56,000 BANNED - Go get'em Blizzard

[Elricc]

Hehe my son played my pally in BG at 60 to get the honor for his unstopable force.
He now plays on a number of private servers that are generally 1 kill=70 or similar.
With regard to the economy in the game it was pointed out to me the other day that most herb prices have shot up lately-nightmare vine has risen to around 55G/stack on barthilas & after looking at a few other high demand herbs it shows the same trend-I'll have to start clearing out some bank characters for the gold lol

[Tadertotia]

Originally Posted by Nostiger

Well to be perfectly honest i think mass bans like this are stupid. I mean I am happy as all hell that a lot of dumb gold farmers are gone thats good. But sorry to burst people's bubble but a lot of people who bot do it to take a little of the grinding away and who cares. I personally don't bot but its tempting sometimes. Wow does a good job most of the time balancing lvlign and grinding but nowadays i can't stand grinding anymore. I'm sorry but its not fun to grind for 2 weeks to get enough primals to make 1 item. So i do not see a problem with what a lot of people use bots for. Gold farmers and honor farmers yes kill them for all i'm concerned. But if someone is using a bot to make the game a little more enjoyable for themselves and to tell the truth bots have prolly kept a good amount of older players still playing. I mean how many of you have 2-6 level 70's. I'm sorry but after my 3rd I was done with lvling another toon. Now fear of bannign is what made me not think about usign a bot to level another i just decided to be done lvling. But if it keeps some people in the game then thats good for blizzard. You can not group people in mass liek that and say its all good.

I could not have said it better myself. Thank you

[Vaell]

I'm not sure we want to advocate botting on this site, tbh.

By all means have your view on it but it's against Blizzard's terms of use and the Den is legit.

Facts are in wow or in life, if you can't be bothered to do what's necessary then you don't deserve the end result. Simple. They got banned because it trivialises the efforts of people that play this game for fun and the way it's *meant* to be played. Letting a family member play your character occasionally is different, it's still being played by someone.

If you bot for low scale personal gain, it's laziness. If you bot for commercial gain, it's exploitation. How can it be viewed in any other way, other than by those who do it themselves?

If you don't like playing the game (which comprises of leveling for a massive part of it), stop. It's that simple. I'll quote myself in my previous post since it was a bit long and perhaps the point was missed:

Originally Posted by Vaell

In response to notion of the casual player botting to level up with no commercial interest:

If you take the leveling away from WoW, what you're left with is a server full of Ebays with no connection or history with their character.

Botting or Ebay. Doesn't seem much of a difference to me. If someone wants to take the tedium and pain out of a game to the point where they will get, for want of a better term, a robot to play it for them then perhaps it's become more than a game... or no longer a game. Perhaps WoW has gone beyond it's shelf life for some. And it's ok to move on.

[mavric240]

It amazes me the number of people I have found after reading this article and starting discussions on it that either don't care about the use of "cheats or botters" and or are "cheater's or using botters" themselves. /shakes head

To Quote Vaell, "In response to notion of the casual player botting to level up with no commercial interest:

If you take the leveling away from WoW, what you're left with is a server full of Ebays with no connection or history with their character.

Botting or Ebay. Doesn't seem much of a difference to me. If someone wants to take the tedium and pain out of a game to the point where they will get, for want of a better term, a robot to play it for them then perhaps it's become more than a game... or no longer a game. Perhaps WoW has gone beyond it's shelf life for some. And it's ok to move on."

Well said, well said Vaell

[just1guy]

Originally Posted by Vaell

2 reasons why the grind exists:

Originally Posted by Vaell

• It prolongs the amount of time needed to achieve things in wow, thus keeping you paying your subscription, and keeping blizz funded so they can keep giving us new content.
• It gives you a sense of actually feeling like you've earnt the thing you're grinding for, be it a nice crafted item at the end or whatever. Receiving something for no effort doesn't enforce the basic principles of the game, nor principles in real life for that matter.

The way I see it, botters see themselves as above the amount of work necessary to get something, like the world (of warcraft) owes them a living just because they pay their fee.

I'm sure many of us wished we could send a clone of ourselves into the office to do a days work. But that's work. If someone feels the game is too much like work, they should play something that's still fun to them.

Perhaps it's a symptom of the insidious way this game can get under the skin and start to influence us to the point of feeling like we "have to" do certain things.

