How to spot a bot

[Avonwey]

Hello shiny people! I've been playing about six weeks now, and on a couple occasions I *think* I've seen a few cases of people using bots to level, farm, etc. For example, this morning in DW I saw a low-level character randomly running around killing everything it can find within a smallish area. What I found odd was he/she was leaving a trail of bodies and chests around without collecting them. I followed this character around for about 30 minutes, and was able to collect a whole bunch of nice treasure. But I'm wondering long-time veterans, what the tell-tale signs are?

[Cadori Seraphim]

I do what you have just described quite often with my little toons, well with the help of my BF who is mentored to help me lvl <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I get to the point where I am just tired of picking up the trash that I dont want and only grab the chests, as we do this to help my lil ones lvl and get quests done <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I dont know if there are any tell tale signs, at least none that I have personally seen.

[Caligula]

Kind of OT but in WoW, bots (at least for me) are insanely easy to spot. I'm sure most of this applies in a similar game such as EQ2 here but... 1) Farming the same (usually small) area in a predictable and repetitive pattern. This is the biggest giveaway. If they are going in circles, they're a bot. People at least move in a somewhat random way, even if they're farming the same mobs over and over. 2) Character getting stuck on stuff. Huge giveaway here, if they're running into rocks, trees, fences, and just keep running like they don't even know it's there, they're a bot. 3) Movement + attack patterns. Not so easy to tell with this one (some people are very repetitive in their spell casting patterns when farming), but in combination with the other things listed it can make the obvious, um, more obvious? Ex: Character moves up X distance from mob, pauses, Character casts y spells in z order, pauses, Character moves to loot, pauses, character loots, pauses, character moves in straight line to next point on their path... over and over, etc. 4) Not responding to tells, or responding with an automatic response. Pretty simple here, most people (*most* is the key word here) will respond to a tell. Even if it's a quick "no thx" or "hi" or whatever. Bots don't respond, or they'll respond very, very quickly with a preprogrammed response. Overall, the biggest thing to look out for is repetition. A true player cannot even come close to mimicking the repetition that is a bot. Even if you're farming the same 2 mobs, over and over, you wouldn't be able to completely duplicate your pattern each time. A bot will do the same thing each time no matter what. edit: Oh, and what you described with someone leaving loot, that's probably the sign of someone *not* being a bot, lots of people have high level characters and can't be bothered with lowbie loot and full bags. Most bots loot everything, that's what they do, farm loot <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Cadori Seraphim]

I can see some of the stuff you mentioned being both a bot and real player. I think it really just depends. Though if they are doing all of the above then its probably a good sign hehe

[mellowknees72]

<cite>Avonwey wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hello shiny people! I've been playing about six weeks now, and on a couple occasions I *think* I've seen a few cases of people using bots to level, farm, etc. For example, this morning in DW I saw a low-level character randomly running around killing everything it can find within a smallish area. What I found odd was he/she was leaving a trail of bodies and chests around without collecting them. I followed this character around for about 30 minutes, and was able to collect a whole bunch of nice treasure. But I'm wondering long-time veterans, what the tell-tale signs are? </blockquote><p> There really aren't any tell-tale signs that can't be explained by human behavior.  I farm a lot on low level characters for stuff to transmute and/or to sell, or just to challenge myself to try and kill 10,000 of a particular mob before getting to, say, level 10.  These lowbie characters I have are maxed out as much as possible on gear (all mastercrafted and/or legendary stuff) and spells (all adept III or Master) so that I can whip through stuff as fast as possible...and I *know* that people have gotten suspicious that I'm a bot because I'm tearing through mobs at breakneck speed.</p><p>Some people don't want to pick up low level chests and trash (though why not is beyond me...it all sells! <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  ).  Some people don't want to talk to others, and therefore won't answer tells.  Some people use damage shields and other stuff, so mobs will die while pounding on their back and it's not an exploit.</p><p>However, there are a couple of things you can watch for:</p><p>* If you see a group running around with 1 character clearly being controlled by a person, and 5 other characters on auto-follow, all running the same path, and all nuking/doing damage at the exact same time...there is a liklihood that you have spotted a bot crew.</p><p>* A character standing all by itself off in a corner with a name made up mostly of consanants (i.e. Mopklwrrtxpf)...likely a gold seller sending SPAM tells.</p><p>Bear in mind that FARMING (killing mobs to get stuff) is not against the rules of EQ2.  However, content manipulation IS...so, if a bot crew OR a regular player is monopolizing content and disrupting your gameplay, you can /petition to alert SOE of the infraction.</p>

