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Restrict the Usage of Host-Bots on battle.net

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Level 5
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What is the specific link location? Clicking on the link doesn't seem to lead anywhere.
 
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Ah, sorry about that, the link should be fixed now.

To those who are confused about my goals - Im sorry if I may have worded my outrage incorrectly, but my main focus is to ban bots from where they dont really belong - Warcraft III reign of chaos. Also, my aim is to stop Bot abuse such as this.

RoCbotsneedtobebanned.jpg


That image depicts about 10 bot hosted games, all unjoinable. This has been going on for days now, these bots constantly re-host and thusly prevent user hosted games from showing up. Atrocities such as this must be put to an end, take a stand and stop bot abuse.

(Suggestions for petition rewording/additions are welcome)
 
Level 20
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Bots aren't allowed by Blizzard, full stop (or so I'm led to believe).
So a petition won't do you any good, the bots on there are the ones Blizzard hasn't caught/detected - I guess the best thing to do is report the usernames (though spoofs could be in use) of bots but again the owners will probably just reapply them to new accounts a few days later (IP ban ftw!).
 
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To my knowledge, that policy that blizzard has against bots only applies to World of Warcraft. Host Bot policy on Warcraft III is open, just look at all those dota bots and the dotabotclans! But, my aim is to not ban bots completely, it is just to stop the abuse of host bots to spam the game channel with unjoinable games and advertisements.
 
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Heh, hmm... I'm not that much of a bot-hater though, I find them rather interesting at times. Blizzard might release something big in the next version though, I'm not sure what they'll do but it could have connections with the bot thing, so stay tuned:)
 
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Sadly, as long as Blizzard's anti-hack module (Warden) is horribly programmed, they will have no chance at stopping the bots.
 
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Sadly, as long as Blizzard's anti-hack module (Warden) is horribly programmed, they will have no chance at stopping the bots.

Still, I would like to bring attention to this serious issue that is rapidly growing on battle.net. If anyone would post this on blizzard forums (My account cannot log in for some reason) I would be deeply obliged.
 
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http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27807930766&sid=3000

Please post on the BNET forums about the problem of hosting bots. It makes promoting your own custom map extremely difficult when available players are spread out between a dozen half full bot games. Speak what you want in favor of host bots, but you can't deny that the game has become less active since their widespread adoption. This is a site dedicated to custom mapping and the creativity of the wc3 community, host bots strangle that creativity. Please ask Blizzard to act on this matter and encourage your friends to do the same. After sending numerous emails to Blizzard technical support, they brushed us off and told us to post on the forum. If we all speak on this problem our voices will be too loud to ignore. I also play SC2 but the custom gaming simply isnt the same as WC3. Blizzard's silence on this matter discourages me from buying any more of their products, as it seems Activision-Blizzard doesn't have the same commitment to keeping their older games running.
 
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Thanks for making that post on the b.net forums! I, personally get login errors when I try to get onto there, it is uplifting to me to see that people will fight to keep the bots out of battle.net
 
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Recently there's been quite a balance between Player-Hosted and Bot-Hosted games, I don't really find them a nuisance though. The Bot ones are usually meant for Clans and such or just to reduce lag and detect leavers (Players use the Delay Reducer and Banlist), they help cross connect to almost every server (Even if the Warcraft III Patches are in different versions on both servers) and are quite decent, I love the Player-Hosted games too but most of the people in my country are beginning to host manually as well. So I don't think there's much of a problem so far:)
 
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Yeah, normal bots and community bots are more of an asset to Warcraft III. However, Blizzard could somehow implement some system to filter them out to prevent spamming, even though I don't actually mind. They do help the community develop and advance though.
 

Dr Super Good

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1. 50% of people can't host.
More like 95% of people are too lazy to host with the other 5% probably having legit excuses not to host (their internet policy).

2. Bots are mostly lag free.
Although they have less lag than hosting normally (due to lower response time than default hosting) they still suffer the connection lag hosting normally would. This means that a bot in the USA will still have over 100ms lag connecting with the UK.

However, as the default response time is 150ms, it can still save quite a substantial amount of time (so even playing with the US has little noticable lag).
 
