Ever increasing number of bots/dummy accounts

For the last month or so I've been getting flooded with Bot/Dummy account example today, My game listed looking for players with in minutes it was full of accounts all with 0 hours played and all created on the same day.  I sent a direct message to these 9 "bots" in less then 2 minutes of them all joining in less then 5 minutes.  This has happened on a few occasions now.  All leading to the same result, me having to ban each of the "bots" so the game is advertised.  Not one of them launched the game but joined the game so it looks full. Has anyone else experienced this issue?  What can roll20 do about this? 

My suggestion is to vet each one rather than sending invites to them. I do this by messaging each one, see who responds. No responses, keep moving.  As for them being bots, I am not sure that is the case. A lot of them could just be newbies looking for games but not knowing what to do. Maybe they were directed here from elsewhere. Of course, it could be the case, only Roll20 would be able to know. 

Well I did not invite any of them I have my games as pickup games. They never launched the game just joined and filled up all the open spots all within a total of 5 minutes. I highly doubt that all nine of them that joined my game tonight all created there accounts on the same date 3/17/22 and have 0 hours played.  Just a little to fishy to me.

Unfortunately, pickup games are subject to abuse of this kind. Much better and safer to build a discord community of vetted players that you can draw from at any given time, or join one of the many that already exist to draw your players from!

I've got a Discord community that are all in full games I'm just trying to pick up some new players for a new night's game

Ahhh, you might want to not let anyone join without an invite then. Would allow you to do some basic screening. 

I had the same problem and stopped posting pickup games as a result. Even with invite only games, I continue to get spammed by zero hour accounts. I think its just a lot of new players (and probably some experienced players that keep getting themselves booted from games for poor behavior) that are trying to get into a game using sheer volume.

Well this last time it happened there were 19 "0 hour" accounts and each one of them were created on the exact same day (3/17/22).  And each one I sent a DM to and got no response. So I'm 99.99% positive they are not just new accounts.  My guess is a GM who wants to fill up everyone elses advertised games so there's is the only open one. Or some angered player who wants to do the same thing. And with all the "0 hour" accounts Is hurting roll20,  since players cant find an open games.

PaPaPuffalot said: And with all the "0 hour" accounts Is hurting roll20,  since players cant find an open games. This would only affect pickup games as normal games require interaction to join. With that said, I have forwarded this to the Devs to see if there is anything to be done about it.  In the meantime if you want to keep doing "pickup games" I suggest two things:  1) Increase the number of players to a very high number, such as 99.  2) Players that respond actually play. Players that don't get the boot.  With #1 the listing shouldn't close anytime soon. 

The issue has been fix I was told.  We will find our tonight if it keeps happening.

PaPaPuffalot said: The issue has been fix I was told.  We will find our tonight if it keeps happening. Excellent, hopefully the fix will take care of the problem for you.