It’s not just software scanning for other software; they also have pattern recognition in place that can flag suspicious activity for review. Running around in the same pattern, pressing the same buttons in the same sequence, etc. GMs can do innocuous things like slow the player’s movement speed for a few seconds, and see if further play is messed up: trying to hit targets that aren’t there, walking into walls, etc repeatedly.
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That’s why I specified computer vision. With CV you have a closed-loop feedback, and you can add randomization to the timing of events. I’d hazard a guess that you can make a rudimentary AI that will look less bot-like than some live players.
If your gameplay requires and rewards robot-like behavior, you deserve to be played by bots.
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You can play the game without a maximum investment of time, but why should you be given top-ranking for doing nothing? I solve this problem by playing games that are games and not part-time jobs.
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Yeah, I played ultima online back in the 90s and never went back to something like that.
Sure, if a beginner was satisfied clicking a button to fish all day that would be great. But if you wanted to do anything if substance in the game it would take weeks of menial clicking with zero skill.
Ah, sorry, didn’t know “computer vision” was actually a name of a thing. And yes, I’d agree with you, I’m sure you could set up a program that could play the game (for various definitions of play) and be pretty indistinguishable from another player, to another player. Especially if it was smart enough to not pick the most optimal thing to be doing for whatever goal it was trying to achieve.
Here’s my caveat, I really don’t know the exact behavior that these bots were programmed for, and the following is just my best guesses.
“Honor soaking” bots in pvp is one I’ve heard of. A battleground is the easiest entry point into pvp, where players queue up, and as soon as enough can be gathered to form two teams, the client does so, teleports them to a map, and they work together to accomplish the goals of that map, the winning team gaining a large amount of currency ("honor points), and the losing team getting a small amount. An actual player can (I’ve been told) get the maximum amount of honor they can hold at once in an average of 2 hours’ work, through various methods including battlegrounds. A rudimentary bot, though, can queue for a battleground, and just run around, not doing anything helpful. The character soaks up honor points as reward for what the team is doing, even if it’s a small amount. Even if other players report the character for not being useful and they’re forcibly removed, they keep the honor points. Best case scenario they go undetected or fail to get enough reports to be removed, and battleground is over. Since the bot didn’t contribute to the fight, odds are in the opposing team’s favor, they take the “thanks for trying, better luck next time” loser payout, and repeat. It’s nowhere near as efficient as if a human were directing it, but it can be set going while the user is away. There’s the aspect of “someone got something without earning it”, but the bigger problem is the disruptive gameplay of lowering one team’s chances of success.
Another type is resource-gathering bots. In the open world, resources (such as mining nodes or herbs to pick) spawn randomly in predetermined locations. A simple bot just travels to each location where a resource could spawn, attempts to collect it, then moves on to the next, usually in a repeating route that would maximize resources gathered. More complicated bots take advantage of exploits, getting underneath the “ground” geometry, moving much faster than they should (effectively being able to teleport from one node to the next), and instantly grabbing every resource as it spawns. Again, it’s unfair in the “player didn’t actively gather resources”, but especially the second type is disruptive in that it denies other players the opportunity to do it themselves.
WoW is a game with many endgame goals and paths to them, and hopefully many players will find some combination of them fun, and enjoy doing them. It can definitely be called a “timesink”, for good and for ill, in that there’s always something that can be done in the game. Some players want to accomplish various goals, but feel the paths to them are not fun. That’s totally understandable, I can relate. Most people deal with this by setting more realistic goals, picking paths that feel fun to them, or simply stop playing. The giant subscriber jump at the release of the latest expansion, followed by a giant subscriber drop a few months later, is a testament to this: millions of people had fun playing, and when they ran out of fun, stopped.
Oh gosh, sorry for wall of text, and I’m not even completely disagreeing with you. Just trying to point out that a tedious unfun grind is not the only way to play the game, and automating a tedious unfun grind is not necessarily even all that rewarding.
If you like playing online chess or poker, chances are your goal is to have fun playing and testing your skill against other people. A chess or poker service that devolved into “whoever has the best bot wins” would probably be no fun at all, except maybe for the botters.
It entertainment; the thing you do in your free time. This is not really required skill, in real life. No one will turn down your CV because your WoW lvl is to low. You will not be rejected from medical care because you need 30lvl to be healed.
You can not “dedicate”, you just do not do it; and I am strongly against using words “committed” or “dedicated” in case of self entertainment, such as gaming (and I love games, do not get me wrong); but face it: you are not going to invent cure for cancer, commit to your local community or succeed in your own business by running around with pixel weapons around some virtual world.
35 hours a week for self entertainment seems to close to addiction. There are human beings that wish to have 1/3 of that time to spend with their kids, but they have to work two jobs to support their families; these human beings probably give 0 f***s to the others lack of free time to be “committed” to self entertainment.
