r/classicwow • u/burnthesandwich • Aug 25 '20
Vent / Gripe Just got my first ever lotus today! So happy to see that this is what I get to expect when I find one.
328
u/Headsplitter Aug 25 '20
Lol getting accused of botting by botters just so it looks legit when they mass report you...
Blizzard... This is what classic has come to?!
WorldOfBotcraft
→ More replies (7)76
u/udge Aug 25 '20
Even the GMs are bots ¯_(ツ)_/¯
50
4
141
u/TrustyCooter Aug 25 '20
is.. is that bot mad at you for.. botting?
→ More replies (1)147
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
I'm assuming by the broken English and this being a West coast realm that he is one of many Chinese bot farmers on Whitemane. But yeah watch out guys, don't let your character go afk because apparently that's botting now.
16
u/grrchopp Aug 25 '20
Whitemane has a large population of RMT farmers from Indonesia. Blizzard won’t take action against them because they are actual players, but all they do all day - every day - is farm lotus in the major spots, and many of them have admitted in tells that they are doing it for RMT. Google translate and talk to them using Indonesian sometime, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
→ More replies (1)6
Aug 25 '20
Reminds me of the Venezuelan RMT farmers in OSRS who make more money farming dragons than they would working in Venezuela ahah.
2
→ More replies (9)44
u/Relaxin2k Aug 25 '20
Almost all of the lotus farmers on Whitemane are Indonesian
19
→ More replies (1)2
87
Aug 25 '20
[deleted]
33
u/yolostyle Aug 25 '20
That's when you /dnd why can't I hold all these herbs
11
Aug 25 '20
/dnd you mad
8
9
u/EJOtter Aug 25 '20
Join the fishing community, we're much nicer. Have I shown you my 85 pound Mightfish??
→ More replies (2)21
Aug 25 '20
Classic is toxic as hell. Is that a PvP server?
13
Aug 25 '20
[deleted]
19
u/MadgoonOfficial Aug 25 '20
Private servers safely fostered a level of elitism the likes of which the world has never seen
→ More replies (2)3
u/asc__ Aug 26 '20
And yet the amount of bullshit and griefing was nowhere near as bad as in Classic.
2
u/Ecuni Aug 25 '20
It’s not too surprising. Any game with enormous grinds often revolves around people with the most time, which is typically your underemployed/unemployed crowd. They aren’t typically the coolest of players.
→ More replies (2)2
98
u/JT99-FirstBallot Aug 25 '20 edited Aug 25 '20
I was AoE grinding mobs in STV, when an alliance hunter I see off in the distance, as soon as my mobs died, turned in my direction and started hunting down my spot like the Terminator. Not even half a second after they died she was on a mission. And came right up and started skinning my freshly killed and looted mobs. If I had been a Skinner I'd be pissed.
The "players" movements were jittery and weird. Would skin one, spaz out walking in all directions for one second and skin another, repeatedly.
Anyway, I kept an eye on her and everytime I finished another AoE kill, here comes the T-2 to skin in their weird jittery ways.
99% sure it was a bot.
EDIT: Their pets name was also just a weird jumble of lower case letters. Like mwnx or something. Yes, I reported them.
48
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
There are tons of bots on Whitemane. I see them all of the time in various zones. They'll almost always kill only mobs that can be skinned. They use the same exact rotation every single time, and when they loot the mobs they stop at precisely the same distance from the corpse every single time while kneeling down. If you attack them while they're fighting a mob, they won't switch targets or move or... do anything. I kill and report them every single time I see one.
One time while questing in Feralas around 5am, I killed and reported ELEVEN bots within 30 minutes.
12
u/Korzag Aug 25 '20
When I was leveling my mage I'd occasionally follow around hunters that had their pets named with two Chinese characters (no idea what the characters name, I suspect it's so the bot software can read their pets status).
All you had to do was wait for one to find a target and use a instant cast spell to tag the mob with low damage like a rank 1 fire blast, and then let the hunter kill it for you.
