79447-mass-bothack-bans-round-1-page-8

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We left out a key patch note the other day:
 
We’ve added additional logging and hack/bot detection into WildStar
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How about protection i.e. preventive methods? At least against instant teleportation...
 
And why the hell third-party addons can detect teleporting bots but not the game engine?
What the point in all these tickets without the real protection?
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VicVanMeter, we talking about July 2014 not June. How much do they need? Six months, one year?And this is not WoW... <_<
 
Teleporting without the limits and barriers in 2014 and Carbine do nothing about it. /sigh	
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So botters have a new use for the Mining Program. was Questing this morning in Ellevar when I came across a Chua Spellslinger killing birds in the Air while jumping between mob spawn points
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i have to say the banning system is really not working. After anyone reports a boss it takes days before that bot is actually banned during that time that bot is making more than enough money to just simply buy 2x bots. Also as i already stated i can't see a reason why it takes so long for bots to be banned when they get reported by a lot of ppl atm i feel like i am wasting my time reporting them since they seem to be in the zones for days.Again i would suggest to hire ppl who jump on realms and just observe a territory for bots all i have to do atm is log in go to any high level area and 2 mins later i see a bot teleporting. Kick him and move on if u spend 30 mins in 1 terriotory i am sure u can get all the suckers that will not only get rid of them but also reduce the number of tickets which u will have to deal which overall means that it could save u more time than it costs u :\ .
 
You are all looking for some magical solution to solve your bot problem but i don't think there is one and even if there is how long will it take you to find it? A month? 2 ? 6? It just redicilous atm since yesturday there was 1 bot in south grim today i saw 5 different bots and we got to the point again where u can't farm anything! However this time the rest of the zone are boted as well. In crimsom badlands on our server there is 1 bot and that is more than enough to cover 80% of the plants all the time in total i would say u need something like 10 bots in crimson,west and south grim to ruin your farming/collecting experience.	
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They are doing a great job.  I haven't seen many teleport mining bots in ages now.  Well at least on my server :)
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			I absolutely love this game to the point of even converting long-time WoW veterans from my earlier MMO days into coming to this game. The quests are fun, the combat is excellent, and the overall community is one of the friendliest I have encountered in an MMO. Unfortunately, we all know the problem…Case in point is the screenshot below, please study it;This is everything that is wrong with Wildstar and the current support that is being shown to it. Here we have a level 45 with crap gear (myself) defeating a level 50 without taking so much as a single hit. How could this be possible? Well, because all this person is doing is systematically walking a few meters, spamming Quick Draw on any mobs, and then proceeding on, spamming Quick Draw on mobs, rinse and repeat.I followed this person around to see what in earth they were doing, and it became abruptely apparently they were botting, so I did what any good Samaritan would do and put them out of their misery. Without  them even firing a single shot back.To test this theory, I then camped them at the rez point and managed to kill them no less than 8 times in a row without taking a single bit of damage from them (you can see the 5x PvP xp debuff on them as well as the combat log). If this isn't a red flag, I don’t know what is.Next you will notice that their guild name is an actual gold selling site that is CLEAR AS DAY promoting both its URL and service price within the actual guild name. How in the hell is this allowed?So, I then reported them via the ingame ticket system. After one hour I returned to see them still doing the same route, so I killed and camped them, again, no damage taken to myself. I reported them again, and still received no feedback from NCSoft.No more than 5 minutes later, I was walking to a Galactium node when a player warped in, mined it, and warped out, not before I grabbed a screenshot of them, and lo-and-behold, it was a tele-bot I reported THREE DAYS AGO. Three days! How has their account not been banned yet? I've submitted at least 20 tickets on different bots, yet they all seem to still be hanging around like no one even submitted any tickets. This isn't Steam's VAC system for gods sakes, measures may be taken immediately. Does NCSOFT not have the resources to simply check this players inventory/travel path and see they are not only covering impossible ground, but they are mining at an extraordinary rate? To boot, this was a level 10 character in Malgrave. Let that sink in for a moment...Now, I know the game has been out for a month, and it’s had a rough launch, but this is absolutely ridiculous. You have teleporting bots farming nodes before any legit players can get to them, with the AH economy absolutely destroyed beyond any short term repair.Players like myself, who come to MMOs to farm mats and create items and services for other players, are being alienated worse than any other group by a large margin. You have players openly gloating about how it is cheaper to use their services to buy 6 platinum at 6USD for C.R.E.D.D than to pay the monthly sub fee, yet nothing is done, even though this is being advertised in the Thayd zone chat!If you have gold farmers selling gold for players to buy C.R.E.D.D at lower than your actual official sub fees, then you are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month NCSOFT, just think about that. Fix this problem, and you recoup your losses 10 fold on paying staff to look into these claims and ban those responsible, as well as regaining consumer confidence from your players.I for one am not even going to bother reporting bots anymore, as nothing is/has been done on this matter. I’m giving this game until next patch for this to be sorted. If you built the game from the ground up, you should be able to identify and reconcile on the teleporting bots at the very least. Inability to do this just shows your customers absolute laziness on your behalf.Please don’t make this game into TOR 2.0…/Rant out.	
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VicVanMeter, we talking about July 2014 not June. How much do they need? Six months, one year?
And this is not WoW... <_<
 
Teleporting without the limits and barriers in 2014 and Carbine do nothing about it. /sigh
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			A step in the right direction - keep up the good work, Carbine!	
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Why do you think it would be somehow less likely that people could dig up an exploit in an MMORPG in 2014?  Has game code become less complicated lately?
 
Hackers could be altering vector data, inputing new XYZ coordinates, hijacking an ability housed in game and using an exploit to apply it to all characters, forcing the game to think they are underwater and using one of those currents from the lake off Lightreach Mission, using predictive movement to trick the game into thinking that they are lagging and suttering themselves forward at high speed, using the system that spawns nodes and following a formula that eventually forms a node to move, or a few hundred, maybe a thousand, different ways that they could trick the game into thinking that they are moving faster or reappearing where they aren't supposed to, and people could be using different programs that don't just exploit one.  These are things that Carbine, if they haven't safeguarded them before release, might have to stop from being exploited without breaking whatever its used for in-game for legitimate uses, and without anyone telling them exactly how they're doing it.  They have to essentially reverse-engineer what they're receiving to know how the modified game clients are getting around the blocks in their system without making the game worse.
 
