Recent Wave of Account Actions

[Andreauk]

I saw quite a few of you got temporary suspensions and got worried. I sent a ticket to a gm and got a response seen here :

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/5764/blizzardah.jpg

[Owltoid]

I think GMs are taking a more active role. Apparently I was reported as botting, a GM researched and noticed I was playing from Bermuda IP address when my account says I'm in Connecticut and locked my accounts (that's what the phone rep said happened). Not a ban, but it is the first time this has ever happened to me. After a couple phone calls I was able to get my account unlocked. There is increased focus on multiboxers, but it could just be the result of Blizz stepping up their game against bots and us getting caught in the crossfire.

[Nitro]

Many have been mentioning the follow-up review email is just another form letter seemingly just automatically sent. But seems like everyone that has called in has had it fixed.

Made a phone call yesterday afternoon and they said they would escalate. Received an email 8 hours later saying they will continue to uphold the ban. At this point I think I am just going to cancel my accounts because continuing to play just feels like gambling for a perminant ban.

All I use is keyclone and jamba so I have no clue what the issue could be.

[Tonuss]

I saw quite a few of you got temporary suspensions and got worried. I sent a ticket to a gm and got a response seen here :

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/5764/blizzardah.jpg
That's a terrible reply. The intent seems to be to imply that multiboxing is becoming "an issue" but stating it so ambiguously that he can later claim that he didn't say anything like that. I have yet to see Blizzard claim that what we do is a problem or "issue" in any context. Players have been complaining about the "unfairness" of multiboxing for years, and none of the complaints are new. None of the official responses to people who got their bans/suspensions overturned indicated that multiboxing was an issue aside from the possibility that they mistook it for botting. Maybe that GM is new?

[Andreauk]

Maybe make a ticket and see what response you get?

[cmeche]

Holy crap! Everything about that Gm's post is completely cockeyed. Where do they find these people?

reguarding pvp....
"...unfair to do burst damage and the other team cant fight back"
Did he seriously say that? What is the difference in getting cc'd and blown up by non boxed players.

and then the einstein comment on pve......
"...there are concerns of people who multi-box in dungeons not putting in full effort on all characters".....?
The exact thing can be said about solo players.
And I hope he meant to say "raids" instead of "dungeons". How do you box a 5-man and complete it....but not pull your own weight? 2box to 5box doesnt matter. Usually its the other way around.
AND THEN.....shouldnt his pvp comment make us VERY useful for pve situations???????

Very bad post and mindset by someone in charge of stuff.

[MiRai]

If you'd like to voice your concern with a GM's reply:

WoWGMFeedback-US@blizzard.com (WoWGMFeedback-US@blizzard.com)
WoWConcernsEU@blizzard.com

[MadMilitia]

Still going on eh?

I'm surprised. I figured by now they would have taken the toy away from the QQers in BGs that results in suspensions from /report spam.

[MadMilitia]

I got the same suspension the other day, the GM told me to actively partipate in BGs and it won't happen again. I was actively partipating and always am but if you get reported enough in BGs some GM may eventually just suspend you without really looking at the details.

Someone on your team may have just reported you for avoiding being AFK through botting and not partipating; there are enough of those complaints that they may just hit the suspend button without really investigating. I don't know what kind of tools they have to verify complaints, it's probably along the lines of just data of what BG you were in and when, how many times you were reported and removed the AFK debuff - I don't think they get a video replay of the BG to verify that you were just multiboxing.

Bud, the problem is the WoW community at large. They are predominately knobheads who see a multiboxer and start spamming the /report tool.

Until they take the toy away from the troll the problem won't go away.

They /report spammed before too. But Blizzard made the /report tool actually useful so yeah. There you go.

[JohnGabriel]

Bud, the problem is the WoW community at large. They are predominately knobheads who see a multiboxer and start spamming the /report tool.

Until they take the toy away from the troll the problem won't go away.

They /report spammed before too. But Blizzard made the /report tool actually useful so yeah. There you go.

Are we 100% sure its connected to the /report tool?

[Shodokan]

Are we 100% sure its connected to the /report tool?

Its not click to move
Its not interact with target
Its not being AFK (since they are doing damage/healing they are NOT afk)

What else COULD it be?

[MadMilitia]

Are we 100% sure its connected to the /report tool?


I believe so. The blues have been silent on it. There is really no other way they could have done this. Too much sophistication going other routes. I'm a software developer and in this regard I've thought it over and yeah.. they are using the playerbase and the /report tool to do this. That's why multiboxers are getting hit.

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/reporting-hack-programs-and-hosting-websites


They added an option to reporting players for cheating some time ago. And they bumped the usefulness of the /report tool in battlegrounds as well. The latter being very recently.

I saw a blue post on the issue a few weeks ago but the board is updated all day so the post is buried. For name reporting they are ditching it /dev/null. Everything else goes through some new filter auto monitoring tool they've developed. That tool is banning multiboxers. Its probably some basic arithmetic on average proximity to other players and sequence input. I don't think it works on having AFK status either.

[JohnGabriel]

Of the people that were banned, did any of you have mixed teams with uniquely different names?

I imagine if you all go in with xmog twins all named the same except é or whatever, then people are going to quickly report you.

But if you're getting banned for the less obvious boxing then maybe its not the /report tool, or maybe its only partially that. And I cant imagine more than a few people in a 40 man that reports you so it would be a very sensitive tool if that is the case.

[Owltoid]

I think GMs review the situation before issuing a ban. I know that when I was locked earlier this week it was because I was reported as botting or cheating which led to a GM reviewing the ticket which led to my account being locked due to my strange IP address.