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I suppose the bots are okay, but players could balance it out with manual hosting as well. This way, the servers can get both genuine hosting as well as player made advanced kinds of hosting:)
 
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Bots are actually super important to alot of clans that play competitive games such as dota or warlocks. Let me tell you there is an enormous difference between the 250 ms ping you can get from hosting and the 20 ms ping you can get from a bot. Banning bots on bnet will destroy the entire scene for scores of popular maps. Most of these clans will never move on to Starcraft II because of the lack of bot support. Some of them, notably Dota and Warlocks have their own standalone games.
 
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Kala I think this thread is aiming towards not for bots to be abolished but not to be abused. :3
Thank you for understanding my point skycraft. I may have not made myself clear, but my main point is to prevent the blatant abuse of host-bots and restrict their usage.


I must agree that some bots are necessary, especially on TFT, but on RoC I see no reason to spam bot hosted games that no one will ever join. I miss the days where you can just go on b.net and see your favorite games hosted by well known players. I miss the days where you just could just lol at brazilians for their 200 ms hosting. I miss the days where RoC was bot-free. On frozen throne, the bots are a necessary evil, they are required to host the ever popular DotA and etc. But now, I am sad to say that RoC has Metamorphosed into what TFT has been but without the playerbase. This creates a massive spam of empty bot games that stay empty for hours on end. Please, I only want to "restrict" the usage of host bots, not ban them outright, sign the petition for a better warcraft III today.
wc3RoC2-1.jpg

Many of these games shown in this image are empty and will remain empty for hours on end, spamming the game room to oblivion and putting off many long standing RoC players.
 
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Dr Super Good

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Yeh. The problem is every loser thinks he is the new super cool duded for having a bot hosting a game 24/7. Additionally some commercial companies sell out bots to players (or scam the players of their money probably) so have them idle there to advertise.

I would prefer some form of bot network whereby you can request a game be hosted and it finds the next available bot to do it. If the game sits empty (no one stays for 10 minutes) it should be unhosted.
 
Level 2
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Maybe the problem isn't just the bots, but personally, I feel that the people who host games that don't work/never start should be restricted(not banned), just like get their game closed like maybe after several hours of not starting. Some players/bots like to just make a game and afk, some try to advertise and others seem to just host them for no reason and spam the game lobby.
 
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I would say that when mapmakers host their maps manually they are able to better interact with the community and gain insight on what they want. Being there in person makes it look like you really care about what they think and not just you. I know this as a fact from my experiences making maps on RoC.
 
Level 2
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I feel if people really wanted to share their maps, they could like upload it to epicwar and ask players to email them. This host and afk, or spam with bots should be fixed.
 
Level 6
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Well, why not remove bots that are inactive for over a certain time period? Or, prevent them from hosting multiple games. One way or the other everything has it's pros and cons. We just need to balance them.

Host bots are not wrong or illegal. People who use them wrongly aka abuse are at fault.
 
Level 2
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I would say that when mapmakers host their maps manually they are able to better interact with the community and gain insight on what they want. Being there in person makes it look like you really care about what they think and not just you. I know this as a fact from my experiences making maps on RoC.

I must agree, a developer should always interact with his/her community, taking into serious consideration their opinions. This leads to a better map/game in general.
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The abuse of bots should be stopped, if the only way to do this is to ban them outright, then so be it. There is no replacement for personally hosting a map, and asking the players what can be improved or changed. The advent of bot hosting has suppressed countless up and coming maps, smothering them with countless duplicates of the same game and advertisements. Take a stand against the evil that is the hostbot, take a stand for the mapmakers, take a stand for yourself.

I would ask that all of you spread this petition around to your Warcraft III playing friends and see what they say about this.
 
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SIGNED

I didn't buy this game again to put up with this BS!

The bots were okay when it was just DoTA, but this is out of hand!

I know Blizzard has moved on to administrating newer games but they should intervene and do something about this. Please, anyone who is fed up and is reading this topic speak up.
 
Level 17
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SIGNED

I didn't buy this game again to put up with this BS!

The bots were okay when it was just DoTA, but this is out of hand!

I know Blizzard has moved on to administrating newer games but they should intervene and do something about this. Please, anyone who is fed up and is reading this topic speak up.

Game is 8 years old mate, it's way too late in the day to be making demands for amends.


Yeah, the bot hosting is pretty much killing Wc3's custom list, but it wasn't like it would have flourished otherwise. It's all about MMH these days. I don't even check the actual game list anymore, I just check MMH's queue because I know it's real people hosting.
 
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