Poseidus Botters/Hackers

[Acherontia]

*This is a heads-up/angrypost in one.*

I've reported botters in the past--very obvious bots, ones that do rounds of Uldum, for example, 24/7 (for the last 6 months or so). They haven't gotten banned.

Blizz devs decided to make Poseidus's mount BoE. It's an interesting thought--those players who can't spare time to camp 24/7 have the opportunity to make gold when they ARE on, and acquire it that way.

The issue I'm finding, however, is that there are already botters and hackers after the mount, presumably to sell it for gold.

There's one dude who's a real player who is doing rounds ("this is my brother's account, i not brake rules ") while speedhacking: he zips past me, then 20 secs later comes by again, from behind me (behind me being open ocean away from any other spawnpoint).

There's another who, when I was after buying the Crimson Deathcharger (STILL haven't found a new seller), /w me offering to sell me gold. This being a REAL player. "Because I like you, 1 euro/1000g" or whatever it was.

Yesterday, this same player /w me linking me to (and urging me to use) a plugin--read: bot program--that makes rounds of the spawnpoints and automatically kills & loots the mobs. I'm not amused by this in the slightest, nor did I click it, and I told him so. His response? "You heard of jungle rule? Kill or be killed? " Gtfo, seriously.

What does it mean?

* I have no desire to bot, hack or otherwise cheat, not to mention risking my account to infiltration or banning.
* I now have to compete not only with other legitimate campers, but with botters and hackers as well.
* I know from experience that Blizzard does not--at least on my server--reliably or often ban botters or hackers.

I'm quite frustrated by this. It would be hard to earn the gold to buy the mount simply because my realm's economy is rather tanked due to botfarmers already! Other players are resorting to cheating to get this, and legit players are left having to deal with ridiculous spawn timers made up by Blizz + competition who are perfectly willing to cheat. (This is the part of the post that's just rage )

I've made a post here on the EU forums, and I've ticketed it as well. I don't expect the players involved to get banned, though.

My main gripe through it all is that I'm sick of super-rares. Nobody forces me to camp them, I know, but if I do want them, the time one must put in is sick. Just sick. I've spent the majority of my time camping Vashj'ir since 4.1, combing the sea, visiting all spawnpoints--often alone out here for days on end, at least before the bots--and have not even seen the rare. Making it BoE on top of this, and not doing anything about the bots around, is just exacerbating it exponentially.

So a warning & a heads-up--if you're camping Poseidus, look out for bots/hackers. Report them, at the very least, but be aware that your time out there may be wasted if there's bots about.

[Sasrei]

is all I can say..

wish blizzard would do more about botters/hackers..

[Novikova]

Wow, this is depressing. :/ Blizzard is doing a lot but as long as there's people willing to buy and use the bots and others...

[Litlemouse]

I'd post on the forum, but I'm US server :/

That's definitely not fair. But... "what is fair?" says Blizzard -.- they should seriously get down to business about hackers and bots
However I'm not only going to rant about Blizzard. Those people also need to quit it. I mean... come on! >.<

[Valrose]

Well that is disappointing... I don't know why Blizzard decided to make this mount a BoE, as I had a feeling that botters would cause a lot of grief within the camping community. It's very sad.

[Cerele]

one of my friends uses a fishing bot. blizzard cant recognize it because its on her computer as a trojan virus, i asked her not to use it cause i dont like cheating... and shes not going to stop. sure she got the fishing achievements... but its just not right.
now theres ones for really rare mounts???
*slams head on keyboard*
for christ sake blizzard if you are going to make it BoE make it instant spawn, if everyone has it, there will be no market for it.
that way everyone can get the mount and bots dont make a single copper!

[Sookie]

I remember when in Aion, botters had to set up 'shops' literally, with their in-game characters pulling up a chair and putting a big sign down next to them that advertised their gold selling or what have you. They were all over the place in the cities and spamming the crap out of trade.

But GMs would come and quite literally smite them down and their whole character & shop would get zapped and disappear, and the account banned. I knew people who tried bots and every one got banned, and no gold spammers lasted for long.

I know wow is a lot bigger but you'd think they'd still be doing a lot more than they are now. The longer I play this game the more I feel that all they care about is how much money they're making, no matter what. So if not enough people complain (and you know they dont because 90% of them are super-casuals who probably arent affected almost at all or dont realize it) ...nothing gets done about it.

[Golden]

I completely agree with you there. While camping for Poseidus, I reported every single bot I happened across and teased the opposite faction ones whenever possible. If said bot was still there after I had gotten an answer to my ticket, I would report it again until it went offline.

[Felidire]

Blizz is rather soft when it comes to botters, most of the time when they ban a botter they're willing to restore account access when emailed. What i've picked up on is that they'll try and milk as much money out of the botters, before going ahead and closing their account - they'll literally wait 1-2 weeks knowing full well that it's a bot, and then when the monthly subscription gets renewed they ban them within the next 3 days.

Those dumb speed hacks usually only incur a 72 hour ban most of the time.

Now if you're selling gold, or if you trade gold to a gold seller's lv.1 character, they'll snap your account in half (along with every account that traded with him in the last fortnight) and there's practically zero chance that you'll ever see it again.

So yeah... their main focus seems to be combating gold sellers, they aren't nearly as concerned about the bots and hacks.

[Royi]

ugh i'm sorry Ache, sounds like a unfortunate server you're on for things like these. Having it BOE really sucks the life out of the cool factor of that mount as well.