Botting actually defeats the object of playing the game in the first place imo.

Excellent commentary on this topic

Count me in as a legit player who is proud of Blizzard for taking this stance.

My main gripe is really on the farming aspect of botting. I will admit that I am partial in my view as farming for my primals (FSW set / Belt of Blasting) and heavy clefthoof leather (HC druid set) was extended quite a bit because of the bots that would mindlessly tag mobs thus taking potential sources of mats. It is one of the few times that I wish I could kill a same-faction player.

I understand the grind (both leveling and for mats) can be painful but the end result for the most part is well worth it. IMO, it actually increases the personal value of a crafted item because you put in the time and effort to farm the mats AND you had to compete against automated bots that were doing the same.

On a related note, I have only played for 2 years and have 3 toons (70 lock, 70 druid and a 40-ish priest). Using a bot to kill mobs over and over again is probably the fastest and least painful way to level, but it has never crossed my mind nor does it sound tempting to me. However, it does make me wonder about other people’s view on their reasons for leveling. I know for a fact I am the slowest person in my guild when it comes to leveling – I am efficient at questing but I have a habit of doing non-XP related activities (Fishing, working the AH, etc). That urge to get to 70 must be huge if you have to use a botting program to get there.

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by just1guy

Excellent commentary on this topic

Count me in as a legit player who is proud of Blizzard for taking this stance.

My main gripe is really on the farming aspect of botting. I will admit that I am partial in my view as farming for my primals (FSW set / Belt of Blasting) and heavy clefthoof leather (HC druid set) was extended quite a bit because of the bots that would mindlessly tag mobs thus taking potential sources of mats. It is one of the few times that I wish I could kill a same-faction player.

I understand the grind (both leveling and for mats) can be painful but the end result for the most part is well worth it. IMO, it actually increases the personal value of a crafted item because you put in the time and effort to farm the mats AND you had to compete against automated bots that were doing the same.

On a related note, I have only played for 2 years and have 3 toons (70 lock, 70 druid and a 40-ish priest). Using a bot to kill mobs over and over again is probably the fastest and least painful way to level, but it has never crossed my mind nor does it sound tempting to me. However, it does make me wonder about other people’s view on their reasons for leveling. I know for a fact I am the slowest person in my guild when it comes to leveling – I am efficient at questing but I have a habit of doing non-XP related activities (Fishing, working the AH, etc). That urge to get to 70 must be huge if you have to use a botting program to get there.

Nice post. I agree with everything you are saying, except that I probably level a little faster than you it seems (I don't do much fishing heh ).

[Vaell]

Originally Posted by RomaGoth

Nice post. I agree with everything you are saying, except that I probably level a little faster than you it seems (I don't do much fishing heh ).

Ah I need to level my fishing, not far off maxed. I just treat it like MSN with better graphics; a chance to idle and chat.

btw thanks to everyone who expressed a similar view on this subject. You're made of awesome.

[Superwombat]

This warlock is my 9th level 70, and completes my perfect set of 1 of each class. I am an altaholic.

However in response to the people who have 3 or 4 70's and are swearing they they will never level another because the grind is so repetitive, I beg to differ.

I have leveled all of my toons the same way, moved all of them to Stormwind as soon as humanly possible to grind starting at westfall and following the human quest pattern. Each different class is REMARKABLY different. Each one is an entirely new experience, requiring new tactics to complete the same objective. No matter what new quests Blizzard may or may not add, in the end the bulk of them will be "Kill X number of Y mob" or "Collect X number of Y item" the only difference would be that you wouldn't know where to find those mobs/items. And you think that would make it MORE enjoyable?

Leveling alts is what I do in my free time, when I'm sick of killing the same elemental over and over and over again for the 5% chance of a mote drop.... now THAT'S the REAL drag.

Now to move on to leveling 9 horde toons.... :-P

[deadloak]

Botter's get in the way and ruin the leveling of others by wiping out whole area's where non-botters want to quest.

I have leveled only 4x 70's, but yes it is a pain. But also I work and dont rob Banks because I too damn lazy to work myself.

In the UK I'd classify these people as benefit cheats, and hang them out to dry when I find them. If you bot, be prepared to be banned, and a shame its not permenantly.

[phantasmas]

I am totally against Botting as well, i do not see a need for it as was pointed out if you cant be bothered to play the game properly why play it at all, it just spoils things for all of us.