drunkymonkey says:

That’s a pretty rubbish prosecution file, but at the same time, bots on MMOs are really quite annoying. It’s a case of people having more money than others being at the top of the list (just like real life!) and something that isn’t actually human stealing your kills, loot, etc.

Luckily, I haven’t encountered many, but I really do hope something is done about 1. the gold-selling, and 2. the botting.

March 27th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

Ben Hazell says:

If the game is so dull you want to use a bot to get through it, why bother playing it at all?
Clearly I’ll never understand MMORPG’s.

March 27th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Flint says:

“Getting a bunch of characters to 70 is a pain. Getting money to equip them is a pain. Doing big instances, battlegrounds, raids, and generally socializing in the game is fun.

But it’s the journey to level 70 that’s the fun part, the big instances and raids and whatever are the icky things :(.

March 27th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Babs says:

Interesting, I’m having a bit of an internal argument about this.

Defense:
People should clearly have the right to run anything they like at the same time as WOW, and write/sell any programs the like that exploit what exists in memory. Loading a portion of WOW into memory is simply not copyright infringement (assuming it’s loaded from the HD of course).

Prosecution:
I don’t care about Blizzards bottom line, they’ve got enough gold money hats (decorated with menacing spikes of gold) already, but as bots ruin the experience for everyone not using them there needs to be some recourse to prevent them. Clearly technical approaches haven’t worked.

In the end though this is a problem of Blizzard’s own making, so harping on about how it costs them money is a bit pathetic. They’ve made a game designed to be a tedious time-sink and then complain when people seek ways around it. They can’t offer a similar service (like jump to level 40 for $20) because of the dreadful press it would get them and the precedent it would set. Tough shit.

March 27th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

Fatrat says:

Agreed with the above comment, why play if you want to bypass half the game. I botted for a couple of weeks in another MMO, called Lineage 2… that was murder to level compared to WoW and after those weeks i thought ”why am i doing this” and just cancelled my sub.

Sure it can be a pain after the first time, i know… i have 2 x 70’s and 4 other toons at 60 . But when i get bored, i just leave for a while, like i have at the moment.

It’s also Blizzards fault on making a lot of things so dependant on grinding and now making the gear gap so steep, which is why they’ve had to give easier means (EG - welfare epics through honour points) to get a fresh 70 (partially) up to speed. Then get 5k gold to get your epic mount, which the difficulty of varies on each server and depends on class/profs.

I’d rather skip playing than bot, cause once past whatever you’re botting, you’re only gonna be grinding again, everything is grinding, even at endgame whether it’s instances/arena/BGs/profs/money. WoW is a grind. But it masks it far more successfully than most other MMO’s.

Anyway, long rant… sorry. But also, the poll is worded a bit daft. SURE, grinding = misery. I agree with that for the most part. But that doesn’t make me agree with botting.

Edit - Also, i agree with Flint. My favourite part of WoW is the levelling. Only harsh feeling part is 30-55. But that’s because it’s easy to get ganked and have not much chance of escape. Still fun though.

March 27th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Flint says:

Fatrat: ganking is no problem when you play on PvE realms :P.

March 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Ben Abraham says:

The *real* complaint I have against botting and power levelling services in general is that it fosters a 2nd class citizen that honest to goodness can’t play their own character - dreadful to group up with…

That said, there are plenty of examples of someone who *has* played their toon to 70 they are still completely rubbish, so maybe not such a water-tight argument.

I’m undecided. Is it *really* Blizzards game and they can ‘take their ball and go home’, or are we free to do whatever we want with what we pay for (EULA kinda makes me lean towards the former)?

March 27th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Alex says:

Get the bots out!

See the game for what it really is!

March 27th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Seniath says:

Bots are tantamount to cheating. And cheating in online games is Wrong. I don’t see how it could be dressed up any other way.

As an aside, back when I played I was on a PvE server. Fun could be had by toggling PvP and goading a bot into attacking you, and then ganking it for half an hour. It achieved nothing, but was still incredibly satisfying.

