GDC China 09: Netease speaks on combating botters
by Seraphina Brennan 
Oct 12th 2009 at 6:00PM
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play
GDC China 2009 is currently in high gear until tomorrow, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about some of the panels today! One of the highlights for the MMO industry was certainly the talk given by Yunfeng Lin, the design director at NetEase, on keeping up with botters and bot programs.
NetEase, the operator of the three Westward Journey games, Flyff (and here's the American version of Flyff), and the 100 pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft, is in a very unique position to speak on the troubles botters present to online communities. Westward Journey and World of Warcraft both draw huge numbers of people in China, but that also means they draw a huge number of botters.
NetEase, the operator of the three Westward Journey games, Flyff (and here's the American version of Flyff), and the 100 pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft, is in a very unique position to speak on the troubles botters present to online communities. Westward Journey and World of Warcraft both draw huge numbers of people in China, but that also means they draw a huge number of botters.
NetEase has fought against this rising trouble by utilizing captcha and logic questions, such as "Which of these characters is facing right?" when presented a picture of a group of characters facing left while one is facing right, before characters can initiate combat and other types of money making activities.
Botters, however, have gotten around these problems by making sure the bot program alerts one human user and then switches back into human control for just long enough to let the single man enter the captcha or solve the logic puzzle. In this way, one user can control multiple accounts simultaneously while still fooling the system.
So how does NetEase continue their fight against botters? Well, check out the whole article over at Gamasutra to find out how progressive gameplay and online communities aid in the struggle against MMO botters.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
danarchy said on 7:53PM 10-12-2009
Seems like they could just run a IP sniffer and if you have more than 10 people playing from the same IP track it, find out if its a internet cafe or "bang", and if it isnt block the ip till someone calls.
I have been wondering why Aion doesn't just block IP's from countries other than where the servers are sitting. It's really not that hard, hell my mail server won't receive anything from Russia, and im a total noob. I highly doubt a farming company is gonna shell the money to shadow or rotate IP's.
Reply
Nadril said on 8:08PM 10-12-2009
They try this, but it's so easy to run through a proxy server which makes the idea of banning ip's like that not very effective.
RogueJedi86 said on 8:33PM 10-12-2009
I read this on WoW forums, is it true?
"Your computer motherboard and cpu create a unique serial number the folks at steam used these numbers to ban computers from logging on to counter strike you would to buy a new machine"
If that's true, can't MMO GMs or whoever just ban computer IDs? You can't trick that with a proxy, and it'd be costly to buy a new computer every time you get banned. Surely that would harm the efforts of the Goldfarmers/sellers/power levelers, with the added advantage of not having to ban an innocent hacked player's entire account, just the computer the hacker was on(which wasn't the original account owner's computer).
Sounds almost too easy, is there a catch to that method?
Reply
Jay said on 11:14PM 10-12-2009
It is possible but also very easy to bypass. There are programs which sit between the game and the internet changing this number to anything randomly generated.
Banning based on this doesn't work except for your average clueless but problematic unsocial player.
The best bot detection results I believe would come from a combination of Hueristic detection (looking for specific play styles (like running the same circle 24 hours a day without stopping) and player reporting. The linked article suggests this method is one used...
Real players hate to earn money as it's not fun
Real players love to group as it's fun
If your suspect toon is earning lots of money and refuses to group, preferring to solo, then he is likely a bot.
((Yes the last part is sarcasm in case you heard the whoosh))
Myros said on 7:59AM 10-13-2009
"... and the 100 pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft ..."
That would be what ... a pygmy gorilla, a runt gorilla? ;p
M
Reply