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Why do developers insist on creating games that require players to do tedious tasks that nobody appears to enjoy doing? That seems like horrible game design. Does Blizzard make more money if players are prevented from just going straight to the parts that are actually FUN?
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WoW is not an indie game, there has been a lot of effort given to check what people like to do in game, etc - that’s where the game mechanics comes from. The game is for people that like the mechanics. Those who do not like it, should choose other games. This is easy. If too many people just go away because of mechanics, the Blizzard will change it, but it seems that the mechanics suits most of gamers, they do not complain, they are too busy playing.
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Because their users literally demand a grind. They enjoy the feedback loop and get angered when filthy “casual” elements are allowed to enter. You can see these posts on any and all MMO related forums.
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By that logic, social media should be very concerning.
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II completely do agree with you on that. Probably social media are even worse. In game, lets say, you are doing something (eh… well.)
I know persons that are addicted to waiting for their Facebook feed to refresh because they need that flow of information, this stimulation via media. Comment on something like something… I remember laughing at my corpo-coworkers for constantly refreshing Outlook in anticipation for some important e-mai (or announcement of f****p) to arrive (you do not get any e-mail for 5-10 minutes and something is wrong), now it moved to peoples private lives.
It even has a pretty good opensource framework.
That’s of course true. But the skills built on making the bot and getting it run are monetizable in real world, while providing some in-game fun.
Computer vision people are reportedly quite expensive. The more of them on the market, and writing bots could help with that, the better for us all due to various cool applications.
What is interesting is that (to the best of my knowledge) there are no active exploits available for running a bot in WoW without tithing to Blizzard (you could use stolen CC information, or a hacked account; but if Blizzard hasn’t been presented with apparently valid payment, the account isn’t going to connect).
If they were willing to swing the banhammer with such enthusiasm, they must be of the opinion that these accounts were more disruptive to the other paying customers than they were valuable as paying customers.
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I feel like you are adding in an unnecessary extra defining layer that guages what is being dedicated or dedicated to. I dont find anything in the actual definitions that that suggest any level of altruism is required.
I am wondering if you are having these discussions with a child or other family member that isnt meeting expectatiins or something? Seems like you guys are stuck on the verb and the real probllem is the subject.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
- The floggings will continue until morale meets or exceeds expectations.
Why is this surprising? Yes, seeing goldfarmers mining/spamming and having fakers at the top of tournament rankings affects the gameplay of ALL users.
It’s not surprising, just interesting(admittedly, as a fairly casual watcher of the game).
It is quite trivial that games that are free for online play(say, most PC shooters) want to get rid of cheaters, and it is similarly trivial that ‘griefers’ (for the purposes of a given gameworld, the standards for being one are probably way tighter in, say, EVE than in WoW) are probably not worth it as customers; but, especially with WoW slowly starting to trend down a touch, a 100,000 player ban is a real strategic choice compared to, say, attempting gameplay modifications that quietly ignore people who automate certain actions; but attempt to make them less visible, and less annoying, to those who don’t.
I don’t doubt the intellectual rewards for an automation project like that, but where things go awry is in behaving like a human being according to Blizzard’s set standards. Adjusting coordinates in such a direct way (even if mimicking HIDs) and even with variable lag in responding to events, it’s going to be tough to not eventually out yourself as a botter.
From what I can see, by the end of 2014, there were 10 million subscribers.
Besides that these cheaters are (for the most part) not going to give up on WoW, even creating multiple different identities/subscriptions. They’ll also need new copies of the title, etc. They’ll remain in the ecosystem, because they take it so seriously.
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Because there is none. That is my personal opinion - as “I” in sentence would suggest. Look, I just find it funny when people use “dedicated”, etc to justify that they like something. You like the game, I get it. You like spending a lot of time exploring some virtual world, etc. I get: it it is fun; I know it is fun, I used to play ET and L4D2 a lot.
[quote=“vonbobo, post:34, topic:57698”]
I am wondering if you are having these discussions with a child or other family member that isnt meeting expectatiins or something?
[/quote] You have brought that, does not happen around me.
Look I do not find the subject as a problem; if EULA clearly stated that automatic game play (or whatever) is not permitted and they got banned because they have broken the rule - I do not find this as a problem. They have signed under the deal, ok? That is clear. You do not like the rule, you do not sign under it. It is commercial product you do not have to have. It is not some broken public law, that hurting society, and needs to be fixed by disobedience. There are other people who pay for the product, sign under the rules and follow them. They also pay for the rules to be enforced.
People sign under anything because they just wan’t a product and they are breaking the entire system this way. You can not sign under something and then say: “Well I have sign it, but I do not agree with that” … you just have agreed, by signing. You do not like it, state it clear that you will not accept the deal - if company would like to deal with you anyway, they would have to change the rule.
