The Bot

There's a lot of threads on this topic in here, but this one had the most entertaining premise, so this is where I'll say this.

We wage a constant battle against bots. Blizzard has an entire department devoted to tracking down bots, hacks, and the like, and punishing those who make use of them. In fact, if/when you have something to report, you can email that team directly at [email protected]. They'd absolutely love to hear from you.

That goes for more than just bots, as well. Exploits, cheats, hacks -- any such behavior you see, send our Hacks team an email. Any evidence you can put together is great as well, video in particular. Toss something up on Youtube (can be unlisted) and send us the link. Make sure character names and realms are included. Getting in-game reports of bad behavior is good, but it's even better to have hard evidence of said behavior.

We probably can't completely wipe bots from existence. We sure as hell try, but the fight continues. We can, however, punish as many of those who use them as we can catch. And the more we catch, the better our ability to detect them gets.

And seriously, if you catch someone in the act, email [email protected].

(Also, juuuuust to be clear, we did not "create bots to speed up the BG queue process." That's silly.)

01/30/2015 04:49 PMPosted by Jugaa

People are told SS/videos are not enough proof.

We won't outright ban someone out of the blue based on one screenshot. But typically, players that are using these sorts of obvious exploits have several reports against them as well. It's often difficult for us to catch those players in the act, so seeing visual evidence really helps. Videos also help us learn more about how a hack or exploit operates, so we can know what we're looking for in the future.

In short, screenshots and videos aren't enough proof on their own, but they certainly help us pull the trigger.

01/30/2015 04:52 PMPosted by Impi

If an individual cheating or exploiting, and we record videos or take screenshots. They "cannot be used as evidence". Many years ago (2 at least) I stumbled upon a thread with two blue posts backing up that screenshots and videos cannot be used as legitimate evidence since they can be easily be modified.

Can you please; confirm or deny is this is still true in 2015? Regardless of PvE or PvP. I do understand calling out individuals on the forum is against the CoC/ToS however; if one were to properly follow through with a proper report, could said images and videos be used against the accused party? Or do we only give you guys our word and from there you do your investigation?

I've only been at Blizzard just shy of 2 years, so I'm not sure what the policy was before I got here. I just know what it is now, which is what I said above.

Calling out individuals publicly on the forums (aka "naming and shaming") is against the ToS largely to protect innocent players from harassment. As you can imagine, there are a lot of false reports. We'd hate for someone to be subjected to harassment in-game because some troll is pretty good with Photoshop, for example. It also helps us fight back against the bots if the surly individuals who create them are less aware of the exact evidence we're given.

01/30/2015 05:11 PMPosted by Jugaa

Maybe make a Blizzard only forum to post these then, where only you Blues can see them?

I mean, or we could have a Blizzard-only email address that you could send them to... :P

Seriously though. [email protected]. It's monitored constantly and goes directly to the people responsible for dealing with these things, instead of running through a middleman.