What is most likely going on in Blizz hired a slew of new GMs that don't know what they're doing yet, combined with an increased focus on removing bots. Given that the last time I called I got through immediately and only had an 11 minute wait, I'm guessing I either got extremely lucky during prime time or Blizz is ramping up the customer service (and we are likely suffering due to ignorance).

[heyaz]

More and more GM responses mentioning multiboxing as a concern, but that screenshot is the first one I've seen them mentioning the burst potential as a concern (contradicts all the blue posts). They do seem to have a concern about multiboxers not pulling their weight though.

I wonder if there is a correlation between constant suspensions and unsympathetic GM's mentioning multiboxing as a concern, and getting stomped in the BG's you play. Like bringing in an undergeared, nonviable comp and not being able to complete the objectives or getting farmed in the GY the whole game.

I almost want to try it out to see what happens, during WSG CTA. Bring in my most geared, best comp, and win, and then do games on a not-so-viable comp and get stomped. And see which set of accounts gets suspended more. I know which comp will get reported more, and which one will have a higher contribution, but I'm curious if that will make any difference in the actions taken against my accounts.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I think GMs review the situation before issuing a ban. I know that when I was locked earlier this week it was because I was reported as botting or cheating which led to a GM reviewing the ticket which led to my account being locked due to my strange IP address. Your situation probably had particular flags on the incident. For regular /report stuff in BGs, I cannot imagine how they could process tens of thousands of reports manually and expect to have enough resources to get anything resembling a reasonable outcome.

[MadMilitia]

Your situation probably had particular flags on the incident. For regular /report stuff in BGs, I cannot imagine how they could process tens of thousands of reports manually and expect to have enough resources to get anything resembling a reasonable outcome.

They don't. They tried that for years and it got them nowhere. They would have to pay an astronomical amount of money to police the game that way. It would logically take 1 employee 8 hours to watch a handful of players. There are millions of players. Too much overhead involved in that.

Warden was the right approach but it broke laws. So they couldn't go that route. Arithmetic is not going to work on its own either as players do things like spawn at a GY and autorun right to the enemy GY while watching television.

There has to be a middle ground and like blogs and forums, the developers of the game are using their subscribers to flag players for their new tool to ban. The tool with player input does what they think is fine. But players hate multiboxers so they routinely /report us. The tool is now being used as a weapon against multiboxers, not botters.

I see the random GM input as useless and unworthy of discussion. These guys are not publishers or developers of the game. The only useful input they have is canned.

So yeah they used to review these things, hence why ban waves would come in bunches every 6 months or so. Lots of records to look at! These off the cuff suspensions and bans are coming out of their new tool that is tied directly to the number of reports hanging over a character's head.

[MadMilitia]

Of the people that were banned, did any of you have mixed teams with uniquely different names?

I imagine if you all go in with xmog twins all named the same except é or whatever, then people are going to quickly report you.

But if you're getting banned for the less obvious boxing then maybe its not the /report tool, or maybe its only partially that. And I cant imagine more than a few people in a 40 man that reports you so it would be a very sensitive tool if that is the case.

I'd be interested in knowing this as well. Also the odds of a player who runs an entire BG on their side being banned. If we knew for sure they weren't being banned then we know it is directly involving the /report tool for the knobs in game to abuse.

[Percocet10n1]

Last week I un subscribed all my accounts because of all the recent suspensions and bans and decided to check back to see if it was still happening. While everyone says and even blizzard says that multi-boxing is allowed, I have come to believe that they won't come right out and tell us that they don't want us boxing in BG's. They see it as an exploit where as one player has an advantage over other players. So that said I personally believe they will not fix this problem for us and force boxers out of the pvp part of the game. They will continue to keep saying that boxing is allowed, which it is technically but as long as you stay out of bg's and arena.

I logged onto my battle.net accounts today to see if the bans had been lifted as they said they were going to do. Because I would like to come back to the game when/if this problem is fixed and was surprised to see that all my accounts are now banned. Previously, when I unsubscribed only 2 had 3 day bans and I haven't played since. But in that time I did receive a message on a ticket that all my previous bans were un-banned. This is not the case, and even though I haven't played since I unsubscribed I have earned 3 new bans. Curious.... I have submitted a ticket to fix this, just in case they do fix the game so that boxers can pvp without fear of being suspended or banned.

I will keep updating as new information comes my way.

I have moved to Guild Wars 2 and am having fun with that game right now. I don't know if you can multi box it. But I opened a single account just to get a feel for the game. So far I am having fun with it.

[MadMilitia]

Last week I un subscribed all my accounts because of all the recent suspensions and bans and decided to check back to see if it was still happening. While everyone says and even blizzard says that multi-boxing is allowed, I have come to believe that they won't come right out and tell us that they don't want us boxing in BG's. They see it as an exploit where as one player has an advantage over other players. So that said I personally believe they will not fix this problem for us and force boxers out of the pvp part of the game. They will continue to keep saying that boxing is allowed, which it is technically but as long as you stay out of bg's and arena.

I logged onto my battle.net accounts today to see if the bans had been lifted as they said they were going to do. Because I would like to come back to the game when/if this problem is fixed and was surprised to see that all my accounts are now banned. Previously, when I unsubscribed only 2 had 3 day bans and I haven't played since. But in that time I did receive a message on a ticket that all my previous bans were un-banned. This is not the case, and even though I haven't played since I unsubscribed I have earned 3 new bans. Curious.... I have submitted a ticket to fix this, just in case they do fix the game so that boxers can pvp without fear of being suspended or banned.

I will keep updating as new information comes my way.

I have moved to Guild Wars 2 and am having fun with that game right now. I don't know if you can multi box it. But I opened a single account just to get a feel for the game. So far I am having fun with it.

