In World of Warcraft Classic there is a bot epidemic. Stormwind has more automated farmers than actual players.
In World of Warcraft Classic, many players are currently spending their time in the Season of Discovery. Just a few days ago, the second phase started with numerous new content. With this came the controversial decision that GDKP is now banned. But another problem has now become apparent: bots. And there are so many that real characters are likely in the minority.
A YouTuber is raising awareness of this issue and documenting how an almost endless stream of bots is making the city of Stormwind unsafe.
What does the video show? The short video by Vixacious shows his observation on the realm “Lone Wolf” of the Season of Discovery. He is in the capital Stormwind and observes the area at the Mage Quarter, between the dungeon and the enchanting vendor:
Here, hundreds of bots seem to be fully automated, walking back and forth between the dungeon and the vendor on three different paths.
Why is this so obvious now? The fact that the bots are now so clearly visible to everyone is due to a change in the past few days. Normally, there are numerous “layers” in Stormwind, meaning multiple “instances” of the city, so only a fraction of the characters can be seen, allowing the game to run smoothly. A few days ago, however, Blizzard reduced the number of layers, so now more characters are simultaneously in the city, making the bot problem visible in its full extent.
What are the bots doing there? The bots repeatedly visit the dungeon “The Stockade” and endlessly farm it to collect various items. A large part of that is turned into gold and sold directly to the vendor, while more useful items are presumably sold at the auction house.
In this way, the bots accumulate a lot of gold, which is then sold to players – a practice that is technically illegal and has become less lucrative due to the ban on GDKP. However, the sheer number of bots shows that the business still seems to be worthwhile.
How the community reacts: The sight of this sheer number of bots leaves most players dumbfounded. After all, the bots also ensure that the realms sometimes appear as “full” and there are waiting times when logging in.
“There are more bots than players in Stormwind.” – kcid3991
A large portion of the people, however, also reacts extremely cynically and mocks Blizzard and their banning policy:
- “This behavior is just too hard to ban, sorry. Running the exact same path pixel-perfect for weeks is not a trustworthy sign of a bot.” – Luxleftboob
- “Sorry guys, we can’t ban them because then the bot creators will know what gave them away! If we wait, it will be a huge secret for them! … lol” – JuanoldDraper
- “So the bot problem hasn’t disappeared at all, they’ve just moved them to other layers so that the illusion of fewer bots was created.” – Powpowpowowowo
Many confirm that it looks quite similar on their realms and that such “bot armies” not only occur in Stormwind but also at many other places in the open world.
Are you also suffering from the bots? Or have you not been able to spot any so far?
Another player just wanted to prove that there is no customer service anymore – and Blizzard fell into the trap.