I can't say I share your disbelief.
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Why do you think it would be somehow less likely that people could dig up an exploit in an MMORPG in 2014?  Has game code become less complicated lately?
 
Hackers could be altering vector data, inputing new XYZ coordinates, hijacking an ability housed in game and using an exploit to apply it to all characters, forcing the game to think they are underwater and using one of those currents from the lake off Lightreach Mission, using predictive movement to trick the game into thinking that they are lagging and suttering themselves forward at high speed, using the system that spawns nodes and following a formula that eventually forms a node to move, or a few hundred, maybe a thousand, different ways that they could trick the game into thinking that they are moving faster or reappearing where they aren't supposed to, and people could be using different programs that don't just exploit one.  These are things that Carbine, if they haven't safeguarded them before release, might have to stop from being exploited without breaking whatever its used for in-game for legitimate uses, and without anyone telling them exactly how they're doing it.  They have to essentially reverse-engineer what they're receiving to know how the modified game clients are getting around the blocks in their system without making the game worse.
 
I can't say I share your disbelief.
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			My account was just hacked this morning, I logged on and it said my account was running on a different client, Submitted two tickets already, is there anyway to get all my stuff back? also Support takes way too long makes me want to quit this game 	
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My account was just hacked this morning, I logged on and it said my account was running on a different client, Submitted two tickets already, is there anyway to get all my stuff back? also Support takes way too long makes me want to quit this game 
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-Give nodes the extra protection of being level-locked, that is, you can't harvest a galactium node if you are level 10
 
-Somebody being way under leveled in a zone, to which they are reported hacking, should immediately lead to an account investigation. It is simply too hard to believe that somebody at level 10 has managed to get their harvesting ability to tier 4 and is now willy-nilly grabbing resources in a zone where they could be 1-hit killed by anything
 
-Allow the submission of short-videos or screenshots as proof of these allegations. It is extremely hard to defend against material proof of somebody teleporting around from node to node or running in a fixed pattern farming mobs without any kind of deviation
>Anybody accused of botting should be /whispered by a GM telling them of the accusations and that they NEED to reply asap to the whisper so that the GM knows there is an actual player at the keyboard
 
Also
 
-Have a GM run around in the actual zone and observe a group of nodes for a short period of time. Malgrave and Wilderun would be the only two locations they would even need to observe. They would observe and ban hundreds of bots per hour, I guarantee you. If I can actively target and send scores of tickets in every hour, then as moderators, they would have the power to see these through first hand
 
There is no need to come up with any complex anti-hack system, simply let the GMs do their job and emperically observe and ban anybody who is botting or hacking, simply through exploit observation or whispering bots, and if they are not answered (with the bot still attacking mobs etc), then they would know they were indeed bots. Perhaps even run up to them and /say to their faces so there is no excuse that the accused did not see the whisper.
 
It worked in WoW, it'll work here.
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			so after 1month+  they did nothing.. i cant even get 10nodes in one hour  they r working SO HARD on fixing things i cant even imagine.. they r humans after all, right?:D :P :D  btw same guys r farming 24/7 since 3 weeks ago;) i guess the "wave" or the "mass bans" didn't caught them :lol:  better luck next time ;) . I salute you brave developers of Wildstar game of the year 2014 10/10. B)	
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My account was just hacked this morning, I logged on and it said my account was running on a different client, Submitted two tickets already, is there anyway to get all my stuff back? also Support takes way too long makes me want to quit this game 
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Soooo bots are alive and well in pvp.  last match was at least 40% bots. (Reported all) this is unplayable at the moment.  Its extremely frustrating to buy and pay for a game that I cant play the way I'd like because it's impossible to have fun in BG's.  
 
Implement SOMETHING for botting in pvp maybe a captcha!?  Short term even till a more permanent fix is done?! Please please please. This is killing the game for me and im sure others as well.	
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			I think they should hurry up with round 2 of banning, currently it's nearly impossible to get the resources you need for your craft due to teleport hackers. 	
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I think they should hurry up with round 2 of banning, currently it's nearly impossible to get the resources you need for your craft due to teleport hackers. 
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			Found someone else logged into my account last night, setup the 2 step verification, changed my password, got a suspension email today. How does this get fixed? Before you all call me a liar, I am a very casual game who has taken a week to reach lvl 10.	
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Found someone else logged into my account last night, setup the 2 step verification, changed my password, got a suspension email today. How does this get fixed? Before you all call me a liar, I am a very casual game who has taken a week to reach lvl 10.
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Carbine seems to be making a real attempt to fix the bot problem. Make no mistake, it is a very complex and tricky situation for them, and they don't like it anymore than we do. 
 
That said, we don't have to just sit around, QQ, and rage quit because of bots; There is enough depth to Wildstar that we as a playerbase can improve our own gaming experience with a little effort, and minimize the impacts bots have on our personal gameplay and enjoyment. I'll mention some here, but It might be a better use of this thread in-between Dev updates to discuss positive and proactive activities we as players can take to make our own experiences as pleasant as possible.
 
First off, the 2 major areas of gameplay impacted directly by bots are 1) gathering and 2) instanced PvP. So I'll split my ideas based on which of those they might help.
 
1) Gathering. 
While it seems to be getting better, there are still times when bots will monopolize the gathering nodes of an entire zone. Depending on your server, your mileage may vary; but this is perhaps the worst impact of bots on the game (insta teleport right to the node, taking it more or less as soon as it spawns). This makes gathering raw materials for sale and crafting very frustrating; even more so when you are trying to level your gathering skill.
 