[Cadori Seraphim]

Pipes@Najena wrote: <blockquote><p> There really aren't any tell-tale signs that can't be explained by human behavior.  I farm a lot on low level characters for stuff to transmute and/or to sell, or just to challenge myself to try and kill 10,000 of a particular mob before getting to, say, level 10.  These lowbie characters I have are maxed out as much as possible on gear (all mastercrafted and/or legendary stuff) and spells (all adept III or Master) so that I can whip through stuff as fast as possible...and I *know* that people have gotten suspicious that I'm a bot because I'm tearing through mobs at breakneck speed.</p><p>Some people don't want to pick up low level chests and trash (though why not is beyond me...it all sells! <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  ).  Some people don't want to talk to others, and therefore won't answer tells.  Some people use damage shields and other stuff, so mobs will die while pounding on their back and it's not an exploit.</p><p>However, there are a couple of things you can watch for:</p><p>* If you see a group running around with 1 character clearly being controlled by a person, and 5 other characters on auto-follow, all running the same path, and all nuking/doing damage at the exact same time...there is a liklihood that you have spotted a bot crew.</p><p>* A character standing all by itself off in a corner with a name made up mostly of consanants (i.e. Mopklwrrtxpf)...likely a gold seller sending SPAM tells.</p><p>Bear in mind that FARMING (killing mobs to get stuff) is not against the rules of EQ2.  However, content manipulation IS...so, if a bot crew OR a regular player is monopolizing content and disrupting your gameplay, you can /petition to alert SOE of the infraction.</p></blockquote>You are definitely right on <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I have so many little alts I play for loot for my transmuting and with my BF helping me he tears up stuff so fast that I am sure people have wondered. Sometimes I will be on AF getting exp with a little alt while he is doing this mentored and have been thought of as a bot and that wasnt so. But the 5 people I can definitely see! lol

[Spyderbite]

I don't have this issue on my server. We just kill them.. end of script. <img src="/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Cadori Seraphim]

Spyderbite@Venekor wrote: <blockquote>I don't have this issue on my server. We just kill them.. end of script. <img src="/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>LOL Sometimes I wish I could <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But then again I suck at PvP and would try and probably just get killed lol

[Caligula]

Wait are we talking bots or multi-boxers. There really are bots in WoW that are computer programs that play the game for people. If you guys are talking about multi-boxing then I don't see why you'd have an issue, they're just people playing multiple accounts, and they're really easy to kill on a PvP server.

[Koltr]