I haven't bothered with GW2 as Dead Space 3 is due out next month and I still haven't finished up Borderlands 2. Throw a hectic work schedule on top of that and I have little time for WoW.

So yeah I'm with you here. Unsubbed all my accounts last night. But I have a month to go so I want to step into some random BGs and see if my mogged twins and like names get me banned right away. When I have time I'll check. Got 20 days left on the subs.

[Andreauk]

After the gm ticket response I posted earlier I would think that they no longer wish to tolerate it in pvp or instance situations, where for example (as I have seen before) some person who has no idea how to box drags a toon on raf behind on follow, while it contributes nothing to the group.

[MiRai]

They see it as an exploit where as one player has an advantage over other players. So that said I personally believe they will not fix this problem for us and force boxers out of the pvp part of the game. They will continue to keep saying that boxing is allowed, which it is technically but as long as you stay out of bg's and arena.
5 vs 5 a multiboxer should lose every time; but because people are terribly uncoordinated they normally don't.

It would seem that you're really just jumping to conclusions with no real evidence besides what you're picking out of certain replies from these GM tickets. Anyone who's been in this 'scene' longer than a few months knows that GMs are usually full of shit and 1 out of 10 GMs have an actual informative answer when it comes down to something like this. Let's face it, if Blizzard wanted to remove multiboxing from any part of the game they'd just remove /follow; because any solo character can still fully function w/o the follow command, where as, a multiboxer cannot.

[Andreauk]

Maybe you could all ticket a gm asking about it so we can compare responses?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Consider that WoW GM is not a technical position. They aren't required to do any actual analysis. Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised they aren't outsourced to India yet.

[moog]

wow, just wow...

> many players are complaining that it is unfair to come up against a group of 3-4 in a BG and have them all burst damage

so, better not play closely with friends in this MMO now, as 3 or 4 of you might all target one opponent who can then have you all suspended!

It's not why I left WoW but I sure as fuck am glad I did!

One thought - why not create some single-box teams where 5 of you all queue together and follow one leader, your spells all going to the leader's target etc, just to push the point!

[ebony]

still playing nonstop bg's as many of my friends are even "using OQaddon) two find two pugs for to make it a 5 man group or make new friends whatever. my last 36 hours i logged in all i done is nonstop bg's (capping conquest) and no more bans i have been reported many times and nothing as of yet since my ban over 4 weeks ago. so all this blizzard wants us out is not ture (i play at random times as well never the same same late AM sometimes late PM sometimes midday.


don't be scard to do something because of this. if i get banned again ill make sure it gets passed on to the right staff to sort out.

[Ualaa]

You mean, the old plan of gathering dozens of boxers each with a pitch fork or something similar, and storming the assorted Blizzard buildings to demand the righting of wrongs... isn't going to happen?

[zenga]

Its not click to move
Its not interact with target
Its not being AFK (since they are doing damage/healing they are NOT afk)

What else COULD it be?


I believe so. The blues have been silent on it. There is really no other way they could have done this. Too much sophistication going other routes. I'm a software developer and in this regard I've thought it over and yeah.. they are using the playerbase and the /report tool to do this. That's why multiboxers are getting hit.

I find this method too easy: since its not ABC it has to be D. There is many behind the scenes stuff and we have no frigging clue how or what. But detection software in general works with pattern comparison. They compare A with the pattern of the bot data they have/caught, then B, then C, etc ... and multiboxers get caught in crossfire. It's really pure speculation. But apart from I think it's very unlikely that most people start to mass report multiboxers in bg's all in a sudden. and that this is the sole reason.

They could compared for example how toons move, if a toon never actively goes right or left or forward it might lead to a false positive. The same with target acquiring. Not saying it's that, just saying that it's way too easy to jump to conclusions based on what we know.

[Chumbucket]

Haven't seen it mentioned and i doubt all of us who have been tapped by the ban hammer have done this but could the suspensions be related to the 2 step?

[Ualaa]

Doubt that.
Khatovar posted that you can do two-step macros with the default Blizzard system, a few pages back in this thread.

They're not going to give suspensions for using a feature included in the base game.
Which should rule out suspensions based on CTM, IWT, etc.. too.

[pinotnoir]

I have not read every page of this thread. If I was a betting man I would say boxers are being reported by cry babies in the bg's and arenas. You get enough of them reporting you it will draw attention.

[Ualaa]

That seems to be the consensus.
Blizzard's software seems to give suspensions, triggered by the amount of reports.

[zenga]

That seems to be the consensus.
Blizzard's software seems to give suspensions, triggered by the amount of reports.

Sorry to be the dick, but it's a consensus purely based on speculation that holds no ground whatsoever.

[Ualaa]

Rephrase then; that's the best theory, based on available data.

[valkry]

Didn't a lot of people get in their GM responses and emails that they had been reported inactive?? That leads me to believe that it is related to being reported afk by other players. And people do report boxers afk a lot to try and get rid of them. They don't report afk for bots as much as they report afk to try and get rid of nubs/people they dont like.

[Lax]

Haven't seen it mentioned and i doubt all of us who have been tapped by the ban hammer have done this but could the suspensions be related to the 2 step?
Considering the bans are not specifically ISBoxer users ("I only used Keyclone and Jamba!"), I would say it has nothing to do with the 2 step. Also, probably fewer people use "the 2 step" method than you realize ;)


People are getting reported AFK or whatever in the battlegrounds, some many times, and this is pretty obviously related to the suspensions/bans. (Not to mention the number of people who have been specifically told by Blizzard that this is related.) Since this is obviously a new thing with people actually getting suspended/banned automatically (I imagine this whole problem is caused by switching AFK reports to automatic review instead of manual review), Blizzard is probably still working on the algorithms that try to decide who is a botter, who is afk, and who is legit. There's supposedly some threshold where you need to attack something in x amount of time, or at least that was the rumor from before this debacle. It's also possible that permanently being on auto-follow might flag you, and so on.