There are probably a few other ways to deal with this in a positive manner, but my personal favourite is to start or join a gathering circle. How these work is usually fairly simple; a circle is formed with the goal of bringing together people with similar gathering skills, and gathering nodes on their personal plots. Each member sets all the circle members as 'neighbours' and their resource sharing ratio to 50/50. Circle members then can go around to members plots and gather resources on their nodes. The one gathering will get half the materials; and will gain experience; while the plot owner will get half the materials extracted. These groups provide a decent source of resource nodes; and they have the added benefit of making your own material gain more efficient ( members can extract your nodes when you are asleep; and in large circles you can expect to be getting more materials from your nodes than from your personal collecting alone (even though you only get 50% of the materials others extract; 50% during parts of the day you spend alseep; at work; in raids, etc can add up quick.
 
While gathering circles are a good option for people interested in the materials, they are less ideal for those levelling their gathering skill to begin with. The one good thing I suppose; is that you only have to level your skill to cap once :)
 
 
2) PvP
As some one who genuinely enjoy's pugging BG's.. this one is a little poor for my taste; but I like it the best for reasons. Getting bots on your team in a BG is the worst, and it's perhaps the most disheartening thing to see at the start of a BG. Everytime I get a bot(s) in my pug I pretty much give up hoping for a good match and start hoping for a quick win from the other side. As player's, dealing with this one is tricky; but there is a solution at least to keeping bots out of your groups.....
 
roll a premade. I know I know, that totally takes the fun out of pugging BG's... but the more I think about it the less I really can argue that if you don't want bots on your team; the best way to guarantee not getting them is to prevent them from ever being able to be on your team. If the goal is to keep bots out; you don't need to really make a true premade, just group with the other folks lazily standing around the PvP vendors; or join a PvP circle / guild and que as groups. Being social is the name of the game anyway (Massively MULTIplayer Online Role Playing Game). Now the major drawback from this, and the only real negative inherent to queing with a full group rather than solo is the que times. Depending on your server (if you click the little box that says Que your server only :D ) and in general, it can potentially take much longer to get into an instance with a large group rather than solo. In my opinion being bot free is totally worth the wait; but that might not work for everyone.
 
 
So those are just two ideas I have about us players possibly improving our own gameplay experience while the Devs wage war with the bots. Bots suck, that's for sure, but we don't HAVE to let them ruin our fun; we don't have to let them ruin our crafting; and we don't have to let them ruin our PvP if we take the time and make use of features already in-game to limit our bot-exposure, and reduce our risk of being overly frustrated by them.
 
Best,
Naz
 
P.S. for the love of all that is holy; use 2 step authentication!	
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Oh... :) This is the game with a client-server model, right? Then why the hell server don't check all these things? Or at least players coordinates?
 
They knew that the game will be hacked! But they did nothing or just not enough. And all these right after ESO bot-fest in 2014... :rolleyes:
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It's difficult to detect outside of being pointed toward the hackers by player reports.
The information for a player teleport hacking would appear similar to many of the other things in the game that legitimately move players around. Part of what Carbine is doing right now is working on methods to catch the hacking tools before they can actually be used or to accurately detect them when they are. It's a long-run process and they've already made significant progress in solving.
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C'mon this is A+B.If someone just teleported for 400m, then it's not a normal behavior - block it to the hell.
 
And why only now, after release? Or they did not expect bots and gold-farmers in 2014? Oh...
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VicVanMeter
 
I googled that crap about speed hacks... Found this quote from ESO forums:
 
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There is something called player coords that would let them instantly ban those who are using speedhacks by calculating (x,y) variations and obviously, player movement speed.The system parse the "positives" with player (z) variation to avoid banning players that are esencially falling, and not speedhacking.That is mmo anticheat systems 101. But ZMO missed the class and went after some moonsugar hotshots.
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VicVanMeter
 
I googled that crap about speed hacks... Found this quote from ESO forums:
 
 
and
 
 
And it does not look so complicated... Or this BS?
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VicVanMeter
 
I googled that crap about speed hacks... Found this quote from ESO forums:
 
 
and
 
 
And it does not look so complicated... Or this BS?
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Due to client-side position reporting and the nature of the movement system in W*, such a detection system is impractical until Carbine can more accurately determine the signature characteristics of a player using the teleport hacks; and to be clear they are teleport hacking, not speed hacking. (unless you're talking about some particularly anomalous incidents that have been reported in pvp battlegrounds)
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			Really glad you guys are doing something but it was pretty ridiculous on Orias in Algoroc just now. Four or five different botters teleporting the trees almost constantly. Not sure if it's been mentioned but a helpful tip for more easily capturing bot names. This works for medics or any class that can cast a quick heal on other players. If you're at a node and a bot suddenly appears then hit them with a heal spell. Then check your combat log in chat and there's the heal you cast on them with their name. 	
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That's not what's going on here either, it's a hypothetical example.  I can't really comment on the exploits being faced in ESO and I've only ever seen two teleport bots myself during play (I think I'm just lucky, maybe?).  From what I've seen and what is described, though, they aren't really "teleporting", as in suddenly telling the game they are somewhere else, they're fooling the game's speed control and, from what I've seen, clipping.  That's why you can see them flying through the air, disappearing and reappearing, over and over.  The game client displays to you predictive movement, so it takes the information provided to it to "guess" where your target is going.  The lack of stuttering means that movement is prioritized in the client, so there's no way of knowing what precisely they're checking and what they aren't.  What I can vaguely guess is that there is a ceiling to the speed that they're maintaining that isn't tripping the security precautions and Carbine can't just back the ceiling up for some game reason without messing with a slew of legitimate movements.
 
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Just... check on how many nodes people pull down each hour, and how many hours they do it.  Bots do it faster than people, right?
 
And for combat bots, how many, and how many of the SAME mobs they grind each hour.  Most REAL people don't just grind the same small areas their entire session, and their session has sizable breaks for, you know, SLEEP.
 
 
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Really glad you guys are doing something but it was pretty ridiculous on Orias in Algoroc just now. Four or five different botters teleporting the trees almost constantly. Not sure if it's been mentioned but a helpful tip for more easily capturing bot names. This works for medics or any class that can cast a quick heal on other players. If you're at a node and a bot suddenly appears then hit them with a heal spell. Then check your combat log in chat and there's the heal you cast on them with their name. 
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-JG...
 