March 27th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Extorn says:

Look at it from a fiscal point

Blizzards sole objective is to get you to play the game as long as possible.

So if you bot a character to 70, and botfarm materials and professions, while you are at work and come home then play for 2 hours, that’s 8 hours of time you didn’t spend in the game.. the bot did in one day what would have taken you 2 weeks if not more.

Blizzard loses subscriptions because of botting.

Once you run out of stuff to do in the game, why play?

Also, if I sweat out grinding my two professions and materials for my items with my own time and hard work… everyone else should too.

A.D.D + Mining = Bad combination.
Why should I have to mine or farm gold to buy materials if someone else can get them for free and sell them to me for stupid prices? or undercut my prices and force me to sell my efforts for little to nothing?

March 27th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Nick says:

I thought the problem with bots was they were like sweatshops and thus fairly horrible?

March 27th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Michael says:

People who can’t honestly play for any reason whatsoever should not be in the game.

Imagine if on the second day of getting a job, you could bring in some illegal alien and tell your boss that work isn’t fun, but getting paid is. So you are hiring this guy to do your work for you.

March 27th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Sander says:

Nayaye. Agree with Babs, especially because of the money hats. Go make a game that [a] cannot be grinded (ground?) because [b] it’s too much fun.

March 27th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

matt says:

Well, i don’t really like the idea of using bots, and it does probably spoil some of the fun from actually playing the game, as it might ruin the game’s experience for others.
Now, on this one specifically, i’d also say that Blizzard should not be trying to have this guy’s company close. Maybe they should try and reach a settlement with him, maybe it does indicate that the game is not that interesting after all, maybe it does show some holes in the security / antibot system they have set up… But in anyway, they should not be sueing him to have his business closed, for god’s sake.
Is it me, or does that point out a limit on the fun one can get out of a MMO ?
Say, in Final Fantasy 7, there was a lot of levelling to do, and it could be painful towards the end, because it was really only levelling to be able to take on the bigger guns; but throughout the game, levelling was part of the game, so in a way it was fun. I can perfectly understand how levelling in WoW now could be painful, if you need to get to a particular level to get to enjoy the game and take part in the fun stuff.

So i can understand how some people would want to skip that part somehow. But it’s highly subjective, since for some, levelling is fun, for others it’s a pain..

Anyway, my vote is based on the fact that all in all, it has more to do with business than with the game itself. I say Blizzard should do something about it, but that something should not be trying to have that guy’s business closed.

March 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

tackle says:

The deal with WoW:

You pay to play the game, which requires you to play it so much that it impacts your social life. Sure you can play it less, but you get left out of the loop too quickly to not feel bad about it.
So you have to invest quite some time into it, and yes, pay for it.

Solution?
In Sweden, the equivalent of craigslist; “blocket.se” (roughly: ‘the noteboard’) has tons of ads of people seeling their lvl 70 characters for generally $250 each.

So for $250 you can bypass the need to play the game entirely, and you get your social life back as well! Success!
You only have to pay the subscription, but that’s nothing compared to the deal you’ve made.

Or wait… maybe you can cancel it then as well?

March 27th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

trioptimum says:

I’m in the minority (currently) that voted for option #3.

Whether or not it’s right that people use bots, it’s a natural consequence of the way the game is set up, and railing against it is as useless as complaining that the moon causes tides.

Skill doesn’t count for much in WoW. The only thing it rewards is commitment, and people only have a finite amount of that to give to the game, so of course they will try to find other methods of experiencing the game content otherwise unavailable to anyone not obsessive or unemployed enough to level up and equip a character to a point competitive enough to enjoy the endgame.

If technical attempts to block bots and gold sellers have failed, and legal attempts fail too (as they inevitably will in the long term, because they’ll just move out of legal reach) then selling gold or levels must surely start to look like a pretty good course of action to Blizzard, if they can do it without pissing off the player base… they make money, reduce load on their servers, put the shady guys out of business, and get more players to a level where they’re putting most of their development efforts anyway.

