

This game is a huge gold sink mate.

So yeah , i can totally see who pays for the bots to keep farming 24/7.

Yes, compared to say WOW you have lots of up front gold sinks, starting the game with 250K gold would be beneficial. In WOW your only benefit would be that you could spend like an drunken sailor in the AH making the game a bit easier than leveling.

zaria · May 2014

Bhakura wrote: »

Talmet wrote: »

As for why it takes time, banning an individual bot is not all that helpful, it's nice & all..but much more useful is identifying an account that is using a bot & then tracking everything that account does so that ZOS's computer experts can figure out how to identify that bot program, so that they can automatically ban anyone who is using that bot program. (which happened for the first time in ESO a few weeks ago I think, which is why the teleporting node farming bots are basically gone).

So devs have no way to track a character to an account ... very believable. Or it takes ages to do so.
Took me 2 seconds to find this:
[Moderation note : Links edited]

And comparing real life crime hardly holds up, were talking about data running on their servers ffs, dont they have logs and stuff?

Makes me wonder how many of the bots are players and not gold farmers.
Much of the bots follow the exact same pattern something who points to gold sellers, also think players would be more careful and rater find an isolated place to farm.

Rajani Isa · May 2014

Bhakura wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

A paying sub is income and adds to the whole, bot accounts pay, the whole goes up, not down, they remove the bot accounts and the whole goes down. Its simple math.

Actually, it's not that simple. Credit card companies eventually find and reverse stolen charges, and no company like charge-backs.

starstruck · May 2014

Bhakura wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Cool. Call us back when you find that.

tell that to zenimax
And already found that, TSW has no bots, played it since closed beta, did every content times over, havent seen a single bot.

Actually in the early days of release, there were gold farmer spam, but the game population tank and since then there isn't anymore gold spam.

Talmet · May 2014

Bhakura wrote: »

Talmet wrote: »

As for why it takes time, banning an individual bot is not all that helpful, it's nice & all..but much more useful is identifying an account that is using a bot & then tracking everything that account does so that ZOS's computer experts can figure out how to identify that bot program, so that they can automatically ban anyone who is using that bot program. (which happened for the first time in ESO a few weeks ago I think, which is why the teleporting node farming bots are basically gone).

So devs have no way to track a character to an account ... very believable. Or it takes ages to do so.
Took me 2 seconds to find this:
[Moderation note : Links edited]

And comparing real life crime hardly holds up, were talking about data running on their servers ffs, dont they have logs and stuff?

The point with me pointing out real life crime, is that people who are breaking the rules will always find a way to let them break the rules. And many real life crimes now-a-days are, in least in part, internet crimes (i.e. identity thefts, bank/credit card database hacks, etc...) Are their logs for them? Sure there are...but those online crimes keep happening anyway.

As for tracking the account of characters. You aren't understanding this...so I'll spell it out even clearer for you.
1) Yes, they can track a characters account.
2) They aren't focused on banning individual accounts, it's something they do of course, but it isn't their ultimate goal. (if it is, then they fail, as bot runners can just buy new accounts).
3) Their goal is to figure out a way to stop EVERY account that is using that individual bot program.
4) As you found out, bot programs are pretty easy to find online (and I hope you have a good virus scanner running btw). So, if there are say...1,000 people running the bot you found at hackerbot.net Waiting till each and everyone of them is found & banned is going to be long process (especially, as after an account gets banned, the person just buys a new account and the total population of people using that bot program won't have changed). The goal is to figure out a way to make that bot program not work at all.

As for having the bot programs...yeah, being able to detect that someone is using one is not the same thing. ZOS can't run a separate program that searches through your entire computer while you are playing & looks for bot programs (well, they could...but they'd be liable for invasion of privacy lawsuits if they did).

Instead, they have to figure out how that bot program interacts with the ESO program & find some way to identify the bot program just from those interactions. Of course they have logs, which is why it's important to report every bot you see (that way, they have more data to use)...

As I implied above, bot programs are made by hackers. And being annoyed that hackers haven't been eliminated from the internet is kind of silly (I wish they were too, but it isn't going to happen).

lioslinn · May 2014

This video helps illustrate the whole market

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvHcoqru7I

Alurria · May 2014

Talmet wrote: »

Bhakura wrote: »

Talmet wrote: »

As for why it takes time, banning an individual bot is not all that helpful, it's nice & all..but much more useful is identifying an account that is using a bot & then tracking everything that account does so that ZOS's computer experts can figure out how to identify that bot program, so that they can automatically ban anyone who is using that bot program. (which happened for the first time in ESO a few weeks ago I think, which is why the teleporting node farming bots are basically gone).