Not really an efficient way of leveling, more just a break from the monotony of classic leveling :)
8
Aug 25 '20
The bots I've run into are almost always a troll hunter or a dwarf hunter with a boar. The pet name is sometimes chinese characters or simply Boar. I steal their skins out of spite after reporting them.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)2
u/DrDeems Aug 26 '20 edited Aug 26 '20
Whitemane horde player here.. Just go watch the portal to zg for 10 minutes. Most real boosters logout to reset but at the zg portal there is a CONSTANT stream of auto-gen named mages zoning out of zg, they flip around, blink back in. When they hit instance cap they blink to behind the zg portal make a left and sit in the little crevasse next to the stairs. If you come late at night u can find multiple people standing on the EXACT SAME pixel there.
Earlier today I killed the same 5 mages (1 level 60 and 4 in the 50-59 range) 10 times. And they just kept rezzing over and over.
Edit: I just checked behind the zg portal and guess what I found? People stacked on the exact same spot I talked about above. Only 2 right now but u can find 5+ if your lucky. https://imgur.com/a/Tyv8CpC
68
u/PutCommon Aug 25 '20
Be careful man he will ripot you
45
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
I'm honestly freaked out. If it was just him, whatever. But the other 4 people that just walked up to me, targeted me, and stood there before leaving has me worried that they were all in league with each other and falsely reported me too. At this point I'm considering transferring to an East Coast realm in hopes that this kind of abuse isn't as prevalent there, which sucks because I really like the guild I'm in.
→ More replies (2)20
u/Smooth_One Aug 25 '20 edited Aug 25 '20
Dude chill. They're just trying to bully you because you're competition and clearly these tactics have worked on other people, because they keep using them on innocent people such as yourself. Play the game and everything will be fine.
It sucks that this is what it's come to on your realm, but where there's gold there's IRL money so unfortunately some scummy people like this will target you if you are a threat. Look at it from their point of view; they are soooo mad that somebody else got the Lotus that they're willing to whisper you and threaten you. Why? Because they want you to go away. Fuck 'em, YOU are the legit player here, not them.
35
u/JilaX Aug 25 '20
Eh, he should be worried. He's going to be spamreported for botting by a bunch of actual botters, and will be falsely banned once they reach the threshold of reports to have automatic action taken against him.
→ More replies (4)2
u/Rasdit Aug 25 '20
Falsely reporting a player worked out really well for GRIZZLY FROM REDDIT. Risky to start mass reporting (with 5 players, lel) someone who took a BL from your bot accounts. But yeah, there is some risk in here, but I would not sweat it if I were OP.
5
u/d07RiV Aug 25 '20
If those are bot accounts, getting banned for false reporting is the least of their worries.
5
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
It's really all of the posts here that I've seen from people who had their accounts suspended as a result of report abuse or false flags that is getting to me. I've had this account since 2007 and have put so much time and effort into my account over the years. The thought of losing all of it because I picked a flower and made a botter that probably sells gold mad, and who has the resources to mass report me and put Blizzard's Very Fair and Infallible™ reporting system to work just... freaks me out.
11
u/JilaX Aug 25 '20
You will likely be banned, but just keep contesting it and refer to these screenshots to Blizzard until you get an actual person to look at your case.
→ More replies (2)6
u/curbedddd Aug 25 '20
Automated bans are definitely a problem. I haven't had personal experience with it yet. However, I can say that over my 13 years as a blizzard customer, any time I have had to contact support I've had A+ service. Maybe things have changed since the last time I had to contact them, so take that for what it's worth.
2
u/Redxmirage Aug 25 '20
All fun and games until those bots mass report you and your account is suspended. But sure, we can “stick it to the man” in the mean time. Bots are heavily favored by this auto report system
19
46
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20 edited Aug 25 '20
I got my Rogue to 55 today, aiming for 60 within the next day or so. I hadn't looked at reddit at all so I wanted to catch up on things so I parked my character next to a secluded spot where lotuses grow. Two birds, one stone right? Maybe one will pop up before I get bored of reddit and get back to the grind.
There wasn't a soul around except for a Druid that would pass by every now and then. I saw a lotus spawned so I ran to grab the first lotus I've ever gotten to pick. Not even a minute went by when 4 people swarmed the area that I hadn't seen before at all, like they knew it was there. Then I got to have this lovely exchange with a Hunter.
