The bot is not detected, it is you.

This thread is pretty much a little rant of mine on the topic of users claiming to be banned because Honorbuddy was detected (usually people with numerous accounts running at the same time).

The simple answer is: The bot is not being detected. If it was being detected you would be banned instantly from the bot attaching to the game client and logging into the game.

The reason you are being detected is: You are not botting smartly. It is how, where, when and the duration you bot. You need to be always looking at from the other players perspective.

Personally I have never used the bot for gold farming, node farming or anything like that, since I consider those risks. I use the bot for basic achievements, quest profiles and for rotations in raiding. I have never been called out as a botter and never drawn out suspicion. Often the time when I bot is when I am on the computer and I use it for taking shortcuts such as leveling a character. So if it is ever stuck - I am there. If a Battlenet friend looked at me, I don't think I would come across any different. I am in no rush to reach things quickly all the time.

From my observations of threads over the year, to state the obvious the likely candidates for being banned are people using questing profiles, Gatherbuddy and botting unusually long hours.

"Why have all 8 accounts of mine been banned at the same time?"
They are running on the same machine, under the same IP. If one has been caught out, it's safe to say that person is using a bot on all of them. Blizzard keep track of what IP logs onto your account. Ever tried logging into WoW elsewhere and it has asked you to reset your password?

From what I can theorise the only way Blizzard identifies botters:
1. Blizzard DO keep track of how long you played, evident by /played in game
2. Users reporting in the ticket system
3. Players stuck on a specific co-ordinate for a certain amount of time, from using the navmesh

Users are likely to report you straight away if you meet (3.), if not Blizzard will chase this up later. While out and about you can receive random whispers from friends or players.

To reduce your risk of being banned it is pretty simple:
1. Moderate your time
2. Be nearby
3. Grab a plugin to give a sound warning if you have been whispered
4. Grab a plugin to give a sound warning if you are stuck

Peoples theories:

A lot of people come up with a lot of theories of how Blizzard catches botters. I don't think it is awful complicated and they don't go out their way to do it. If they wanted all botters banned, it would of been done ages ago. They would of put a lot more protection on the client and could be constantly tweaking stuff every patch / inspection day. They are already losing users from the game as it is and think how many users probably bot - a lot. As you have seen if you have made ban appeals, they will usually give them to you. Banning players is an image they of course have to keep up to ensure they don't upset the normal WoW players.

The botting community puts a good amount of money into WoW whether they like it or not with all the multiple accounts some of us have.

If you understand how the server files work, I don't think they would be wasting resources on tracking player movement, pathing out of battlegrounds, it would eat up too much resource. I think people look into it to much and pretty much what I listed about is their only avenue for tracking us.

 

Good question for you then - 100% monitored, my private gathering profile, nore more than 40-60 minutes a day, less than 5 days a week, practically 0 combat. Done typicaly in the late evenings (10-11 PST) on a near-dead realm (2.2k i believe), no reports or sighting that im aware of.

Why did 2 accs get 72 hour ban? I find myself lucky, havent used it since. I still believe it's a little cocky/gullible/whatever you ma call it to believe that they can't detect a simple file process and/or signature unique to the interaction between HB and WoW.

I would like to conitue my sporadic and 100% montored (call me paranoid if you must) usage for things like gathering, archy, fishing (the big one atm,, what a time for this shit to happen), but I don't seem to match your profile at all, and i've BEEN following your advice since i first started usage. Your thoughts?

 

Bullcrap. I only use questing and GB2 and I never got banned. Unusually long hours: Yes, being part of a gold-sell-ring: Even more YES.

Bullcrap. They don't know the machine and if they banned on IP entire university campusses would be banned at once.

And yet they hardly use this information. Total /played time on some of my bots is ridiculous yet they aren't banned.

Bingo. Admitted by Blizz to be their #1 source of ban information

If this were the case we'd be seeing many, many more bans happening.

There's really only two reasons for getting banned and that's too long hours and being involved in gold selling (you don't even have to sell it yourself; if you deal too much with gold sellers you will get marked and you will get banned). The trick is to either not be important enough to be noticed or to not care about losing accounts. If you want to earn money with this game and this bot you have to assume you're going to get banned. A lot.

Thoughts? You're botching up somewhere. No, HB is not detected because if it was everyone here would be banned. Especially if you use your logic: You're a tiny little fish compared to most here. So you're doing something very wrong. It's probably better to go look for a public profile since those usually have been tested a lot more thoroughly than yours. I do public profiles only, 10-12 hours per day, 2 or 3 accounts, 5-7 days a week. Have been doing for 7 years and have never. been. banned.

 

I like these threads, they always end up with everyone throwing poo at each other.

 

No poo wast meant to be slung, seriously curious as to mysituation and the future for hb at large. As i said, ive been quiet and read, read and read, and i've seen too much shit-slingin', not trying to add to that bullcrap (pun SO intended).

