My long overdue WoW Confession- Would you get me banned?

[JohnnyKaman]

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

[Rucati]

Personally, I really don't care. A friend of mine bots all the time, he bots to get his full honor set, he bots to get mats for professions or to sell. Usually he buys an account for like $100, then he bots on it to get it fully geared up and get it some gold, then we do some arenas or something to get like 2.2k achievements or gladiator or whatever depending on the season, and then he sells it for like $200 and starts over again. Fun way for him to make a little money.

I don't really feel like botting matters all that much, but I also never farm professions, perhaps if I did it would bother me. But bots in BGs really don't concern me, most of the time you'd have lost regardless.

[glo]

They ban accounts individually, not entire IP address ranges.

As far as if it's morally wrong, not really. It's just a video game. Unless you're ruining your server's economy, it's basically like popping in a game shark on a snes.

[shise]

They ban accounts individually, not entire IP address ranges.

As far as if it's morally wrong, not really. It's just a video game. Unless you're ruining your server's economy, it's basically like popping in a game shark on a snes.

Actually, many people got several accounts banned, even some they didn't ban with, so IP ban is possible.

[JohnnyKaman]

Yea it is, a buddy got all of his accounts banned (although he undercut basically everybody selling massive amounts of cloth on the AH on several accounts)

[MrSerious]

ban all bots - zero tolerance.

Bots ruined the fun for me in battlegrounds. It got silly when more than half your team were bots and you basically sat there getting graveyard camped. Thank god for dual screens so I could just do something else while waiting it out in ghost form.

It was a factor in why I left the game, blizzard inability to control the amount of bots. If GW2 can remove bots then so should blizzard.

[ablib]

I don't understand why you bot, OP? To watch them? To learn how to do it an know you can? That doesn't take years.

What did you bot for? Farming mats? What did you do with these mats?

[DarkTZeratul]

If you bot, you get banned. Period.

Frankly, I don't understand why you would pay someone to play a game, only to use a program that plays the game for you. To say nothing of the fact that you can't even legitimately lay claim to your "accomplishments" as a result of it.

[Airwaves]

It was a factor in why I left the game, blizzard inability to control the amount of bots. If GW2 can remove bots then so should blizzard.

That isn't realy fair. Gw2 has alot less players. So there is alot less money in botting and selling gold/players. It's alot easier to control then. If gw2 was a big as wow they would have alot harder time banning them.

To add. Gw2 has bots fucking everywhere. So not sure what you are going on about lol.

[Absyrd]

If you bot, you get banned. Period.

Frankly, I don't understand why you would pay someone to play a game, only to use a program that plays the game for you. To say nothing of the fact that you can't even legitimately lay claim to your "accomplishments" as a result of it.

Some people buy accounts specifically for botting. They don't care if it gets banned nor care about any achievements obtained on it.

I personally don't care for bots as they have not impacted my play in anyway. Sometimes they're annoying in BGs but rarley have I seen it be the reason why I've lost/won a game.

[Nikkosyia]

Bots, gold farmers, gold buyers don't bother me all that much. It's when they start to abuse aspects of the game to make it horribly unbalanced / unfair that get me bloody ticked off.

Several of the high-end guilds on my realm have second accounts unlinked to them by any means; Fake addresses, disposable/redeem credit cards/alternate emails, drop/pay-to-talk phones. and just run the bots on a proxied connection on a second computer while they do their thing on their mains.

If I had the income and the setup time, I'd consider grabbing a second computer at min-specs and set one up myself.

[Berri]

I don't really care if people BoT to level or to Battleground - in my opinion, the Honor Grind is an annoying process that needs to be changed to be more user friendly anyway. If you want real battleground experiences, RBG's are a much more interesting alternative anyway.

Causing issues in the local economy through botting? Not ok.

[NightZero88]

I think people who bot should be banned. While your botting hasn't affected anything, it's better to just ban everyone who does then try to do it on a case-by-case basis.

That being said, if what you say is true in that your bot accounts have never sold anything or done BGs, etc I have to ask why on earth do you have so many bot accounts? What is the point? Seems like massive waste of money.

[lettuce]

Cheating scum. Go play a single player game if you want to ruin the experience.

[SteveZombie]

You are a fucking asshole for botting. Enough said. You speak about now good the community is yet you are part of the problem with it. I hope they ban everything you have so the last 9 years on account progression for you becomes pointless.

Botting is for lazy pricks. The more Of you they get rid of the better.

Oh my, apparently you couldn't even spare the time to read the summary at the bottom of OP's post. Ironic that you should mention anything about the community.

[Blueobelisk]

I personally think you should be banned. It doesn't matter that you didn't gain anything on your main accounts or hurt others. You cheated and gained experience and knowledge and playing time on characters you didn't properly level.

I'm SURE Blizzard gained more from this than they do from other legit players, but you still went against the ToS.

[Airwaves]

Oh my, apparently you couldn't even spare the time to read the summary at the bottom of OP's post. Ironic that you should mention anything about the community.

I have obviously enjoyed WoW a great deal, and am thankful to Blizzard and the community for creating such an immersive game.

Sorry what?

The moment he starts a bot account it has an impact on the community. Regardless of what he does with it. He might say he doesn't, but he does.

[Raleina]

I really hope they ban everything you own, you are part of a problem 99% of the people that want to enjoy the game hate with a passion.

I dont care how much you experienced from closed beta up to now but if i had the chance to report every account you had including your mains i wouldnt hesitate to do so, you sir stand for everything i hate in wow, wich is botting.

PS somehow i have the feeling he only started this thread to aggravate people

[Airwaves]

I'm SURE Blizzard gained more from this than they do from other legit players, but you still went against the ToS.

And the funny thing is. Blizzard read almost every post about wow on these forums. And it's so easy to get someone IP address. After posting this his botting days are now numbered. Dumb ass op lol.

[Normie]

I don't really want to play a game where players are replaced by bots. I pay to play with humans, even though some of them are worse behaved than bots.

So while "innocuous" botting isn't all that upsetting to me, yes, I would be happy to see OP banned.