Deception struck.
Heh, I was just questing around and I thought "at least in this game there's no lack of players, no zones so far truly feel empty!". Then at some point I noticed two players using the same words as their names (for example one was named Brick Water, the other was named Water Brick, just reversed), and both were perfectly synchronized, making sudden turns (as if navigating via waypoints, absolutely no "natural" mouse movement involved), using the same skills at the same time, on the same mobs often just as they (mobs) appeared, and they were also teleporting (literally) around to reach their next nearest targets, and they repeated the process.
So of course then I thought "Meh... bots, just great". I had read about them on the official forums mostly (and here too of course) but I had never seen them in action before. Anyway so I reported them both. Then I moved on and resumed my questing thinking that it was an "isolated case", or that generally speaking it would be rare. Then, I saw other bots, but the thing is... they were bots in a guild, they were doing the same thing but I don't know... I guess that the guy who owns those characters and the account just decided to join a guild and when he goes to bed or isn't playing the game he just turns on his bots.
Then I started to think... this is deceptive. The thing is that when I play around just questing (not doing dungeons) I more often then not realize that most actual "real" players don't communicate by chat unless they want to tell everyone in the Map chat that some boss popped somewhere and they link the nearest waypoint to get to that boss, mostly anyway (of course there's immature chatting too but I'm not referring to that type of useless chatter). Generally speaking players are silent anyway, if they do say something in say or even in party chat (when invited by strangers) it's just stuff like "thx" if you revive them, big deal.
So a thought came to my mind...
If most players stay silent unless you're in a guild or are "friends" with them and do some dungeons together, then there's almost no way to distinguish bots from real players because you can't rely on the fact that if you're in a guild it means you're not botting, which I now see isn't true. And of course you cannot rely on the fact that a player is activating his bot only because that player remains silent, which isn't true either, because of course we know that even if the player is real and isn't a bot he or she will remain silent anyway.
So, to "spot" a bot you literally have to idle around looking at "players" for a moment until visually you can see some irregularities in how the "player" moves around. Then again, he or she may indeed be a real player whom just happens to "play like a bot would" (or very close to it). All of that when I think of it explains a few things for me, but it deceives my perception of the population of the game in terms of real players (not in terms of how many accounts exist).
If I'm playing around in Wayfarer Foothills or Kessex or anywhere, and I just quest around seeing other players in the zone I can't tell myself "Nice this game is popular people are playing in numbers! This server is great!". That doesn't work anymore. Now I have to tell myself "Well maybe that guy isn't a bot, who knows... but I won't stand here losing my own time to see if the thing moves irregularly so I can report it. Although if I don't stand here for that purpose I won't lose my time and I will do some character progression, I don't exactly feel like going on a bots hunt, I just want to play the game".
I even saw what I suspect being bots (wasn't sure of it, so I did not report them) literally standing idle in front of the Trading Post NPCs in Lion's Arch. There was two of them again with similar names and they literally remained there for approximately three days. By that I mean that for a period of around three days whenever I logged-in to play and I happened to go to Lion's Arch I saw them there, at the exact same spot, never typing nor moving. It might have been a "coincidence" sure, two players of almost identical names (possible) whom happen to not be at home or are at work or whatever, not playing the game, leaving their game running on their PC and never touching their characters for around three days in front of the Trading Post.
Who knows huh?
Bah, so I thought "great, farming bots in the open as real players do their quests or just have fun", and "trading/economy bots" standing in front of the Trading Post NPCs doing God knows what to the game's (or at least server's) economy for their own benefits (or their guild's benefits who knows how far it can have consequences). So, yeah I had that sort of naive bubble before I realized how bad the problem truly is. I thought I was playing a game that was only rarely, very rarely "played by bots". Now it seems that the problem is much more complex and I don't see ArenaNet being able to even scratch the surface of the iceberg's tip. I truly wish them good luck though, I despise bots and I despise the people who create them, and the people who use them.