Wish you luck

[Zalani]

Thats just annoying, If/when I do try to camp ill report any botters or hackers. That i one problem with BOE rare mounts it attracts the people who just get it to sell.
And I hope you get him!

[Royi]

Thats just annoying, If/when I do try to camp ill report any botters or hackers. That i one problem with BOE rare mounts it attracts the people who just get it to sell.
And I hope you get him!

I know if I was playing right now, I'd be camping on and off for it. The problem is that even though I would want the mount on my main, a 100k offer would be way too tempting. I couldn't justify NOT selling it.

[Novikova]

Pretty much. I kinda wish they'd made it BoP. Nice idea to be BoE but it's no fun seeing someone's bot or a guild constantly sitting on a spot for it.

I personally camp on and off or do loops.

[Royi]

Pretty much. I kinda wish they'd made it BoP. Nice idea to be BoE but it's no fun seeing someone's bot or a guild constantly sitting on a spot for it.

I personally camp on and off or do loops.

Best way to farm a rare pet as long as you have patience IMO. Keeps your sanity

[Acherontia]

That's the way I normally do it, too, but for Poseidus his spawn window opening-time was pretty predictable. So I sat there hoping to be the 1st on realm, and of course as soon as I crashed and slept, someone else got it within the hour >.< Now (knowing it will happen again) I am--or was, anyway--camping it constantly.

In all honesty I'm pretty fed up with WoW right now. I don't want to turn this into a whine post--it's just that tons of issues are coming together regarding the game that makes it feel like a chore and a gambling machine than an adventure.

I've downloaded Rift and given it a shot, but as fun as it feels at first, I also get the impression that it's a WoW with advanced graphics and less content >.< Oh well, something to play with for awhile I guess... wish the trial lvl cap wasn't 15 though. Come on GW2...

[Recoil]

I understand your frustration with the botting/speed hacking.. But I wouldn't go so far to say blizzard isn't doing anything about it. The way a normal working bot works is in your interface folder, there is a auto detection file. What this detection file does is scans your wowfolder for any out source data changing file. A lot of the time the bot's are made from people like you guys and I, just extremists at computer programming that takes said wowfolder file and corrupts it and moves it around... The only thing they can really do abut it atm is your moral support in reporting them.

Bot's are made to be undetectable, so they are built in the form of a computer virus or any other type of source. And the Blizzard contacting your email is for the reason that if your WoW Account was taken from you and banned for botting/selling gold that you are contacted and notified and let them know your situation... They will work with you.. I lost my account that way before Authenticators were made and got mine back..

Short end of the story.. Bots are in MMO's, You are playing an MMO. It's unfair that botters have to result in mount farming to get gold.. But what can you do? Botters have been in every single mmo and always will be. Companies have been fighting them off since the start.. If you can't adjust to it, go play an FPS or something, You'll find botters are in every game made now a days. Sony had to shutdown their PS3 Networking system because of 1 person hacking into it and stealing/changing from their company(Has nothing to do with WoW, but does state that if 1 person can do that... imagine the possibilities in WoW..) Super Mario was even botted. =\.

[Sookie]

I don't think Acher's really saying that bots are intolerable, but instead is pointing out the extreme degree to which they are inhibiting gameplay. If a broad scale of people were running into these problems, it would become a big problem and Blizzard would have to do something drastic about it. In this situation because there is a minority of players who actually camp rares, this post is an unfortunate notice to fellow players that this aspect of the game is being overrun

I don't really care if there's botters here and there, whatever. Maybe they steal my herbs sometimes, maybe they inflate prices of things I want to buy. But I truly don't understand why they don't have even just one person assigned to each realm to watch for things like gold spam or handle GM help requests about botters. It's not hard to investigate these claims by simply going to watch the person for fifteen seconds and seeing if they look like a robot or not. Like I said, they did exactly that in Aion and it was just FLOODED with spammers that all but disappeared.

I'm the least likely person to be spouting a conspiracy theory but frankly I think it's just a fact that scammers pay for their monthly fees too, so there's only so much Blizzard will do. It is a money-making business after all. They don't want the whole game to be overrun with bots if it means vast amounts of people ditching wow, but they also don't want to put a serious effort into eliminating them if that doesn't cause them to retain or gain enough new members to make it worth the cost of doing so.

Bottom line I don't agree that Blizzard is doing enough about it. They're only doing enough to keep their pockets lined, not to ensure any standard of play. I don't believe that the quality of their game experience (when it comes to things like the presence of botters) matters much if at all to them.

[Acherontia]

It's unfair that botters have to result in mount farming to get gold..

No, no--the bots ARE farming the mount. A once-per-week spawn, and it's camped by speedhackers and bot users.

And no, I definitely don't think the company is doing enough about it. I reported a bot which farmed 24/7, had over 600 full stacks on AH--including many 200-volatile stacks--and it's still botting. That was 3 months ago, and I KNOW it was reported by at least 5-6 players.

[bluddy]

pffft botters can't win from sheer luck/ bad luck..

i have been semi-camping him since start -frequently checking- and ok i did my round and decide to go check AH..
seven mins later when i'm at AH i see
*WTS [Reins of Poseidus] i asked him when he got it for spawn time... two mins before..so two mins after i checked it spawned he got it on his second check... botters will never be able to beat sheer luck...

[Acherontia]

They can if they're covering *every single spawnpoint* every 20 seconds, all day every day, which is what these are doing. They are using speedhacks + bots to do this, and there's just no way a camper can compete.

Sorry to hear about your miss on the mount btw, have had similar experiences : /