 	
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There's addons to do that for you.  Botter will log people nearby, bot zapper uses a bit of thought, and ListNearbyPlayers... well, I think you can guess.
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Nope, that´s only what your clients sees. As in all MMOs, all clients live in a bubble, inside these bubble, which in Wildstar is just slightly bigger than the max minimap range, every movement of other players / npcs etc is communicated to your client. The client tries to resolve this rare data into "believable" movement on your screen, so when the last reported position of a player was 1234/1234/0 and the actual one is 1230/1234/0 you will see this player walk a few steps along the x-axis. A teleporting bot will be reported to your client in a similiar fashion, the difference is, his last position was way outside your bubble, but is nevertheless communicated to your client, because without this last position the client wouldn´t be able to translate this into believable movement on your screen.
 
So actually, the bot just pops up in front of you, but as his last position was 1200m to the left of your character, your client will show you this character moving in at a ridiculous speed from the left. Then the bot teleports to a node 800m straight ahead of your client, which again will translate into ridiculous fast movement away from you in a straight line. If bots were just clipping or abusing gate abilities, you would be able to see them flying around when no node is anywhere near you, but you will never witness this behaviour. If both, the bots last and actual position are outside your bubble, your client will not even be bothered with this data. So if there are no flying bots to be witnessed, just "landing" and "starting" ones, which actually is the case, it is a very good proof, that they are in fact teleporting, not clipping, not speedhacking (which essentially is nothing else than a teleport bug, but finetuned to the max velocity a server plausibility check allows) nor abusing gate abilities.
 
Face it, even if they are your new masters of the universe, Carbine just messed up big time on this one.
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As it was said before they're "Carbine" going to just let this drag out over time so people will just give up and keep paying and not say anything. Stopping this is not on there top 10 things to do.
 
From what I see its just not getting better. People still wait more then a week on some tickets. That right there. Why people dont say anything is beyond me. Well its 2014 and they EXPECT us to pay yet support is a ticket. Then the people that answer the tickets dont even play this game. Anyway..
 
How they they hack has never been a problem to find out. Its super clear allot of these hacked accounts come from (some) addons (mods). As of right now there are some addons that should be banned yet.. like bots you keep asking ..why are they just letting them play going on over a week now. Not just level 3 any more level 50's are using the hacks. They dont have to worry any more.
 
I just dont get it. They have awesome mmo that could have really taken off yet they seem to be very happy if they just get by.	
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As it was said before they're "Carbine" going to just let this drag out over time so people will just give up and keep paying and not say anything. Stopping this is not on there top 10 things to do.
 
From what I see its just not getting better. People still wait more then a week on some tickets. That right there. Why people dont say anything is beyond me. Well its 2014 and they EXPECT us to pay yet support is a ticket. Then the people that answer the tickets dont even play this game. Anyway..
 
How they they hack has never been a problem to find out. Its super clear allot of these hacked accounts come from (some) addons (mods). As of right now there are some addons that should be banned yet.. like bots you keep asking ..why are they just letting them play going on over a week now. Not just level 3 any more level 50's are using the hacks. They dont have to worry any more.
 
I just dont get it. They have awesome mmo that could have really taken off yet they seem to be very happy if they just get by.
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I'm going to say that they're making progress.... slowly.
 
I still report at least one harvesting bot per day. I always see at least one PvP battleground bot per hour of running battlegrounds.  The arena invite bots are still running unchecked and hit you as soon as you login.  Gold spam mail still shows up in my inbox at least once or twice a week.
 
There needs to be cooldowns in place on:
Sending out arena invites to people not in your guild / circle / friend list - ESPECIALLY if they are being declined.
How often you can send emails to people who are not in a guild / circle / friend list.
How often you can create new characters on an account.
Carbine also needs to do a better job of looking for and blocking guild / arena team / circle names that advertise gold sellers.
 
Additonally:
The "report player" /ticket form should have had a place to put in the Character / Guild / Circle name from day 1 to make it easier to look for multiple tickets about the same person.	
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I'm going to say that they're making progress.... slowly.
 
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I tried logging in yesterday and said i had a character logged in. i changed my password and logged in and it apparently kicked who ever off. I found myself in faraway or where ever that is. cant log in to check spelling,  got 27 gold worth of resources from that asshat. Figured i changed my password to a 12 character would do the trick. get home from work tonight and i got a 1 week ban. 
 
I enabled 2 step authentication.  Ill give back the 27 gold =(  i just want to play . i'm only level 15 so come on give me break here. 
 
I	
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I enabled 2 step authentication.  Ill give back the 27 gold =(  i just want to play . i'm only level 15 so come on give me break here. 
 
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Other possible benefits that Carbine could offer to encourage people to setup 2FA:
Priority bump within the customer service report queue
The ability for guilds / circles to restrict ranks to those with 2FA enabled (including demotion if 2FA is removed)
A 3-5% bonus to the group shared with your group for having 2FA installed	
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Other possible benefits that Carbine could offer to encourage people to setup 2FA:
Priority bump within the customer service report queue
The ability for guilds / circles to restrict ranks to those with 2FA enabled (including demotion if 2FA is removed)
A 3-5% bonus to the group shared with your group for having 2FA installed
 
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			the simple thing is, that you dont really need a special detection system for bots. sure it would be nice but the easiest way to prevent bots is to make you account save. most of the bots are just hacked accounts. the more people use 2step the less bots there are, because when carbine can focus on the bought bots and not on the hacked account bots, most goldsellers will back off. at the moment there are so many hacked accs botting and it could be prevented easily. for the mmo with 3 letters i used the authentificator for ages tbh.	
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A friend of mine has been caught up in this, and is beside herself. She only just purchased the game a few weeks ago, and is absolutely devastated that she received an email to the tune of "you can email us but we're probably not going to unban you".  Her support ticket number is #693144
 
She is NOT tech-savvy, had no idea about 2-step. After her account was suspended, my husband and I helped her set up a 2-step so that when she was unbanned her account would be safer. Needless to say she does not have the technical capability to use bots or addons of any kind.
 