I imagine that AFK reports might be permanent on your accounts, so people who have been doing BGs for a while might be more at risk than someone just starting. I also imagine that when the GMs review your account after you complain about your account getting banned for multiboxing, they might clear out existing AFK reports from your account. But anyone playing in the BGs can still use the AFK report tool if they don't like you, I don't think I see them making it impossible to do that to someone just because it's a multiboxer.

Part of the problem with multiboxers in BGs is, first of all, that some people are bad multiboxers. Say you run 5 and one's a healer, if you decide not to use him to heal then your healer might get reported as AFK... Say your configuration is busted and only one of your guys (e.g. the "main" one) is actually attacking, then 4 of your guys might get reported as AFK. Say one of your guys dies and ends up in a graveyard at the other side of the map, if you don't run him back toward your team, he might get reported as AFK. These are all equivalent to someone playing a character in the BG, and not doing anything, and your teammates may or may not like you...


With that said, I don't specifically know and if I did specifically know they would probably not let me spill any details. These are educated guesses. As always, be a Good Citizen (tm) and they have no reason to want to ban you.

[Fat Tire]

I believe there is another factor and that is SoR accounts. These accounts are being sold from 5-10 dollars each and then being used to bot in huge numbers sometimes by a single person for gold/account selling. There is a rumor that blizz is watching these accounts more and has set the threshold lower.

I am not sure if anyone here is aware how advanced botting has become. The dps routines,way point configs, macro set up and the variables used in combat including cc is amazing, people bot PvE more than pvp. If someone didnt know any better and saw a person muti boxing 4 or 4 botted characters on follow of the same class I am willing to wager they wouldnt know the difference.

[MadMilitia]

I find this method too easy: since its not ABC it has to be D. There is many behind the scenes stuff and we have no frigging clue how or what. But detection software in general works with pattern comparison. They compare A with the pattern of the bot data they have/caught, then B, then C, etc ... and multiboxers get caught in crossfire. It's really pure speculation. But apart from I think it's very unlikely that most people start to mass report multiboxers in bg's all in a sudden. and that this is the sole reason.

They could compared for example how toons move, if a toon never actively goes right or left or forward it might lead to a false positive. The same with target acquiring. Not saying it's that, just saying that it's way too easy to jump to conclusions based on what we know.


Didn't work out that way. People didn't just start reporting multiboxers. They've been doing so since multiboxers existed.

What Lax stated is what I'm talking about. The review of the accounts got moved to some automated system that runs a detection algorithm and that is what is suspending people. It isn't a person. A person investigating would see my team with like names and all mogged gear and laugh it off. Bans and suspensions used to work off of a cycle. Now it seems like the suspensions are all over the place. They definitely automated this part. Now what they automated is unknown. Theoretically it could be they are tracking how often /follow is used, or they could be tracking proximity to other players. Or they could quite simply be looking for X number of /reports. That seems rather simple but it wouldn't surprise me considering the randomness everyone is seeing with it. Some people aren't suspended for weeks while others go a day or two. Something like that in my mind points clearly to the abuse of the /report tool.

Lets think of it this way. Most of us here use Isboxer. Most of us have toons with same names and mogged gear, or so I assume. I'm also sure that some of us are running same class squads too which is pretty obvious that they are chaining GCDs and movement. We aren't all that different from one another so, logically, if the automated detection system bans a player for X number of offenses, and each of us perform X number of offenses similarly we should all be getting the same amount of suspensions. We aren't. So it has to be more reliant on the /report part of it than the automated detection system.


I believe there is another factor and that is SoR accounts. These accounts are being sold from 5-10 dollars each and then being used to bot in huge numbers sometimes by a single person for gold/account selling. There is a rumor that blizz is watching these accounts more and has set the threshold lower.

I am not sure if anyone here is aware how advanced botting has become. The dps routines,way point configs, macro set up and the variables used in combat including cc is amazing, people bot PvE more than pvp. If someone didnt know any better and saw a person muti boxing 4 or 4 botted characters on follow of the same class I am willing to wager they wouldnt know the difference.


They would because botting is not what multiboxing is today. Multiboxing is much less fluid and appears to the average WoW player as multiboxing. Botting itself is hardly detectable by the eye anymore. Unless the BG is loaded with them. They know when they see multiboxers. Hence the /spit, 'reported' messages and all the other tripe we get from them. They wouldn't bother replying if it were a bot.

I kinda thought maybe the proximity thing and /follow was an issue because the way the bots work today is they do all their normal routines but they follow someone around the map. So there is that proximity thing and the /follow thing most likely as well. I haven't looked at the newer bots but knowing what bots could do back in EQ1, I'd say they are quite advanced now.

[Baltyre]

I didn't get any suspension/ban.
Isboxer, jamba with strobe follow, no SoR, all same battlenet.
One account is old, others where created when MOP launch.

[MadMilitia]

I didn't get any suspension/ban.
Isboxer, jamba with strobe follow, no SoR, all same battlenet.
One account is old, others where created when MOP launch.

You have to give us more than that.

1. What are you doing? Dungeons, BGs or both?
2. What level are these toons?
3. How often do you interact with other players? Keep in mind the ratios. Not everyone complains or /reports, so the more people you interact with on a daily basis the higher your odds of being reported.



FYI I've not been suspended on any of my toons.

I multibox no Battlegrounds.
I multibox 5 man dungeons on a 5 man team.
I quest open world 5 man.