This wouldn’t be destructive. NCSoft and others already do it.

March 27th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

Zeno says:

I don’t even see why this is up for debate. The bot program violates the EULA, right?

March 27th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

trioptimum says:

Perhaps, Michael, but you would no doubt agree that there is a massive commitment requirement involved as well. No amount of skill can make a level 1 character good for much outside the starting areas. Skill is optional, but the game absolutely requires time.

March 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Michael says:

@trioptimum, certainly that is true. Still, this is the nature of the genre and people who play such games have an understanding of it. Role-playing games in general have leveling or an equivalent thereof. Attaining higher levels requires time and effort.

It is perfectly understandable that some people don’t have the time to level from 1 to 70. In such cases perhaps it is best if they realized that this particular type of game is not for them.

However sad it may be, it is not grounds for ruining the game for others and violating the EULA which they agreed to.

@Willem, I’d sign my name under every word you said above.

March 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Geoff says:

I was pretty torn on this one, and actually changed my mind after voting and then reading comments.

First off, the “why play at all if you hate half the game?” arguments are silly. The answer is obvious - “I like the other half”

I don’t, actually, I’ve never played WoW and never will, but I’ve played plenty of games with good parts and bad parts. The existence of bad parts (cheesy cut scenes, bad escort missions, too many collectibles, whatever) does not completely rob the whole game of all merit and make it not worth playing.

Just the thought of MMO grinding makes me kinda sad, but then that’s why I don’t do it. Some people like that sort of thing, some don’t.

Ultimately, I think the answer is: Blizzard have made a game, they have the right to determine what that game is like and decide what is cheating. If they make bad choices and people don’t like their game, people will stop playing it. For now, they say “this is not allowed in WoW”, and I see no good reason to force them to allow it.

I don’t play WoW, but if you do, and you think Blizzard should allow this, then I guess your appeal should be to Blizzard, rather than the courts.

March 27th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Noc says:

I agree with Michael.

Look at it as if WoW was an FPS.

Grinding is the basic mechanic of WoW. The more time you spend grinding, the more work you put in, the more effective you are.

In an FPS, the more time you spend practicing aiming, the more time you spend honing your reflexes, the more effective you are.

Some people are better at aiming then others. Some people are better at grinding then others, too. They work out the numbers, do the research, and grind through 70 levels in record time. It’s an intellectual rather than a reflexive endeavor, but it’s still arguably a matter of native ability.

So in a game where my relative effectiveness compared to other players is dependent on how well I can aim, it’s clearly cheating to make a bot to aim for me.

But in a game where my relative effectiveness compared to other players is dependent on how much I grind, it’s not cheating to make a bot to grind for me?

Is the grinding mechanic silly? Yes. Is it clearly a construct specifically intended to keep players playing for as long as possible? Yes.

Is the multiplayer environment your own personal sandbox? No. Are you consigning yourself to play by the rules set down by the game when you install the game and create a character? Yes.

So if you don’t want to grind, the solution is simple. Don’t play WoW. Similarly, if multiplayer FPSs aren’t your deal, don’t play them.

Don’t cheat because you want the reward of winning without actually having to play the game.

March 27th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Sander says:

I see your point, Michael, and you’re right when you look at this lawsuit from the perspective of a player of Memorpegers. I’m not, and I was looking at what I feel about the suit itself, which is that legal wrangles are a money sucking game all on their own. Having any means at their disposal to throw out people who play ‘in bad faith’ is more or less a good thing for the Blizzards and for all good faith gamers, but only taking those steps, and not finding out why a game is vulnerable to cheating from a game play perspective (yes, mechanistically) is short sighted and will not lead to better games. Not to mention that granting big money software houses all legal means to determine how their code gets used is bad.

March 27th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

AbyssUK says:

Let them eat cake! Blizzard however should be the ones making the money

March 27th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

alphaxion says:

willem: um no, it’s not a disease.. It’s a disorder, learn your medical terms before using them. There is no contagion, it’s a behavioural activity, not a physical affliction.
And it’s only seen as a disorder because their activities deviate from a percepted norm (where in reality normal is a state that is the deviate since no-one manages to attain it, we’re all defective in some way).

Anyway, as a former raider, levelling up a character purely to fill a gap in your raiding needs is as dull as hell.
The need to get your character dragged thru places also wastes the time of others and frustrates people when they can’t get a group for rfk or brd.

How about this as a solution, once you have reached a certain level, you can make a new character at that exact same level?
Already ground your way to 70 on one toon? how about making an “insta-70″ toon, it’s not like you’ve missed out on the levelling experience. Got your way to lvl 45 on your druid and feel that it isn’t doing anything for you? How about making a lvl 45 shaman instead?

That way you force a person to play the levelling aspect once and then give them the chance to simply skip it for their next characters whilst keeping it open for those who enjoyed the levelling process to start of from any level between 1 and max level.

All parties satisfied and no-ones money and time wasted.

is it really that hard to think around the problem rather than throwing lawyers at it?

March 27th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Butler` says:

@Noc, that’s a really nasty comparison, and best countered with:

In Counter-Strike I can enter a game with the worlds best clan and I’ve got a viable chance of killing one or two of them.

In Call of Duty 4 I can go in a public match as a rank 1 with base equipment and dominate a game full of rank 55s.

In WoW you can’t take down even the worst of level 70s with a 100 skilled level 1s. Equally so, an under geared but highly skilled level 70 can’t hope to take a full epic but poorly played level 70.

@Michael - as above. But with the added note that even when gear is equal, you have racial or class based imbalanced and the huge luck factor that features in RPG-based games (parry, miss, resist, dodge).

Apologies if that’s a little off topic.

March 27th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

trioptimum says:

@Michael, the stealing organs example is a little bit fanciful isn’t it? We’re only talking about a desire to spend money to save time. In principle, hardly an unethical trade, even if it is against the arbitrary rules of a system — rules that Blizzard writes, and can amend.

Devil’s advocacy aside, I agree that it’s cheating, in its current form — not because it creates inequality (it reduces it) but because it adversely affects other players, and that’s obviously unwelcome. I’m just trying to be pragmatic in saying that this demand is never going to go away however much we dislike it, and that the only way to fix the associated problems for their player base is for Blizzard to create a ‘proper’ way to do it, putting guys like this out of business by making their products obsolete. Litigation will only get them so far.

March 27th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Buceph says:

This article is all over the place, and so are the comments. The matter in hand isn’t whether you like or dislike bots, it isn’t what it’s doing to the community in WoW and MMOs, it is about the legality of such issues. One of the main points is whether Glider is a breach of copyright law or whether it is a breach of contract law. What people think about bots has nothing to do with this. And it’s unfair to represent the case in that light.

Poor show, very tabloid.

March 27th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

yet another michael says:

what are birds? we just don’t know.

March 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

Zell says:

The thing I like best about Blizzard is that they float above all ideological considerations. I suspect they have an internal police force that walks around and quietly kills anybody who starts waxing philosophical about game design.

They don’t try for absolutes. They don’t need to eradicate gold sellers — they just make sure the exchange rate is high enough. They don’t invent game mechanics that are more fun for the programmers than they are for the players. They don’t rant condescendingly about the pathos of the level grind — they just make it as fun as they can.

I hope they win this case, but if they don’t - no biggie.

March 27th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

alphaxion says:

andrew: and that will only affect those who are lesser skilled than others.

Those with ability can figure out the basics of a class pretty easily - I managed with my lock, rogue, shammy, pally, mage and hunter.
Not forgetting the major help of your guildies who know their classes well too.

Plus, as I said the option to play it from any starting level would be there too. So if you feel you don’t need to learn you can jump in at the deep end.. if you feel you need to understand how to play it then start from your chosen level.

Those that have no clue how to play will sink to the bottom anyway and aren’t worth your time. It’ll just make them even easier to spot before you pug that lvl 35 dungeon with them again.

As a small anecdote, I once did a strat pug with this other lock who only used his wand because “it had 10 frost dmg too”. this was before the 5 man demotion.

I simply educated him and his damage went up quite a bit.

March 27th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Buceph says:

There’s no problem with arguing about the use of bots in MMOs. The problem I have is making it look like that is the issue that’s being brought to court. The matter in hand, when you’re referring to a court case, is the court case. If you want to use it as a springboard it to debate the surrounding issues, that’s fine. Obviously that’s what you were doing. But you’ve been very blasé what the issue in the trial is about.

The tabloid comment is perfectly valid, I feel. You’ve been ambiguous with the facts to highlight a different argument.

And pretentious and smart are too different things. Smart people know this, pretentious people don’t care.

March 27th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Michael says:

“If they’re really worried about their precious economy then they can run “pure” servers, right?”

Right. Like they run role-playing servers.

RoFfLc0OptErr! kkthxby!

March 27th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Mawich says:

I’m not going to comment on the legality or otherwise of Glider, nor am I going to comment on whether or not bots should be allowed.

Instead I’m going to agree with the people above who suggest that the fact that people are willing to pay $20 to skip large chunks of the levelling grind in WoW point to something pretty horribly wrong with the game.

Blizzard: Here’s the thing. It’s a game. It should be fun. If parts of your game aren’t fun, your game is wrong. Players of Starcraft know that parts of your company understand this. Please teach it to the WoW people as well. Imagine: WoW is making you piles and piles of cash. Imagine how much more cash you could make if every single moment of somebody’s WoW experience was fun.

One day I will come up with a way to make a game like that, and I will become even richer than you. So there.

March 27th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Senethro says:

Mawich: I’m disagreeing with the idea that every moment of the game has to be fun. Its like gambling. A lot of the time its not fun (losing) but just around the corner is the big win.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, like casinos, Blizzard has done intensive studies on what rate of drops and stuff causes the most profitable ratio of total hours played:players quitting. Alternatively, total subscriptions paid:subscriptions discontinued.

March 27th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

Dean says:

Lets get this straight: Bots break the EULA and like it or not it’s Blizzard’s ball and they have every right to take it home in a huff if they want. But to push that analogy furthur, they don’t have the right to have a policeman come arrest you as you wanted to play dodgeball instead of football. They can ban as many accounts of bot users as they want - I hope they do, they’re annoying. But legally they don’t have a leg to stand on, they’re attempting to use bully tactics and half-arsed justifications to make it a legal issue when it isn’t. They can couch this in legal terms of copyright infringement and loss of earnings but it’s not that they’re bothered about. It’s the cheating. But stopping people cheating in a game isn’t a legal problem. It’s like the cop that gets pissed off with the guy that sleeps with his wife - he can’t arrest him for that but he can watch him like a hawk and the minute he breaks the smallest law, he nicks him.

Legal stuff out of the way, the entire thing is silly anyways. The time commitment required by WoW increases exponentially. Anyone can level from 1-70 over time with just a couple of hours a week, and there’s no ‘grinding’ involved. Yes, you could do it by killing the same enemies 1000s of times like the bots do, but you can also reach 1-70 and never do the same quest twice, and still only have done around 60-70% of them. There is no ‘grind’, just quests, y’know, the quests that *were* the game back when it launched and we all gave it 90%+ and called it one of the greatest games ever. That 96%-rated content is what Glider helps you skip. Does it get boring if you’re levelling up the 3rd or 4th character? Of course it does but hey, most games get dull on the 3rd or 4th playthrough. If you’re claiming a 200+ hour game sucks in parts the third time around, fair enough but could I respectfully suggest maybe trying a different game?

But what about people that want to be 70 and play with thier friends but don’t have the time for that? As I say, time commitment increases exponentially. An hour or so at a time can help you level up to 70. At 70 you need a minimum of 2 hours to run an instance with 4 friends. More like 4 hours for the bigger raids, generally at least 4 times a week. And it’s at 70 (which Glider gets you to) the grind actually *begins*. 1-70 you never do the same quest twice. At 70 it’s repeatedly running dungeons for a certain piece of armour, repeatedly running battlegrounds for honour, repeatedly running raids to gear up your guild enough to move on to the next one, or repeatedly running “daily quests” (literally: the same quest every day, and a concept Blizzard have become disturbingly enamoured with lately) for reputation.

I’m not speaking for other MMOs, I’m speaking for WoW: the grind starts at 70, and if you don’t have the time available to level to 70, you don’t have the time available to do anything once you’re there anyways.

And just to re-iterate, all those reviewers at launch were reviewing the 1-60 levelling game. I doubt any actually hit 60 with the deadlines involved, and even if they did there was far less endgame content back then. And they all gave it 90% scores, and we all loved it. It’s the same game now, so I really don’t buy this ‘levelling is boring’ crap.

March 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

tWB says:

I find disturbing Blizzard’s reliance upon MAI Systems v. Peak (which contravenes the legislative history of the 1976 Copyright Act and the NET Act, but is supported by Title III of the DMCA). Blizzard is attempting to use copyright and DMCA to enforce its EULAs, a move that goes well beyond the reasonable scope of copyright. Basically, a win by Blizzard would dramatically narrow the rights enjoyed by software licensees and users of online services (including web browsing). This would be A Very Bad Thing.

On the other hand, Blizzard may have a reasonable claim for tortious interference with contract, though there are factual questions that would preclude summary judgment. Under MDY’s reasoning, by the way, Blizzard would be more justified in suing bot-users rather than MDY — something that Blizzard is, I assume, unwilling to undertake due to public relations concerns.

March 27th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

Cyrenic says:

@Butler

I semi-actively play arena and generally think Blizzard have the best implementation of structured RPG-based PvP.

I couldn’t disagree with you more. I think WoW arena is the worst implementation of MMO PvP I’ve ever played. I’m curious why you think it’s the best, so here’s some questions if you feel like answering them:

Are you talking specifically about arenas? I’m assuming so because they were what you specifically mentioned.

You use the word “structured”. Are you referring to how the reward system/ladder for arenas work?

What other RPG/MMO PvP have you played? Why do you think WoW’s system is better?

Sorry if any of that seemed leading or incendiary, I’m actually curious why people like WoW arenas. Usually when I ask stuff like this the immediate response is something like “OmGz joo are not l33t enuff for teh arenas!”

March 27th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Jon says:

I would have more sypmathy for Blizzard if they treated all of their games the same, are they sueing Mousepad who makes a maphack for Diablo 2 or the guy who made RedVex?

If this lawsuit is actually about EULA violations then why are those two not getting sued as well?

March 27th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

Michael says:

@Jon, I would imagine that more people are affected by botters than by maphack and such.

@Etho, alright so you don’t think this game is fun. That’s a perfectly valid viewpoint. Many people think otherwise, however. A lot of us really enjoy leveling vs. the end-game raiding. Many people think that killing poor old Illidan for the 2398547943875th time is much more of a grind than killing 10 cobolds for a quest. No matter who is “right”, this argument is beside the point since we are talking about whether Blizzard should protect its paying customers from those who abuse the game.

March 27th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

Jon says:

@Michael: Breaking the EULA can’t be done by increments, you either brake it or you don’t. If you brake it for one game shouldn’t the punishment be the same for any other? To me it looks like they’ve picked Glider to sue because Glider is making money and causing Blizzard to miss out on subscriptions, which smacks of pure greed.

Edit: If I were Blizzard, I’d recruit the Glider guys and get them to write code for Warden. Killing two birds with one stone is good I hear.

March 27th, 2008 at 6:17 pm