Quote Originally Posted by Casti_EL View Post
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.