I just find it odd that I would receive a 2 hr ban for the ridiculously limited usage i clock up, and I ave seena LOT of people report a ban - but, conversly have NOT seen a lot of poeple NOt post about NOT being banned... erm... My head hurts..

I guess what im saying is that while i know a LOT more bans have been posted about than people seem to want to admit, there are is a magnitude of people who have not been banned, who have no reason to report obviously (although iI wish they would - the turd-piles-hurled count is getting obscenly high, and the smell... GOD), but what differentiates the people such as myself, who use it strictly for covenience? I follow guides thuroughly, use the bot to a degree I am ifinding out is near-laughable in relation to others, and still got the ban-shappappy on two accs. WTF'z is all I'm hurlin, I'll kepp my stinkity-stank for the next moron that blocks my driveway's windshield.


PS

"IT's POOP AGAIN!" ... "roflrofl, he called the shit POOP!"

PPS -- totally keepin that img. Simple, straightforward, totally classless. Well played sir. "

 

You forgot to mention that the more accounts you have botting the faster you go down.

 

heh, i like you.

Oh, and to actually give my opinion on your original post. I believe, that once someone reports you they DO scan your processes no matter how many people are sure to come here and tell me "they can't, it's illegal".. now watch the poo fly.

 

I believe they catch you strieght up on auctio posts. i been botting since 2010. Monitor my bots no players to interact with me not even getting stuck anywhere. Bot 6 hours take 2-3 hour break and bot another 6 hours 5 days a week. Only way they could have cought me was Auction House. 50-75 auctions a day. have addon to track whispers and the accounts have 0 whispers from players basicly. and accounts only been active for 6 days. So player reports is out the window.

 

Nah, just no. Real people dedicated to AH have more than 1000 auctions a day and they don't get banned.
I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with auctions

 

Agreed, i was gold capped on several accounts before i found botting. Never lost one because of it.

 

Well then only other thing to think is bot is detectable. They just not doing banwave. But as bad as botting has got its not worth botting period. Cant go longer than week or 2 before you ge t banned how can you make any income at all when your stuck spending 500$ a week to get 10 accounts to bot....Yea cnan use tyreal and all that but why ?? this bot was made to bot for $$ not made for players. Cant make money why bot at all.

i am done donating to blizzard for the crappy game. Only Reason i play wow was because at one point it was a good source of income i cant stand the game itself its trash compared to other mmo's its just mainstreamed due to its easyness and graphicsss. put billion dollars in advertising everquest 1 and i bet that game would hit mainstream again lol. people claim wow is best PvP.shows how much they played other games lol no mmo you can just ssmash buttons and the spells and attacks land.........Easymode pvp is wow lol

 

Because its nice to dps a boss, go pee, get something to eat, and than come back and get your loot?

 

I guess but why bot if you are actually into the game........Your not playing or being hardcore. The bot is. its more like playing honorbuddy than playing wow

i am trying to find another mmo i can bot but i dont think there is any except wow at the moment which blizzard did a good job in ending.....Any suggestions ? i see buddy team started maken more bots but i wounder if those games actually make money......Only one i heard of is star wars and diablo 3 the other bots they made i dont even think people even play them to have a market......


But i am almost positive it is not player reports. How can blizzard just go "hey got report from this player saying this player is a bot lets ban him with no proof" Doesnt make sense to me...I monitor the accounts 90% of the time. Not once did i get a whisper from a player or a GM....Say a GM monitored my flying. Still is not proof i am botting. I could be a player flying around by hand farming how do they know f i am botting if the bot really isnt detectable ?? If they whispered me and i did not respond ok. But nope. No whisper just automated Ban for 3rd party software....So this leaves only 2 options.

1 - GM gets player reports and just bans people without checking if they are a bot
2 - The Bot is detectable.

because how else can blizzard ban you with Botting/3rd party software Without detecting bot ? Why not Exploit economy bans like it has always been before ? Now all of a sudden its always use of bot/3rd party software.

like others say people who play the auction house would have 1000 auctions. I botted 6 hours took 2 hour break bot for another 6 hours 5-6 days a week.. Most auctions in 1 day was 50-70 rest C.o.D. so even if they did track AH i was not a big user of. Nor did i play 24/7. The only Logical thing that makes sense is Blizzard is just banning without checking proof. or the bot is detected. Its the only Logical explenation.

All you people saying Oh bot is not detectable or we all be banned once we turned it on............... You are not bright. Maybe Blizzard is Testing out there software for future banwave ? Maybe Blizzard does not want to ban all the bots at once ? Maybe Blizzard is trying to ban people to makem buy new accounts ?

What does Blizzard benefit from banning 200 people a day compared to what they gain from banning all the bots at once ?

"Only 6-7 posts a day on ban forums not 200 people getting banned a day!" False......People who use honorbuddy do not all use the forums. Nor do they post when they get banned. only maybe 2% of HB users actualy post anything on the forums.

