Is Anyone Assembling the Ban Data?

[ZipZap]

Just curious, is anyone at Bossland assembling the ban data to try to shed some light on the situation? The forums are filling up with lots of valuable data pertaining to this event. We need to, as a botting community, come together with our experiences and develop some sort of conclusion based on analysis of this ban data.

Example:
-------------------
1) It seems some people were online currently botting when it happened, some got ported, some dc'd. Some people were online, but not botting. Some people were offline when it happened. Some people haven't botted in months.
1.a) This would imply that its not closing accounts upon automatic Warden detection (if Warden detection at all).

2) People were using a variety of the bots, Lazyraider/Questing/BGbuddy/Professionsbuddy, and more...
2.a) Does this imply that we are in fact being detected by Warden as opposed to visual detection by GM. Questing/BGbuddy/Profession buddy have similar pathing, easily visually detectable. Lazyraider w/out movement has no visual detection at all IMO, and has to be Warden detect, unless your 'following the tank' , in which case that looks pretty obvious and is a visual detect. But doubtful they put a GM in every dungeon and LFR group to search for that, so again Warden detect?
------------------

The following is my opinion only, don't let it detract from the above suggestion. I find it hard to believe that a corporation that takes in $4,000,000,000/yr (yes billion) couldn't come up with the resources to (Warden)detect a $20 bot. Whether their detecting with warden, or visual GM detection, they are not banning immediately upon detection. Therefore, they have a Database full of botting account names. If its Warden, then were all in the database. If its visual detection, then most of us are in it, and those that are not, will be because its easy to spot a botter...every botter knows that. Therefore, its safe to assume, that either thru Warden or thru visual detection, we will all be in their database at some point, probably sooner than later.

The banning does appear to be a random lottery of accounts, new to old, 1 toon to 20 toons, raiders, questers, bg'ers, gold farmers, across all servers, and to include people who have and have not sold gold/items, ect... I got 1 account banned, and i do the same exact thing across multiple accounts, and have friends that do the same as well that never got banned in this event. Therefore, how lucky do you feel? Haven't gotten anything from your LFR failbag in a month?

This begs the question; if botting is against their EULA, why are then not banning upon detection? I believe several people already indicated this in the forum. Blizz does need to weigh the impact of bans on their bottom line against the QQ of paid subscribers. Shareholders don't care about botters, they care about the fiscal performance of Activision/Blizzard. If subscribers didn't QQ, we wouldn't be banned, as a matter of fiscal benefit, larger subscriber base. If botters started up HB and got ported/closed, or the whole community got banned at once, then they probably wouldn't purchase another copy, re-up a new subscription. Ban 15% at a time, will 80% of them will buy another account for $35 and carry on? Negligible revenue loss?

Be it visual or Warden detection, are we not getting banned on detection because we benefit Blizzard's bottom line, their shareholder value, their stock price? Do we get banned occasionally because people QQ enough, and threaten to cancel enough, Blizz wants to 'illustrate' to these people that they 'take botting seriously'?...apparently not as serious as their bottom line, but serious enough that we don't want you canceling because of a bot?...here you go we closed down a bunch!!! (but they re-upped with new accounts/subs). Is Blizz satisfying both users, in an effort to capture both markets?

I don't believe that anyone here can bot undetected...whether its Warden or visual. All a GM needs to do is use the bot for a few days, they'll be able to find the miner/herber herp-derping to land over a node, a professionbuddy milling/jc'ing/AH'ing at the same place in SW all the time, a BGbot, a Lazyraider on follow...u name your flavor.

And lastly, back to the main point, are we being detected by Warden?
Are we being visually detected?
Do we have any evidence to support one or the other?

 

[Goo44]

Someone had to do this post. Some of us may even volunteer to help gather the data and categorize them although I am sure the staff will have some better solutions.

One thing is sure, the given data must be assembled and analyzed, if we want to have any near_to_the_reality idea of what's happening.

 

[Ak2013]

The botting community isn't a determinant factor on the share prices. Blizzard trades under "Activision", and this company deals with many game lines not just PC gaming, their is also PS3, Xbox 360 and etc. Also the $15 per month, doesn't go directly to their pockets, but is expensed as a good chunk to customer services, one of them being banning botters. The real increase in share price comes from the sales of copy of games. The reality is this, you got banned for exploiting the economy.

Blizzard has simply decided to increase user experience based on the ability to enjoy the game, if you bot your defeating the purpose of the game. Think of the game "Monopoly", if you stole money from the bank, then you clearly haven't earned it and have an advantage over others in the game. Now gold is the main form of currency; by botting your either going too A) spend gold on new gear, and be the best player or B) sell the gold, which will be bought by other players for the same purposes as the first one.

