ArenaNet has announced its aggressive approach to getting rid of those who “bot”, thus people using a program to level or grind without having to be there to play it at all.

“In the month of November, we terminated over 34,000 accounts for operating bots in Guild Wars 2. Moreover, we have observed a serious decrease in the population of bots in the game – and so have you, our players. The number of bots reported every hour worldwide has dropped from more than 2,000 in October to a much healthier 20 as of this writing.”

To reassure their faithful community, AreneNet has also outlined their measures that are being taken to prevent and ban anyone who is ‘botting’:

• Their first line of defence are player reports against potential bots
• ArenaNet uses a “massive” collection of data about both real and automated bot players to instantly be able to detect and flag bots
• ArenaNet is developing a more automatic process to banning bots so the development team can focus their efforts on other areas
• GM staff also have tools to monitor player behaviour 24/7, using these they patrol and ban any bots they detect on the spot.

“Thank you all for your dedication to the world of Tyria, for helping us to overcome this challenge, and for your continued support in making Guild Wars 2 the wonderful place that it has become. We’ve made great progress in freeing our community from the scourge of bots, and we couldn’t have done it without you.

I look forward to seeing you all in-game.”

Have you noticed a decrease in bots in Guild Wars 2? What are your thoughts on the matter? Feel free to share your comments below.