I sometimes stand in cities figuring out what I'm going to do next. Sometimes I get people who ask questions and some who report, but not many.

Early last year was the last time I 5 boxed any battlegrounds and the complaints were staggering. Even if we were winning and I was top heals and top DPS, people were reporting me. People on my own team, who would vote kick half the squad holding down a node and killing zerg trains.

[Baltyre]

1. Outdoor, BG, dungeons
2. 90
3. Lots, got a rage wisp per 2/3 days usually but my team is not named all the same way, so i get less report even if on small BG, multibox are obvious.

[MadMilitia]

1. Outdoor, BG, dungeons
2. 90
3. Lots, got a rage wisp per 2/3 days usually but my team is not named all the same way, so i get less report even if on small BG, multibox are obvious.


I suspect most /report are done from the map, not up close. So your names may be throwing them off a bit.

It may also be worth mentioning I also run all 5 from the same battle net account. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[fcha]

I'm playing on Taiwan server. Currently I got 10 (5 dks, 5 shamans) Lv90 toons. I might to do some BG when I get enough armors for toons. And let see is whether the same situation as US/EU server.
To be honest, i'm a nice guy in WOW. I never take advantage of that because I know I play as a troop.

[Toned]

I changed my 4 shams to enh, an started farming honor gear this week, and I've got a decent chunk of gear 4 boxing, and had 0 issues with bans suspensions.
I've had a decent amount of QQ when we'd lose a WSG or something, and still nothing.

My accounts are all also pre-BC accounts, I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

[Blubber]

Haven't been banned/suspended yet.
* 1 very old account (since launch)
* 4 SoR Accounts with 85 Shaman and a Mage
* First team: 30ish arms warrior + 4 disc priests
* Seconds team: 85 Pally + Mage + 3 Shaman
* Third team: ~70 1x Disc Priest + 4x Blood DK
* Fourth Team: 4x Retribution pally (50 ish)

With the first 3 teams I solely run instances. Sometimes I camp in IF. With the fourth team I quest in the outside world, I do get ganked a lot on those pallies, and I'll move into instances as soon as they hit level 60 (got another healer waiting for them.)

Sometimes people whisper me, either with interest, or to shout at me for cheating. In the latter case I suggest to them that they report me for cheating, instead of grieving me, and then /ignore them.

No battlegrounds.

[Chumbucket]

I usually run a lot of AVs with 8 hunters and 2 druids.

[sethlan]

update: I said before, I did tons and tons World pvp on my shamans, accounts are almost year 9 months old, after patch same, tons of world pvp, rage whispers, reports, etc... today i did Twin peaks on my ten accounts- no suspension.... how i Q up for 10 man bg? old school way.

isboxer/jamba, and few small addons

[Sam DeathWalker]

I was trying to use lua code to chain follow my guys (i.e. a long line of 27 guys each following the one in front of him) and read about protected code, then about how to crack protected code, then about bots, then about Blizzard sueing the Bot company and then:


Blizz won't be able to shut down this bot company.

The bot company has nothing to do with blizzard, literally. They wrote software that does stuff to things that are currently loaded in memory, that's it.

They don't touch your control inputs or mouse placement, its all done by memory manipulation. Thats the reason they designed it that way, because they knew they couldn't get shut down, also the reason they moved their company to germany.

Tbh I don't mind bots, they make all the crap on the AH a lot cheaper for me.

Edit: And they aren't making profit off blizzard, if you say that then your saying the people using high end video cards in raiding content to get sponsors that pay them money to play the game are using high end video cards to make a profit off the game.
So we can see why Blizzard is cracking down on bots; sadly it seems there is not a lot they can do as far as programing wow goes to stop botting software, hopefully they will win their court action but that seems a tough road also. So their only recourse seems to ban particular uses who exhibit "bot behavior" .....


On the good news front it seems the bot company isnt doing much to support their product due to the pending litigation, instead putting resources into other games instead of wow, to the dismay of their users lol ..

[Tonuss]

They don't touch your control inputs or mouse placement, its all done by memory manipulation. Thats the reason they designed it that way, because they knew they couldn't get shut down, also the reason they moved their company to germany.If they knew that their method couldn't be shut down, why would they move their company to Germany? :o

[Multibocks]

Lawyers

[Santa]

If they knew that their method couldn't be shut down, why would they move their company to Germany? :o


I don't know, Glider was shut down and it was an American bot. Also Pirox bot got shut down but it's developers were from Germany I think.

[Quiding]

I don't know, Glider was shut down and it was an American bot. Also Pirox bot got shut down but it's developers were from Germany I think.
I read somewhere Pirox didn't use the memory reading method the current bot(s) in question does, meaning Pirox interacted with the game in a different way.

Also I can't see how these suspensions (if follow/afk related) can be related to botting since they don't use the follow system, atleast not the ones I've seen in BGs recently?

[Baltyre]

Ok, i got my temp ban too.
I can't reproduce my ticket here because it's in french but i contested my ban, they reply that the suspension was not going to be removed.
I send an other ticket, asking for more information and the gm tell me that multiboxing is ok but it seems that one of my character was not participing activly in some battlegrounds.
The character who was ban was on a tank half-pve spec (i was thinking that keep one char to tank the boss was a nice move) so it's probable that he get a lot less HK than the others.
So maybe the auto-ban is a system using not only the afk report but the performance of the character.

Maybe that a character always on follow, with lot of report and bad hk ratio trigger a detection routine.

[Multibocks]

I've given up on boxing BGs. I don't want to lose my accounts. At some point I will get bored and cancel them all.

