Auction House Prices will be drastically changing

[Moorea]

Unlike auctioneer, wowecon only saves data when an item SELLS and not just what it's listed at. This means that some joker listing 100 stacks of X for 100x the current price won't mess up the data at all (unless someone buys it). The downside is that it only records data if the buyer or selling is running the mod, not any random person scanning the AH.

Uh that seems extremely limited... What prevents some joker from uploading bogus data ?

Also you can't tell the difference between a joker cancelling an auction and an auction being bought out...

[Ellusionist]

Very very true... the only way I can see wowecon telling the difference between sales and auction expiration is if the item disappears before the listing length is up.

I've always used it and love it, but really that's the only way it can tell.

[Feardis]

Ok, so a guild mate online just informed me that this program was only 1 of many apps that do the exact same thing
and are still in operation...
how he knew that i didnt ask but yeh
if he's right then there is no hope

[glo]

Unlike auctioneer, wowecon only saves data when an item SELLS and not just what it's listed at. This means that some joker listing 100 stacks of X for 100x the current price won't mess up the data at all (unless someone buys it). The downside is that it only records data if the buyer or selling is running the mod, not any random person scanning the AH.

Uh that seems extremely limited... What prevents some joker from uploading bogus data ?

Also you can't tell the difference between a joker cancelling an auction and an auction being bought out...

Wowecon doesn't work off auction scans, it goes by the mail you get from the auction hall when you buy or sell an item. That is what it means by it only collects auction data from people using the addon.

[Gadzooks]

Ok, so a guild mate online just informed me that this program was only 1 of many apps that do the exact same thing
and are still in operation...
how he knew that i didnt ask but yeh
if he's right then there is no hope

It's not hard to find the info. I browse and lurk at several sites where these types hang out, to see what scams and things they're up to, so I can avoid it - I know what phishing e-mails they're copy and pasting from each other, what new scams they have set up, and all of that. I do it from a Mac, that has never had WoW on it, and never will, so I'm pretty secure. Just google some of the terms, they don't do much to hide what they're doing.

Surprisingly, there isn't much discussion of the company that just shut down, I think most of them concentrate on phishing, because A. it's easier (they're lazy), and B. less likely to get their accounts banned. They know what's going on, there's a couple of complaint posts, but for the most part, they've moved on to other apps or other methods to steal from people.

Blizzard is WAY overdue for a ban wave, don't get frustrated if botters are still around - they will be gone after the next ban wave, no fear. I'm hoping the do one before the next patch, get it and the flood of QQ posts in time for the next flood of QQ posts about the patch. Blizzard has always moved slowly over issues like this, even way back in the Diablo II days, but when they do move, they hit HARD.

I had to laugh, recently, one of the more notorious sites for scamming and botting added member photos - seems being 14, and really ugly, is a requirement to join.

Visit these sites at your own risk - and please don't post their names or addresses here. Ever.

[Maxion]

Yeah they unfortunately use the same e-mail template (and/or in-game mails) to respond to lots of situations.

I wish you really knew the result when you report someone. Of course, privacy is an issue I guess.

I always laugh at all the [2. Trade] chat where people say "don't do <action> or you'll be banned" when no one ever knows the outcome of reporting another player.

While I realize GM's have to keep a low profile amongst players, I'm very shocked that they keep everything as low-key as they do. I can't say I've ever heard someone say "my friend is a Blizzard GM".

I had (while I played on a european server) about 3 of the people in my guild move to paris to work as GM's for a while a couple years back. But yeah, they weren't allowed to say much anything about what they did. And I don't think they are allowed to be GM on the server they play on themselves.

[Portal]

If they shut their servers down it shuts down their software. Software must phone home before it will run.

I wouldn't be surprised if they removed that requirement and released the software 'as is' via anonymous sources (torrents etc) to spite Bliz in light of loosing their court case.

That being said, I was always under the impression that Bliz was good with detection and dropping the ban-hammer on the users of that program. It makes me wonder how many people really used it for long periods of time. What would we expect to be the biggest price change? Cloth, Leather and World Drops? Or were they farming everything (herbs, minerals etc)?

[Gadzooks]

If they shut their servers down it shuts down their software. Software must phone home before it will run.

I wouldn't be surprised if they removed that requirement and released the software 'as is' via anonymous sources (torrents etc) to spite Bliz in light of loosing their court case.

