Botters are well aware of how phasing works in ESO. I'd post more information, but mods would think I was advertising.

There's literally hundreds of them streaming in from the wayshrine in Windhelm.. it's constant, just sat here for 15 minutes watching and I'd guess somewhere pushing towards 1000 of them have passed by.. there's like 4 spawning every 3 seconds! LOL it's completely FUBAR!

Wow, was just about to buy ten copies of game intil I saw this. First mmo in 10 years I didn't pre-order due to beta issues and was hoping issues would be ironed out after five weeks. Watch that video of the 41 bots in 5 mins and wow how can they allow this to happen. Not only is it unfair to normal players( resource gathering) but inflates ingame prices. Guess I'll wait another month to see if they will address the bot issues. To bad as a guild we decided to move to ESO but will need to rethink move after reading the bot issue.

They need to make the need for gold lessened. Make mobs and quests drop 10x the gold they do now and halve the repair costs.

GreySix wrote: »

Botters are well aware of how phasing works in ESO. I'd post more information, but mods would think I was advertising.

I don't think they thought it was advertising, Grey. With the name of the bot, it'd be trivial for someone here to go and search for where the bot is being sold....

...of course, it's trivially easy with Google anyway. =P And it's helpful to know the capabilities of the bot as you enumerated them. This is a pretty elaborate piece of code with a lot of options. It also shows just how much the ESO client is trusted by the server. That may be a bit of a black mark which is what some of the higher-ups are wanting to conceal. I for one want to thank you for sharing that information since it underlines a lot of things.

I'm pretty sure ZOS has learned its lesson, however -- never trust the client, or rather trust the client as little as possible, when it is on an open platform. The long delay in dealing with this is probably because they're rewriting the client and service from almost the ground up so that there's more of the heavy lifting and verification done serverside -- for example, instead of the client telling the server "I'm here! Now I'm here (underground)! Now I'm here (flying over Riften)!" and the server going "Okay... okay... uh, okay...." They now have to set things up so that the client says "I'm here... I'm here, going in this direction at a walk... Oh, now I'm up here in the sky about a thousand meters away in one second!" and the server replies "Okay... okay... HAHAHAH I don't think so dropConnection(0,<$botname>,"jerkbot");"

Now... rewriting an MMO client and service, and the database infrastructure? Nontrivial. That's months of work. I'll be very (if pleasantly) surprised if they get it done and tested and in something resembling ready-for-primetime in the next month. In the meantime, they probably decided that having the bots run rampant and some players being able to play/quest would be better than taking the servers offline for however long it takes.

ETA: Alternatively, and rather cruelly, they're at the same time seeing who's buying from the goldsellers so once the bots are crippled, and they're able to get enough data on the flow of gold from bot to collector to seller to player, they start to arm the banhammers. Yeah, I know, but a guy can dream, can't I?

felixgamingx1 wrote: »

Are the bots really bothering us? We don't even have a general AH, guild stores lack content... What are they inflating? I think it's just psychological for the most part I honestly only noticed bots in public dungeons a few times.

No they're not bothering us at all. All these threads are just for sillies.

/sarcasm

Marthanna wrote: »

Chirru wrote: »

ZOS deafening silence on the topic says it all. They have not even truly acknowledged there is a problem. At least I have seen no official statement to the fact.

Yes, a few band-aid procedures have been halfheartedly applied. This uncanny silence however ( in me) awakens the suspicion that; either ZOS has no clue what to do, or that they are unwilling to have the game undergo massive surgery.

There is no daub that successfully getting rid of the Bots will mean the loss of potentially tens-of- thousands of accounts and consequently the loss of revenue.

Right now I tend to think (just my opinion and money talking) only if more revenue gets lost by players leaving the game because of the Bots then revenue is generated by keeping the bots, things will change.

Agreed. I've never seen one thread on this subject answered to by a GM. Not one. I just think they're okay with it, the gold sites pay for the accounts (w stolen credit cards) so ZOS still makes money.

They actually lose money when the card is charged back.

I'm not going to argue with the I don't see bots people, I will just decide to not believe them.

The bots are a real issue. At this time the few GMs in game can in no way handle this by having to type each individual name of the bots. Just in for a few hours is not correct this infestation that has gotten out of control, simply because Zenimax didn't think this infestation would come into their game, so they had no remedy right from the start. Then they waited way too long to acknowledge the many MMO players telling them they had an issue of bots.

I am sorry, but Zenimax invited these bots to their game. The way this wishy-wash economy in this game is (I'm not sure what the heck to call it at this point).
Everything is expensive..simply everything. The income of gold is low and slow. Then let's talk about gear decay. No auction house, they spanked the players with lowering drops even more.

With the sheer number of bots, you know there are players out there buying like crazy, because they don't want to deal with the so-called economy. I am not saying I side with them, I am showing the problem on one point.

There are things Zenimax can do:
Ban gold buyers.
Make things easier to get.
Bring down your overly priced crap in all vendors.
Fix gear decay.
Lower upgrades on bags and bank.
Fix loot drops where mobs actually drop gold and/or loot worth gold.

You claim to be handling the bot issue (Talking about gold seller bots), but are you taking hardcore steps to prevent this out of control train. You should not rely on customers that pay you money to report bots with time consuming clunky report system. Will it cost you money? Most likely, but losing many subs will hurt worst, and I'm sorry you aren't Blizzard that can afford to lose a mass of subs. Seems most your subs are bots at times. When I literally watched 100s of bots spawn in a few places.

The way this is going I am going to win my bet with a friend about this going straight to F2P before the year is out. And that will be win-win for me. Because I can then convince my fiancé to return to WoW when the new expansion comes out.

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I don't know what happened but in Stormhaven after today's regular maintenance bots are pouring in. Lot's of ajsha ajkah ehewi awuw akwha, you get the point. They are all following the same path and then enter the Sewers group dungeon in Wayrest.

Maybe some type of name verification is needed? Like no characters created using short random letter names.

They bandaid fixed the Coldharbour quest (allowed you to get gold with no effort in 2-3 minutes, without fighting).

The bots just moved on to other quests they can do the same thing with, and this is the result.

A REAL FIX is to limit character deletions to like 2 per day, with additional ones being behind an email access code, ala the you get when accessing from a new computer.

Real players don't constantly delete characters, so the limit wouldn't impact any of us, but would totally screw up the botters who are just making a character, running it through this one quest and deleting it.

Further, players could just enable more deletions via the access code, while botters wouldn't be able to keep up with it.

you are incorrect. i am a real player and, when i'm creating a character, i will repeatedly delete and reroll it until it feels "right" to me. this delete window you speak of is yet another bandaid and if you think they won't find a way around it, think again. the problem must be fixed at the source, not with game-changing mechanisms that are going to royally *** of a lot of players. cuz guess what? i'm in a guild full of folk just like me.

Free to play games get rid of botters better than this..

Isende wrote: »

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I don't know what happened but in Stormhaven after today's regular maintenance bots are pouring in. Lot's of ajsha ajkah ehewi awuw akwha, you get the point. They are all following the same path and then enter the Sewers group dungeon in Wayrest.

Maybe some type of name verification is needed? Like no characters created using short random letter names.

They bandaid fixed the Coldharbour quest (allowed you to get gold with no effort in 2-3 minutes, without fighting).

The bots just moved on to other quests they can do the same thing with, and this is the result.

A REAL FIX is to limit character deletions to like 2 per day, with additional ones being behind an email access code, ala the you get when accessing from a new computer.

Real players don't constantly delete characters, so the limit wouldn't impact any of us, but would totally screw up the botters who are just making a character, running it through this one quest and deleting it.

Further, players could just enable more deletions via the access code, while botters wouldn't be able to keep up with it.

you are incorrect. i am a real player and, when i'm creating a character, i will repeatedly delete and reroll it until it feels "right" to me. this delete window you speak of is yet another bandaid and if you think they won't find a way around it, think again. the problem must be fixed at the source, not with game-changing mechanisms that are going to royally *** of a lot of players. cuz guess what? i'm in a guild full of folk just like me.

This is what I love the most. People not willing to sacrifice any convenience, people that don't bring anything to the table, and people who destroy other's suggestions without having an alternative.

Guess what? I find this a great idea. Make it delete 8 characters a day. Is this enough for our royal princess?

Because they can either go and identify each and every quest one by one that can be abused, or they give this limitation.

I think it is a great idea and not doing it will *** ME off. Zenimax has lost the battlefield. They are not going to win it back by playing fair.

Why not IP ban the bots?

Thalmar wrote: »

I ... I left wow after 7 years only because of bots were everywhere, i hope i would not need to leave ESO also, because this is not looking good at all.

Really? I still play WoW and I cant say Ive seen a bot in ages. Maybe they have gotten clever and don't show up as much or something, but I cant recall the last time I saw one.

Blackwolfe5 wrote: »

I played wow for 3.5 years. Apart from the dead bot corpses spelling out goldselling sites in stormwind, I think I encountered 2-3 bots in total. Met a few old-school goldfarmers though, meaning people that actually played the game to make gold to sell.

I use to laugh at the bots spelling out their name in the main town (Org for me). And I would snicker at how imitative they got like spelling their site out in the air. It was more amusing because in all seriousness the gold sellers didn't affect my game play in any way. I found them amusing and then would whisper a GM as others did. It seriously never bothered my game, because you had the Elite players and the Gold sellers fighting over the auction.

I had a few alts that could make sweet gear and then my main who is cap. She bought all my alts their mounts in every style. She sent them all a good bit of gold. In other words she/I didn't need gold. I was rewarded for my questing and the drops paid well as well. I always sold cheap in the auction house and let the Elite and gold sellers carry on their war over auction prices. Reason I am explaining is because WoW's bots never really hurt my playing their game. Never.

The gold sellers are hurting this game, because how Zenimax did the economy (still don't even know if that is the right word, since it is so ducked up). And to fix this problem of gold sellers and their bots. They are going to have to step up, spend some money, and hire people that know what they are doing. As of now? The bots own this game.

CombatBeard wrote: »

After the inn, they head to the stables and then to the alley between the inn and the mages guild and die.

http://youtu.be/9Pck7i7hshc

Video by ElChristo
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/97713/surely-they-can-easily-detect-these-bots

Should have used the benny hill music can you blame these bots.. really, Zenimax really has allowed them to take over and the games mechanics really promote them..