Blizzard wins a 7 million dollar lawsuit against a bot company

[Orange Joe]

Oh cmon lol, even the your closest friends wouldn't believe such bullshit you saw only 1 bot. Especially if you do PvP.

I don't really care if you believe it.

[Whidbey]

In my 5-6 years of playing wow I have only saw 1 bot for sure, that was in wrath. I'm not sure I can see less bots.

As mentioned go into a bg sometime. Especially IoC. I've hit the horde base to find 10 bots just standing mid courtyard, get killed, respawn , and run back to the same spot.

[Orange Joe]

As mentioned go into a bg sometime. Especially IoC. I've hit the horde base to find 10 bots just standing mid courtyard, get killed, respawn , and run back to the same spot.

I haven't pvped since wrath. Which I'll admit the bot I did see was in a BG. He kept running to the stables by himself to die over and over again.

[Deleted]

Blizzards process of getting "rid" of them is too slow, by the time they win a lawsuit, 2 new bots have appeared, tho better than doing nothing i suppose.

[Deleted]

"there is no point in reporting, they never do anything about it anyway"

It's funny because it's true.

I reported a person once for using a bot in BGs - and he did get banned after a while.
And yes, I am sure - because I know said person IRL.

[Deleted]

Won't help at all, more/new will come they have definitely made shitloads of money and more than 7 million.

And blizzard should get rid of bots entirely instead of letting them be there for 5 years ++

I don't think you really understand how that works

And

Yes it will help, substantially.

[Coldpro]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bli.../1100-6415695/



This is very good, seems they are actually doing something about the bots. The lawsuits just progress extremely slowly. Now with Shadow Bot and Pocket Gnome gone, can we please get rid of a certain Buddy-bot next?

Oh and, "both pursue our right to operate and our customer's right to play WoW as they choose" must be the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard from such people.

They've been trying to get rid of HB for years now. It hasn't exactly gone very well for them if you read the HB forums.

[Yunru]

Well bots made me quit bgs ----- and i play since vanila. Bgs were playeable in vanila (due to players runing to bgs), Bc and woltk---then it cata their numbers went magicly up. So much that they made game unplayeable. I remember i killed like.......40 fish bots 300 mining/herb bots in 1 day just in the piramid zone.
Pandaria is even worse..... . This was the start when bgs were totaly....overkill. I only pvped to see new maps and complete the legendary quest. But for more then this is totaly ignored pvp in panda expansion. (thank god for crafted pvp sets that i can use too mog)

[Varabently]

There's probably several reasons why bots are difficult to get rid of:

1. False positives. Imagine the backlash if they started banning thousands of bots and they get a couple hundred real players in the process. Just one outspoken person could make some trouble for them.
2. They make blizz lose money. I doubt blizz loses more players to bots than bots. So even if you got rid of the bots, they would lose money. Not sure their shareholders would like that. True, but unfortunate.
3. Arms race between bot companies and blizz. This lawsuit is a good start and will hopefully make bot companies think twice before continuing. I think that's probably the point.
4. They are good for the economy. It's like importing cheap goods from other countries. They are cheap for buyers and hurt American workers, but the Americans who benefit (lower prices) are greater in number than those who suffer (those who lose out of jobs because of outsourcing).

So it's not as easy as "get rid of the bots." It's complicated.

[Deleted]

Bots actually make the auction house stable... Get rid of bots and mats for farming will be ridiculously high.

For someone who actually enjoys gathering... Yes you heard that right, No they wouldnt change a thing, I would still sell my wares at the same prices, I value them by time invested and even if they arent always the cheapest, they sell.

The only prices I could see rising would be fel iron and adamantite, possibly cobalt, considering that these are somewhat of a pain to gather due to node distribution.

Im currently on a hiatus from the game, but while active I easily collect a good 30-40 stacks of ore each day from classic, tbc, wotlk and cataclysm, and easily that same ammount of ghost iron. And I'm quite sure I'm not the only one either as I often have non-bot competition even if most of it are indeed bots.

Bots are damaging for a game, regardless of arguments. Games are ment to be played not automized.

[fangless]

They've been going at this lawsuit for years now. Glider was shut down like what, 3+ years ago?

Oh how time flies.

