Scared to bot

[Azathoth1]

I have been botting for years, and I have never had this many accounts recieve 72 hour bans, and 1 closed. So far I have had 12 accounts suspended, and 1 closed, that is 13 accounts. 3 of those accounts I have bought specifically to test if we are being detected. The first vanilla account, I created and activated from my ip address, I made an alliance character and booted up kicks noob profile. Withing 15 minutes of using the latest HB with no plugins save refreshment detection and bug reporter I was suspended. Account 2, was created at a friends, different ISP completely, made the account, alliance, again kicks profile, it was banned at level 45, a couple days into botting. The third account was made on the same computer, and suspended within an hour. So 60 dollars + tax later, I had recieved 3 suspended accounts. Now my conclusion is this. They are flagging IP addresses, and accounts being run from said ip addresses are being looked over by a really bored gm. This said, All of my other accounts were suspended and banned from my ip except the other two. The first one at a friends went strong, grinding, and ended up being flagged (X amount of mobs or reports, it was being botted for 12 hours a day). The next one was suspended within an hour.

If anyone else has done testing to help this theory let me know.

Also heres a kicker. My buddy was hand farming herbs on his 85 fury warr in twilight and he was suspended 3 hours into his farming runs (He was alternating heroic queues with farming). He has never botted and never will but I used his IP address. Which he is now trying to get a lease release on it so he can farm again.

 

[no1knowsy]

That sucks man. Thanks for the investment on the Blizzard Detection (PUN?)... Very probable that once an IP is flagged they have an automated system that says, hey, new account here, and a GM just looks into the logs.
I haven't received even a warning on my accounts, but they are all over 4 years old... but I can have them logged in for around 20 hours a day, about 10-14hr farming, then the rest me just playing them for fun.
I know if I do get any kind of notice from blizz the first thing I'll do is disconnect my modem, call the ISP and have them force me a new lease. Done it before to stop people attacking my router.

 

[Anonuzer01]

I've been running my bot account 12-20 hours a day, every other day, using GB. On the farming off days, I've been doing the same 12-20 hour schedule leveling toons with HB. However, I'm only using questing profiles so far. I'm still a firm believer that player reports are the most dangerous thing to a botter. Once your account or ip gets Blizzards attention, it's a no brainer that they could/might/would monitor the IP for further suspicious activity.

I just think griding profiles are extremely dangerous unlesss they move from one hotspot to another frequently and change location often. If I run out of questing profiles to use I'll be writing my own grind profiles that do such.

Sorry for your loss mate and it wouldn't surprise me if your theory is true. The key to getting around that being not to do anything that brings attention to your account/ip in the first place, which is hard enough to do even hand playing. *shrug*

Be kind of ironic if Blizzard starts banning hand farmers for their "repetitive actions over long periods of time".

 

[Azathoth1]

Unfortunately my ISP's tech department must be a white hat gamer since he will not give me a new lease (He even said that its to keep people from avoiding just site bans/game bans). So I have to wait out the lease, and sometimes even when the lease expires they give me the same ip just with a new lease period.

 

[zavis]

Well. thats kinda the reason why i dont bot right now. Going to lay low. and se what happends..

 

[ordy]

Unfortunately my ISP's tech department must be a white hat gamer since he will not give me a new lease (He even said that its to keep people from avoiding just site bans/game bans). So I have to wait out the lease, and sometimes even when the lease expires they give me the same ip just with a new lease period.

this has worked for me and might on other ISP's/situations. I had to do it to stop my ISP from giving me an IP from a NOC 2000 miles away (obviously with major latency). I unplugged my router, connected my laptop to my cable modem then continued to release/renew my IP. once I did get an IP from a local NOC I changed the MAC address of the router to the same as my laptop then switched them over with the IP from the laptop getting assigned to the router. prolly other ways to accomplish the same thing but this has been a reliable way to break a 'sticky' IP without loosing Inet for an extended time for me.

 

[Azathoth1]

Only problem is Im on DSL, the modem is assigned the ip address lease, so unless I can change the mac of my dsl modem im screwed. Also, the isp does not allow third party modems, we can bridge the modem to a router but we cannot use a different modem.

 

[iesux]

hum in EU to get a new ip is not very difficult: you only need to restart your adsl modem...

 

[ordy]

Only problem is Im on DSL, the modem is assigned the ip address lease, so unless I can change the mac of my dsl modem im screwed. Also, the isp does not allow third party modems, we can bridge the modem to a router but we cannot use a different modem.

bummer, ya they seem pretty militant compared to my ISP.

i'm not taking any chances at this time myself. just 'hand' instance boosting via RAF and multibox software until things settle down a bit.

 

[greaver77]

Knock on wood but I don see this being the truth at all reason I say this is I was Suspended around Jan 19 -2011 got account back 3 days later and started botting again everyday for about 11 hours I just said fuck it if they get it they do not really important I dont sell gold just use for myself first 2 days I run only Bg's to see what would happen since then I have been grinding stopping every so many hours playing by hand a few then right back at it from the same Ip and and just saying it dont look like they flag your account to keep checking on it unless they come back after so much time and check it out that or Im dodging whatever maybe scanning for bots either way just thought I would let everyone know this

 

[bjsaust]

Nice info, thanks for testing at your own expense. Reinforces my plan to bot much more carefully now I've received my first suspension. Also tells me to remain careful with any new accounts rather than just assume its an acct flagging only.

 

[myjudgmentx]

I got a 72 hour ban. Ran the bot right after the ban was over, 2 days later, got my account closed. So yeah, you're smart for doing this. ((Luckily for me, I managed to lie my way out of getting unbanned. No longer closed. ))

But yeah, I most likely won't be botting for at least a month, and if I do, I may start in like a week, an just bot for 4 hours or so a day. MAYBE. We'll see.