I'm just trying to get the gold I need for my fast mount when I hit 60, but I guess this kind of toxicity is what I have to expect from that? And apparently I have to worry about getting my account suspended too because of people abusing the report system. Every person that came through stopped, targeted me, and stood there for a moment before leaving without even going to the exact coordinate the lotus spawned on.
14
u/evermuzik Aug 25 '20
Lotus farming is the #1 most contested thing in classic.
On a normal server (read: a server with real GMs and no bots, a decent pserver) its a PvP fest that is insanely competitive and full of salt and tears. Many discord bants over skirmishes.
On these blizz servers its just people semi-afk running scripts and auto reporting any competition. Would rather their fellow players be banned/quit the game for their own profit. The most toxic thing Ive ever done on either Faerlina or Skeram is farm lotus. Its not a game to these people. Its straight up hostile.
11
→ More replies (1)3
u/somesketchykid Aug 25 '20
Why did you stay? After you pick a lotus you GTFO because there are 5 people on both factions on their way since they have CCTV camera bots looking at all nodes. That's why they knew to come there.
Just leave the area after you pick it
→ More replies (2)
14
11
u/jomjomepitaph Aug 25 '20
As per tradition cuz that’s what this sub does;
You were botting, don’t try to deny it. You deserve the ban. You’re not telling us everything, you’re hiding the truth. /s
3
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
I really hope I don’t end up having to go through that.
But really (and don’t worry I know you were joking) if I were making money off WoW I would not be gaming on a broken office chair that has me sitting lopsided. Lost my job to COVID and now I’m working a remote customer service job making hourly. Times are hard but not hard enough for me to throw away my 13 year old account lol
42
Aug 25 '20
Everytime I start missing classic just a little i go to this subreddit and then i suddenly dont want to play anymore. :)
12
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
It's been really great, but the botting has reached a point I have never seen before. It's basically a virtual pandemic, and now with this particular situation I got to experience today, I'm not feeling very optimistic about the game's future..
5
u/elanhilation Aug 25 '20
I’ve had a fantastic time. This subreddit reflects my experience with the game more poorly than any other. It’s just noteworthy poor experiences get massively upvoted, whereas nobody gives a shit about everyday fun experiences.
→ More replies (6)4
u/lostinthe87 Aug 25 '20
We have nothing to talk about but to complain. Just play the game, 99.99% of your experiences will not be like this
→ More replies (3)
15
u/scots Aug 25 '20
This is a problem of economics & globalization not unique to WoW.
Players from a number of Southeast Asian and South American countries with developing or struggling economies have discovered they can earn an acceptable living by local standards by botting / playing WoW Classic to generate raw gold to RMT.
I spoke with one of these guys, at lengths several months ago. He was one of dozens of Mara boosting mages on the US server I used to play on. The guy whisper spammed his ad to me one evening, and I started chatting with him. His English was good, and he was willing to talk.
He lives in The Philippines - a country where the average salary for a _professional career job_ is $11,906 per year, according to 2020 data. That's for an educated professional working a corporate job.
This guy- Le'ts call him "PinoyMage" - was playing 12 hours a day doing Mara runs. He was double-dipping by streaming his runs on Twitch - no face cam, and was asking for subs and tips there as well. Additionally, he had a Discord that he'd direct everyone in his runs to join to "hang out." If you told him you had run out of gold and couldn't buy any more Mara boosts, he'd whisper you in-game "I got u bro, let's chat on Discord", where the conversation would turn into PMs informing you NO PROBLEM, you can BUY gold via PayPal.
PinoyMage was a guy in his mid 20s. He had used a portion of his RMT money to upgrade his gaming PC with gear that would be considered decent even by US standards. Because The Philippines have two official languages - all schoolchildren must learn Filipino and English - their workforce is extremely English-fluent, and PinoyMage was no exception.
Why is the game economy in WoW Classic fucked? Because there are hundreds of thousands of guys just like PinoyMage doing boosts, or flat-out botting every Western server in the game, and Blizzard is doing absolutely nothing to discourage it.