<cite>Avonwey wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hello shiny people! I've been playing about six weeks now, and on a couple occasions I *think* I've seen a few cases of people using bots to level, farm, etc. For example, this morning in DW I saw a low-level character randomly running around killing everything it can find within a smallish area. What I found odd was he/she was leaving a trail of bodies and chests around without collecting them. I followed this character around for about 30 minutes, and was able to collect a whole bunch of nice treasure. But I'm wondering long-time veterans, what the tell-tale signs are? </blockquote> At low levels any mob can drop a master, eventually. So if you want the master spell for yourself or an alt, then you need to lock xp and pound away at large numbers of mobs at the level of spell you want. May look bot-like, but it is actually more likely that the toon is a real person. Good way to check, talk to them, or invite them to group with you after a tell. Chances are, they will probably respond, and if you help them you might get to share some of the wealth while they go for the Master chest. Make sure that you are not interfering with other toons, though since that is against the rules. You may actually end up mentoring them in the end as well. I did this a long time ago because I wanted masters for the low end epic content, and because leveling was way to fast, I turned out this was the best way to get gear without actually raiding. The other explanation is that they were trying for a hunter or slayer title, neither of which are meaningful to botters. To spot a bot, do the following. Send a tell to them saying "Are you a bot?" Works 95% of the time. If the other group members logout, or they log out as well, you probably found one that automatically logs on tells. If you suddenly get bizarre text in your chat box, then you found a bot that is trying to crash you client with a UNICODE crash exploit, so you don't get the chance to report, fortunately you will still get to report since the changes in LU36 seems to have stopped the problem, mostly. If you get no response from the leader, then there are three common possibilities; they are a player who has their tell chat tab pushed to the back and cannot hear you, they are a player who is in picture mode, or they are a bot who cannot respond because there is nobody home. Bots usually follow scripts that are queued to events in the chat log. If you really want to play havoc with a bot and his friends, you can use the emote command to do the ultimate comedy routine. Here is how it works: Fighting and Harvest bots respond to text in the chat log but are not always careful about the context of the event. Thus a message in the log like: "a Sablevein crumbler hits YOU for 1 crushing damage" will probably cause the bot group to target said mob and blast away. Now substitue "a Sablevein crumbler" with the name of a nearby guard , like "Big Bad Bob", and paste the resulting text after /emote and watch the fun. Note: this is not griefing since a real human would see an emote and scratch their heads saying Huh? But a bot is very likely to target "Big Bad Bob" and get a rapid response. Harvesting bots work on the same principle and if you want them to give you all of the rares they collected all you have to do is figure out the hand off trigger text and paste it in. I have seen people make a bot run around trying to find nonexistent ore nodes using a similar tactic. Dropping a charmed mob off at the bot group is considered against the rules, but emoting something that causes a scripting engine, they are not supposed to be using, causing them to commit suicide is more of a gray area. Naming is probably a good tip off too. If botter company is going to go through accounts like soup through a goose, and they rarely spend the time an effort to actually name they toons properly, after all, if you have five hundred bots running around a server, how can you actually tell what they are supposed to be doing unless you name them something like: Hoogea, Hoogeb, ... Hoogezzz. Since the scripts that create the account, creates the toon, fields it, maneuver it around the world, and collect the resulting treasure and harvest raws is probably on the same machine, it makes sense for a money making enterprise to automate the works. The account that would actually hurt the farm would be the receiver, or anchor account. Oh and yea, its probably automated too, and almost never is two steps away from the broker, banker, or mailbox. Once you have confirmed the existence of a bot, follow it around and it will eventually find its way to a mailbox, or another toon. If it is a mailbox, then you will have to use a bit of sleuthing to find the recipient, but it is better to just fire off the /report at that point since the mail transaction will help SOE find the recipient. If they meet another toon then just follow them around until they get to either a mailbox or a bank. By creating a diagram of contacts between bots, you will eventually create a complete picture of who the anchor is and what other bots they are managing. It will likely be a nice neat tree with an anchor at the top. Be very careful though since botters like to use /report too, and oh yea, its automated as well, and they will claim just about anything, including inserting bogus text in the chat log so when a /report is captured you are the one to get griefed. I think GMs these days are getting smart enough to identify the false reports, but, if they don't, the botters often get the harvesting area to themselves for a while as CS tries to sort things out. Its very easy to get accused of something in the game, and live it down. My sister was playing a new toon once when a botter camping a named /reported her so she would either leave or get banned. She was so scared that she left the game for a month, because the CS dialog was intimidating and I think a bit overwhelming for her. Thus counter /reporting is a very effective means for a botter to keep the named free, since they can afford to lose an account, while a 14 year old kid with a high level toon doesn't want to lose everything, will run scared. Depending upon the sophistication of the botter setup, you may see everything from a group with five on auto follow, to a single toon that follows a very specific pattern when moving and harvesting, but the reality is, they don't have the observational smarts a human has, and thus will do stupid things, sometimes over and over. I saw a botter that targeted my pet whenever I named it "stone". Go figure. The ultimate revenge would be to formulate an emote that causes a bot to /report itself to a friendly CS rep.

[Calthine]

<cite>Caligula wrote:</cite><blockquote>Wait are we talking bots or multi-boxers. There really are bots in WoW that are computer programs that play the game for people. If you guys are talking about multi-boxing then I don't see why you'd have an issue, they're just people playing multiple accounts, and they're really easy to kill on a PvP server. </blockquote> What we get is multi-boxing bots.  No, really!  If you really think a toon is a bot, /petition explaining specifically why you think so.  If they say something damning, like "I work for a plat farm using illegal 3rd party sotfware", use /report first and refer to the /report in your petition. Then leave it up to the GM's.  It won't happen over night, they research and will err on the side of caution. Be cautious in your own in-game bot research, because there's always a chance that you might be petitioned for harassment.  Also read the EULA and Play Nice Policies and be aware of exactly what is an offense.  Being a rude isn't necessarily an offense, but zone disruption and mob monopolization is.  Multi-boxing is not, but one toon being played in shifts by different people 24/7 is.  Watching TV while you craft is not; using a 3rd party program to craft for you while you go to the movies is.  If you can't petition them for botting, you might be able to get them for another offense.