A same-name bot is a bit self-explanatory: it is a bot that joins a server and picks a random user on their team to imitate their name. Usually these bots will always pick sniper and run an aimbot program. Recently, however, they have become more sophisticated by not only applying the name of the person they are trying to imitate, but also copying their profile picture as well, making kicking them much more difficult. These bots are also programmed to mic spam a song over the voice chat while in a game.

The sole purpose of these bots is to imitate someone, then get the person they are imitating kicked. If the bot notices that more than 6 yes votes to vote kick it are present, it will automatically leave and join a different server mid vote, making them much more destructive than people realize.

When a player is vote kicked, this goes on their steam profile's record of offenses in the game, which is tracked by the VAC system. Too many of these infractions can ultimately get someone VAC banned, making them lose the ability to play online or trade with other players. By leaving before a vote kick can go through, they single handedly avoid having a vote kick go on their steam profile's record, and ultimately a VAC ban.

This step is fairly simple: wait until a vote kick is called. This, however, must be very specific as to who must call the vote kick. Whomever the bot is imitating must be the one to call the vote kick as to avoid any confusion amongst which one is which.

For example: a bot joined one of my games and imitated a friend of mine. We were playing on cp_mossrock at the time. When the vote was called, however, it wasn't by my friend; it was by someone too impatient to wait for one to be called by my friend. Ultimately, he was kicked from the game for doing nothing wrong.

This is a situation which causes people the most stress, due to the fact that either name could be the one that's real or fake. Some patience is required before resorting to a kick, to allow the person who is being imitated to call the vote. Only under extreme circumstances should you take the matter into your own hands and guess whom it is on the vote kick list.

(Credit to the goon and Risemonger: On the votekick list, it has been noted that the bot mostly placed lower than the original player name on that list. If and only if you are to pick whichever player is to be votekicked, go for the one that is lower on the list, provided that the player being impersonated hasn't called a kick within 10 seconds of the bot being found.)

Simply kicking a bot is not enough to get rid of it. It's much more work than just that.

A bot can rejoin the server at any time it wishes. By this, I mean a new bot can join to take its place that uses the exact same programming. This is due to it not just being one bot, but a mass group of bots designed to pull this stunt when possible in a nearly endless cycle. To disrupt this cycle, shift+tab is going to be your friend. Shift+Tab in any game launched by steam will pull up the steam gui. This is where you can find things like your achievements, screenshots, and online friends in your game. You will want to then navigate to your friends section near the left-hand section of the steam gui. Once this is done, click the button that says view players.

This will give you a new window showing each person you are currently in-game with. Near the top is a tab that says recent players, you will want to click this and find the guy whom most recently left the server. He will be there every time near the top.

His profile would have probably changed to fit his new server's player list or if you are fast enough, you can catch him and report him before he leaves in the current players tab.

The final step is to access the profile. Keep in mind that the profile itself will most likely be private. If the profile is private and has a steam level of 0, you have the correct profile. Delet the profile's ass off the face of the earth by reporting it for these 2 offenses: Aimbot and Vote kick evasion.

This will go on their record and notify valve about the whole situation.

That's about it.

Editor's Note: sometimes finding the bot will take you to a completely copied profile. This hasn't happened much from what I've seen, but rarely will you find something like this. If this profile is your profile it should have an Edit Profile option. If it doesn't have that option, it is the bot. Additionally, bots are unable to copy usernames that contain 32 characters or more, requiring them to use the (1) in their name. If your user name is under 32 characters, it can be copied perfectly. (credit to BrN-usando-nome-de-32-caracteres for this information).

As mentioned previously, when these bots are to be vote kicked, they are to be done by the one being imitated. This will ensure no one kicks the innocent player and gets the bot to leave. Once you have gotten to the part when you need to report the profile, check if it is privated, level 0, and it's class stats and any thing it has for display for team fortress 2 if it's not private (you should see time in nothing but sniper if the profile is not privated and you should see nothing displayed otherwise on the main page). You must report the profile for vote kick evasion and aimbot when you report them. While aimbot isn't necessarily the big issue, vote kick evasion is a serious offense and can be punisheable. The aimbot report seals the deal for it to be delet from steam.

And that's how you take care of those bots. Do spread the word about this post when you read it, and make others aware about the dangers that these bots pose to the game.

Something this severe is highly likely to stand for as long as the game is around if we do nothing about it and just vote kick randomly or never report the bot. You have to do these things to finally rid the servers of team fortress of bots once and for all. The only bots we allow are the gray mann robot armies right? Let's do our best to keep it that way.