[Shania]

Ok, i got my temp ban too.
I can't reproduce my ticket here because it's in french but i contested my ban, they reply that the suspension was not going to be removed.
I send an other ticket, asking for more information and the gm tell me that multiboxing is ok but it seems that one of my character was not participing activly in some battlegrounds.
The character who was ban was on a tank half-pve spec (i was thinking that keep one char to tank the boss was a nice move) so it's probable that he get a lot less HK than the others.
So maybe the auto-ban is a system using not only the afk report but the performance of the character.

Maybe that a character always on follow, with lot of report and bad hk ratio trigger a detection routine.

I dont think so, there will always be some people boxing or solo with less to 0 HK kils, depending what your doing in BG I guess.

What I find disturbing is boxers are getting suspended banned in BGS yet the tonne of bots are not.

WE had a guildie who raided with us in core raid and also was botting, 16 to 20 hrs per day literally, after raid, he would log off, and then log back on, and always never left dreadwastes it was brought up in vent if he is botting, due too the 16-20+ hrs per day in dreadwastes and never a word from him in guild chat, psts etc, other then verbally in vent on raid nights, he admitted he was botting, explained what he was using, what he was doing and did not care if he gets banned as it barely happens and been doing for x amount of time.

After raid, we had a discussion, problem was we are on a dead, small realm, person in question is a healer/dps os, you really cannot recruit anyone, so if we got rid of him, raid is over... numerous tickets were sent in by core raid members, weeks pass, he is still botting, one GM explains they usually mass ban bots, and this takes quite some time to do, occur, well wonderful, really... its an evil vicious cycle truely.

My partner had enough as had I, and we basically got rid of the shammy who was botting from the guild, which now leaves us with no raid for days, none for unknown period as we cannot pug fill or recruit lol.

So going to xfer our mains and a few others from core are coming with us, to a more populated realm, medium, not excessively high like we were on prior too raid.

My boxers will remain on the low pop realm, which I farm silver elites like there is no tomorrow and will with new ones in 5.2 but solo do heroic dungeons, best as I can... I wanted too BG come 5.2 but with these kind of threads I dont think I will bother either.

it just is disturbing too see this thread when botters in BGS, farm bots and whatever kind of bots are plagued and in mass forces and it takes forever for any to be banned and is mostly done in so called masses, which does no good as they are back a week later for months on end before the cycle occurs again, yet legit players, boxers cop a suspension in a BG.

Absolutely stupid.

[heyaz]

yeah I'd refrain from BGs for now. Too dangerous and I don't think GMs are sympathetic towards boxers.

[Shania]

yeah I'd refrain from BGs for now. Too dangerous and I don't think GMs are sympathetic towards boxers.

Maybe Gms are that way, however it is wrong, and unfair, to legit multi-boxers/players, especially when they do near nothing against bots, who are the real problem... it makes no sense. Boxing is allowed, we have seen alot of blue posts on this, confirming time and time again over the years, yet botting of course and rightfully is against the rules, but who is being suspended here, bots or legit boxer ?

[heyaz]

Bots and people not participating, like watching tv and hitting jump, are getting hit as well. They aren't being sympathetic to muliboxers and I have some ideas as to why.

[moog]

They aren't being sympathetic to muliboxers and I have some ideas as to why.
Anyone else think they'll explicitly ban multiboxing from Titan and this is them gearing up to that?

[Ualaa]

Recently, I've been taking a look at other online games.
In particular, the Free-to-Play games.

I could see myself spending a month or two, in Everquest.
Just to visit a world that I played in for six or seven years.

Not sure if I'd want to stay there or not.
It would depend on how the gameplay goes, and if the current suspensions for boxing in battlegrounds persists.

Then again, there are a lot of other games to experiment with too.

And there is finishing the RAF (two more phases) and leveling teams in Warcaft; but that has less appeal currently, due to the suspensions for boxing in what I'm primarily interested in... the large scale battleground pvp.

[DMan]

Finally had my fill of Warhammer online. See that MoP is at $20 in the blizzard store. Are these bans still going on or has this been resolved? Will I be able to queue my 5 man team into bgs together?

thanks for any updates at where things stand!

[Lax]

Finally had my fill of Warhammer online. See that MoP is at $20 in the blizzard store. Are these bans still going on or has this been resolved? Will I be able to queue my 5 man team into bgs together?

thanks for any updates at where things stand!

I can't say for certain, but it's been a month since this thread was bumped prior to your post, my guess is that if people were still getting banned they would still be complaining.

I don't think it's possible that multiboxers stopped doing battlegrounds entirely, there's new multiboxers every day and certainly not everyone has even heard of a possibility of getting banned from battlegrounds...

My guess is either that they changed some parameters on their end in a server update and that it's harder to get automatically banned by this system, or that they turned the automatic bans back off for now.

[zenga]

I can't say for certain, but it's been a month since this thread was bumped prior to your post, my guess is that if people were still getting banned they would still be complaining.

I don't think it's possible that multiboxers stopped doing battlegrounds entirely, there's new multiboxers every day and certainly not everyone has even heard of a possibility of getting banned from battlegrounds...

My guess is either that they changed some parameters on their end in a server update and that it's harder to get automatically banned by this system, or that they turned the automatic bans back off for now.

Over the past week or so a ton of players have reported getting banned for botting in BG's (even on that particular bot it's forum). Most seem to be banned after using one of the so called public profiles. A profile is a certain route that a bot takes to run around in a BG. Hence why you could see certain bot trains in random bg's, people using the same profile. Apparently one can make their own profile, and it doesn't look like those 'players' got banned who kept their profile private. So it was not really the bot that got detected, but rather the bot behaviour that triggered the banwave.

