Actions Taken to Address Exploitative Gameplay, Torghast Update, Silithus Stress Test

[Mendzia]

Blizzard really need to add automation in game.
Like auto grinding, auto questing, etc. Like good old Honorbuddy.
The mentality on MMORPGs is vastly different now compared to 2005.
If you like to manually level 10 alts and don't mind repetition, then that's fine.
But I want sometimes to quest manually, most of the time let the bot do the job. Paid boost just boosts you.

No i didn't get banned.

So you want to pay for game that you do not even want to play??

Kind of hilarious that this happens a few hours after asmongold did his big "bot report stream" where he basically complained for hours about bots taking over the game, why dont they just fix and balance evrything based off youtubers, twitch streamers and reddit threads, seems like thats their main focus on receiving feedback right now

I was watching his yesterday's stream and thought the same... but aftrer reading carefully blue post it is clearly stated:
Including today’s actions, over the last month in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe regions, we’ve closed or suspended over 74,000 WoW accounts that were found to be in violation of our End-User License Agreement.

Nothing new under the sun. I doubt it even exists a game without cheaters and bots. As long as competition and money are involved we will always have to deal with it. Some companies (claim to) care more than others but still... Both the ingame economy and the user experience will always be affected, sooner or later. I suspect most of the mobile games are pure trash in terms of fairness and cheaters..

That's true but Blizzard should (and clearly can) do much more to minimalize this problem.

Why even play? I don't understand this mentality.

Yeah... We've got very strange times in gaming now when some people are defending bots, others are willing to pay for dogshit costumisations and want prizes for nothing... There is no longer pride of your in-game achievements or time investment.

[Dreen]

I was watching his yesterday's stream and thought the same... but aftrer reading carefully blue post it is clearly stated:
Including today’s actions, over the last month in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe regions, we’ve closed or suspended over 74,000 WoW accounts that were found to be in violation of our End-User License Agreement.

Well true but theres nothing to really prove that and they still put it out to stop some of the outrage that was caused by yesterdays stream. I mean its something positive either way so im not gonna complain, just found it to be a funny *coincidence*

[Queen of Hamsters]

That's great and all, if only the botters couldn't so easily create a new account and just get right back at it.

Also, multiboxers. They might not be automated, but they sure as fuck ruin the experience.

Well true but theres nothing to really prove that and they still put it out to stop some of the outrage that was caused by yesterdays stream. I mean its something positive either way so im not gonna complain, just found it to be a funny *coincidence*

Asmongold had nothing to do with the action taken, as for the timing of the blue post, the jury's out. The proof is in what they've written, calling it "nothing really to prove that" is just ignoring information laid out. If they were found out to be lying, there'd be hell to pay.

Even the streamers given insight and on good footing with Blizzard are very clear that Streamers are expendable.

[CerealLord]

Well true but theres nothing to really prove that and they still put it out to stop some of the outrage that was caused by yesterdays stream. I mean its something positive either way so im not gonna complain, just found it to be a funny *coincidence*

Do you really think Blizzard decided to ban 74k people because Asmongold put out a stream about it?

That's just silly.

[Frolk]

Bot banning will help if its done more than once every 6month, should be each month, or more.

[Ghostile]

That's great and all, if only the botters couldn't so easily create a new account and just get right back at it.

Also, multiboxers. They might not be automated, but they sure as fuck ruin the experience.

Part of classic experience.

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Bot banning will help if its done more than once every 6month, should be each month, or more.

The faster you ban, the faster you need to figure out their new software.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Part of classic experience.
.

Good thing I'm not in Classic then.

[Strawberry]

So you want to pay for game that you do not even want to play??

Well you pay for a game you don't own.

Why even play? I don't understand this mentality.

Plenty of other activities.

[Mysterymask]

Well you pay for a game you don't own.

.....you act like this is an only video game thing

I mean renting apartments is a thing...most buisnesses have to rent the space they are operating out of. People lease cars, you dont own the internet your paying for, you dont own anything you watch on netflx, etc etc

[Mendzia]

That's great and all, if only the botters couldn't so easily create a new account and just get right back at it.

Yeah, it is just a short term solution.
Banwaves every several months are just clearly not enough.

Also, multiboxers. They might not be automated, but they sure as fuck ruin the experience.

I agree.
I wish there is a limit around 5-8 characters you can multibox.

Asmongold had nothing to do with the action taken, as for the timing of the blue post, the jury's out. The proof is in what they've written, calling it "nothing really to prove that" is just ignoring information laid out. If they were found out to be lying, there'd be hell to pay.

