Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/ru/news/pc-browser/1/lets_comfort/
For a completely marginal issue, it got a separate portal post on RU forums strangely enough (EU silent as always)…
It says:
Tankers!
Thanks to the fact the World of Tanks users use the rule violations report system actively, Wargaming specialists are constantly identifying players who break the rules.
One of the most serious rules violations is the use of bot programs, intended to accumulate credits and XP without player participation.
Using reliable algorithms that are constantly improved, we have identified and punished in June alone more than 2000 players, who used bot programs. It should be noted that punishments for such violations are very serious. The attempts to commit fraud and to gain advantages by breaking rules will always be punished – so think about whether it’s worth risking your account for easy profit.
Play honestly, respect each other!
Well… pardon me for being skeptical about that but I think that the amount of bots is considerably higher.
ASIA is possibly the smallest server there is, its peak population, if I recall correctly is 1/10th of what we see on EU and like 2 percent or so of RU server. Yet, according to official info, they ban/warn like 25 botters per day? That’s 750 per month on a server that is a fraction of RU server. If the percentage of bot users and caught bot users was the same, the realistic RU number of bots punished/warned per month would be around 10-15k? That is of course just guess work, but I do believe the real numbers are higher than 2000.
Plus, if the issue was as negligible, why bother putting up a special portal post? But – at least they are doing something…
Trust the system !
and don’t ask questions
They started working openly. And the risk of punishment alone will scare some minor botters, too.
Let’s hope they increase effectiveness in future.
If only idiots at low tiers could recognise who is bot.
Some low tier idiots look just like bots…
I saw one yesterday, got rammed by a pz38… again and again and again. He would bump me, stop, back off, wait for me to move… do it again.
When I asked in chat if he was a bot or just an idiot he actually replied he wasn’t a bot…
Do you even know how bot looks and behaves?
If only idiots at all tiers could play at least as good as some bots :/ I saw a bot get around 1400dmg in T8 match and I saw endless numbers of players that had 0dmg with 10 shots in T10 match …
During evening I have few battles with 0 WN8. If I play crap.
[like one in T28: got shot+bounced myself, then arty shot me for ~650 and I got finished by IS :D. Did ~400 damage/lost ~1100 hp]
Yesterday I had a game with platoon of 2x Tiger I in my team. Both with 41% winratio and 200-300 WN8. The other players in my team started writing “Bots, report them”. And those two “heroes” started replying, they were actually playing! And yes, they performed worse than bots…
Chatbots are oldest bots to exist, Turing test was interesting to programmers since ages ;) . And existing chatbots were in use even many years ago on icq…
What is so strange about it?
What if I told you botters run their bots with intention to play their accounts from time to time with the tanks their bots grinded.
Well, to be honest, I think that catching even like 5-10% of bots each month is a start. A very good start. Eventually botting will most likely decrease.
Now the only (big) remaining issue is the way they handle bot accounts. They really should either give long (1yr+) bans or take the remaining gold also as a fine.
IMHO account wipe (but leave premium tanks & gold) + (just like you mention) long (half or full year) ban could deter a lot of people.
That way they don’t lose for what they paid for and still get severely punished. But then there is the problem with botted-out premiums and how to deal with that (Super Pershing)…
Why should they keep premium tanks and gold? They broke the rules and should lose everything.
It find it a bit better – full account wipe feels like a capital punishment – “no going back” :)
Because WarGaming CAN NOT delete the premium tanks.
Also I just LOL at people that want blood so badly…in a friggin online video game…
Current procedure is wiping the account of regular tanks for the first botting offense, permaban for the second. In my opinion, when wiping the account they should clean all of the tanks, including premium. That will make them think twice whether they want to invest money in bots or not. And you need a lot of real money for bots to make enough credits and XP to get higher tiers.
And thats how WG gets money from PA.
You people are far too extreme…
Do you guys smell a botter around here?
I am guessing that by not removing anything that was bought with real money WG circumvents , or rather avoids the possibility to get taken to court about it.
mfg eXterminus
PS: i personally find full wipe + ban too harsh, am i a botter too now?
@Panzerscout
How cute :) . I wont stop you from botting mate, dont worry :) .
Good point….you don’t need to catch them all, you just need to get enough that most are discouraged. For example, there will always be speeders on the highways, but because police catch a few, most people will not speed (or only go the sped limit +5).
Maybe warnings aren’t counted as actual punishment in those numbers from RU server, as they don’t have a punishing component in them, just the threat of one. If we deduct the warnings from Tanitha’s numbers they have an average of 5-6 bots per day in the days he has published. RU numbers should be around 7500 when using the same mechanics, assuming the same percentage of bots on each server, but from the numbers given (5/day average on Asia, 2% of RU) it’s still something.
