Of late there's been some chatter in the official forums & various websites that botting was increasing this was met with a response, which I've attached to this blog as a link from Arenanet saying they're aware & working hard.
Woohoo, except within the space of an hours playtime I ran into perhaps 5 botters running teams of bots in a party running a circuit around 1 section of a map which shockingly were right next to areas that had regular events which specifically involved killing a crap load of npc's.
The result is if you want to kill the beasties here to complete a heart you won't get any bonus experience and in fact depending on the skills the botter has selected the team of bots might move so fast & kill so fast that you might not be able to gather enough renown in a set period of time to make it worth your time competing with them.
In this respect the bots are making some areas of the game unplayable in addition there are bots i've seen that stop to loot items presumably to onsell those items at stupidly cheap prices messing with peoples chosen markets & economies. Maybe you don't care about the economy but the point is these 'people' are impacting players gaming experience & I'm blaming Arenanet for not pulling enough of their head out of their ass to notice the full extent of the problem.
Alright I get it but why write this post we've heard it all before?
Exactly because we have heard it all before - why is this type of activity still happening when there's post after forum post when players are submitting report after report and like I am doing posting on private blogs? There is the risk that people are simply becoming used to seeing bots, accepting the view that the problem is simply part of playing an online game - I think that's BS.
I personally view botters as 1 step away from hackers, phishers & other scum bags engaging in activities designed to profit only themselves at the expense of legitimate gamers & they need to be banned, the credit card used to purchase the game needs to be banned, any account that they sent mail to needs to be banned, any character & account that bought their items for too cheaply or for too much in the TP needs to be banned & my list goes on.
There is the chance some innocent player could get caught up in the whole banning process but I guarantee they would be in the minority & an investigation by Anet will see them unbanned pretty easily. But seeing as how little action is being witnessed in game, even if Anet could be fighting the good fight behind the scenes but some things need to be seen to be done particularly when there are websites openly advertising bots & here & here & here & I could go on & on & on ...
I'm not the only one pissed off at the sheer number of bots, check out this hilarious video posted by danteswar1 taking on the bots in WvW called Guild Wars 2 WvW Bot Farmer Farming and here find the official forum post on GuildWars 2.com re botting that Anet had to close before reply's & posts got out of control.
If you see the below toons report them, hell even write their names down and send an email or petition to Anet directly. I messaged each of these guys in game & followed them for a few minutes long enough to satisfy myself they are botting so don't come back with the whole maybe they're not botters maybe they're just anti social arguement ....
Aomesneheaben Baoengamebe Blsowa Dawoemhenmai
Kashmir Grrr [ARG]
Mykeic Workyou
Sorryes Kiliyv Poiuyc
Baxianlinb Bajiewu
Cjoin Gjoin Hjoin Hveriodf
Dingdingmao Lkibhg Bshuihg Cat With Mrsli
That said, I'm hoping to add some more links to some sites & programs today which are not as well known as I would like.