[Darsithis]

There's probably several reasons why bots are difficult to get rid of:

1. False positives. Imagine the backlash if they started banning thousands of bots and they get a couple hundred real players in the process. Just one outspoken person could make some trouble for them.
2. They make blizz lose money. I doubt blizz loses more players to bots than bots. So even if you got rid of the bots, they would lose money. Not sure their shareholders would like that. True, but unfortunate.
3. Arms race between bot companies and blizz. This lawsuit is a good start and will hopefully make bot companies think twice before continuing. I think that's probably the point.
4. They are good for the economy. It's like importing cheap goods from other countries. They are cheap for buyers and hurt American workers, but the Americans who benefit (lower prices) are greater in number than those who suffer (those who lose out of jobs because of outsourcing).

So it's not as easy as "get rid of the bots." It's complicated.

It costs Blizzard more money, I'd say, to have a team to handle the complaints, a team to investigate the bots, and employees to devise ways against them than they ever make from the bot itself.

[Pann]

It costs Blizzard more money, I'd say, to have a team to handle the complaints, a team to investigate the bots, and employees to devise ways against them than they ever make from the bot itself.

It states in the judgement they spent $390k investigating 185k complaints over two years; roughly $2 per complaint, 0.0002% of their roughly $2 billion income. I would imagine it was such a serious problem that they would spend more than 15 minutes investigating per complaint.

[Belloc]

You mean mobs that spawn? Gasp, the horror. And farming gold, what does that even mean? You literally think bots are grinding mobs for the pennies they drop?

They farm materials and sell them for cheaper than humans on the Ah, then sell the gold back to people who can't afford high crafted Ah prices. By removing the bots they are going to remove the accessible prices already on the Ah, and prevent people from a way for purchasing the gold they can't make in game.

That's funny, because I could've swore that warlocks were, just a couple months ago, regularly farming imps in one the daily quest areas and making serious amounts of gold (both from currency and loot drops). I guess that never happened, eh?

Oh, and what about those level 70 paladin bots in Botanica? I guess they must be herbalism bots, eh?

Jeez, I'm barely trying here. You want to keep going?

[Deathsenemy]

They've been going at this lawsuit for years now. Glider was shut down like what, 3+ years ago?

Oh how time flies.

lol. I was gliding way back in 05.... wow, time does fly. I remember having glider then openbot came along and was so much more advanced, then everyone got banned from it. Gosh, this makes me feel old now. I was 26 then...

[Agnar]

There's probably several reasons why bots are difficult to get rid of:

1. False positives. Imagine the backlash if they started banning thousands of bots and they get a couple hundred real players in the process. Just one outspoken person could make some trouble for them.

Sadly they already do this and they don't care about that backlash. I was permabanned several months ago for looking like a bot because I farmed 4-8 hrs a day for a few weeks. They have very low standards for banning people for botting and they ban people all day every day. They "are" banning thousands and unfortunately banning legitimate players as well. Kind of glad they did it to be honest though, they finally cut the umbilical cord that was world of warcraft. Freedom at last...

[Kuja]

pay Blizzard Entertainment $7 million in damages

Wtf? I think Blizzard should be the one paying them, as they got to ban thousands of accounts, and at least 90% of them created a new account, making Blizzard EARN money, not lose it.

Sure, bots damage economy, but it doesn't cause any damages to Blizzard. Afaik no one has quit the game because of bots have made materials cheap in the auction house. On the contrary, I've read that many people have started playing again due to bots making items more accessible in the auction house on some low pop realms.

But I do understand PVP bots and why PVPrs would quit because of them.

But it's a good thing they act against bots. If only we could get rid of those 300 bots farming Botanica still. ._.

[Toraak]

WARNING: extreme noob question ahead:

I understand why bots would farm mats, sell on AH, then sell gold for cash to lazy players.

As I do not do PVP, I don't understand the point of a bot in bgs. I can understand the frustration of having a do nothing bot on your team, but why are they there in the first place? A quick explanation would be great.

Thanks in advance.

[Pann]

WARNING: extreme noob question ahead:

I understand why bots would farm mats, sell on AH, then sell gold for cash to lazy players.

As I do not do PVP, I don't understand the point of a bot in bgs. I can understand the frustration of having a do nothing bot on your team, but why are they there in the first place? A quick explanation would be great.

Thanks in advance.

PVP bots are players that cannot be bothered to grind honour to buy gear.

[Agnar]

Basically they think they and their customer have some right to violate the terms of service, effectively a contract between the player and blizzard, is hilarious. They have a lot of nerve to even say that. I'm happy Blizz won this case. It sets a legal precedent that hopefully will end botting.

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rubbish. absolute and total rubbish

Go farm herbs and ore in Valley of the Four Winds for 4-8 hours a day for 1 month. I mean every day, no skipping. Come back to me at the end and tell me how rubbish it is. Please.