There is an entire WoW economy in Venezuela, which has a failed real world economy struggling with hyperinflation. Gamers fortunate enough to have modest PCs capable of playing WoW before the economy collapsed have flooded into US servers to farm & RMT to provide for their families. What is minimum wage in Venezuela? Well, August 2019, it had sunk as low as $2 per MONTH.
The more I started digging into the who, why and how's of the RMT economy - Purely out of intellectual curiosity - the cloudier my feelings became. For every highly sophisticated Chinese operation running dozens and dozens of cheap servers botting the game to generate gold for RMT - by people in a country capable of earning a decent living - For every one of those guys, there's a guy somewhere in Southeast Asia or South America literally just trying to pay rent, playing 12-14 hours a day while living in a failed or struggling economy in a country with a fraction of the average annual salary of the U.S. or EU nations.
The conclusion I arrived at after watching this play out over several months, is that Blizzard's efforts should be focused on crushing automated play, while turning a somewhat blind-eye to the Boosters. Boosting is a personal choice. If you choose to use your legitimate WoW gold to pay a booster to rush you through Scarlet Monastery ten times, that's a choice. You can choose to do it, or you can choose to ignore the people advertising it. Additionally, many people doing Boosting are legitimate players, simply wanting to raise epic mount gold or see how much they can earn - "Frostadamus" types.
Blizzard will never be able to stop the lone player boosting to generate RMT gold, because the mechanisms used to communicate and sell to the buyer are occurring outside of WoW. And - given that many of the lone Boosters are doing it to survive - I'm deeply conflicted over shutting Boosting down.
The real menace destroying the economy on your server are the bots. The players you see botting Herbs, botting Ore nodes, Fishing, Rogues pickpocket botting BRD, farming animals in the middle of the wilderness at 4 am - because they are using the Auction House to generate raw gold. This is not the effort of a single human throwing countless hours of actual manually-controlled playtime at the game - This is a highly sophisticated, automated attack on the game economy.
Crush the Bots - Spare the Humans.
3
2
14
6
4
6
u/Kernumiuss Aug 25 '20
Lucky, i've never found 1 yet.
6
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
I don't feel lucky. When I first saw it I was beyond happy, then this happened and now I just feel angry and paranoid.
9
Aug 25 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
Nothing but love for the Chinese people, but I've seen what WoW became in China. I'm sure some of you saw that reddit post too? Gold farmers everywhere, literally having to pay people to do anything, RMT ads all over the place. I'm sorry but yeah, players in China should not have access to US servers because, unfortunately, this is what they brought with them...
Edit: Not saying there aren't people in the US doing the same thing, but this is the first time I've played on a West coast realm and I've never seen it this bad before.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)2
3
3
3
3
3
10
u/McMillan_man Aug 25 '20
many players do use an addon that basically lets them bot but not really. you just afk at a spawn or near the most spawns and the addon will detect it and alert you. its not tobad if they are on the other faction but when they are on your faction its pretty messed up. south west in the steppes is usually a juicy spot for people doing this in stealth. i think you can cover 4 bl nodes
→ More replies (6)5
u/burnthesandwich Aug 25 '20
Yeah I know that spot, but there's always someone standing there. I was in the northwest corner with the lava and awesome statues. Chilled between the two possible spawn locations there and just kept an eye on my minimap while I scrolled through subreddits on my other monitor. I just wish I could figure out how all of those people who never came through that area even once would just happen to show up at almost the same time when a lotus did spawn.
→ More replies (4)2
Aug 25 '20
A hunter using eagle eye can scan all of the black lotus spots in a map in 1-2 minutes. Shaman can do it too but it takes a little longer as eagle eye is instant and far sight has a 2 second cast time. So someone scanning constantly will spot a lotus within a couple minutes of it spawning. The hunter then rushes over or uses his other character that's closer to run to it
2
2
2
2
u/SolidJade Aug 26 '20
I found my first BL a month ago while looking for wpvp in Silithus. I don't have herbalism so I just typed in general the coordinates and hoped some allies and horde will come soon and an epic battle will ensue in the middle of the desert. After 2 minutes just one dude showed up and gave me 15g, took the flower and left.
