Players often complain that WoW does nothing against bots. What does Blizzard say about that?
Among the many fun killers that roam MMORPGs are various bots. Often, accounts are fully automated, and the characters follow a specific route to collect as many profitable resources as possible. This ranges from herbs to ores and leather, as well as gathering honor points in battlegrounds. The corresponding characters usually ruin the fun for other players or disturb the economy – often both.
The frustration of players is often brought to the official forums, where they accuse the game developers: You do nothing! The bot users pay subscription fees, so you just let them do whatever!
Just a few days ago, Blizzard spoke up through the customer service representative Glaxigrav and explained why banning bots sometimes takes longer and what difficulties exist.
“We can and take actions against bots. But these might not always be the massive clean-up waves where thousands of voices scream in horror and then fall silent. Our actions happen on several levels.
Some are simple: A game master reviews a single report, and then we don’t need any further information: We immediately ban the player. In other cases, we monitor and then identify the bot without needing player reports. Mass bans also occur, but people who use bots rarely come to the forums to complain about it. (…)
As in real life, this is a never-ending game of “The Good against the Bad.” We set a mousetrap; they build a better mouse, then we improve the mousetrap, and so on.”
The thread creator then accused Blizzard of being able to have had the information for 10 years if they only spent “10 to 20 dollars on a bot.”
The response came promptly:
“That assumes that bots haven’t evolved in the last 11 years. There are a few bot manufacturers who would certainly disagree with you. (…) I can understand your frustration, but I also want you to have realistic expectations.
Bots and cheat programs will exist in every game as long as there is a market for them: Unfortunately, players who buy gold or engage in other real-money transactions bolster the use of bots. (…) As long as bots exist, we will continue to weed them out.”