I’m just glad they start to open up to the topic and be more vocal about the consequences. It will ease the pressure from the community, and the numbers might scare some people away from using bots, decreasing their numbers further. It’s not the end of botting, but as I said, a good step in the right direction
And i still don’t belive that WG Paris is doing even 10% as good as the RU department.
I just hope that the BotHunt will continue and finally reach WG paris.
mfg eX
These are not the bots you are looking for…
well at the very least they started to tell us openly about bots and stuff
You mistake about amount of bots on RU. For using any bot your need to understand what is it and how is it works. But overwhelming majority on RU dont know it))) Mian problem for us it’s “igraushie pod pivko” (men who playing with drinking of beer) or “Ya igrau v udovostlie, pobeda mne ne nuzhna” (I am playing for fun and needn’t in victory). They are not bots, they are real persons who dont care about result, only go to battle->make several shots-go to hangar. Repeat several times before beer will end or wife call to bed.
hahaha!
Made my morning :D
@ultra_inside: Lol, so true!
@Topic: Well, finally WG acknowledges there is a bot problem. I run out of afk/bot reports usually in 10-15 games. Sometimes even less.
So about one bot in every game?
You should get your tinfoil hat checked, maybe it has a crack.
When you did, pls tell me if anything was wrong with it, cause if not it must be mine that is not working properly.
mfg eX
There was an article somewhere (possibly here?) giving a breakdown of where WG gets its income from WOT: so much % was from premium accounts, so much % from gold retraining, etc.
Has anyone a logic-based guesstimate of how much % WG makes from bot accounts?
Amount of bots can be much higher but:
• players need to report bots;
• number of reports of one player must be high to be selected to investigate;
• investigation have to be positive
Over 2000 botters punished in June only is proof that number of bots is significant and they are taking it seriously but also they don’t want to wipe account of innocent morons playing drunk etc.
Special post is to show players that they are doing something. And well, over 2000 players wiped out or banned on RU server in one month is not negligible and they are saying that with this post. I think they published that to encourage more players to fill reports because without reporting from players detecting bots is much harder.
About a year ago I played very hard battle on El Halluf with my Tiger (P). Last standing was our T29 and their Panther + artillery. All killed players switched to the T29 view. And then we all discovered, that the T29 is only simple bot, standing and shooting. We all reported him, via ingame reporting systém, many of us also directly to the support with a replay. In 24 hours I received a support reply, something like “Thank you, we are carefully watching him.”
What happens?
One week later I played game against the same player and killed him. He was – of course – using bot.
It probably doesn’t help that people just report players as Bot because they didn’t play well or as the reporter wanted.
Reporting non-bots as bots will not help WG catch them.
They should simple hire that guy from the Bothunter MOD!
Wouldn’t hurt their pockets much to even give him some underlings and let him go bot hunting.
mfg eX
my last games 4 bots: 2 afk in the middle of the base turning the turret left and right ( more than 30K games with 40% winrate, so yes full boting, never banned) and 2 going to a place, then turning the turret left and right even when no one is spot. Same 20K+ games. So i really doubt wargaming “advanced myth algorythm” is catching that much boters.
When you got at least one or two boters per game every game you can say there is a major bot problem in this game.
What SS has posted is Russian server,
Eu server is a different matter.
Wargaming EU office, often referred to as WG Paris seams to be way less effictive than all other WG offices.
Major things like this often take some time to get going on Eu server (the replay site for example, etc.)
so have patience, and/or try to get the hole WG paris management replaced, taught how to do things right…
mfg eX
To me this post looks like an attempt to scare people off from using bot programs as much as they can by threatening them with harsh punishments such as account wipes and permabans.
We asians don’t need bots! we already have SEAtards that are guaranteed at least 30% more stupid than bots!
That, and you can pay some chum to play for you. Or if you feel rich nuff, add in prem and goldspam on thin targets like flakbuses an such
plenty of goldshells here in SEA since you can buy with creds now. kinda anticlimatic when you’re doing a one-man Sparta and then they goldshell you. it’s like a shootable curse/hex/painis
The flag is the “Victory Banner” from WW2.
Some allegory here with “victory over the fascists (the Ukraine`s new goverment)”.
The forum community here in ASIA has been very active with respect to anti-bot awareness and sanctions. It helps to have a regional WG Producer that listens to the vibes of the the community.
ASIA server community was also the first to report on the removal of the 1-day and 7-day number of games played in the Hall of Fame. From our perspective, the change clearly showed that WG Minsk prefers to hide the problem under the carpet at this time.
Last, in an attempt to circumvent the naming and shaming rule, some of us have adopted the term “Most Dedicated Players” to talk about accounts that accumulate several thousands games over a short period of time. Feel free to reuse and spread the term.
Players on russian servers can’t use bots… because it would stress out their toasters!
Players on ASIA servers are actually cyborgs… grinding endlessly yet still humans.
:)