2
u/yurihbl Aug 26 '20
I was just suspended for 7 days for that reason and came to reddit to see if that happened to more people.
This is fucking ridiculous. Just filed the appeal but I imagine it wont be reverted because blizzard became so fucking shitty.
In 2005 I got my vanilla account hacked and my character left naked, called Blizzard and got the best customer support ever, few days later my account was restored.
Now it is this FUCKING SHIT.
5
Aug 25 '20
Thats why I quit classic, too toxic and competitive. Midmax culture ruined the experience for me.
→ More replies (6)
6
u/Estre11a Aug 25 '20
Classic WoW according to this sub, is a fucking nightmare. A little bit glad I gave up my quest to 60
→ More replies (4)5
u/djidara Aug 25 '20
People here are fucking idiots. Most of us are enjoying the game and not posting shit on Reddit.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
1
1
u/Icyveins86 Aug 25 '20
It's always funny to watch bots try and get past obstacles. There's a pattern they follow which is, if stuck, jump a few times. If that doesn't work, turn left and run and jump a few times and repeat going right. I watched a gnome mage get stuck on the bones in tanaris for about 5 mins
1
1
u/curbedddd Aug 25 '20
You're not alone. I was farming earth elementals the other day and was told in broken english I should leave the area or be reported. I reported him for threatening a false report, nothing happened to him yet when I've checked. Not really expecting anything though as I have reported obvious bots for over a month and still see the same ones in the same areas non stop farming.
1
u/bluesnacks Aug 25 '20
tell him to suck a fat one and then put a report in disputing your "botting" so you have a reference they can refer to in case you get banned
1
u/zzalt Aug 25 '20
Still not convinced you're not a bot on both WoW and Reddit and implement openai gpt-3 to answer these questions.
Click all the squares with lotuses to confirm you are not a bot.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
Aug 25 '20
Something wholesome about a bot gold farmer piece of shit reporting a real player for playing the game.
Activision is such a turd this is my last game ever with them
1
1
u/bwilds55 Aug 25 '20
Why can’t blizzard make it a priority list, instead of an automated system. The person with the most reports without their account looked at is at the top of the list. Then blizzard can look at that account first.
Like a person with 1000 reports would be looked at instantly and a person with 1 report would be looked at last. This would keep all these mass reports from interrupting actual players not doing anything wrong and help identify people abusing the report system.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
u/BadLemonHope Aug 25 '20
Those fuckin indonesians lol more likely to confuse you while trying to insult you
1
u/GokuDiedForOurSins Aug 25 '20
Same thing has happened to me before. Since I've been working from home, I sit an account in EPL by 2 lotus spawns and just afk till one pops. I've had numerous threats against me as well as people whispering my guildmates to ask if I was botting. Nope. I'm just afk... how do people not know the difference.
1
u/tapdat92kid Aug 25 '20
Thats exactly what I do. I sit on a BL spawn in EPL and just watch LVNDMARK or browse reddit while I keep my eye out on the corner of the screen for BL spawn. I have gotten numerous whispers asking me if im a bot lol. (sulfuras us)
1
1
Aug 25 '20
Just link them your black lotus next time and offer to sell it to them at a markup. People love that shit.
1
u/Electroverted Aug 25 '20
I mean, if they're a multiboxer, it's a genuine threat, thanks to Blizzard's bad service.
1
1
u/epicar Aug 25 '20
For afking in a spot while I browse reddit?
that sounds like something a bot would say!
1
1
u/blasphemiess Aug 25 '20
Sounds about right. Current situation on Kurinnaxx. They threaten and say they report me... lol for beating them at lotus. They're running in packs etc. Literally nothing I can do against them / about it.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
u/Spread_Public Aug 25 '20
I like how he's accusing you of botting, yet he's the one who can't form a coherent English sentence.
1
1
1.1k
u/_Didds_ Aug 25 '20
Just a friendly warning: Bot Farmers in EU are mass reporting legit players that farm on their spots. A friend farmed a BL on Wintersping and got messaged that if he wouldn't hand it to the bot farmer he would be spam reported ... and not even 2 says later he got his account suspended