4 ms·

How did the bot interact with the game? You could send key commands and text to the program, but you can't easily read the item price for example. That script a

How did the bot interact with the game? You could send key commands and text to the program, but you can't easily read the item price for example. That script at the end doesn't tell much.

cheepin 12y ago
You can screen scrape the screen and do some rudimentary image parsing for OCR.
- Mandatum 12y ago
  WoW's botters took this one step further, disassembling the game to the point where they made WoW "clients" which could bot/gold farm at <15MB of memory - meaning you could have a hundred accounts botting on one PC.
  - virtualSatai 12y ago
    Do you have any more info/articles/discussions?
    - Mandatum 12y ago
      Trying to find it, it was a news article written as an interview with one of the original WoW Glider creators and his friend who also wrote bots.. Having trouble finding it..
    - DownGoat 12y ago
      Here is a Defcon video about the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hABj_mrP-no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hABj_mrP-no
      - gre 12y ago
        Here's a Blackhat video with a complete C# WoW client from 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKbZdlUFAK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKbZdlUFAK4 11:55
        Mandatum 12y ago
        Ah yep, it was the Defcon video I saw which mentioned it, never saw the C# code. Badass.
- jschmitz28 12y ago
  This particular bot seems to be more advanced than that: > Later I found out how to completely turn off the game’s graphics, making the Diablo windows look like black boxes.
arvidkahl 12y ago
The most basic answer is: most bots inject some code into the running client, getting access to data structures and references. They read out the data from memory. Some do OCR, others use Library APIs to do that, some even hijack the network stack and talk to the servers themselves. A decade ago, botting in a game called Ragnarok Online was huge. You can find a hint of how structured those communities were here: http://www.openkore.com/index.php/OpenKore http://www.openkore.com/index.php/OpenKore
lost-theory 12y ago
4-5 years ago this was how you did it in World of Warcraft: http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/Inner_Space http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/Inner_Space http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/LavishScript http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/LavishScript
bri3d 12y ago
Along with the other approaches mentioned, another interesting one is to intercept the graphics library function calls before they enter the library code. This strategy has been successfully used for a variety of game automation, including WoW auction house arbitrage and a multiplayer Starcraft II AI / bot. This method is advantageous because it doesn't have the overhead or uncertainty of going from pixels back to information but it also does not require patching or inspecting the game's address space which is fragile and often triggers anti-cheating or anti-botting systems. You can read a good write-up about this method here: http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/D3D9Interceptor.html http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/D3D9Interceptor.html
- pizzeys 12y ago
  > or inspecting the game's address space which is fragile and often triggers anti-cheating or anti-botting systems Just looking without touching rarely (never, to be honest) triggers any anti-cheating systems. It's madness enough trying to stop people touching, trying to stop them looking reliably is futile. The graphics interception hacks are pretty neat though, but I wouldn't say it's a common method at all.
  - erikb 12y ago
    Then what is a common method?

How did the bot interact with the game? You could send key commands and text to the program, but you can't easily read the item price for example. That script at the end doesn't tell much.

cheepin 12y ago

You can screen scrape the screen and do some rudimentary image parsing for OCR.

Mandatum 12y ago
WoW's botters took this one step further, disassembling the game to the point where they made WoW "clients" which could bot/gold farm at <15MB of memory - meaning you could have a hundred accounts botting on one PC.
- virtualSatai 12y ago
  Do you have any more info/articles/discussions?
  - Mandatum 12y ago
    Trying to find it, it was a news article written as an interview with one of the original WoW Glider creators and his friend who also wrote bots.. Having trouble finding it..
  - DownGoat 12y ago
    Here is a Defcon video about the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hABj_mrP-no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hABj_mrP-no
    - gre 12y ago
      Here's a Blackhat video with a complete C# WoW client from 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKbZdlUFAK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKbZdlUFAK4 11:55
      - Mandatum 12y ago
        Ah yep, it was the Defcon video I saw which mentioned it, never saw the C# code. Badass.
jschmitz28 12y ago
This particular bot seems to be more advanced than that: > Later I found out how to completely turn off the game’s graphics, making the Diablo windows look like black boxes.

arvidkahl 12y ago

The most basic answer is: most bots inject some code into the running client, getting access to data structures and references. They read out the data from memory. Some do OCR, others use Library APIs to do that, some even hijack the network stack and talk to the servers themselves. A decade ago, botting in a game called Ragnarok Online was huge. You can find a hint of how structured those communities were here: http://www.openkore.com/index.php/OpenKore http://www.openkore.com/index.php/OpenKore

lost-theory 12y ago

4-5 years ago this was how you did it in World of Warcraft: http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/Inner_Space http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/Inner_Space http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/LavishScript http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/LavishScript

bri3d 12y ago

Along with the other approaches mentioned, another interesting one is to intercept the graphics library function calls before they enter the library code. This strategy has been successfully used for a variety of game automation, including WoW auction house arbitrage and a multiplayer Starcraft II AI / bot. This method is advantageous because it doesn't have the overhead or uncertainty of going from pixels back to information but it also does not require patching or inspecting the game's address space which is fragile and often triggers anti-cheating or anti-botting systems. You can read a good write-up about this method here: http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/D3D9Interceptor.html http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/D3D9Interceptor.html

pizzeys 12y ago
> or inspecting the game's address space which is fragile and often triggers anti-cheating or anti-botting systems Just looking without touching rarely (never, to be honest) triggers any anti-cheating systems. It's madness enough trying to stop people touching, trying to stop them looking reliably is futile. The graphics interception hacks are pretty neat though, but I wouldn't say it's a common method at all.
- erikb 12y ago
  Then what is a common method?