Blizzard has just taken this rule more seriously, as a way of getting back to the user experience and real gamers. Are you mad; well to bad deal with it, because this is the life of a botter. In reality if you didn't bot, prices would probably be a lot higher for goods, but because their are so many it has inflated the market. What botters have done is ruin the time-frame of games. The botters farm the goods, and sells for dirt cheap, this means people get more stuff done over short period. Blizzard wants to prevent new content from being old over 1-2 months. Technically it should last a lot longer. Think about the timings of new expansions, they have gotten shorter, and botters have increased. This all part of the user experience.

If your mad, or want to figure this out then go right ahead. Their is no solution, the reality is just to continue playing and hope you dont get banned. Blizzard probably knows every botter, but won't ban them all, just for a legal reasoning. Its your responsibility to make sure you don't get caught, and the only victim is Blizzard when you get banned, not the player who botted.

I personally feel, Chinese Farmers are the bottom feeders of society. If you sell gold, for money and make a living then don't post on this forum, complaining of your lost accounts, because clearly it was going to happen. The game isn't a get rich scheme. Work hard, and get a real job, then plan 25 years for what ever you want and earn it slowly. I sense 90% of those that bot this way and get banned are posting on forums, because they are short of cash

To the average botters who use it to get gear or raid faster. This is a fine way of botting, the way in my opinion it should only be done, simply keep it safe.

 

[mudplayerx]

There is no banwave. There is no warden update. there is no "situation." Put away your tinfoil hats people.

 

[ArfDogUser]

Just curious, is anyone at Bossland assembling the ban data to try to shed some light on the situation? The forums are filling up with lots of valuable data pertaining to this event. We need to, as a botting community, come together with our experiences and develop some sort of conclusion based on analysis of this ban data.

Example:
-------------------
1) It seems some people were online currently botting when it happened, some got ported, some dc'd. Some people were online, but not botting. Some people were offline when it happened. Some people haven't botted in months.
1.a) This would imply that its not closing accounts upon automatic Warden detection (if Warden detection at all).

2) People were using a variety of the bots, Lazyraider/Questing/BGbuddy/Professionsbuddy, and more...
2.a) Does this imply that we are in fact being detected by Warden as opposed to visual detection by GM. Questing/BGbuddy/Profession buddy have similar pathing, easily visually detectable. Lazyraider w/out movement has no visual detection at all IMO, and has to be Warden detect, unless your 'following the tank' , in which case that looks pretty obvious and is a visual detect. But doubtful they put a GM in every dungeon and LFR group to search for that, so again Warden detect?
------------------

The following is my opinion only, don't let it detract from the above suggestion. I find it hard to believe that a corporation that takes in $4,000,000,000/yr (yes billion) couldn't come up with the resources to (Warden)detect a $20 bot. Whether their detecting with warden, or visual GM detection, they are not banning immediately upon detection. Therefore, they have a Database full of botting account names. If its Warden, then were all in the database. If its visual detection, then most of us are in it, and those that are not, will be because its easy to spot a botter...every botter knows that. Therefore, its safe to assume, that either thru Warden or thru visual detection, we will all be in their database at some point, probably sooner than later.

The banning does appear to be a random lottery of accounts, new to old, 1 toon to 20 toons, raiders, questers, bg'ers, gold farmers, across all servers, and to include people who have and have not sold gold/items, ect... I got 1 account banned, and i do the same exact thing across multiple accounts, and have friends that do the same as well that never got banned in this event. Therefore, how lucky do you feel? Haven't gotten anything from your LFR failbag in a month?

This begs the question; if botting is against their EULA, why are then not banning upon detection? I believe several people already indicated this in the forum. Blizz does need to weigh the impact of bans on their bottom line against the QQ of paid subscribers. Shareholders don't care about botters, they care about the fiscal performance of Activision/Blizzard. If subscribers didn't QQ, we wouldn't be banned, as a matter of fiscal benefit, larger subscriber base. If botters started up HB and got ported/closed, or the whole community got banned at once, then they probably wouldn't purchase another copy, re-up a new subscription. Ban 15% at a time, will 80% of them will buy another account for $35 and carry on? Negligible revenue loss?

Be it visual or Warden detection, are we not getting banned on detection because we benefit Blizzard's bottom line, their shareholder value, their stock price? Do we get banned occasionally because people QQ enough, and threaten to cancel enough, Blizz wants to 'illustrate' to these people that they 'take botting seriously'?...apparently not as serious as their bottom line, but serious enough that we don't want you canceling because of a bot?...here you go we closed down a bunch!!! (but they re-upped with new accounts/subs). Is Blizz satisfying both users, in an effort to capture both markets?

