Bots

[Casti_EL]

Unfortunately it's also a never ending battle and one a lot of MMO's suffer from - SE bans the botters; they just buy new accounts, SE finds a way to tell if an account is using software that violates ToS; they just create/get new software that SE can't detect. I hear there's quite a lucrative market out there for coders who can write bot programs - some even sold on dark sites for quite an amount.

I do agree that something needs to be done and going after the reason for the botters in the first place (buyers) is probably the best course of action (as no buyers = less rmt botters) but it'd requires considerable resources that SE don't apparently have (or are unwilling to pay for).

Although a few characters all the same level with weird names is a sure sign of botting, SE won't ban them until they can catch them doing something against ToS.

[Avoidy]

SE bans the botters; they just buy new accounts [...]

From a business standpoint and an optics standpoint, this seems like a great position for Square to be in. They get to say they're doing something (banning botters) while botters purchase new game accounts and pump up the sales. Genuinely unironically wondering why they don't just have bot bounties and in game snitch-forces reporting to an active GM who responds to purge bots so they have to drop more money on a new account. Like, if this went on for a few months surely the botters would grow weary of it and leave, no?

[Amarande]

From a business standpoint and an optics standpoint, this seems like a great position for Square to be in. They get to say they're doing something (banning botters) while botters purchase new game accounts and pump up the sales. Genuinely unironically wondering why they don't just have bot bounties and in game snitch-forces reporting to an active GM who responds to purge bots so they have to drop more money on a new account. Like, if this went on for a few months surely the botters would grow weary of it and leave, no?

If botters and RMTers actually bought their accounts with legitimate payment details, sure, that would be different (and basically reduce the botting issue to its direct gameplay impacts only, which still exist, e.g., market inflation, shutting out legitimate players from things like Eureka bunnies, and perhaps the first notable case, players starting in Ul'dah who could not pass the MSQ where you need to kill Quiveron due to him being swarmed by bots to the point that - failing perhaps being a THM with Blizzard II - a legitimate player had no chance, as there wasn't even time for a human to target Quiveron and put in an instant attack before he was dead).

The trouble is that too many of them use stolen details (supposedly, often from their own customers, but this seems sketchy from a business standpoint), which results in that "new account money" being charged back. SE is apparently already on the brink in that regard, judging by having had to switch to a new payment processor (and drop support for some payment methods, including Discover which is still semi popular); part of the problem here being that payment processors tend to consider chargeback rate as an absolute metric, without any concern for why a company gets so many of them (IE it doesn't matter if you're arguably a victim, you should still change your business model, not expect the banks to be more tolerant).

Imagine if it's SE that has to be bought out in the next big merger (because they literally have no choice but to let a big fish gobble them up so they can use their "digestive system" so to speak) instead of Activision (who, for all their problems, are still plenty viable as a business on their own)?

[DixieBellOCE]

Unfortunately it's also a never ending battle and one a lot of MMO's suffer from - SE bans the botters; they just buy new accounts, SE finds a way to tell if an account is using software that violates ToS; they just create/get new software that SE can't detect. I hear there's quite a lucrative market out there for coders who can write bot programs - some even sold on dark sites for quite an amount.

I do agree that something needs to be done and going after the reason for the botters in the first place (buyers) is probably the best course of action (as no buyers = less rmt botters) but it'd requires considerable resources that SE don't apparently have (or are unwilling to pay for).

Although a few characters all the same level with weird names is a sure sign of botting, SE won't ban them until they can catch them doing something against ToS.

Most of the time they don't even buy new accounts. They just use fake chinese cd keys that last ~2 months before autoban for chargebacks.