Large-Scale Farming

[DrProfessor]

It's been a while since I've even looked at a Blizzard game. I don't think I've logged into WoW since early cataclysm, and haven't actually sat down to play since WotLK (and even then, pretty casually). On the plus side, that means Blizzard doesn't have my IP or location anymore, since I've moved around a bunch since then!

I'd love to start making some more game-related money off to the side. I have 12 lifetime HB licenses, but I don't really see a huge value in those right now. I've been catching up on the forums for the last few days and it seems pretty consistent that people are complaining about high ban rates and low prices for gold purchases. If I'm wrong, please correct me! I honestly don't care if the accounts get banned, but the cost to start up more accounts both in time and money need to be worthwhile.

Are any of the other bots worth farming to sell? The only games I have experience with are WoW (tons, but not recent), and Diablo (very little, but I made it through the easy mode once). I used to run ~70 RuneScape bots at a time back around 2009, but that died off pretty quickly and was kind of painful to manage. I have a background in web development (nodejs/js/php/mongodb/mysql, etc) and systems administration (RHEL mostly, and some outdated Win2008R2), so ideally a very systematic approach that can be scaled out would be awesome. And I have multiple boxes at home with 24-32 gigs of RAM each, and access to a few remote servers with similar resources. My current project is TF2, and later CS:GO automation, but I'm looking to diversify. Valve has been making it more difficult to farm and I'd like to keep a secondary income of sorts.

What would you recommend?

 

[Kishar]

I've been catching up on the forums for the last few days and it seems pretty consistent that people are complaining about high ban rates and low prices for gold purchases. If I'm wrong, please correct me! I honestly don't care if the accounts get banned, but the cost to start up more accounts both in time and money need to be worthwhile.

In my experiences with WoW, Blizzard seems to be banning the new accounts fairly quick. But they seems to be taking care of veteran accounts (mine is post BC). So I don't think it's a very good idea to start farming WoW. I don't know much about any other games other than RuneScape and Jagex is *****ing down hard on bots, so that's not worth it either.

 

[DaSoul]

If you bot smart and if safety is your biggest concern you still can bot quite successful.

I just checked the first page of ban reports and at least 80% of them are members from 2014. I don't know if it's lack of experience but all i can say is that ( can only talk for friends and myself that are botting for ages) haven't had a single ban and still hold the same (more or less) income as always.

Therefore if you're experienced and have the hardware standing arround, go for it!

 

[DrProfessor]

If you bot smart and if safety is your biggest concern you still can bot quite successful.

I just checked the first page of ban reports and at least 80% of them are members from 2014. I don't know if it's lack of experience but all i can say is that ( can only talk for friends and myself that are botting for ages) haven't had a single ban and still hold the same (more or less) income as always.

Therefore if you're experienced and have the hardware standing arround, go for it!

I have a feeling they run some sort of bot checking script against newer accounts. I imagine if you survive past a certain account age, they'll A) Be more forgiving if you do get caught (because you've been a "loyal customer"), and B) Less likely to get hit with any sort of auto ban.

Although if I'm running groups of 5 in Dungeons to level, I don't know if this will be a problem until I start farming. Does everyone use the randomizer plugin to avoid farming-related bans now? Or is it just avoiding player reports that I should be watching out for?

 

[DaSoul]

What i feel is a major ban issue is, that people bot too monotonous. They are either using QuestBot or since Dungeonbuddy runs quite afk'able dungeons. They don't mix stuff, as it requires more interaction or better setup (in the meaning of creating botting shedules with a relogger or multi profile setups)

It is the most logic thing, to try to act as most human like as possible and that is simply not done by grinding dungeons X-16 hours a day, doing archeology for hours or questing the whole day, every day.

Variety is the ultimate key of staying under any radar.

Instead of using dungeonbuddy 16 hours a day, you can use questbot for some hours, then some dungeons, switch back to questing in a new zone, do some battlegrounds preferably using bgfarmer.
This way, even if you get reported somewhere along this road, the gm will see regular behavior instead of 16 hours a day doing dungeons, every day for weeks which will probably result in the gm getting suspicous.
Exact same thing if the characters already hit max level. I let them gather stuff, team up few times during the day for some dungeons, 1-2 battlegrounds from time to time, grind some mobs.

Use stuff that is available which greatly improve security, even if they cost a bit, for example:

- BGFarmer for battlegrounds
- Templar for random farming
- The Tramper for gathering

+ Use a relogger. Rather bot x-times x-hours than 1x 16 hours a day.