So you want to be a bot hunter?

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Hello everyone,

System98, Locastan and St0rmshadow prepared for you something quite interesting. A mod, that will identify known botters on your and enemy team. The mod is really simply – whenever one of those assholes is in battle, it will identify him in team roster like this:

proofofconcept7mjuq

The best part is, the botter list doesn’t require any updates, it’s updated automatically. Requirements:

To show the little boticon besides the playername in battle you will need XVM with activated clanlogos in the config. If you don’t want to install XVM, you will miss the little icon, but still see the fantasy clan [BOT!] if a convicted bot is found in your battle.

You can download it from here or here.

And in case you wonder, who are the known botters? These are the botters that have been caught by St0rmshadow in last two weeks. Note that in order to see them botting in the replays attached, you will need freecam in most of the cases.

In case you encounter a bot yourself, or you have your suspicions, send the replay to St0rmshadow at st0rmshadow@t-online.de, he will have a look at it. ALWAYS include the replay, best uploaded to wotreplays.com.

109 thoughts on “So you want to be a bot hunter?”

  3. Smart thing. All congrats to Stormshadow and to you of course SS. How about if you make another section here for bot hunting like this? Maybe Stormshadow could keep an eye on it since you get so many visitors already ;)

  7. I hesitate to install this because I’m afraid I’ll meet to many botters and lose my faith in the game :(

  8. Amazing it took so long to have an offshore list of botters with Wargamings excessive naming and shaming policy (that only gets enforced in exactly those threads), given they enforce the rule so strictly just so people don’t prove to them on their own forums that they do absolutely nothing to bots.

    The list is still very short, but I think if I get back into WoT with the 700m drawing circle this will be the first mod I install.

  10. Wait till WG declares this mod illegal because of Naming and Shaming… I am calling it now.

    • In that case XVM should be Naming and Shaming mod too. Still it’s here since a long time.

    • You hit the nail on the head. I would think that to save themselves some work, WG will gun for SS, St0rmshadow and Locastan first, bit easier to hit the source.

      • Meh..tbh so far I have no strong ties to WG atm. I know a couple of friends and nice guys working for WG but I am not married to the company. :P

        –locastan.

    • And if that happens, it’s only added to some long forgotten text file of illegal mods and everything continues as if nothing happened.

  12. How accurate is this mod?

    I’ve been known to do some pretty stupid/weird stuff when I play WoT.
    People sometimes call me a bot, and just to annoy them I don’t reply to anything they say :P
    So now these 3 people decide that I’m a bot?

    Don’t get me wrong I don’t like bots in my team but this mod is just a recipe for disaster.

    • Not to put a too fine point on it, but the replay gets analyzed for specific bot behaviour.

      Stuttering turret aim, repetitive scripted movements and such. I doubt that you get “botted” for playing bad once in a while. xD

      First suspicion for a cheap/stupid bot is a lot of battles with very very low eff/wn and wr.

  14. its stupid.

    300x better would be if we could actually kill them without getting ban.
    I’m against bots, but then, my laziness wins. Sending a message with replay file ? Too much work included. no thx.

    • What’s the point of killing them? They don’t care, they are a bot. You are actually helping them by giving them compensation.

  16. I’m not a botter but their are some occasions where I’m AFK for good reasons so will I be a known botter for being AFK?

  17. Is this for EU only? wonder if there’s list for other servers too.

    But those authors are know playing at EU so hopefully someone also do for other servers.

    • We will include lists from other server clusters too in the future. If you find a bot, send us the replay to the E-Mail adress specified in the thread (st0rmshadow@t-online.de) and we will look into it. If we find signs of bot-behaviour and can 100% confirm it’s a bot, we will add him to the list. ;-)

  21. 2 reports are on the way allready.
    When i see loco and system, i know this is going to get done properly.

  22. Wow, excellent! I’ll make sure to report all the ones that are marked as bots and tell my teammates to do the same.

    Hopefully (not hopefully?) this list will grow to include further bots. I’ll make sure to send in some of my replays where a bot was obvious. Hopefully they can get added to this list.

    • Send us replays from your cluster with some bots and after reviewing them and positively identifiying them as bots, we will add them too for a unified botlist.

      E-Mail for bot-replays: st0rmshadow@t-online.de

  25. Am I the only one who thinks that goes too far? That is gestapo shit and name calling in a public way that should never happen. Let’s put some fake lists out there and everybody will report those people? It’s a shameful display of this community.