That being said, I was always under the impression that Bliz was good with detection and dropping the ban-hammer on the users of that program. It makes me wonder how many people really used it for long periods of time. What would we expect to be the biggest price change? Cloth, Leather and World Drops? Or were they farming everything (herbs, minerals etc)?

They farm everything - and they look at loot tables and concentrate on areas with higher drop rates of world epics and rep items and such. I havent run into any lately, but I saw one in operation in Storm Peaks grinding Relic of Ulduar.

They're fun to play with - tag the mob, let them kill it, you get the loot.

I don't think the code being released will accomplish much - trust me, Blizzard will be one of the first to nab it, they are not clueless when it comes to stuff like that. They can use the source code to make Warden spot any variations of the app that might be released.

In fact, the a-hole who wrote it is saying things that say to me he is NOT going to give away his work, and I would'nt doubt he'll be back in another form, from a country where they can't get him (good luck with that, the company Blizzard uses practices law everywhere, they're a global company), trying again. He made a LOT of money off that app, I guarantee he's not giving up. He could sell the source overseas for a lot of money, too.

What interests me is, now that the case is all but over, will Blizzard have their lawyers look into private servers, or go after the websites that host and discuss this stuff? The more notorious one actually had/has the balls to offer hosting and e-mail to pull off phishing scams, and they (the admins) said on their site they got Blizzard's attention when they started that, and moved the servers outside the US. Methinks they may get more attention now that the big case is done.

[Duese]

You know the saying, "When there is a will, there is a way". Stopping one botting program won't do anything, IMO. Another one will appear. When there is real $ to be made, someone will figure it out. Maybe the strategy they use will change or the items they sell, but they will adapt.

The difference is, Blizzard no longer has to go through any lawsuits with the company. All they have to do it point the finger and said new company is shutdown or the software removed.

That is why this ruling is scaring the hell out of me. If Blizzard comes out and says that the use of software to replicate keystrokes is now against the terms of service, Keyclone, AHK, HKN, etc., are all done. If they choose to create the program as a hidden process so that it still works with WoW, then Blizzard can go after them legally and shut them down. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. It doesn't matter if anyone even uses it in game or not.

With this ruling, it basically states that even though the authors haven't accepted Blizzards ToS, writing a program which does break the terms of service that evades Blizzard detection, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is a violation of Blizzard's copyright.

Before you cry out "the sky is falling" or that blizzard is going to actually do this, it wouldn't be very likely for blizzard to do this. However, what I'm more concerned about is future games because this ruling doesn't just apply to WoW or Blizzard alone. Now any company can do this. More frivolous lawsuits to burden the courts.

I don't think the code being released will accomplish much - trust me, Blizzard will be one of the first to nab it, they are not clueless when it comes to stuff like that. They can use the source code to make Warden spot any variations of the app that might be released.

Blizzard has had the program available to them ever since it went public but that hasn't stopped the program. Flat out, warden couldn't detect it because it was designed to run as a background program. Even in Windows vista, which supposedly made this harder for programmers to do, had it coded in within a week.

So many people are saying "good riddance" to the bots and every time I always question "have you ever seen a bot?" Most reply, yeah, I see them all the time. In all my time playing WoW, I ran into maybe 3 true botters on my server. If you wanted to "find" botters, you'd have to go out to the most remote places typically to find them. A lot of the botters that farmed high population areas found themselves banned pretty quickly. A lot of the guides on <Botting program>'s website would be based around target selection for what to kill. They would always prioritize killing non-quest related mobs in low traffic areas. Most of the scripts were built around these areas. Most of the "professional" botters as they called themselves, were never seen. They'd be hiding in Badlands killing whelps or along the northern end of Azshara killing demons.

I had a lot of issues with people blaming botting for the economy. Even back to my days in Asheron's call, where the anti-botting populous would go out on witch hunts in efforts of finding people botting. Either it's not going to have an effect on the population or it's going to have a negative effect on the economy by having a lot of the middle materials increasing in price.

[zanthor]

I recently reported an obvious robot (some hunter killing yetis and skinning them - they still exist) and the GM said live he'll personally look into it - 3 days later the robot is still online botting... so...

How obvious? I got reported for "Botting" when I was farming WhipperRoot Tubers back in retail release... for 9 hours I picked up the same tuber every 25 minutes... I had a desktop timer set to 25 minutes, and was programming on my other monitor. I'd tab in, loot, tab out. After 9 hours I was contacted by a GM, told him what I was doing, and kept farming for another 4-5 hours.