Heh, I was just questing around and I thought "at least in this game there's no lack of players, no zones so far truly feel empty!". Then at some point I noticed two players using the same words as their names (for example one was named Brick Water, the other was named Water Brick, just reversed), and both were perfectly synchronized, making sudden turns (as if navigating via waypoints, absolutely no "natural" mouse movement involved), using the same skills at the same time, on the same mobs often just as they (mobs) appeared, and they were also teleporting (literally) around to reach their next nearest targets, and they repeated the process.
So of course then I thought "Meh... bots, just great". I had read about them on the official forums mostly (and here too of course) but I had never seen them in action before. Anyway so I reported them both. Then I moved on and resumed my questing thinking that it was an "isolated case", or that generally speaking it would be rare. Then, I saw other bots, but the thing is... they were bots in a guild, they were doing the same thing but I don't know... I guess that the guy who owns those characters and the account just decided to join a guild and when he goes to bed or isn't playing the game he just turns on his bots.
Then I started to think... this is deceptive. The thing is that when I play around just questing (not doing dungeons) I more often then not realize that most actual "real" players don't communicate by chat unless they want to tell everyone in the Map chat that some boss popped somewhere and they link the nearest waypoint to get to that boss, mostly anyway (of course there's immature chatting too but I'm not referring to that type of useless chatter). Generally speaking players are silent anyway, if they do say something in say or even in party chat (when invited by strangers) it's just stuff like "thx" if you revive them, big deal.
So a thought came to my mind...
If most players stay silent unless you're in a guild or are "friends" with them and do some dungeons together, then there's almost no way to distinguish bots from real players because you can't rely on the fact that if you're in a guild it means you're not botting, which I now see isn't true. And of course you cannot rely on the fact that a player is activating his bot only because that player remains silent, which isn't true either, because of course we know that even if the player is real and isn't a bot he or she will remain silent anyway.
So, to "spot" a bot you literally have to idle around looking at "players" for a moment until visually you can see some irregularities in how the "player" moves around. Then again, he or she may indeed be a real player whom just happens to "play like a bot would" (or very close to it). All of that when I think of it explains a few things for me, but it deceives my perception of the population of the game in terms of real players (not in terms of how many accounts exist).
If I'm playing around in Wayfarer Foothills or Kessex or anywhere, and I just quest around seeing other players in the zone I can't tell myself "Nice this game is popular people are playing in numbers! This server is great!". That doesn't work anymore. Now I have to tell myself "Well maybe that guy isn't a bot, who knows... but I won't stand here losing my own time to see if the thing moves irregularly so I can report it. Although if I don't stand here for that purpose I won't lose my time and I will do some character progression, I don't exactly feel like going on a bots hunt, I just want to play the game".
I even saw what I suspect being bots (wasn't sure of it, so I did not report them) literally standing idle in front of the Trading Post NPCs in Lion's Arch. There was two of them again with similar names and they literally remained there for approximately three days. By that I mean that for a period of around three days whenever I logged-in to play and I happened to go to Lion's Arch I saw them there, at the exact same spot, never typing nor moving. It might have been a "coincidence" sure, two players of almost identical names (possible) whom happen to not be at home or are at work or whatever, not playing the game, leaving their game running on their PC and never touching their characters for around three days in front of the Trading Post.
Who knows huh?
Bah, so I thought "great, farming bots in the open as real players do their quests or just have fun", and "trading/economy bots" standing in front of the Trading Post NPCs doing God knows what to the game's (or at least server's) economy for their own benefits (or their guild's benefits who knows how far it can have consequences). So, yeah I had that sort of naive bubble before I realized how bad the problem truly is. I thought I was playing a game that was only rarely, very rarely "played by bots". Now it seems that the problem is much more complex and I don't see ArenaNet being able to even scratch the surface of the iceberg's tip. I truly wish them good luck though, I despise bots and I despise the people who create them, and the people who use them.
Last edited: