Stealing Neutral Auctions via Botting

[Ölbröd]

that was enough for me to quit the server, thanks for reading 1 year spent, my main is Lsdee, you must have seen me around

can i have your gold... oh right. sorry

[Kasen]

The one should always know that stuff can be stolen this way, so I put items for a reasonable price if I need them on opposite faction.
Better to lose 10g as an AH cut, than the item itself.

P.S. I remember quite well, that some guy was banned because he literally made a physical thingy which would press the space key on keyboard to avoid afking. Despite the fact that the TOU back in these days clearly stated only about 3rd party software, he was permabanned because from the administration's point of view it still counted as botting. So it's kinda fun when a mechanical finger pressing the button gets ban, and the guy who uses automated addon which literally steals stuff gets no punishment.

[Tinkertown]

So it's kinda fun when a mechanical finger pressing the button gets ban, and the guy who uses automated addon which literally steals stuff gets no punishment.

The difference is that a program running outside of wow or a physical contraption like putting your wireless mouse with every button rebound to jump in the dogs favorite chewtoy is outside automation. An addon is inside automation.

An addon cannot do anything that the developers of the API hasn't approved of, excluding bugs.

[Zikkilachi]

thats definetly a bad story man..sorry about you

[Classil]

Why does everyone talk about botting? Just that someone shows as AFK does not mean he is. I think it happens like this:

They see you coming to the neutral AH and they just refresh the auction every second. And since there are so few listed on neutral, you can clearly see what he just posted. Now you just need an addon to quickly buyout an item (auctioneer of AUX). They see your blue or epic item for 10 copper and instant buyout.

Everyone can do the same and it's completely within the rules. You just have to enjoy camping these places I guess.

[Tinkertown]

Why does everyone talk about botting? Just that someone shows as AFK does not mean he is. I think it happens like this:

They see you coming to the neutral AH and they just refresh the auction every second. And since there are so few listed on neutral, you can clearly see what he just posted. Now you just need an addon to quickly buyout an item (auctioneer of AUX). They see your blue or epic item for 10 copper and instant buyout.

Everyone can do the same and it's completely within the rules. You just have to enjoy camping these places I guess.

Oh they are almost certainly not doing that.

99.9% they have the auction window open and have an addon continually scanning the auctionhouse buying anything that matches the criteria they've set as soon as the addon can find it. This should take something like 2 seconds +/- 2 seconds after posting.

Still not botting though.

The thing is though that it is fairly boring to sit around jumping once every ~28 mins 24/7 and never sleeping or logging another char so botting and/or multiboxing is probably an offense the players doing this can be expected to be overrepresented committing.

[DeeMarie]

Oh they are almost certainly not doing that.

99.9% they have the auction window open and have an addon continually scanning the auctionhouse buying anything that matches the criteria they've set as soon as the addon can find it. This should take something like 2 seconds +/- 2 seconds after posting.

Still not botting though.

"Also known as AFK gaming, a bot is a method of controlling an in-game character by an automated means that does not require direct interaction from a player"

Sounds like a bot to me.

[Tinkertown]

Oh they are almost certainly not doing that.

99.9% they have the auction window open and have an addon continually scanning the auctionhouse buying anything that matches the criteria they've set as soon as the addon can find it. This should take something like 2 seconds +/- 2 seconds after posting.

Still not botting though.

"Also known as AFK gaming, a bot is a method of controlling an in-game character by an automated means that does not require direct interaction from a player"

Sounds like a bot to me.

It isn't though.

Neither is auctioneer, an addon that performs automated actions for so long you get disconnected unless you tab in and do something while it does its thing. Nor is tradeDispenser or other addons performing trades while afk. Nor are addons that auto-accept resses/summons, auto switch gear, auto write in chat upon certain events etc without user input. You could create your own personal Runecloth vendor compete with advertising and place it on IF bridge and as long as you didn't use any outside automation or played other chars it would be fair game. (Unless you break another rule; Don't spam me bro!)

Addons that do stuff that would be ok if you did it manually are all 100% ok on Nostalrius, as they were on retail. At no point have the Nostalrius staff said anything that suggest this isn't the case. In fact they have stated in cases where a person claims to have been banned for addons that the person in question has been banned for using outside automation to stay online and/or perform tasks rather than for the addon in question. (Some of those claim false positives though, but that is another issue)

[Vanillerific]

It isn't though.

Neither is auctioneer, an addon that performs automated actions for so long you get disconnected unless you tab in and do something while it does its thing. Nor is tradeDispenser or other addons performing trades while afk. Nor are addons that auto-accept resses/summons, auto switch gear, auto write in chat upon certain events etc without user input. You could create your own personal Runecloth vendor compete with advertising and place it on IF bridge and as long as you didn't use any outside automation or played other chars it would be fair game. (Unless you break another rule; Don't spam me bro!)

Addons that do stuff that would be ok if you did it manually are all 100% ok on Nostalrius, as they were on retail. At no point have the Nostalrius staff said anything that suggest this isn't the case. In fact they have stated in cases where a person claims to have been banned for addons that the person in question has been banned for using outside automation to stay online and/or perform tasks rather than for the addon in question. (Some of those claim false positives though, but that is another issue)

I would suggest that anyone that values their character not use tradedispenser for anything except trading things to people in raids. If you attempt to run any kind of shop or anything similar in a populated area you will be banned. Haters will hate and ignorant GMs will pass judgement without even bothering to properly educate themselves about the addon in question. It's not worth it. I was banned for giving away (as in $0 free) conjured food/water. It's just not worth it. There was nothing involved but tradedispenser and I have no reason to lie to anyone now. My account was permabanned, and I no longer play here. I just stop by the forums from time to time.

As for the AH sniping stuff I remember the addon used was actually a modified auctioneer or something like that which just scanned over and over. There was a massive amount of complaining on the Blizz forums back during vanilla WoW. It just scanned over and over without requiring so much as a keypress. Definitely more automated than having to fill your bag with more conjured items every 15 minutes.

[Tinkertown]

Vanillerific, yes. Your case was exactly the one I was thinking of. As you know you weren't banned for the addon but for your staying online method.

I know you say that you stayed online by pressing the buttons yourself but not always looking at your screen and while technically that isn't botting, it creates the scenario where the GM cab try to contact you and get no response even as you are jumping/whatever to stay online. Moving without looking at your screen while performing tasks that seem fit for a bot will obviously have a high risk of resulting in a false positive ban.