    • You, sir, have no clue what you’re talking about. Are you by any chance a WG puppet account or what? Did WG EU’s fake accounts reach FTR? Would not be surprised if they did. :D

    • Think about your words next time you cry out for help in battle , and only sound you hear is silence, and amount of help = 0.

      Then you will think differently.

    • How about you read the whole fucking post before you start tripping balls? These gentlemen repeatedly said they will scrutinize the replays people send in and then add it to the list if confirmed.

    • So, instead of this, people should be rewarded for breaking the game EULA? It’s not like every reported case would go directly to that list.

    • Yes, but right now we only have bots from EU in the list. We are working on a unified botlist, but we need replays from guys from other server clusters (NA, RU, SEA) with bots as we ourselfs only play on EU. We will review those replays and then add them, if we are sure that those reported guys are bots.

  28. Amazing. First battle after installing this mode, i had a bot named AlCaBoWne in my team, i watched his movements and yes – pointing gun, stucked at rock, shooting when enemy appeared , i reported him and asked all team mates and enemies to do the same :) . GJ System98, Locastan and St0rmshadow .

    • The downloaded mod contains conflicting cameranode.pyc – different size, different content – override or leave the original one?

      • WG is so incompetent that they can’t filter out an obvious bot like this one that runs 24/7. Perhaps it is just like SS suspected that WG doesn’t want the botting to stop because of potential loss of revenues. WG is letting this slide as long as it doesn’t draw too much attention to their inaction/ineptitude or breaking the game’s economy too much. This is fucking bullshit.

      • 631.8 battles per day

        Start battle -> leave battle, Start battle -> leave battle, Start battle -> leave battle, Start battle -> leave battle, Start battle -> leave battle, Start battle -> leave battle, Start battle -> leave battle…

  34. This is a brilliant mod! This way, botters will be instantly recognised and can be reported straight away. Sometimes it’s hard to tell a bot from a siemka, but this mod makes it clear, thanks!!

  38. Tanks guys ! Very good thing, i willl use it !

    P.S> If WG dont do something to clean off those computer players…i assume to be team killer and the Ban too…

  39. Looks a bit fucked up thing. What if that person is no longer botting, will he be shown as bot? What prevents Stormshadow to add people into the list that he doesn’t like, just replays? In comments I noticed that SS told he has a large data base of “botters” so hiding a few “unwanted people” will be easy. Also, is there any way of removing yourself from that list, will you have to pay money? I understand that there might be obvious botters, but in battle I will not be able to check replays and if that person will be moving like a normal player but his name will be tagged as “bot” it will give pretext for others to destroy him even tho he is doing nothing wrong now. I’m not sure if I like this idea.

    • Multiple people are reviewing the replays so a single person can’t possibly smuggle in a guy that he hates just for revenge. Also yes, the guy will be shown as bot even if he does not bot anymore. That’s also the purpose of this mod. Some botters only bot maybe 50% of the battles, but they will still be botters. You might meet them when they are palying themselfs, but you’ll know, that the guy is using or used to run a bot and got convicted in the past for doing so.

      Also guys, please do NOT shoot, block or violate the game rules when meeting a bot, else you might get punished! Tell both teams to report him as bot so he gathers alot of reports in a short time to get flagged and reviewed. If enough of those reports get in, maybe WG will finally act on them.

      • Reporting him as a bot when he is playign actively won’t get him banned or help anything. Only report bots that you can see are bots.

        And please don’t spam the chat about bots while the battle is going on.

      • I’m sorry but you did not convinced me. You guys are not getting paid for this, is that correct(monthly salary)? There will be a lot of replays sent to you and I doubt that 2-3 people will watch same replays regularly. Also I have played 17k games and there were situations when I was shot for absolutely no reason. Now imagine someone tagged as a bot, chance that he will get shot will grow, even if he is not botting at that moment. And asking to not shot possible botters is same as asking people to be good drivers, do not exceed speed limit, don’t drive drunk etc… I wont happen. Also you did not told if there is possibility to eliminate your name from that list. If we should trust you (a few people that created this thing) that you will only add people that are cheating, you should trust us too if we will promise to not cheat again and delete our names form that list. Ofc if it happens that we cheat again you could reintroduce us to the black list permanently. But that is a lot of extra work for people that are not getting paid. Also WG might consider this as having a negative impact on a game and ban XVM just because of this one mod.

        I understand why you are doing this. You might be a bunch of nice people that love this game and want to make game experience as good as possible. But if I see botter I will report him. If a person is marked as bot but is playing normally I wont report him. This mod will do nothing more but create big “KILL ME” sign over someones head even if his is not cheating now.