I don't believe that anyone here can bot undetected...whether its Warden or visual. All a GM needs to do is use the bot for a few days, they'll be able to find the miner/herber herp-derping to land over a node, a professionbuddy milling/jc'ing/AH'ing at the same place in SW all the time, a BGbot, a Lazyraider on follow...u name your flavor.

And lastly, back to the main point, are we being detected by Warden?
Are we being visually detected?
Do we have any evidence to support one or the other?

the business side of your comments is dead on. My view has long been that botting is tolerated by A/B management and that if dev's had their way, every major bot out there would have long been squashed. bans on the scale of glider are not going to happen under this parent company. I suspect the only reason the pirox aRCH. ban happened as was is because blizzard was able to produce 100% beyond any doubt evidence that it was a bot, meeting what I suspect were fairly high internal standards of proof. As you note, a multi-billion dollar corporation can detect anything they want - their resources which they can dedicate to this are functionally unlimited vs. the scope of the issue. It is management which has held the leash against serious anti-bot action. for whatever reason (most likely also dealing with money in their projections of the impact of the current stuff), this has changed.

incremental bans = confusion on this forum and lots of box re-buys initially. does anyone seroiusly think the 35$ deal starting when this did was a coincidence? I would assume most of their new box sales are botters replacing accoutns anyways - botters ARE the primary new account sale market.

 

[mudplayerx]

the business side of your comments is dead on. My view has long been that botting is tolerated by A/B management and that if dev's had their way, every major bot out there would have long been squashed. bans on the scale of glider are not going to happen under this parent company. I suspect the only reason the pirox aRCH. ban happened as was is because blizzard was able to produce 100% beyond any doubt evidence that it was a bot, meeting what I suspect were fairly high internal standards of proof. As you note, a multi-billion dollar corporation can detect anything they want - their resources which they can dedicate to this are functionally unlimited vs. the scope of the issue. It is management which has held the leash against serious anti-bot action. for whatever reason (most likely also dealing with money in their projections of the impact of the current stuff), this has changed.

incremental bans = confusion on this forum and lots of box re-buys initially. does anyone seroiusly think the 35$ deal starting when this did was a coincidence? I would assume most of their new box sales are botters replacing accoutns anyways - botters ARE the primary new account sale market.

Blizzard cannot scan your memory outside of it's products. To do so would get them sued and probably shut down for invasion of privacy issues. This presents warden with a huge disadvantage when trying to detect bots.

 

[standza]

There is no banwave. There is no warden update. there is no "situation." Put away your tinfoil hats people.

Well actualy there is allways banwave. Blizzard allways ban in waves. Banwaves is when they are cleaning servers from RAF users, bots and other. So Banwave is allways here it is just matter of time. When I say BANWAVE, I mean on mass bans, and that is a way how Blizzard clean servers from malicious users. That is nothing new. Blizzard was DETCTED US! Yes they was detected us... But that was since WOTLOK they detect us botters. What they detected nowdays? They detected that you spend days, weeks, month in Jade Forest only farming. You dont have even HC gear and you are farm for a month? Dou you realy think that is rocked science to detect that? I Can have 100 accounts like that. I can pay 100 hb and 100 wow acc and just press START on HB. And what? How long that gona take?

A hammer is a tool. I know many people who have used the tool as a hammer and got rich. I've got a hammer, but I'm not rich. Honorbuddy is also a tool!

 

[ArfDogUser]

Blizzard cannot scan your memory outside of it's products. To do so would get them sued and probably shut down for invasion of privacy issues. This presents warden with a huge disadvantage when trying to detect bots.

granting this, I still see no reason why a company with 4 billion dollars in annual revenue, including over a billion from this game alone, cannot develop tools with a VERY high degree of accuracy in detection of certain aspects of HB (e.g. gatherbuddy). All that said, I find some of the recent ban reports interesting in that they are banning people who are using hb in a way you would expect to be fairly difficult to detect (e.g. early questing, dungeonbuddy/lazyraider supervised, etc).

 

[webhond]

granting this, I still see no reason why a company with 4 billion dollars in annual revenue, including over a billion from this game alone, cannot develop tools with a VERY high degree of accuracy in detection of certain aspects of HB (e.g. gatherbuddy). All that said, I find some of the recent ban reports interesting in that they are banning people who are using hb in a way you would expect to be fairly difficult to detect (e.g. early questing, dungeonbuddy/lazyraider supervised, etc).

this indeed, they are deffo tracking some aspects of the bot, people who think otherwise are just ignorant.

