Follow In Battlegrounds Broken After 5.2

[MiRai]

I'm going to over-simplify things. If removing /follow was the secret to detecting and removing bots, why did they not do it sooner? I'm not a game programmer or developer, but it cannot be difficult to disable that function. Actually it is probably one of the easiest things for them to do. Has it really taken them all these years to figure out that /follow was the key? Unlikely. It could be a tiny bit helpful, but in the end, I do believe that multiboxers were the target. Bots, oddly enough, are the scapegoat.

Perhaps they've been avoiding it because of multiboxers and/or handicapped individuals who rely on it.

Er, encrypt the data.
CRC the data.

From what I've read on random forums randomly on the internet, SquareEnix does this with both FFXI and FFXIV. If you've ever played either game you would realize it's much slower paced, and from what I understand, the encryption is partially responsible for that (that, and the fact the servers are located across the ocean in Japan). This doesn't necessarily stop botting altogether, but I'm sure it makes it much harder to accomplish.

Just think about it for a second. You command your level 89 to fly in panderia. Wow stores information as to the level of your character in ram, you command fly wow goes to a ram address and gets your level to determine if you are 90 or not. Bot program changes 89 to 90 in the ram address storing your character level information and wow thinks you are level 90 .... what can they do about that?

From what you're saying, it sounds like you believe all of the server's data is stored in RAM on your home computer. That would mean you could just change the values in your RAM to level everyone up on the server to 90! Just think about it for a second...