By the looks of it blizzard implemented a detection tool that tracks routes that characters take in random battlegrounds, and compare those routes to other players. What happened with all the boxers getting banned, and the fact that some main toons/leaders did not get the ban, is imo that they did not have enough data yet to compare. The system detected multiple toons taking the same route while it was in fact a multiboxer, and given their sample size not being big enough, the system flagged them as botters. Now that their is plenty of data available, it looks like the false positive detections for boxers disappeared.

[DMan]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Shodokan]

Over the past week or so a ton of players have reported getting banned for botting in BG's (even on that particular bot it's forum). Most seem to be banned after using one of the so called public profiles. A profile is a certain route that a bot takes to run around in a BG. Hence why you could see certain bot trains in random bg's, people using the same profile. Apparently one can make their own profile, and it doesn't look like those 'players' got banned who kept their profile private. So it was not really the bot that got detected, but rather the bot behaviour that triggered the banwave.

By the looks of it blizzard implemented a detection tool that tracks routes that characters take in random battlegrounds, and compare those routes to other players. What happened with all the boxers getting banned, and the fact that some main toons/leaders did not get the ban, is imo that they did not have enough data yet to compare. The system detected multiple toons taking the same route while it was in fact a multiboxer, and given their sample size not being big enough, the system flagged them as botters. Now that their is plenty of data available, it looks like the false positive detections for boxers disappeared.

Had 4 friends get banned. From what I've been told by a friend inside the company GMs are actually watching players in bgs once a flag comes up that they are "botting" from their internal detection system (not player reports) and taking actions based on that since there were more false positives than just for boxers, if it is your first offense you receive a 72 hour ban and a final warning and if you have ANY strikes on your account otherwise you get perma banned.

They've also implemented a new anti-botting features for gathering as well.

Thank god.

But yes, the bans shouldn't occur as often anymore if at all simply because you are boxing in bgs. You should only be banned if a GM doesn't know much about boxing but I've been told that they have made it clear if someone isn't sure to go to their supervisor before taking action.

[Narij]

Thanks for the info, almost enough to make me reactivate, to bad sc2 in < a month.

[Oldboxer]

Had 4 friends get banned. From what I've been told by a friend inside the company GMs are actually watching players in bgs once a flag comes up that they are "botting" from their internal detection system (not player reports) and taking actions based on that since there were more false positives than just for boxers, if it is your first offense you receive a 72 hour ban and a final warning and if you have ANY strikes on your account otherwise you get perma banned.

I'm dropping out of years of lurking here to share my experience. I got 3 hour suspensions on two characters back in the end of Jan. They came after the two characters got AFK'd from an AB. There was a player in it spamming for other players to report mine AFK because I was botting. I said in the game chat that I was multiboxing which was legal, but he kept it up. I reported him for griefing / harassing. About an hour later the suspensions hit on the two characters. I appealed them, saying I was multiboxing, playing by the rules. I also told about the harassing player, saying that his behavior shouldn't be allowed. I asked that they remove the suspensions and flag my account as being a multiboxer so that I wouldn't be misidentified in the future. The suspensions were dropped (although way after the 3 hours were up), their reply didn't really say anything about the reason, etc.

I continued playing BG's heavily after that. A couple of weeks later, in AV, I got a message on my screen for a short time "frozen". I didn't think much of it, it was very short. A couple of minutes later I get a message up near the mini map saying a GM wanted to talk with me (the first time ever in the game for me). I think "Oh shoot, here it comes", I click it to talk to him. The conversation was this:

GM: I just wanted to apologize about randomly freezing you. I was on a bot hunt and accidentally targeted you. >.<
Me: I'm multiboxing.
Me: Thank you for asking rather then assuming we were bots.
GM: You're welcome. Have fun!

So, it looks to me like GM's may be looking for bots live in the game, but multiboxing isn't the issue. I've played BG's heavily since then and I haven't had another problem. Knock on wood.

[fcha]

I'm dropping out of years of lurking here to share my experience. I got 3 hour suspensions on two characters back in the end of Jan. They came after the two characters got AFK'd from an AB. There was a player in it spamming for other players to report mine AFK because I was botting. I said in the game chat that I was multiboxing which was legal, but he kept it up. I reported him for griefing / harassing. About an hour later the suspensions hit on the two characters. I appealed them, saying I was multiboxing, playing by the rules. I also told about the harassing player, saying that his behavior shouldn't be allowed. I asked that they remove the suspensions and flag my account as being a multiboxer so that I wouldn't be misidentified in the future. The suspensions were dropped (although way after the 3 hours were up), their reply didn't really say anything about the reason, etc.

I continued playing BG's heavily after that. A couple of weeks later, in AV, I got a message on my screen for a short time "frozen". I didn't think much of it, it was very short. A couple of minutes later I get a message up near the mini map saying a GM wanted to talk with me (the first time ever in the game for me). I think "Oh shoot, here it comes", I click it to talk to him. The conversation was this:

GM: I just wanted to apologize about randomly freezing you. I was on a bot hunt and accidentally targeted you. >.<
Me: I'm multiboxing.
Me: Thank you for asking rather then assuming we were bots.
GM: You're welcome. Have fun!

So, it looks to me like GM's may be looking for bots live in the game, but multiboxing isn't the issue. I've played BG's heavily since then and I haven't had another problem. Knock on wood.


I think it's much better if GM use "frozen" or related method to identify whether player is BOT or multiboxer rather than ingame automatic system.
Anyway, it's good experience sharing~ :)

[Chumbucket]

Thanks for the update. I'm still a bit butt hurt over the whole suspension ugliness but this is encouraging news. I still have several suspensions on my toons record from back in December that I hope I will be able to get removed as I did appeal but was denied.