But hey, sales.. patch.. all reasons to do this eh? Yes there have always been bans, yes when hb would have been detected
way more would be here, the bot ISNT detected, but some aspects of it clearly are. So no, there have not been so many bans
in such short time on reasons wich are close to nothing. Wich clearly makes it a detectable thing, whatever it is they know.

If your still botting now and value your account, dont. Untill at least this blows over or is dealth with properly.

 

[mudplayerx]

this indeed, they are deffo tracking some aspects of the bot, people who think otherwise are just ignorant.

But hey, sales.. patch.. all reasons to do this eh? Yes there have always been bans, yes when hb would have been detected
way more would be here, the bot ISNT detected, but some aspects of it clearly are. So no, there have not been so many bans
in such short time on reasons wich are close to nothing. Wich clearly makes it a detectable thing, whatever it is they know.

If your still botting now and value your account, dont. Untill at least this blows over or is dealth with properly.

Once again, nonsense that is doing nothing but promoting fear and the spread of nonsense. If you got banned, you got reported by another player.

Nobody detected you. Warden didn't detect you. A GM didn't detect you. Do you really think they have the manpower or the money or the desire to police the individual actions of 9 million people playing? The suggestion of that is just ridiculous.

 

[virtual]

The only Response i have seen from HB about these bans is basically PICS or didnt happen. Horrible attitude about the amount of bans that have been happening.

 

[HipDrahve]

Once again, nonsense that is doing nothing but promoting fear and the spread of nonsense. If you got banned, you got reported by another player.

Nobody detected you. Warden didn't detect you. A GM didn't detect you. Do you really think they have the manpower or the money or the desire to police the individual actions of 9 million people playing? The suggestion of that is just ridiculous.

the suggestion that software by a small company could not/is not detected by a many times larger company's software is ridiculous. If you can write a bot to find herbs why can't you write a bot to find bots?

 

[kreljo555]

So many bans happened in these past few weeks was because they just planned to clean out the ppl on their SHIT list( which im sure they gathered it for months) while the cheap sale for Wow was on. Remember ppl, Blizzard cares only about money and im sure the banned botters who bought cheap accounts after were the ones blizzards mind was set on for more money in their pockets. That is how it explains the mass banning right at this time which is no coincidence.
There may be a bot detection or not but im sure Blizzard will just note you on the shit list and wait for the chance of scoring easy money like they did these past few weeks.

 

[HipDrahve]

So many bans happened in these past few weeks was because they just planned to clean out the ppl on their SHIT list( which im sure they gathered it for months) while the cheap sale for Wow was on. Remember ppl, Blizzard cares only about money and im sure the banned botters who bought cheap accounts after were the ones blizzards mind was set on for more money in their pockets. That is how it explains the mass banning right at this time which is no coincidence.
There may be a bot detection or not but im sure Blizzard will just note you on the shit list and wait for the chance of scoring easy money like they did these past few weeks.

How do you explain fresh accounts with no possible player reports getting banned near-instantly? I have had five level 10s questing permabanned.

 

[kreljo555]

Well i was talking about a mass ban, but i do think that the Ip addresses which have been found to be that of ppl with 10+ bots are maybe different of those normal botters which are expected to not make a living off of it and thus less inclined to re-buy the lost accounts. But hey i just threw my 2 cents. To Blizzard botters are quite a big income of money so im guessing they have their own logic wrapped around this XD

 

[mudplayerx]

the suggestion that software by a small company could not/is not detected by a many times larger company's software is ridiculous. If you can write a bot to find herbs why can't you write a bot to find bots?

I never suggested that. I suggested that there are legal boundaries on what an online company can scan in your memory. It's the same thing if the cops came to your house, busted down your door and did a search without a warrant because they "had a hunch" that you had illegal guns inside. Doesn't matter what they find because the search was done illegally. Blizzard isn't stupid. They are going to get sued for breaking the fourth amendment because they want to ban your bot.


edit - People, please stop using the term "mass ban" and "banwave." Neither of these things are happening. Neither of these things has happened in a long long time. You will notice huge changes when a banwave happens. Most noticeable is the price increase on everything for sale in the AH.

 

[IliketobotWow]

Count me in a a ban victim using GB and a multizone public profile on a US server

 

[chtpm]

There is no ban wave they are just banning everyone that bots

 

[HipDrahve]

There is no ban wave they are just banning everyone that bots

haha the difference being?

 

[frosticus]

i dont know what problems you have been having, this bot is perfectly safe. as long as you dont use it dumb... or use it to quest... or use it to farm in pandaria... or try to fish with it... oh and dont even think about using it to run a battleground... and im pretty sure the professionbuddy 1-600 gathering profile is borked... dk starting area quests...

but all of that is the profiles not the bot... because the bot is perfectly safe... after all, its undetectable.