Basically we're all freaking out, not just her. The information from the email she received has basically made it sound like even if we're hacked and are completely "innocent", too bad, so sad, you can't plead your case because the support team/devs don't care. I'm actually terrified that someone will hack my account (I do have 2-step, but is that foolproof?!) and I'll lose all the things I've worked for without a "fair trial".
 
I totally 100% understand that bots and hackers are annoying. I've seen people using them ingame and it makes me mad because they're ruining it for everyone, and I played WoW at the beginning and had my account hacked once (before authenticators, mind you), and it sucks, and its an awful thing, and basically a pox on cheaters of any kind (let alone the wastes of oxygen that goldfarm)... but please help people like my friend who just want to play and got caught up in something that they didn't know was happening.
 
Please help my friend, she seriously didn't do anything wrong (girl had to get help to use her authenticator, seriously...), and we seriously need our fave medic back =\
 
Once again, her ticket is #693144
 
 	
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A friend of mine has been caught up in this, and is beside herself. She only just purchased the game a few weeks ago, and is absolutely devastated that she received an email to the tune of "you can email us but we're probably not going to unban you".  Her support ticket number is #693144
 
She is NOT tech-savvy, had no idea about 2-step. After her account was suspended, my husband and I helped her set up a 2-step so that when she was unbanned her account would be safer. Needless to say she does not have the technical capability to use bots or addons of any kind.
 
Basically we're all freaking out, not just her. The information from the email she received has basically made it sound like even if we're hacked and are completely "innocent", too bad, so sad, you can't plead your case because the support team/devs don't care. I'm actually terrified that someone will hack my account (I do have 2-step, but is that foolproof?!) and I'll lose all the things I've worked for without a "fair trial".
 
I totally 100% understand that bots and hackers are annoying. I've seen people using them ingame and it makes me mad because they're ruining it for everyone, and I played WoW at the beginning and had my account hacked once (before authenticators, mind you), and it sucks, and its an awful thing, and basically a pox on cheaters of any kind (let alone the wastes of oxygen that goldfarm)... but please help people like my friend who just want to play and got caught up in something that they didn't know was happening.
 
Please help my friend, she seriously didn't do anything wrong (girl had to get help to use her authenticator, seriously...), and we seriously need our fave medic back =\
 
Once again, her ticket is #693144
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She can take a breath.  They're doing what they can, but it takes a while to unlock accounts.  They have to go in, make sure SHE wasn't the one running the bot.
 
If she's not tech savvy, someone DEFINITELY needed to get her 2FA set up for her immediately.  The non-tech savvy people are going to be the most likely victims because their accounts are usually the most vulnerable.  They tend to use the same user names and passwords and no authenticators.
 
That's why you're fine if you have 2FA.  It's questionable whether it can possibly be made automatic to mass hack accounts with authenticators because, as long as your authenticator is on a different device than your computer, you're completely immune to hacking unless they have almost complete and total control of your computer.  That's rare.  Given the extreme amount of effort it would take to break into your account, compared to how many people like your friend are out there, you can rest assured no one is breaking into your account.  Why go through the effort of launching a MITM attack on someone when you can just buy user names and passwords in bulk and just try them on the game client until one logs in?
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Thanks for that! I guess we were just panicking because we had no idea if their decision was final or if she'd get her account back if they investigated it. I saw a lot of people fretting about addons, but she definitely doesn't use any! We know that it'll take a while (it did take over a week to get a response from her ticket), so she doesn't mind waiting at all, just wanted some reassurance that they're definitely doing further investigations!
 
We helped her set up her 2-step, and showed her how to work it. :)
 
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, it really helps, and we can all breathe a little easier now! :)
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			Sadly people I personally know and know they are not bots or farming got banned. One has a bad lag from poor internet and was ban. I find it sad that you can not give her proof but can say sorry your out 60$, thanks for playing and donating your money to the cause. Friends of hers have stopped playing simply because they feel they can not trust Carbine now. why not tell/show them what they did wrong? makes for bad business. :(	
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No problem.  A few things she needs to think about:
 
1.  There was a bug that broke into national consciousness a while back called Heartbleed.  Without going into details, it means that people could collect, from certain important sites, user names an passwords.  These were collected, packaged in bulk, and essentially sold on the black market.  Many of the websites that were affected sent mail to change passwords and fixed the bug.  However, many people use the same user name and password for multiple accounts.  So, essentially, a lot of what you're seeing are people having a computer program running the list of passwords and usernames from those websites in things like game clients to see if someone used the same user name and password on that game.  Inevitably in a game with at least a hundred thousand people, a bunch will use the same set.  As such, it is important that everyone uses a different user name and password, as complex as possible, on every single account and just keeps them written down somewhere near their desk in case they forget.
 
2.  Another way someone could have gotten her information is through a keylogger or other malware.  She may be running antivirus and some of those are very good.  They're not bulletproof, though.  The most common way to bypass it is by loading trojans into an executable file.  The most common ways to do that these days is to load it into an ad that you accidentally click and it loads the trojan that way, or through pirated material through torrents or other FTP options.  You have to surf the web safely; if something looks too free to be true, it probably is.
 
3.  Obviously, if someone managed to hack her account, she needs to change all the locks on her accounts.  That includes her email, user name, password, etc.  People are out there hunting for everything, and getting hold of game accounts to hack are low-risk and high-reward.  The FBI doesn't take RMTs hacking your Wildstar characters very seriously, and they can make a decent amount of money essentially grinding gold for the international black market using pirated accounts.  Sometimes it helps to be paranoid.
 
