author: Miriam Moszczynska
MMO Bot Network Operation Revealed by Player
One trader in New World has figured out a network of bots selling materials in Trading Posts. The issue has been known to the community for a long time, yet AGS has not reacted.
One New World player has figured out a bot network on the Valhalla server. He managed to do this by observing orders placed in the Trading Post. The case has been dragging on for a long time, and despite the impact on the market, the bots still have not been banned.
Shady business in the market
Stackshiny came across suspicious movements in TP five days ago. Since his main source of income in the game was from transactions in this very field, he noticed some sales patterns.
"I [...] noticed these strange cyclical sales orders always coming in from the same city, always for specific prices for specific items. Earthshell Tails were always for 22.30 and Salamander Slimes at 31.10. It didn't matter if the purchase orders and prices were well above or below that threshold, a handful of such orders appeared from time to time."
At first, although he found it strange, he simply ignored the situation, thinking that someone wanted to disturb the market. The matter took a slightly different turn when one day stackshiny got up much earlier and logged on to New World.
The TP showed an offer of about eight hundred Salamander Slimes at just 31.10 gold, which he bought without a second thought. At this point, all other suspicious orders disappeared from the market.
The suspicions turned out to be true
The player continued the observation of the market and the strange behavior taking place. As it turned out, his guesses were true and he actually discovered something like a "bot laundry". He tried out the pattern he had observed in bots, which only confirmed his suspicions.
"The orders must be placed in Windsward. After that, all you have to do is wait - within a few minutes (sometimes 10, but no more than 15) a bot from Monarchs will issue whatever it has on hand as a sell order for 30.09, and another from Mourningdale for 30.10. There were other bots as well, but I didn't want to be taken for part of the bot network and get caught in some sort of ban wave LOL."
The longer the time between order and purchase, the more material the bots will put out. Stackshiny suspects that these transactions may be used for RMT (Real Money Transactions).
Detective from New World has reported the bots to AGS, but it is uncertain whether the studio will do anything about the problem. It is worth noting here that part of the community knew about the bots beforehand and even their names are known: yesonre, vazko tsp, frgg. In turn, the exact pattern of their cooperation was described by GlitchOfTheHill.
Despite the problems with the bots, New World cannot currently complain about a lack of players. Over the past 30 days, the average number of daily players has remained at around 33,000 (via SteamDB). And as October is around the corner, the Brimstone Sands DLC should be coming to the game soon, which will introduce quite a few novelties.
