The fantasy MMORPG World of Warcraft has supposedly banned 100,000 users of illegal tools, known as bots, for 6 months.
It is no secret: Botting in World of Warcraft has become a business and is widespread. It can sometimes happen that you are the only “human” in a battleground while computers are hunting each other.
Now Blizzard has again taken action against bots. Officially, they speak of “many” users, in a conversation with a player, a game master even mentions over 100,000.
Dhe has received a 6-month ban. It seems that primarily users of the notorious “Honorbuddy” bot have been hit the hardest. It is usually used to farm honor in battlegrounds without the character owners having to struggle with something as tedious as moving themselves.
Blizzard also clearly states what botting is: as soon as you find a program that “presses buttons for you,” it is botting and you can be punished for it.
Botting is defined as automation of any action, not just character movement. If a program is pressing keys for you, you’ve violated the ToU.
— Bashiok (@Bashiok) May 13, 2015
PCGamesN also looked at how the botters react and was in one of the notorious hacker forums. It seems to be working:
