ArenaNet triumphed over a ton of pesky Guild Wars 2 bots last month, as an official post yesterday by Security Coordinator Mike Lewis announced over 34,000 bots were sent packing by the studio's security team during November. Bot reports took a massive dive as well from 2,000 to 20 hourly reports in October. Maybe now I can visit Lion's Arch without spotting any more suspiciously identical-looking characters all hovering over the same ore node.
Lewis explained how ArenaNet used "comprehensive tools" and "manual observation" for tracking and hunting down bots like some sort of Minority Report strike team. The post didn't contain any further info on the specifics of how these systems work—perhaps to keep their inner workings from prying eyes—but Lewis stated, "The combination of these resources is formidable, and we'll continue to expand and refine our tools and processes as time goes on."
Guild Wars 2 will Christmas-ify itself tomorrow with its Wintersday event update running until January 3, bringing with it a number of tweaks to World-versus-World PVP as well.