Even the streamers given insight and on good footing with Blizzard are very clear that Streamers are expendable.

I think it is at best total coincidence or he had some inner info that it might happen.
He said many times that he has a few contacts in Blizzard.

Part of classic experience.

Mutiboxers started to be very popular in TBC due huge burst dmg that can be done by elemental shamans.

[Strawberry]

.....you act like this is an only video game thing

I mean renting apartments is a thing...most buisnesses have to rent the space they are operating out of. People lease cars, you dont own the internet your paying for, you dont own anything you watch on netflx, etc etc

Your argument is irrelevant. We're talking about WoW, not other stuff.

But if you REALLY want to compare. You rent an apartment you don't own, but you don't have to manually gather your resources, right? You don't sit at home and pedal to gain electricity or water.
At least I hope.

[irdsyd]

Well done on the ban wave.

I hope the next ban wave on retail happens one week after shadowlands launch. That's the peak time for farming and gold selling.

The game design also affects how useful botting for resources is. For instance, having huge amounts of ore and herbs inside garrisons ended that sort of bot farming for WoD (though I didn't like that design). Having the most expensive hard to get herb in BfA spawn with limited spawn points in only one zone is also annoying - and that zone is always heavily farmed even at this point in the expansion where raiding has almost finished.

[HitRefresh]

Plenty of other activities.

Then stop playing, go rub one out, then come back and play when you actually want to play?

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Yeah... We've got very strange times in gaming now when some people are defending bots, others are willing to pay for dogshit costumisations and want prizes for nothing... There is no longer pride of your in-game achievements or time investment.

I'll never understand. If you don't want to play the game, do something else. Why should you be getting rewards for automated work? It's like if I played Call of Duty and turned on an auto mode and just sat back and watched it get kills. Get some XP and level up eventually, get through that Battle Pass... How the hell is that gratifying in any capacity?

I swear mobile games made people incredibly braindead with actual games, since that's where auto-gameplay seemed to have started. I remember this (I think it was Final Fantasy) game that you literally just watch people fight each other and it says you get rewards. No strategy, you don't even have your team composed or anything, so it's not even something like Auto-chess/TFT/Underlords.

That Pokemon game on the Switch worked the same way. You could manually take over but the auto gameplay just did everything perfectly anyway, and then you watch it give you rewards for literally doing nothing. You could put it on, not touch your game and just do other shit, come back and you "progressed". What's even the end goal there? You might as well watch a YouTube video and skip to the end. There isn't even an experience.

[Biomega]

I'll never understand. If you don't want to play the game, do something else. Why should you be getting rewards for automated work?

The key is that people are using automation to skip the parts of the game they don't like, not to play the ENTIRE game on autopilot. As a gaming experience, that's obviously idiotic - unless, of course, the rewards garnered from that have tangible value, in which case it's not about the gaming experience but about the rewards. E.g. if you're using bots to farm gold and then sell that for real money, you don't care about the game itself, it's just a means for you to earn money. That you automate the game experience is irrelevant in that case. For people that DO care about the experience, it's about shifting the proportions of their game activities, i.e. they spend more time doing things they like (e.g. dungeons or raiding) and less time doing things they don't like (e.g. farming materials and gold). While of course that can't be condoned because it has a detrimental effect on other people's experience, it's not like there's no logic to behavior like that.

[Strawberry]

Then stop playing, go rub one out, then come back and play when you actually want to play?

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I'll never understand. If you don't want to play the game, do something else. Why should you be getting rewards for automated work? It's like if I played Call of Duty and turned on an auto mode and just sat back and watched it get kills. Get some XP and level up eventually, get through that Battle Pass... How the hell is that gratifying in any capacity?

I swear mobile games made people incredibly braindead with actual games, since that's where auto-gameplay seemed to have started. I remember this (I think it was Final Fantasy) game that you literally just watch people fight each other and it says you get rewards. No strategy, you don't even have your team composed or anything, so it's not even something like Auto-chess/TFT/Underlords.

That Pokemon game on the Switch worked the same way. You could manually take over but the auto gameplay just did everything perfectly anyway, and then you watch it give you rewards for literally doing nothing. You could put it on, not touch your game and just do other shit, come back and you "progressed". What's even the end goal there? You might as well watch a YouTube video and skip to the end. There isn't even an experience.

I don't play mobile games at all.
You're confusing apples and oranges in your text.