Greetings all,
this is my first time making a post on this forum, although I have been a long-time reader. This is probably going to be a long post, so please refer to the bottom for a TLR version. I know the topic is somewhat controversial (or maybe its not even allowed to talk about this on these forums) but still I want to at least attempt to get a discussion going since it has bugged me for some time now since I had the opportunity to talk to like-minded people.
I have been actively playing WoW since closed beta. I have experienced the server first kill of ragnaros, helped opening the gates of AQ, killed kel'thuzad before BC, experienced every single raid tier while it was current. I have never cancelled my subscription on my main account once, and have a ridiculous amount of /played on my main character. I have obviously enjoyed WoW a great deal, and am thankful to Blizzard and the community for creating such an immersive game.
However I have been botting on several accounts since late vanilla. Some have been banned, some not, thats not really the point of this thread and I dont want to go into details or provide any insight or strategies etc.
My main account and botting accounts have always been seperated in every possible way, meaning IP and IPs have always been different, no items or gold were exchanged. My botting accounts were never used to generate gold or items, I never sold any items or gold for real money and in fact never traded anything from my botting accounts. I didnt manipulate ingame economies in any way and actually did not get anything out of the botting except for the enjoyment of setting up the bots, chosing the perfect profiles, and watching my bot do its thing.
I have botted all classes to the max level several times, while never really interacting with any of the other players and never having (at least to my knowledge) any impact on my server (or my Battlegroup as I never ran BGs).
I have looked up my little list with all the accounts that I had over the years, so here goes (not including main account keys and subscription):
- 17 vanilla keys (6 bought at vanilla, 4 at BC, 4 at WOTLK, 2 at cata, 1 at pandaria)
- 15 BC keys (6 at BC, 5 at WOTLK, 2 at cata, 2 at pandaria)
- 14 WOTLK (7 at WOTLK, 4 at cata, 3 at pandaria)
- 10 cata (6 at cata, 4 at pandaria)
- 8 pandaria (4 early, 4 late)
- VARIOUS subscriptions
If anyone is interested, I could try to compile all the money this has costed, but obviously it was a lot, although I have a well paid job and never really thought about the money I spent on the game. I dont regret spending the money anyway as I have enjoyed tinkering and watching my bots a lot.
Now, of course I'm aware that this all goes against Blizzard's EULA and that although I have spent a lot of money on their product, this does not entitle me to act against their EULA. I dont want to try to "legalize" botting or am attempting to create some kind of resistance or anything.
I just want your honest opinion on this topic and am interested how people perceive the EULA etc. How do you guys personally feel about this? Is it still wrong to bot as I have done it? Would you try to get my bots (or my main) get banned if you had the chance? Would you be happier if there were absolutely no bots or do you just dont care at all?
TLR
I have botted since vanilla on a ton of accounts. These accounts have as far as I know never had any impact on my server/battlegroup as they never interacted with other players or the game economy (let alone real money exchanges).
Is this bad? Should my bots / main still be banned? Why/why not?
Sorry for any mistakes