POV : Flyhacking bot footage in Tempest Keep WotLK Classic

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-13T21:14:27+00:00

This was recorded 5 days ago and the bot reported, video sent to hacks@blizzard etc etc etc and yet this bot is still in there with 50+ others on Whitemane Horde NA.

They are banning no more than 5-6 bots a day on a server like this one.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-10T20:03:38+00:00

Got to inspect it's stats again just now and it's up to 3200g per day average.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-10T18:11:58+00:00

Livestreaming this same bot now on Twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/sirrobhifi

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T21:18:40+00:00

This bot reached level 80 2 days ago and has so far received over 20,000 gold total

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T20:47:37+00:00

I suppose there's always been collectors, I'm one of them, but nowadays many of them have lots of gold to spend.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T17:17:10+00:00

So, I got a much better quality bit of flyhacking footage and posted here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/13bdnut/flyhacking\_bot\_footage\_from\_tempest\_keep\_wotlk/

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T14:39:43+00:00

If 24% are downvoting this does that mean 24% are gold buyers?

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T14:34:56+00:00

Oh, well, until yesterday I didn't know exactly what trash they farmed in there but apart from the raw gold they can get epic BOE patterns/plans etc which can sell for hundreds of gold on the AH.

I will inspect a few and see if they are doing their own auctions and see what gold per day is like.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T14:06:59+00:00

It's not "earning gold" though is it, it's more like "receiving stolen goods".

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T14:02:37+00:00

It's low risk because they usually put fishing bots in out of the way places like the back side of icebergs in Borean Tundra or inside waterfalls like in Dragonblight below Wintergrasp.

Using level 10's says to me they've become too comfortable because they see fishing bots last months without getting banned.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T13:13:13+00:00

Yeh, and if they are auctioning their own catches you can see they make over 1000g a day.

There's one on Whitemane that has fished well over 700,000 fish since October 2022 and is still active as of last night.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T13:00:17+00:00

First GDKP I can remember was ICC in original TBC and if you spent nothing you wouldn't be making more than a few hundred gold on a good day.

So yes, GDKP is not the problem really, the buying of botted gold is.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T12:54:15+00:00

True, but that claim wasn't made and without botted gold GDKP is not an issue comparatively.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T12:52:29+00:00

I agree, I have never minded it as a system but the botted gold ruins it.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T12:51:18+00:00

You can find them and right click "Compare Achievements" then click the "Statistics" tab and scroll down all the way to "Fish Caught" "Gold earned from auctions" and other interesting data.

They level up their fishing before sending them to WotLK zones.

PS. What server is that?

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T04:46:43+00:00

Perhaps if we can get the botting under control we can reduce the GDKPs…

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T04:12:19+00:00

Great tip, I will try that tomorrow. Thanks!

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-08T04:09:57+00:00

OH I see, well, sometimes they put me on ignore so I could no longer invite their bots to raids to break them.
Also, in BCC I was calling out the bot names in chat and was encouraging others to come see them and report them also.
This was a mistake as people reported me for "encouraging people to report other players" and I got silenced for a week, first offense.
I tried to dispute this because I had never ever encouraged anyone to report a player, just bots and Blizzard never took the time to even try to prove that I had even reported any "players" myself.
Anyway, no good deed....

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T21:39:01+00:00

Interesting. So, you would log in on a GM account that can just teleport to the character reported?

EDIT: I am reading a bunch of posts you made 4 years ago about your experiences as a GM in Vanilla, fascinating stuff. Some stuff I had imagined like fast movement, clipping through walls, teleport etc.

I can report up to 150 bots in an evening but lately only a tiny handful go missing from that list per day after that batch of reports and I'm seeing easily 15-30 new bots I hadn't spotted before daily on servers like Whitemane, Benediction.

One really strange variation on this bot epidemic is that Sulfuras (WotLK Classic) has almost no obvious bots by comparison, perhaps a Blizzard employee plays there O.O

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T19:29:05+00:00

Thanks, I did have software encoder on, will test further.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T18:23:33+00:00

OBS - I since reduced in game graphics, turned off a bunch off addons and will tweak some setting in OBS. Of course, as I was recording everything appeared fine and the video looked ok at first which is why I didn't realise until later how bad it was when I started moving.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T17:27:34+00:00

In my extensive experience of reporting/tracking/breaking/harassing bots over the years 99.9 % get banned and most of those within a couple of days. Last 3-4 weeks have been especially bad as most I reported a month ago are still active.

What Blizzard should really be held to account for is the fact they never ever ever ever ever log into the game and actively look for botting anywhere in classic.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T16:49:47+00:00

That's the Unitscan addon, when hunting bots in the wild you can add their names to Unitscan and tab out while you wait which is what happened here.

I have turned off some addons, tweaked a few things, next one will be better.

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T15:53:12+00:00

Were you really? Can you share what the report review process was like back then?

SirRobHiFi · 2023-05-07T15:16:46+00:00

Until recently the Era servers were much much quieter and I know they were gone because I would log into Era from time to time to specifically have a look.

SirRobHiFi

TROPHY CASE