Bots are taking over in Stormwind from World of Warcraft Classic. Blizzard says: That’s good, because it means we are successful. Absurd or the truth?
If you ask the players of the “Season of Discoveries” in World of Warcraft Classic what annoys them the most right now, it’s probably the bots. They have been flooding the realms for weeks, inundating the auction house with items and offering gold for sale illegally.
The criticism is frequent: Blizzard isn’t doing anything against bots. Particularly a recent incident that showed hundreds of bots in Stormwind caused a stir. Now one of the developers says: That you see so many bots is a good sign.
Who is speaking? Josh Greenfield is a Senior Game Producer of WoW Classic and regularly engages with players on X/Twitter to discuss content. He also addressed the bot problem.
What is the problem? Especially in Stormwind, you can currently encounter hundreds of bots across all realms that continuously run from the dungeon to the enchanting vendor and back. They sell their loot and then re-enter the dungeon. This way, they farm many resources and a lot of gold, which harms the game’s economy and promotes the sale of gold at the same time.
What did Greenfield say? On Twitter, Greenfield was asked to comment on the bot issue. He initially didn’t want to, but then explained in detail why it is a good sign that so many bots are seen in the dungeon:
[…] The way it is right now is because we were effective in eliminating most other farming spots. This is like a constant fallback point for these clowns. The reality is, when we eliminate a few different farming locations, they fall back to the next best method, and that currently is the dungeon.
Bots are here to stay – no matter what Blizzard does
It’s just a matter of time before this spot is eliminated as well. However, one should not harbor the illusion that the bot problem will disappear in the foreseeable future.
We are of course looking at the dungeon, and we will ban these people – and then they are back tomorrow with a thousand new accounts. Believe me, that is just as demotivating for us, but we just have to keep going. The reality is, the more effective we are, the more visible these things become. We ban thousands of accounts, and that’s why you see more bots leveling in the open world afterward. We fix an exploit in a dungeon, and then all the farmers go to another single dungeon.
The fact that we see a change in behavior and that these people have now moved from other places to the dungeon is a good thing. It’s just hard to perceive as a player because it’s in a city and so obviously visible.
Ultimately, bots are a problem that can never be completely solved. Greenfield is not happy about this statement, but that’s the reality one has to accept:
Bots will never disappear. You can only limit them, not fix them. It’s all about making it more costly for them to continue, and that’s the best we can do. This is another reminder not to buy gold and create a market for them. That is still the most damaging for them because it reduces their profit margin and makes it more expensive for them to write new bots and hacks or maintain their farms.
No matter what you think of the bot issue, it is an interesting insight into the fight against gold sellers.
Because who would have thought that it’s a good sign when you suddenly see more bots?
