I’d have to stand by Blizzard on this, for certain reasons that I know no one is going to like. But, before that, I should say that botting and assist programs are a boon for MMORPGs for two reasons. One, they add a new dimension for enjoyment. It’s not just about skipping the grind, but skipping the farming. In the few MMOs I’ve played, I find that if you must farm, you’re not playing the game right, but that’s an issue with faulty game design, not necessarily the player. Two, the grind is an ethical dilemma. The player must pay monthly to be subjected to long hours of what we’d call heresy in any other game, and I fear that’s too easily exploitable by the host to keep obsessive players in the game month after month. The best solution is for the host to offer assist programs themselves, even for a fee if they wish, and some do.

But, I side with Blizzard on this, and probably for the same reason they initiated action: Donnelly is selling his botting program. By a stretch, that falls under derivative works and is a copyright infringement, but let’s be reasonable. He’s making money off of Blizzard’s work. I don’t give a shit if Blizzard staff sleep with gold-plated hookers at night and don’t need the money, it’s still based on their work. Part of my ire may be because I’m cheap, and seeing people charge for programs rubs me the wrong way (Windows third-party apps are a joke; open source you jerks), but if I had released a game and found someone else profiting on my hard work, I’d be livid.

None of our opinions matter though. Blizzard may not even give a shit. Their only real courses of action are to either buy out Donnelly or take legal action. It’s a business thing–the fool Donnelly could have just offered his program for free and suggested donations, and probably none of this would have happened.

report

This is WoW, for better or worse. You have to take the good with the bad, THAT’S THE WAY IT WAS MADE. The game is repetitive BY NATURE. THAT’S WHAT AN MMO IS. Besides, Blizzard owns the game, your characters, everything, and they say “NO BOTTING”. Rules are rules.

report

report

report

These are just timesinks. The whole damn game is a timesink once you reach level 70.

Instances are fun. Raids are Fun. Arena PvP is Fun.
To do all that you need:
- Flasks, Potions, Time for Raids and instances
- Resilience Equip for Arena PvP

To get from A to B fast you need an epic flying mount. To farm efficiently you need an epic flying mount. To get that you need 5000g. Which equals about 35 – 100 hours of mindnumbing money farming.

Where exactly is the “experience” and “enjoyment” of that ? That gets “taken out of the game” ?

I would love to bot, I just don’t do it because I don’t want my account to get banned.

report

Am I the only one who finds some of the moral outrage expressed above relating to other players “getting-without-earning” a little bizarre, given that what we are talking about is ostensibly a leisure activity?

If you were talking about real-world compensated work then sure, I’d agree that its galling that so many people don’t have to do very much of it and yet still reap bountiful rewards.

But do I worry that some people are cheating their way through an activity that I enjoy as play? Not one bit.

Unless we are talking about directly competitive play ofc, but I don’t think that this kind of cheating is what we are arguing about because this kind of cheating is uncontroversially bad. Also the leveling process in WOW (which accounts for many hundreds of hours of play) is not in the main directly competitive.

I think this particular “problem” isn’t a terribly significant one, is very much specific to the WoW model (as I say, bypassing content is not equivalent to wallhacking in CS) and is more or less designed-in to any leisure activity that is trying too hard to mimic actual work.

Persistent World type games based on the WoW model will probably struggle on with the same old formula for a few more decades, but as soon as some clever developer makes a similar game that is consistently fun enough that people will engage in it for pleasure alone it will make it very hard for developers to sell the old model where time consuming repetitive work yields dubious rewards. Basically I think that when people are given the choice between work and fun, they will pick fun every time. Currently the market does not really offer this kind of choice, particularly not the casual gamer.

That said, I will acknowledge that some people do enjoy gaming that resembles work in the way WoW does. Personally I think that as the gaming $ becomes increasingly dominated by the console\casual market this group will increasingly find themselves on the margins because the requirement of having to put in hundreds of hours to access new content hurts accessibility and the console\casual market demands accessibility. That said the work\reward scheme does mitigate skill requirements which might help sell the model to the casual gaming crowd at least.

For the time being the whole argument will probably end up being moot because Blizzard will no doubt eventually introduce legitimate, bought, pre-levelled characters, probably to milk the last few years out of the game (the arena tournament is just the thin end of the wedge!). At that point I’d like to think that some imaginative developer is sure to wonder if level grinding is really the most fun thing players could be doing in an elaborate online fantasy world, and hopefully the result will be as all the fun without any of the work!

report

report

report

report

report

That crap gets OLD. I never bot in areas that are populated. I never bot away from my computer. When people come to my area needing to kill the mobs Im grinding, I usually HELP them.

I enjoy the game, but the damn grind is ridiculous, and Blizzard knew it, which is why in 2.3 they LOWERED the amount of exp needed to level. Its a timesink and a moneysink. They didn’t have to make the grind that painful, so since I’ve done it so many times, of COURSE I’m going to take an opportunity to circumvent it.

report

report