4.  They will unlock her account eventually (as long as this is 'her' first offense, which it seems to be).  She'll get it back, though she might be out of money and they may have sold whatever was in her inventory.  Everyone should take these as cautionary tales.  Getting hacked sucks and there isn't an awful lot Carbine or NCSoft can do if the vector of attack is personal security.  Do whatever you can to make sure you and everyone you know are not victims.
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I have a friend that the same thing happened to. Do u really think they will look into it further even after they say it will not be overturned? My friend got her account then was out of the country for 2 weeks just to come back play a couple days and get ban. She is so mad she is filing a complaint with the BBB. She is new to online gaming and this has put a bad taste in her mouth. So many are quick to jump in and say that if the "bot/hacker God" says ur a bot, you are in-fact a bot. 
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Word to the folks who don't want to be tech-savvy ... computers and technology will never go away.  You need to learn enough about how to protect yourself rather then sticking your head in the sand and thinking that it will blow over.
Don't use short, easily guessed passwords.  These days, for any site that you care about, it should be at least 12 characters with at least some numbers, mixed case letters, and a symbol or three.  And 15+ characters would be better.
Passwords (and security questions!) should never be guessable by someone who has access to your Facebook page, diary, a list of your friends / co-workers / significant other(s).  Your passwords and security questions should never be pulled from your day to day life.
For sites you don't care about (such as that web forum for your hobby), generate a random 15-25 character password and use some software tool to remember it.  Even if the password gets stolen... who cares, it was unique to that site and it doesn't help the thief crack your accounts on other sites.
Don't re-use passwords across important sites or across sites that are major targets (Facebook, Twitter, MMOs, Banks, EMail).
Don't be afraid to write your important passwords down on physical paper and keep them secure along the rest of the physical papers in your life that you have to keep track of (like the deed to your house/car, your birth certificate copies, etc.).  It's not bad to have passwords written down, as long as they are inside a locked safe / box where you control physical access.
Take advantage of 2-factor authentication wherever possible.  Whether that means your bank sends you a SMS every time you login, or you have a physical key fob with changing numbers or the various authenticator software available on smartphones, it's better then relying solely on a password.
Complain to banks / MMOs when they don't implement basic fraud protection, like making note of an account which has seen a rash of attempted intrusions from an IP address not normally associated with the account.	
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They aren't permanently banning anyone that I've heard.  They're locking the account so that they can't be botted.  I haven't heard of anyone not being able to get their accounts back.  They're certainly being locked out instead of leaving them to be exploited whenever the RMT that hacked them felt like it.
 
In fact, most people's accounts, we agree, aren't being botted by the owner.  They're being botted by someone who's using their username and password.  A lot of people who aren't into online gaming don't know how endemic this is to gaming until they're hacked the first time through.  My brother got hacked back in the early days of WoW, right when it was picking up steam and before 2-step authenticators.  That was my first experience with it.  I avoided it, but got the authenticator the second Blizz offered it.  I've had 2-step since launch of Wildstar and as soon as I started playing FFXIV:ARR.
 
So I haven't heard of any permanent bans unless you've been banned, warned, then banned again a few times.  If you're getting 'hacked' three times and haven't enabled 2-step, I don't think Carbine has much choice.  You can't just leave people's characters to float around; it's hurting the player economy and making gathering dailies a chore.
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I've heard the same thing.. they are not permanently banning anyone. Yet people are still quitting because of bots.
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A friend of mine has been caught up in this, and is beside herself. She only just purchased the game a few weeks ago, and is absolutely devastated that she received an email to the tune of "you can email us but we're probably not going to unban you".  Her support ticket number is #693144
 
She is NOT tech-savvy, had no idea about 2-step. After her account was suspended, my husband and I helped her set up a 2-step so that when she was unbanned her account would be safer. Needless to say she does not have the technical capability to use bots or addons of any kind.
 
Basically we're all freaking out, not just her. The information from the email she received has basically made it sound like even if we're hacked and are completely "innocent", too bad, so sad, you can't plead your case because the support team/devs don't care. I'm actually terrified that someone will hack my account (I do have 2-step, but is that foolproof?!) and I'll lose all the things I've worked for without a "fair trial".
 
I totally 100% understand that bots and hackers are annoying. I've seen people using them ingame and it makes me mad because they're ruining it for everyone, and I played WoW at the beginning and had my account hacked once (before authenticators, mind you), and it sucks, and its an awful thing, and basically a pox on cheaters of any kind (let alone the wastes of oxygen that goldfarm)... but please help people like my friend who just want to play and got caught up in something that they didn't know was happening.
 
Please help my friend, she seriously didn't do anything wrong (girl had to get help to use her authenticator, seriously...), and we seriously need our fave medic back =\
 
Once again, her ticket is #693144
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She is not alone.
My dad got to level 25 with his first character and woke up one morning 10 days ago to find out his account was banned. 
After waiting for 10 days he finally receives a proper response and it mentions the following:
 
 
I have reviewed the details of the action you have appealed, as well as any past actions on your account. After careful consideration of the information available to us (including your appeal), we regret to inform you that we are unable to supply the proof you are seeking. Our cheat detection system is highly complex and confidential. As such we are not at liberty to disclose those detection methods. We are very confident in their accuracy, and the penalty imposed upon your account will stand.
 
We are confident in the decision to terminate the account. Please keep in mind that WildStar is a global game with standards of behavior that must be upheld.
You are welcome to submit additional questions, however, we do not want to give you the impression that anything you say or do will reverse or alter the decision to close your account.
 
What is this ridiculousness? I do not understand how a company can be so wrong in their decision. Did they actually perform ANY form of investigation?
My dad is 53 and played WoW for over 7 years. Not once in the whole time he played WoW did he experience this type of treatment. He doesn't know how to cheat in games. 
I help him with everything computer related and even I don't know how to do it because I have never bothered to learn. My dad even needed my help to add 2-Step verification 
to his account after they banned him. I just don't understand how this can happen. What the hell did he do to deserve this kind of treatment?
 
I am so frustrated. Can anyone think of a way in which these innocent people can have their accounts restored and be compensated for the ordeal they have 
been put through?
 
My dads support ticket number is #678446
 
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when round 2 is coming ? the game is full of farming bots i cant get a node in grimvault 
 
Our cheat detection system is highly complex and confidential.
LMAO so complex that the game is full of hackers	
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			For Caretaker, been in Malgrave most of the past two days, and have not seen a single bot, and tons on resource nodes up all the time.	
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It appears that they did investigate and in this case found him to be running third party software, you know you aren't supposed to even make a macro that links skills in a way that cannot be done manually on keyboard? Did he AFK in a battle ground?
 
