Gold farmer watchdogs??

[Jakkra]

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I get bored, I sometimes head out to the Charred Rise in Borean, because it's a great place to find gold farmer bots and just kill 'em repeatedly.

So, I flew on over and killed a warrior one a few times... flew around other places.. come back, kill him again.. and find an 80 rogue coming for me Got away from him, but I was kind of surprised. Is this an actual player defending their farmer-bot? Or is it like a new watchdog bot? Either way, I found it amusing.

Thoughts, comments? lulz

[Sarayana]

It was probably a passer-by that saw what he thought was world pvp and wanted a piece of the action. Sadly, I'm on a pve server, so I don't get to kill the bots... but whenever I see them in WG I kick their arses.

[Golden]

My mains are on a PVP server, so I sometimes take a high-level toon to a common farming place and tease the bots around - ninja mobs from them if they're Alliance and corpse camp them if they're Horde. Once I had the botter to come out and start mocking me when I wouldn't stop disturbing his botting. (Mind you, he basically admitted that he was botting, as his only defences was basically "go get some gear, yours suck" when I said that I hate botters and thus love teasing them.)

Ended up reporting both the toons he was botting with and the ones on which he whispered me to stop it.

[Artume]

I have read tales in the officials Forums of people who have had the professional bot-operators plead with them not to interfere with their "work", but I think the average cheater who runs a bot for his own in-game benefit would be a fool to draw attention to his genuine toons by picking fights.

I play on PvE servers in the main, so I can't bait bots with much success, but I have discovered entire nests of the rotters through the Armory. >insert evil grin<

I have reported entire "guilds", and in one case, found some numpty who had a bot of the same name on 12-14 realms. They were all hunters of the same level, and all Trolls (except for 3 Orcs). I checked the number of quests completed by each and the average was 6. I enjoyed writing that ticket up.

[Ryno]

I have seen a bots on US - Moon Guard. That's the only realm I've played that I've actually seen them. Both where hunter, both killing mobs in Sholazar to skin them. RP realm, so I couldn't kill them. I stole a few kills but got bored rather quickly.

The only real reason one of them got under my skin was that they were killing gorillas, and killing them right at the spots Loque spawns down there!! What if they killed Loque?!

[VelkynKarma]

Okay, maybe I'm a n00b for asking, but how does one identify a bot anyway? From, say, a person who is just grinding leather to boost their LW, or trying to level a pet, or something?

~VelkynKarma

[Jadvya]

Okay, maybe I'm a n00b for asking, but how does one identify a bot anyway? From, say, a person who is just grinding leather to boost their LW, or trying to level a pet, or something?

~VelkynKarma

I'm curious too; I know hunter-bots tend to have their pets unnamed, but other than that... Do they have nonsense names or something?

[Sarayana]

I usually whisper them, if they're my faction. Bots won't reply. Of course, some players don't reply either, but if I've gotten to the point that I'm suspicious AND they don't reply, odds are good that they're botting.

Other than that, just look for repetitive or illogical behaviour. I was just reading a thread on wow_ladies where they talked about bots just killing the same NPC over and over again. Not any other NPCs in the area, just that one. If someone else tagged it, the bot would still move over, try to loot, then go back to its corner to wait for the respawn...

Gear is a pretty big indicator too, a bot won't have gear from dungeons/heroics/raids, it'll mostly be green or blue BoEs. And if you're suspicious enough to armory the toon, you'll likely see an extremely low number of quests completed.

[Jakkra]

Basically, if you see them in the same area for hours, or even days. If you're on a pvp realm and they're opposite faction, try killing them a few times, and if they keep respawning and going about their business time after time, that's a pretty sure sign. I've seen some that walk around sporadically, like its just searching for things to kill. Weird.. They also tend to be HORRIBLE at pvp, and just run straight for you most of the time.

Good stuff, though guys. I know my husband likes to toy with them sometimes, by damaging them enough so their hp is really low, but allowing the mob to kill them- making them take durability xD

[Saturo]

Aye, but nothing beats mind control running them far enough away that they ress at a different spirit healer. Or getting them stuck. That's fun too.

[Lilandre]

Oh ive seen people farmng that same place too... maby i can chain trap em back to warsong hold

[Adam-Savage]

On my server there is this bot that runs around sholazar basin and does nothing but kill the gorillas there. You totally tell it's bot as there movements are very automated and not like an actual players at all. The person controlling the bot keeps a eye on it and has it go to a vendor to unload. I've reported it to blizz and had a Gm talk to me about it but nothing was ever done about it. The person controlling the bot probably noticed the GM pm them and responded.

[Ryno]

When they have odd name, odd guild name, they don't do anything different, and you see them in the same spot doing the same thing for weeks at a time...

Yeah. Usually a bot.

Like when you steal their kills for an hour or more, and they just don't seem to care. At all.

[Saturo]

Aye, I spotted a Dwarf who I thought was botting. He was just sitting in a spot fishing. Came back an hour later, still fishing...

Gonna' log on and check if he's there. And yes, he came back to the exact smae spot later, just minutes after you left Safri. I think he went to sell the fish.

EDIT: Logged in on the same spot, he was'nt there. I check my quest log. And suddenly he comes back...

[Jakjak]

I have read tales in the officials Forums of people who have had the professional bot-operators plead with them not to interfere with their "work", but I think the average cheater who runs a bot for his own in-game benefit would be a fool to draw attention to his genuine toons by picking fights.

Agreed. I've only played a couple MMO's, but from what I've seen, any game that has gold farmers will have irreparably stupid gold farmers who'll expose themselves with whinging. Bad enough you're cheating, but to cry and beg for me not to snitch? Grow a pair already!

[Aleu]

Think bots are bad, I hate multi-boxers. >.< Ever seen a Survival Multi-boxing Hunter in AV? OH GAWD THE CRAB. TT^TT

So many crabs....

[Saturo]

I don't find anything wrong with multiboxing... Of course, I multibox myself, but that won't affect my judgement, right?

[Aleu]

I just hate Multi-boxers in BGs. Sure, kill the first guy and the rest of them fall apart, but I normally don't get that chance. >.<

As far as bots go... I find most of the bots on my server in WG. Which is good. I play on an RP server so I can't kill them as easy. However, I catch them in WG... Pew pew. <3 Down goes to the bot. I like to camp them while I'm waiting for a GM to respond to my report.

[Saturo]

All right, so I went to Feralas for a fishing quest, and I spot a protadin taking on five mobs at once with ret aura, consec and such spells. He does this very mechanically, and he doesn't rest for a second. I figure, it's bound to be a bot. So I decided to pull his current mob off of him with destracting shot. He follows. So I pull eight or so mobs onto me, run into his consec, and feign death. They aggro onto him, and he could easily have handled the ten mobs. But he doesn't heal, like any sane pally would. So he dies, but not after killing all but one of the mobs I pulled onto him. I do this a couple of times.

The best part is, I got he loot from the mobs, because I aggroed them first! Pure win.

[Vephriel]

That story is pure win Saturo. xD