How to Bot Safe

[Trunksy]

Okay, I visit the WoW Forums every so often and in my visiting today I saw two "Popular Topics" about botters, exploiters, etc. And it made me realize that some of the stuff I've been doing isn't super smart and that I should watch myself and what I do pre and post bot.

I've even thought about going back to fishing just because it's safer than mining right now.

So lets get some things out in the open. I feel a lot of recent bot activity IS from the free SGather being released and the great success it's had for players. I know for me, it's gotten me upwards to about 60k in gold in the last 4 weeks. So right now, if you're one of those SGather Botters and you're new to it, lets share tips to stay safe, etc.

• First off, if the bot program you have has a time limit, set it. The last thing you want is some White Knight to come around see you're on for 8 Hours+ and report your activities.
  
• Second, when you get done mining, herbing, fishing, etc. Don't flood the AH with your product, as I've read from others on this forum and has been my experience as well, when you flood the market you'll hurt the economy. So sure, your 60 stacks of Elementium might sell for 50g each, but what if another botter undercuts you? Or others see that their stacks aren't selling at 80g each anymore? Spread it out, or find a private buyer.
  
• As I said above about the private buyer, find one, they help out so much. I have a guildie that buys my elementium for 50g a stack, and he normally has money so I normally make around 3k each time.
  
• Also something you should be aware of is your guild and how it looks to them. If it looks like your on almost 48 hours, then take a day off the 3rd day and talk about how you stayed on so long you just had to crash and how to slept for 12 hours. Stuff like that.
  
• Something that you can do if you're a Miner/JC and you understand that a profit is a profit is Prospect all the ore, cut it into gems and sell it to vendors. You could take those 200 green gems and make them into a 1900g profit for yourself. Not much in terms of what you could do on the AH, but better than getting noticed. (I'm not sure if this could be done for Herb/Alch/Inscri)
  
• If your adamant about doing things on the AH to yield the most profit; try to send it to a bank alt or another character to make it not look so suspicious. So those 100 Stacks of Elementium or those 50 Stacks of Pyrite aren't coming from one person causing you to come under question.
  
• If you sell in trade chat, don't list how much you actually have. Cut it in half, or in 1/3's and when you find someone who wants to buy all that from you say that you have more and give them a good deal on it. The norm for Ele Ore in my AH is 75-80g a stack, so give them 50-60g a stack. Make it worth their while, because that ore does nothing for you if it sits in your bags for multiple days.

I know I'll get some comments that say things like, "This is all common sense dude!" or that people who don't bot safe deserve to be caught.

Something people need to realize though is that the more we have new people bot on our servers the riskier it becomes for everyone who does it.

So lets share some advice and help each other out.

[Traxex84]

Post from smokey over at lazy bot forums Login

I DO NOT TAKE ANY CREDIT FOR THIS GUIDE IT IS WRITTEN BY SMOKEY OF LAZYBOT FORUMS.

Hello everyone Smokey here with some news for you I do not see anything in the forum about safety so I am going to put this up to help new and old botters get a lesson on what to do and what not to do.

I have been botting since WoW first came out. I have worked for gold farming company's and account leveling company's. I usually tend to keep about 50 botting accounts at all time and i get about 10 banned a year.

First on my list today is a question a lot of people tend to ask.

Q: How can I transfer my gold safely?

A: You have to be careful when trading gold with your botting account to your main account. Remember that all transactions are monitored and recorded by Blizzard, for purposes of catching gold sellers. Fortunately, despite Blizzard’s efforts, gold selling is alive and growing as an industry (even though gold prices have hit bottom, around $3 per 1000 gold).

But, if you arn’t selling gold and just want to trade gold from your botting account with your main account, but don’t want your main account banned if Blizzard catches your bot, there are a few steps you can take and things to learn.

1) If you are simply trading gold between one account and another, you have little chance of getting caught for that. If the gold is only going from one specific account (your botting account) to another specific account (your main account) they don’t care. What they are looking for is a botting account sending/trading gold with 20 or 30 different accounts a day.

2) To be safe, trade the gold. Open up two wow clients, and have your botting toon meet your main toon somewhere. Physically transferring the gold much less tracked than mailing/trading through the AH. I always try to give the Bot several items, just to stay even safer.

3) Be careful with your bot account. I know, you are already being careful, but if you are nervous about getting caught, only bot what you need to, and only bot in off-peak hours (I personally bot pretty much 24/7, but that is not recommended). If your bot does get caught, there is a chance of them shutting down your main as well. Usually they only punish the botter, but they are not consistent on this.

Now that gold transferring is finished lets move on to another frequently asked question.

Q: Is it better to have auto-reply on or off while botting to make the other player suspect that its a real player?

A: A lot of bots feature either auto-reply features or plug-ins that allow them to auto-reply. The object of these is to make people think that you are there, by responding with human-like responses. They are set up to respond to “Do you want to join our <insert dungeon> group?” with “No thank you, just questing right now.” or something relevant to the question.