Carbine is not going to tell people how they decided to ban exploiters, (they can tell if someone else accessed your account or if you ran the 3rd party software yourself) helps the exploiters change their hacks.
 
What they would tell you is if it were an account violation, they would SUSPEND for 167 hours and make you add 2step to account. If the account had been accessed from another IP they would tell you that as well.
 
If he was running back ground programs or using a VPN let support know, it might be a false positive.
 
In short they are telling your dad he exploited somehow, go through his comp for him and see what he could be running in background that would give false positive.
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Over the last couple of days botting has almost diminished. I see them occasionally but now it is actually possible to start farming reagents for crafting again.
 
Thank you SO much Carabine. 
 
You are teh r0ck	
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Over the last couple of days botting has almost diminished. I see them occasionally but now it is actually possible to start farming reagents for crafting again.
 
Thank you SO much Carabine. 
 
You are teh r0ck
 
 
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That is a positive and helpful post faboo, thank you.
 
My dad has no addons, doesn't know how to macro, and is afraid of doing battlegrounds because he is not the best with hotkeys and aiming his toon.
The wording in the reply from Carbine is very strong and obviously states that he is not going to get his account back. My dad and mum separated last year and
this game was cheering him up. It was just really bad timing and I hate seeing my dad so depressed. I will check background programs but once again he knows
nothing about these things and sticks to the basics with his Windows 8 machine.
 
The worst thing is that I run loads of addons, Ping Zapper, and have many more programs on my computer and have had no issue so far with these bans.
I just don't understand how they cannot at least check the results again because he only had the game for a week or so and Carbine has lost a customer plus
potentially anyone I now tell about this experience.
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My friend had her account terminated, which seems like a permanent ban to me? (#693144). She got the standard copy and paste reply that everyone facing permanent bans are receiving (that I've found in my google travels while researching this issue for her).
 
As I said, she's incapable of botting or whatever, but we're still waiting to hear back from her ticket, or to hear some communication from Carbine that they're looking into it, or any indication that the termination will be revoked at all. I've seen forum posts that seem to indicate they are looking into it, but the "your account is being terminated and don't bother contacting us because we know you're guilty" email is really offputting.
 
How long should it be taking for them to respond to tickets, anyone know?	
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			No animals were banned or harmed during this process.	
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Having reported maybe hundreds, and made some posts in here too, I'd like to say:
 
Hey, we've got less bots! Good work Carbine.
 
Cheers!
 
Don't drop that ball. :P	
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I'm not sure what to tell you.  NOBODY's account is being outright terminated without a very good reason.  A fair few people have been getting their accounts temporarily banned, but if your father's account was terminated, they're pretty sure he wasn't hacked from outside.  The only thing I can possibly think of is that someone spoofed his IP as well as his account, but I can't honestly say that's very likely if he's only really had the game a week.
 
I really don't have much choice, given the information you've given, except to think someone on his account in his house used banned programs.  They've given most people a lot of rope to assume their accounts were hacked.  NCSoft seems pretty sure that it was definitely internal in his case, which is rare.
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Unfortunately they don't give reasons for termination other than a vague response.
My dad is afraid to even purchase another account due to fear they will ban him again because he doesn't even know what he did wrong!
I am definitely glad that this roll out of bans has helped Wildstar with cheating. But when innocent people get caught in the crossfire something needs to be done.
Default settings on Wildstar, standard windows 8 programs, no tunneling service, and no addons. It just frustrates me that I cannot fix this issue for my father.
Hopefully time and many tickets will resolve the issue.
 
Thank you for the response Vic.
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Their lack of response appears to be a trademark.  We're not asking for in-depth technical details, just some kind of idea of what triggered bans.  If they said "We were analysing logs for dodgy behaviour, we accidentally identified you, the problem's been fixed and here's your account back, sorry for the inconvenience", that would be one thing, but instead they seem to be blissfully silent.  They can give some kind of indication to the problem without giving away their entire arsenal.
 
They unbanned my account a while back, without any meaningful explanation as to why it was banned in the first place, and I've played the game for the last few weeks and quite enjoyed myself, but now my account is expiring tomorrow, and I shall not be renewing it.
 
This kind of behaviour from an organisation puts them firmly on my 'do not give them any more money' list.	
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Their lack of response appears to be a trademark.  We're not asking for in-depth technical details, just some kind of idea of what triggered bans.  If they said "We were analysing logs for dodgy behaviour, we accidentally identified you, the problem's been fixed and here's your account back, sorry for the inconvenience", that would be one thing, but instead they seem to be blissfully silent.  They can give some kind of indication to the problem without giving away their entire arsenal.
 
They unbanned my account a while back, without any meaningful explanation as to why it was banned in the first place, and I've played the game for the last few weeks and quite enjoyed myself, but now my account is expiring tomorrow, and I shall not be renewing it.
 
This kind of behaviour from an organisation puts them firmly on my 'do not give them any more money' list.
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Seeing a lot fewer bots (none?) out in Galeras / Whitevale / Farside the last 2-3 days.  It does feel like Carbine has made a real dent in the problem.
 
Gold-sellers have gone back to sending e-mail spam now that they can't use 5v5 arena invites.	
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I absolutely love this game to the point of even converting long-time WoW veterans from my earlier MMO days into coming to this game. The quests are fun, the combat is excellent, and the overall community is one of the friendliest I have encountered in an MMO. Unfortunately, we all know the problem…
 
Case in point is the screenshot below, please study it;
 
 
This is everything that is wrong with Wildstar and the current support that is being shown to it. Here we have a level 45 with crap gear (myself) defeating a level 50 without taking so much as a single hit. How could this be possible? Well, because all this person is doing is systematically walking a few meters, spamming Quick Draw on any mobs, and then proceeding on, spamming Quick Draw on mobs, rinse and repeat.
 
I followed this person around to see what in earth they were doing, and it became abruptely apparently they were botting, so I did what any good Samaritan would do and put them out of their misery. Without  them even firing a single shot back.
 
