Apparent bots

[BreathlessTao]

As you can see, quite probably random-named, very similarly dressed, no FC/GC-related, jobless characters just appear, queue for duty, disappear and reapper again - doing that every (other) minute. Or just standing there.

Been going on for long, reported them too (sure others did as well), and yet they remain... doing what I think is obviously something RMT-related.

[BreathlessTao]

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same on other servers? With such characters being left intact for too long?

Also, I've 130+ RMTs on my blacklist, been gathering there since the start of the gamebasically, and yet, one hand would be enough to count how many have changed to '(deleted)'. With SE regularly claiming permanent bans on hundreds of accounts, how are those characters not purged from the system, I wonder...?

[Tiraelina]

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same on other servers? With such characters being left intact for too long?

Also, I've 130+ RMTs on my blacklist, been gathering there since the start of the gamebasically, and yet, one hand would be enough to count how many have changed to '(deleted)'. With SE regularly claiming permanent bans on hundreds of accounts, how are those characters not purged from the system, I wonder...?

Too many times. The number of bans gets meaningless when you see the same group of bots you reported farming in the same spot for multiple consecutive weeks.

[Shirai]

Too many times. The number of bans gets meaningless when you see the same group of bots you reported farming in the same spot for multiple consecutive weeks.

As annoying as it seems, as I explained above, they are "left alone" on purpose.
These farmers are usually part of a network of farmers, gilbanks and several transport channels in between.
By monitoring them instead of instantly hitting them with the banhammer they can identify the other characters that are part of the network and at the same time buyers as well.

Unfortunately for us, this is a process that can take a few weeks.

[Tiraelina]

As annoying as it seems, as I explained above, they are "left alone" on purpose.
These farmers are usually part of a network of farmers, gilbanks and several transport channels in between.
By monitoring them instead of instantly hitting them with the banhammer they can identify the other characters that are part of the network and at the same time buyers as well.

Unfortunately for us, this is a process that can take a few weeks.

Meanwhile what resemblance of an economy is left gets eroded permanently. Blizzard has been doing this since WoW launched, I can tell you it never worked in favor of the players it's effecting.

[Merle]

Too many times. The number of bans gets meaningless when you see the same group of bots you reported farming in the same spot for multiple consecutive weeks.

I agree and it kinda annoyes me, but.. told be truth, those bots are the "bait" to reach the true gill-sellers/buyers

[Sadana]

If I understand correctly, banned doesn't equal deleted. That's only for those who delete the character. I believe most people will regularly purge the oldest names from their blacklist without hearing from them again.

[Shirai]

This thread will likely be nuked as "player shaming" is not allowed on these forums, even when it's apparent that they are bots.

Now as to a little explanation why these seem to take longer to be banned:

Bots like these are usually part of a farming group/cluster, the taskforce "leaves these be" for a while to see how many characters (sellers, farmers, banks and buyers) can be linked so that they can take out a whole bunch in one fell swoop.

As for your blacklist problem, it is safe to delete any entry older than a week, probably after a day too.
When SE bans accounts they do not delete the characters attached to those accounts.

[BreathlessTao]

When SE bans accounts they do not delete the characters attached to those accounts.

Any particular reason for that, I wonder? Because it doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense... They happily cite server issues when asked about, for example, inventory expansion, but then they continue to store characters of perma-banned accounts? Sounds kinda illogical to me?

[Shirai]

Any particular reason for that, I wonder? Because it doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense... They happily cite server issues when asked about, for example, inventory expansion, but then they continue to store characters of perma-banned accounts? Sounds kinda illogical to me?

By deleting those accounts or characters they also delete data they might need in the future in case a SE wants to pursue legal charges against a company/party, or vice versa.

As a side effect, they can't make new characters with that name to harass you with. Making it safe to remove them from the list forever.

Apart from that, character data is merely that, game data.
And data isn't the issue when they talk about the issues you mention, it's server load, the traffic that takes place between the client (you) and the servers.