So devs have no way to track a character to an account ... very believable. Or it takes ages to do so.
Took me 2 seconds to find this:
bot program
another
one more

And comparing real life crime hardly holds up, were talking about data running on their servers ffs, dont they have logs and stuff?

The point with me pointing out real life crime, is that people who are breaking the rules will always find a way to let them break the rules. And many real life crimes now-a-days are, in least in part, internet crimes (i.e. identity thefts, bank/credit card database hacks, etc...) Are their logs for them? Sure there are...but those online crimes keep happening anyway.

As for tracking the account of characters. You aren't understanding this...so I'll spell it out even clearer for you.
1) Yes, they can track a characters account.
2) They aren't focused on banning individual accounts, it's something they do of course, but it isn't their ultimate goal. (if it is, then they fail, as bot runners can just buy new accounts).
3) Their goal is to figure out a way to stop EVERY account that is using that individual bot program.
4) As you found out, bot programs are pretty easy to find online (and I hope you have a good virus scanner running btw). So, if there are say...1,000 people running the bot you found at hackerbot.net Waiting till each and everyone of them is found & banned is going to be long process (especially, as after an account gets banned, the person just buys a new account and the total population of people using that bot program won't have changed). The goal is to figure out a way to make that bot program not work at all.

As for having the bot programs...yeah, being able to detect that someone is using one is not the same thing. ZOS can't run a separate program that searches through your entire computer while you are playing & looks for bot programs (well, they could...but they'd be liable for invasion of privacy lawsuits if they did).

Instead, they have to figure out how that bot program interacts with the ESO program & find some way to identify the bot program just from those interactions. Of course they have logs, which is why it's important to report every bot you see (that way, they have more data to use)...

As I implied above, bot programs are made by hackers. And being annoyed that hackers haven't been eliminated from the internet is kind of silly (I wish they were too, but it isn't going to happen).

This makes sense to me, nice explanation.

Utildai · May 2014

Psychoke wrote: »

We all know by now that there are shittons of bots in this game,
but my question is
Who the hell pays for the bots? I havent met a single person who either has an insane amount of money or even needs money that bad (ingame money that is). I've searched around on the RWT sites and they all have *** prices and i think even people who consider it get turned down by that! So who is keeping the tens of thousands of bots alive? who is paying for them? aren't we a mature community that doesnt RWT?

Over seas companies pay for their accounts...

Cogo · May 2014

Rev Rielle wrote: »

They often use someone else's hacked account.

Ultimately though it is your fellow player that pays for these bots by supporting and buying from the gold sellers. So if you want someone to blame, blame them. If there wasn't a niche they (Gold Sellers etc) wouldn't exploit it.

Yep!

It's amazing how many people dont realize that they problem isnt really the bots....its the fools who buy from their sites.

Stop buying gold and goldsellers/bots will ALMOST be none existant,

Dont believe for a second that Goldseller will stay in a game they get not customers from.

Cogo · May 2014

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

This game is a huge gold sink mate.

So yeah , i can totally see who pays for the bots to keep farming 24/7.

Sorry, you are wrong. ESO is not a goldsink. Its a game that makes you work for your gold, and then choose what to spend it on.

ESO is NOT built to as fast as possible get to level 50, missing pretty much everything in the game.

ESO is built on explore, choices in all kinds of manners, all from bagspace, gold, who to interact with, what to do.

Funny how some people can have a gold and some dont. I dare to bet that those with little gold (At mid to high level) simply chooses to lets say buy tradeskill mats For all 6 tradeskills

Sure, you can do that, but then you do not have money for the other thing you wanted, or 3d.

I am GLAD there is not bloody AH. Interaction and trading goes on all the time. Its up to YOU, the player, how you earn gold if that is one of your goals :-)

Myself, I spare every single gold to buy bag space and bank space. I dont have gold to buy other stuff, BUT, my bagspace and bank space grows and thats what I choose to do.

Goldsink. No. ESO just isnt like wow, where you get gold just by farting....