Guild Wars Mini-Interview #47

ArenaNet has answered another small batch of questions about Guild Wars, and this time the interview is at Guild Wars Hungarian Arena. Here we go:

Q: The recent changes which were implemented to prevent exploitation by farming bots leave many players dissatisfied, and the question whether what type of farming is right or wrong has been present for some time. What do you plan to offer to those players who enjoy farming in part-time or on a regular basis?

A: We understand that for some players, farming is fun. If players farm in the normal manner, that is, work their way through an area and kill monsters, they will not trigger any sort of alarm in the bot detection programming. Even if they engage in relatively repetitive behavior, farmers will still be able to get drops and they will not raise the question of their account’s or character’s legitimacy. Now admittedly, there was a point last week where players were not getting any drops at all. But that was an error and it was adjusted in this week’s update, so that players can find good areas and hunt them often, if they desire, in order to receive items and gold.

Ban parameters were set quite high and in this week’s update they were raised even higher. I would warrant that it would be almost impossible for a human being to perform actions that would raise a bot alert. In other words, there are ways to determine if a character is a bot or a player, and it’s highly unlikely that a human player is going to run into problems. This means that players are free to go about their business, even if it means farming.

However, it’s fair to say that we do not actively encourage an excess of player farming. Some players insist that farming is the only possible way to achieve their objectives. I would say that farming may be a way, but it is not the only way. There will be future changes that will address our intention not to penalize farmer-type players, but instead to make playing through the game lucrative and rewarding so that farming is perceived as what it is meant to be, just one of many gameplay options.