Well, here’s how I feel about them…these could serve a purpose, but you are more likely to be turned in for giving a crazy, non-relevant response than for not responding at all. When I play by hand, I usually either miss people’s tells, or ignore them altogether. I’m guessing this isn’t very uncommon, and people will just move on, assuming you are ignoring them.

I use WhisperFu on all of my bots, to keep track of what people send me during the day. 90% of the messages I get are from people who have had their accounts hacked and are now being used to broadcast gold farmer websites. 9% are people asking me to join their guild or dungeon run. Then 1% is people in my area, trying to talk to me. When I do get that, and I ignore them, they just go away…they don’t report me, they don’t follow me around. They just assume I’m being a jerk.

So, IMO, skip the auto-reply in bots. Do use WhisperFu, just in case you do get stuck or do something incredibly bot-like and someone says something to you about it. Other than that, rest easy that your bot isn’t responding to people.

As with Lazy-bot it comes with the chat-box feature which is nice as well to see without opening or looking inside your WoW. Another great whisper program is called WIM that you could use to see every whisper received from players.

Another big question I get a lot from players is.

Q: Is it safe to buy gold from another player or farmer?

A:I know your first thought is going to be that blizz could easily detect that you are getting gold from a Chinese gold farmer, and yes, it is easy to think of ways they could detect you. But, bottom line is that 99% of gold transactions go through, and when people get in trouble it is generally the farmer, not the buyer of the gold.

That isn’t to say you wont get caught…you need to follow some simple rules in order to stay as safe as possible:

1) Chat – find a place, that has a live chat. If no one is online, then move on. Chat with them about their rate on your server, and get a feel for how much you trust them. Ask them if they have gold on your server right now, and how long it will take to get it. Follow your instincts on this.

2) Google Ads – Find a place that has a Google ad. I don’t say this because I have them on this site, but because these are the people that are generally legit. Still, you need to be careful!

3) Research – See if the site lists the newest servers WoW has launched. If they arn’t listed, move on

4) 24 Hours – give it 24 hours for delivery, whatever they tell you on the chat. Sometimes, it will just take that long. A lot of places will do the trade in person now, but you will still need to give them a little time. Don’t buy it and expect the gold right away.

Of course, I would rather grind the gold out my self, in programs like Lazy-bot, but I understand some people want to be safe and not use a bot on their raiding account. Stay safe, be smart. Don’t get scammed or buy gold from a place that closed months ago.

I know this is a lot of information to take in but keep reading as we are almost done.

The last question I am going to cover in this post.

Q: WHEN WHERE and HOW to bot.

A: This is probably one of the most asked questions out there right now. Knowing when and where and how to bot are the key factors of not getting caught. We will cover each of these step by step.
First on our list. WHEN!: When to bot is totally up to you and what your server looks like and depending on what type of farming you are doing (IE gathering or leveling).

First lets start with gathering. Depending on your server time will depend on when the best time to go farming is. Me personally I farm 24/7 on all my accounts, but to others and in this post lets keep it safe and fast. I recommend setting your bot to go while you are asleep or night time on a server as at this time most people are asleep and that means more nodes for your to snatch up. This from what I've seen over the years is the best and most safe time to bot. Less people around means more nodes and less likely chance of you being caught by a player and being reported.

Second is Leveling. Now with leveling it is a little bit different than farming. With farming a lot of other botters will report you just to get rid of the competition on the server and around the nodes. With leveling people arn't to worried about what you are doing as you are not taking their stuff you are just out killing random things. So for leveling any time is a good time but of course night time will probably be safer if you really want to play it safe.

Next is WHERE to bot. With this it raises questioning. Where to bot is a very good question. As leveling out by grinding can be done in numerous places. Farming nodes is usually only good in one area (IE whip-tail in Uldum around the water) So while gathering is subjected to where they can go farming you can pretty much just choose a nice place away from the towns out in the middle of no where set your path up and farm it out.

Last but not least is HOW to bot. Knowing how to properly bot can really help your chances of not getting caught by another player. Having a Skippy path that gets stuck or not having your keys set up correctly can quickly send another player into the knowledge that you are botting. Later on I will be uploading a video on every class of every spec on how to bot and setting it up for each class perfectly and keep them up to date with the latest changes and patches.

And this concludes my post on how to bot safely. I really do hope that everyone will read this fully to be safer while you are out there making your gold. Feel free to reply to this thread with any questions about what has been discussed or feel free to PM me here.

Thanks again and as always. Bot safely.

Smokey.

[Gamma]

Botting is never safe, nice hints tho.

[Traxex84]

Gamma, that is obvious. These are just simple tips on how to reduce your chances of being caught.

[Saorisa]

As a newbie to botting, I'd like to thank Trunksy for his post and Traxex84 fpr posting Smokeys post!!

All this info is a definate help to me!!

Many thanks guys!

[neoolin]

One question : How u sell the gold to the goldbuyers ? What method u use or such ? Can u be more specific on that.Just asking cause i traded 100k gold some days ago (20k each trade) , and i still got perm ban Pitty i was using ProxyCap and PingBuster and got the account back easily.Their e-mail even said that the account was only closed for protection ,and i was using Sgather for some days and did 200k + , anyway waiting to see how u sell or a clever method.