To test this theory, I then camped them at the rez point and managed to kill them no less than 8 times in a row without taking a single bit of damage from them (you can see the 5x PvP xp debuff on them as well as the combat log). If this isn't a red flag, I don’t know what is.
 
Next you will notice that their guild name is an actual gold selling site that is CLEAR AS DAY promoting both its URL and service price within the actual guild name. How in the hell is this allowed?
 
So, I then reported them via the ingame ticket system. After one hour I returned to see them still doing the same route, so I killed and camped them, again, no damage taken to myself. I reported them again, and still received no feedback from NCSoft.
 
No more than 5 minutes later, I was walking to a Galactium node when a player warped in, mined it, and warped out, not before I grabbed a screenshot of them, and lo-and-behold, it was a tele-bot I reported THREE DAYS AGO. Three days! How has their account not been banned yet? I've submitted at least 20 tickets on different bots, yet they all seem to still be hanging around like no one even submitted any tickets. This isn't Steam's VAC system for gods sakes, measures may be taken immediately. Does NCSOFT not have the resources to simply check this players inventory/travel path and see they are not only covering impossible ground, but they are mining at an extraordinary rate? To boot, this was a level 10 character in Malgrave. Let that sink in for a moment...
 
Now, I know the game has been out for a month, and it’s had a rough launch, but this is absolutely ridiculous. You have teleporting bots farming nodes before any legit players can get to them, with the AH economy absolutely destroyed beyond any short term repair.
 
Players like myself, who come to MMOs to farm mats and create items and services for other players, are being alienated worse than any other group by a large margin. You have players openly gloating about how it is cheaper to use their services to buy 6 platinum at 6USD for C.R.E.D.D than to pay the monthly sub fee, yet nothing is done, even though this is being advertised in the Thayd zone chat!
 
If you have gold farmers selling gold for players to buy C.R.E.D.D at lower than your actual official sub fees, then you are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month NCSOFT, just think about that. Fix this problem, and you recoup your losses 10 fold on paying staff to look into these claims and ban those responsible, as well as regaining consumer confidence from your players.
 
I for one am not even going to bother reporting bots anymore, as nothing is/has been done on this matter. I’m giving this game until next patch for this to be sorted. If you built the game from the ground up, you should be able to identify and reconcile on the teleporting bots at the very least. Inability to do this just shows your customers absolute laziness on your behalf.
 
Please don’t make this game into TOR 2.0…
 
/Rant out.
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wel you are completely right , the hacks and botts have ruended my realm completely , the realm completely died, and we cant get transfers to normal serfers, i have ended subscribe
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I tried to logon today after a 4 day hiatus (4 days ago being when I purchased the game) and was notified of an account suspension.  My ticket number was #1056368.  They answered my ticket in 8 hours, so not sure if I got lucky, or they have deployed more people to the task of answering tickets.  So, whoever the hackers are they move bloody fast.
 
I also had a message saying I was banned as well for teleport harvesting (which I had no idea what that was until sifting through this thread), but that separate ticket I filed for it was removed somehow and only the above ticket # was answered involving the account suspension.  So I believe they got to the root of the problem that I was not responsible for the supposed botting before I had to act on that portion.
 
I have only had a two step login process for WoW which I have played since inception/release.  While waiting for the ticket to be resolved, I had found the link and installed the Google Authenticator to my account.  Hopefully, that and the other steps they had me go through are enough to protect my account.
 
I can honestly say of the other 6-8 MMOs I've played, I've never had issues with being hacked, so somebody got their hands on some info somewhere.  I did not use the same password or username for this MMO as others, so Heartbleed is a copout answer... it appears they may have an ongoing leak right now considering that again, I just purchased the game 4 days ago. 
 
I can also honestly say that having only owned this game for about 4 days and being a MMORPG Veteran, it is NOT apparent on where to go and what to do for the 2 step authentication on the system while installing the game.  I had to go search for that information, and only did that because I was locked out of the account and was searching for a way to get quickly get unlocked.
 
When I logged in I was two levels higher... I think... (lvl 10... woohoo), and in some random high lvl pvp zone.  I didn't have any gathering skills when I last logged off... maybe I do now... who knows.  I hope they roll back the account because I'd just as soon get to where I want to go how I want to get there.  The response to the ticket indicated they were looking into doing that.
 
Either way, lvl 7 or 8 isn't a huge time sink, so whatever.  I feel for those that are lvl 50 and were working on the first round of end-game gear.... but when I had that much time invested in WoW, I snatched up that authenticator because the world sucks and is full o' bastards.  Also, I'm pretty sure WoW makes or enforces guild leaders and guild officers have the authenticator, or the Guildmaster can make it a requirement (either way) -- I'll check when I log back in -- so if the MMORPG King is requiring it for a certain level of player, then the wannabe's need to do the same and should be able to get away with it w/o much fuss.
 
Good luck to others.  They're out there working.  I do not envy the Ticket Response team's job.  I would feel worse about temporarily contributing to whatever the hacker was using my account for, if the authenticator was shoved down my throat from the beginning.  That literally took 30 seconds to download from ITunes and then added less time than that to login for the first time.
 
Just get it... .and Carbine... advertise or require the *cupcake*ing thing on new accounts.  IF you lose some subs, who cares.  You'll gain a whole lot more by making it a safer place to play.
 
Peace and good luck to all.	
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			I just noticed one of those teleport hackers... it was weird. I was hunting down some corrupted humans, in this hole was a mining node. I was going for it then all of a sudden this prick popped up, mined it and disappeared. I've got the name of the fella... I didn't make anything of it until I saw him popup again outside the corrupted installation... just out of nowhere and it wasn't the 'invisible' thing. Just out of nowhere. They shouldn't be exploiting things to mine.	
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Report players trough the bug report menu is a valid option? ive been registering the names of players using exploits such as flash gordon speed and stalkers that dont loose invisibility even when atacking...
 
An ingame option for reporting this kind of stuff would be nice...
 
It has been very annoying playing pvp in the last week/month th eonly remaining option for lvling is pve which for some people gets kind of boring... 
A new wave of bans would be very much apreciatted walatiki temple is just a joke at the moment...	
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