Blizzard has a way to track if you are botting......That is not even a question. We just need to figure out what it is and how to fix/avoid. But month or two then buddy team will realize something is wrong and look into it ^_^ they usualy pretty good just little to arrogant sometimes lol

 

They way people get banned:
1. You get reported by a player (account gets flagged)
2. Blizz monitors your account(s)
3. Blizz notices your botting because of weird behavior or repetable routes.
4. You get a ban

 

in some cases. but how would they catch repetable routees when your profile changes evvery 20 minutes

And it could be repetable routes if you are using the add-on typhoon because it gives a route on mini map for you to follow.....Even when i farm by hand i would follow the same route over and over. its not smart to travel all random spots.. i dont know i feel blizzard needs to collect more solid evidence before they just ban people....i wounder how many people they falsely ban for botting every day lol because if bot is not detectable then they really are just banning at random.

 

When I said about them looking at /played time, I didn't mean to say they looked at total played time. I said it is obvious they are tracking this, so with that they must be storing other information like "Playtime of current session". Which is pretty obvious when they drop you for inactivity after 15 minutes. If you have a high playtime of current session, that is suspicious.

I don't think they are that selective in 'testing' this 'new' software, it isn't really new. Warden has been around for a while. I think if they wanted to wipe out botting completely they could be constantly updating and improving Warden to handle this.

With a game called Silkroad Online they had major problems with botters and still do. However they were trying things like changing the OPcodes every inspection (client update .exe update) just to delay botters from updating them. The OPcodes basically are the ID to identify a packet string, when doing a command - player movement, deleting item etc. I think that is also a way to detect botters by checking for any packets sent from a client that are missing information. Something very easy for developers to overlook is Blizzard going back and fiddling about with length of packets that mis-match the server files.

Nowadays with games player botters and gold sellers are a big audience of a lot of MMO'S, so removing them all isn't an option. They just have to control them. I think players like me who have played for a long time and don't really do anything major possibly get ignored? But I figured whole banning system would be automated.

With amount of resources they have I think they could be very creative in finding bots and I have only speculated a couple of reasons, IF they can detect bots API strings etc, why are they not going mass on banning everyone. I think purely because of the reason in paragraph above.

- Also this thread is not really aimed at anyone, I just don't like when people call out the developers fault right away with little understanding and / or looking over the obvious reason they got banned. Of course I have read about some pretty random ones also.

On another note:
Any developers here know if any World of Warcraft database for the game has leaked online (in the past), we could possibly look into what database values they store under your account. (Probably a bit different to now, but Warden has been around for a while).

 

I have to agree with the original poster on this. Its not the bot its you! I have been botting for the last 3 years on 2 accounts. 1 is my main where I lvl up toons and the 2nd is my mining toons that mines 16 hours a day making around 30k gold a day. I have never been cought. "Touch Wood" If your going to bot do it safe and think about it. Too quest grind always sit behind your pc and watch it. To mine use RandomBuddy.

 

I cant figure out why people are so adamant that the bot is not detected. To say that you know for a fact it isn't detected because you havent been banned and have used it for x years x hours a day is meaningless. Im not saying it is or isnt becuase I dont know. Do I think it is yes I definately do. Do I think that blizzard would just ban all botters I sure dont. But to say that bot is undetectable because you haven't been caught is like saying cancer doesn't exist becuase you haven't had it. Just because you have not expirienced something first hand does not mean it can't happen or doesnt exist anymore then these players saying bot is detected because they got banned means that it is detected. It's anecdotal and nothing more then a educated guess based on their own personal expiriences. Sorry to say but they only people who know if bot is detected or not is Blizzard.

Again since I believe it is more then likely detected I think it is also possible that just because they can detect it doesn't mean they do. Maybe some people they look into it on and some they don't. Who the hell knows and why does it even matter. They are banning more then average right now I think that this will likely continue through the release of the next expansion and the holiday season and then will probably taper off again. But ulitmately whether it's detected or not your cheating and you could get caught. It is the way it is so if you want to bot right now with what I think most would agree is a higher level of risk with the current ban situation and all then do. If you dont feel comfortable losing what you got then don't bot until it cools off.

Good criminals dont break into a bank thinking oh this will just go good and not worry about the negatives like cop response time and whatnot they make a plan. They assess the risk of the job and then they decide if the payoff is worth it. Granted this isn't crime but your doing something that could negatively impact you if caught so you gotta look at the payoff and look at the risk.

Choose wisely my friends.

 

The way I see it is if Blizzard are willing to spend millions of $ on a law suit to get honorbuddy shut down and what ppl are saying that the bot is detected, then why have we all not been banned ? you login start the bot and we would be banned instantly. Yes Blizzard may have changed the way they find botters. IE monitoring the routes on which we use for gatherbuddy and questing. but this bot is for sure not detected or we would be all banned.

 

I'm gonna try having it attached but running ZERO routines/profiles/anything (doing nothing), and play like I normally do. I'll report if I get banned.