[Oldboxer]

My strange story for the day. After saying the other day that I wasn't getting suspensions while playing BG's heavily, knock on wood, I forgot to knock on wood and got a 72 hour suspension last night for "Unapproved Third Party Software". I use nothing out of the ordinary, so I appealed it, listing all the software that I had running on my machine while I was playing yesterday. I sent in the appeal at 4:47 PM, the ticket said 24 to 48 hour response time. I called customer support on the phone, they said they only deal with refund issues and that kind of thing. At 5:27 PM I get a response on the ticket saying "An additional review of the previously communicated action taken against the World of Warcraft account ... has been completed. Unfortunately, we have confirmed our initial findings. The account action will not be reversed or amended." I appeal it again, trying to get them to at least tell me the software involved. At 5:46 PM I get the reply to that. "After an additional thorough review of the action taken against this account, we regret to inform you that we have arrived at the same conclusion and the account action will not be removed under any circumstances."

I did the live chat thing, I pay 3 months at a time, I wanted to see if I could get refunds for what I prepaid. The rep said I could on some, not on others. I tried to get some details on the reasons from her, or a higher level contact, she gave me a management level customer service reps email. No details though.

At 6:37 PM I put in another ticket, asking again what program I was using, what could it hurt to tell me, I don't want to use it again. Reply at 6:42 PM: "As per our last contact, this issue has already been reviewed multiple times by our representatives, and it is now considered closed. No further dicussions (sic) or review of it shall occur."

At 6:46 PM I do another ticket asking if they could furnish me with the name of a management level contact in account management. At 7:42 PM I get this reply: "Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding the World of Warcraft account you are using. We understand your point of view and have thoroughly reviewed this issue. As a result, the account action has been removed from the account and all involved parties have been addressed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused." And I could log into the account.

I'm saying "What the f**k??" Do they think I did something wrong or not? On the one hand I want to do a ticket asking them if removing the suspension means they concluded that I was legal, on the other hand I don't want to stir it up again.

[JohnGabriel]

Starting to wonder if the GM support staff are like located in an India call center while programmers and decision makers are in US. Making it harder to keep policies in both places up to date.

[Mickthathick]

A guy on the Consortium forums reported that he was hit with a 72hr temp ban for 'using 3rd party software' for using TSM to post options. If you haven't used the addon TSM, basically it allows you to setup groups for your items to sell, it then scans the AH and posts the itmes.

Note that for each item you post you must 'click' a pop-up button confirming you want to post it. This is easily macroed, and most people (myself and the guy who got banned included) bind it to mouse wheel up/down, thus in about 20 seconds of mad scrolling you can post 1000s of auctions.

He appealed multiple times but had no luck at all, seems their new auto-flag systems still need work.

[Shodokan]

My strange story for the day. After saying the other day that I wasn't getting suspensions while playing BG's heavily, knock on wood, I forgot to knock on wood and got a 72 hour suspension last night for "Unapproved Third Party Software". I use nothing out of the ordinary, so I appealed it, listing all the software that I had running on my machine while I was playing yesterday. I sent in the appeal at 4:47 PM, the ticket said 24 to 48 hour response time. I called customer support on the phone, they said they only deal with refund issues and that kind of thing. At 5:27 PM I get a response on the ticket saying "An additional review of the previously communicated action taken against the World of Warcraft account ... has been completed. Unfortunately, we have confirmed our initial findings. The account action will not be reversed or amended." I appeal it again, trying to get them to at least tell me the software involved. At 5:46 PM I get the reply to that. "After an additional thorough review of the action taken against this account, we regret to inform you that we have arrived at the same conclusion and the account action will not be removed under any circumstances."

I did the live chat thing, I pay 3 months at a time, I wanted to see if I could get refunds for what I prepaid. The rep said I could on some, not on others. I tried to get some details on the reasons from her, or a higher level contact, she gave me a management level customer service reps email. No details though.

At 6:37 PM I put in another ticket, asking again what program I was using, what could it hurt to tell me, I don't want to use it again. Reply at 6:42 PM: "As per our last contact, this issue has already been reviewed multiple times by our representatives, and it is now considered closed. No further dicussions (sic) or review of it shall occur."

At 6:46 PM I do another ticket asking if they could furnish me with the name of a management level contact in account management. At 7:42 PM I get this reply: "Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding the World of Warcraft account you are using. We understand your point of view and have thoroughly reviewed this issue. As a result, the account action has been removed from the account and all involved parties have been addressed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused." And I could log into the account.

I'm saying "What the f**k??" Do they think I did something wrong or not? On the one hand I want to do a ticket asking them if removing the suspension means they concluded that I was legal, on the other hand I don't want to stir it up again.

Most of their staff actually goes through so many reports and flags per day that they basically just don't give a shit if they mess up on some of them. It takes insisting to talk to management to get a lot of things resolved that shouldn't be.

MVP's on the forums already say that the software used to multibox is legal and such as do their CM's so i don't know what the fuck their GM's/report specialists are doing that they don't know what software is deemed okay.

Theres a new process tracker that they implemented too from what i've read/heard from others as well to try and combat bots better and it may be flagging things it shouldn't be still :\

[Feehza]

Most of their staff actually goes through so many reports and flags per day that they basically just don't give a shit if they mess up on some of them. It takes insisting to talk to management to get a lot of things resolved that shouldn't be.



Indeed. It happens few times to our guildmates.

[heyaz]

You have to be pretty aggressive in the tickets to get the right response. Threaten to cancel or escalate to a supervisor. Or call Blizzard. Has worked for me every time. I've had perma-banned accounts restored (one was hacked like 3 times and they banned it).