    • why would anybody want to remove this stupid person (a.k.a. cheater) from blacklist ? you cheated ? your mistake, your responsibility, your problem. Try to understand that there’s literally no excuse for cheating in multiplayer games.

      • lol… You are now saying that if someone did a mistake in his life he is not allowed to correct it and deserves to be victimized for the rest of his life. I don’t want that mod because of people like you.

        • Nagas really wtf?!
          This game is not real life
          You messed up by cheating, fine permaban!
          Start over again? Fine create new account
          But not continue with same account after saying sorry, cause that t10 you earned with your bot wont be removed….

          • First of all, this mod is not working directly with WG, it wont ban people just because you are in that list, but it will mark you as a cheater even tho you may not be one at the moment.
            Second thing, guarantee me 100% that your name wont be added there by accident and the rest of the server will not go after you.
            Third thing, I don’t think that WG is banning botters, especially the ones with high tier premium tanks. They are just rolling back their accounts and guess what, their names will still be in a black list even after punishment and it wont matter if cheater decided to stop cheating.

  40. I’ve installed the mod and will run it later. But some of the suggestions above are moronic.

    If I see a bot on my team I won’t be shooting at it, blovking it or ranting in chat. As far as I am concerned it is one more target for the enemy to waste shells on that they could aim at me. And it’s also one more spotter, probably far more use than the suiscout or yoloing heavy.

    Use the information, don’t get distracted from winning the battle.

  41. I am very sorry for the stupid questions, but I didn’t get it where to put the “botdata.json” file, in res_mods? or in 0.8.10?
    And do I need to update the list manually and where is it?
    oh, and last one, does the XVM need to be runnning, or it is enough when it shows only the clan icons?

    Thanks in advance ;)

  43. epic retaliation strike of DONKEY.
    btw great job regarding bot research,seems mod works fine

  44. SS, russian tank vloggers started a shitstorm about bots, and gues what: you was the reason :)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhYIBzXiWO0
    In around 2-nd minute he mentions “FOR THE RECORED WELL IT’S ABOUT TANKS” and says that articles on bots on FTR were really eye-openers.

    Really, most russian-speaking hardcore WOT-fans use your blog as information source, more than any russian wot-blog.

  45. Despite all the efforts… this is currently on the EU. I’m from the SEA and i truly do wonder how much bots is on my server ( To know whether i’m playing with ppl with no tactics or just bots ). Do wish the database would reach the other servers in the future and keep up the good work. :)

  47. 2 weeks ago I was plaing against player Nimrod86 (EU server). I think he was using bot, but don’t have replay to support my claim. Maybe we can use some other replays from wotreplays as evidence?

  48. hi,

    got this but doesn’t seem to be working.

    My python.log file says:
    /——————————————————————————\
    BigWorld Release Client (compiled at 12:47:26 Dec 16 2013) starting on Sat Feb 08 16:00:37 2014
    Checking ./res_mods/0.8.10: mods found
    LoadMod: botdetect
    [NOTE] (scripts/client/post_processing/__init__.py, 275): The quality = 0 was selected.
    [NOTE] (scripts/client/post_processing/__init__.py, 275): The quality = 0 was selected.
    [SPACE] Loading space: spaces/15_komarin
    [NOTE] (botdetect.py, 20): Request of http://www.eu-comm.de botdata successful.
    PostProcessing.Phases.fini()
    \——————————————————————————–/
    but the botdata.json isn’t updated as I see only 4 nicks that this comes with. Even tried with adding my own nick respecting the json and still no results. What’s wrong? :(

    • Ignore my previous post. Null routed eu-comm.de on my PC so it will fail to “update” so it load the botdata.json file that’s on my res_mods folder and I appear a bot. :D

      So yeah, it’s working but the update mechanism is a bit dumb, meaning the file is fetched EVERY battle. The local botdata.json should also be overwritten.

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  50. Hello

    I am one of those affected by this mod and how to “identify bots.”

    Now he and Mr. St0rmshadow sent an email, I requesting explanations.

    ‘m On the list of Mr. St0rmshadow and also a replay where I do nothing and I suspect dubbed as bot and I get on the list of Mr. St0rmshadow

    I have very bad stats, I know, but I share with my brother has 8 and plays like he wants and let him. It’s a game, not real life

    Just say it this way, you could ban to people who are not bots, but bad players. And this will affect nevativamente WG as money.

    So extra care when people say bot, a replay if you are not anything.

    regards

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