Question of the Day, December 18, 2010

[mazeut]

Personally, I think botting is disrespectful to other people in a game. In mmo's I've never seen anyone using a bot to grind for xp, or I didn't notice, but I have seen them in places like battle grounds where they can completely throw a game for your side. Also, botting and gold farming go hand in hand and running into a zone full of those guys can ruin your day if you were planing on doing some crafting.

The only game I didn't mind botting in was Eve online because there was nothing stopping you from burning their ships to a cinder, collecting their frozen corpses as trophies, taking their ore and salvaging their wrecks. I think there was actually an ongoing war in there between gold farmers (isk in eve) and various greifing corps.

 

[Jake the Snake]

The fact you're resorting to a bot to play a game, A GAME, something that is supposed to be entertaining to you, clearly shows that the game is not doing its job and you need to stop playing.

Seriously, everybody, stop playing WoW. Your lives will be infinitely better.

 

[Dana22]

People who picked first answer, "Yes, they paid for the game so they can do what they want", really need to rethink over this issue.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Best games like Mount & Blade Warband that has Bots on both sides plus other players that can join in, are very enjoyable battles... some times glitchy (refering to sieges and other gamemodes), but still if you want a big ass battle this is still the best way to have a global feeling of what you want...

so if theres only bots like in starwars Battlefront 2, and you cannot enjoy it with other players, then yes that sucks, cause you cannot share the experience.

 

[Alar]

Bots aren't intended to be a part of the game, and they create an unfair advantage over those who want to play the game as the way it was designed. Thus are bots a bad thing, which shouldn't be allowed.

A lawsuit is a bit too much though. IP-ban the fellow so he can't play anymore, or something.

IP addresses can be changed. It's very, -very- easy to do so. If that's not what you mean by IP ban, then perhaps I've missed something.

 

[linwolf]

Voted "Why would you pay to not play a game you paid for"
But for me as long that it don't affect me I don't care what people do.

 

[Lawyer105]

In any game where using a bot will affect other players - absolutely not!

In any game (e.g. LotRO, WoW) where there are MASSIVE amounts of grind, often for very little reward, then hell yes. Not everybody has 8+ hours per day to grind stuff.

Until games companies start rewarding skill (or pretty much ANYTHING other than grind-time), I'm all for allowing the use of bots to offset the ridiculous amounts of grind most companies insert into their games.

I know people have said : "Why not just stop playing?", but many of these games have plenty of things that are WORTH playing, WORTH spending time and money on. Unfortunately, most of them are buried under all the grind that is required to support them.

So yeah. If the company wants grind, let the bot do it. Come back and do the fun stuff later, once the bot has ground out the tedious time-sink-stuff for you.

 

[mew4ever23]

Why pay to let a bot play a game? It's foolish.

 

[Void(null)]

Bots inflate the economy in an MMO making the over all more expensive, grindy and unenjoyable for everyone else.

I am anti bot in all its forms, from fishing bots to grind bots to aim bots.

 

[daftalchemist]

I would say it's ok only in certain cases. For instance, I would gladly use a bot for fishing in WoW. I leveled that shit to max manually, and it was murder. So I think minor game aspects like that is fine to use a bot for, but not major game aspects like fighting, leveling, and questing.

 

[kouriichi]

F*** no.
It completely breaks the ingame economy and ruins the whole expiriance for everyone else playing the game.

 

[icame]

No they should not.

 

[Exort]

I don't think they should be allowed, as it puts them at an unfair advantage over those without bots, as their in-game rewards are not earned.

It isn't unfair if everyone has access to them - which they obviously do, seeing as they are playing an online game.

But you have to buy it from a third party company.
So should you able to buy level, gear, gold?

 

[saruman31]

Games should not make you use a bot.

 

[crazypsyko666]

I was a fan of bots back in the days of my 2D MMO playing era. Let me clear something up: I hate grinding. I don't just dislike it, I detest it with a fiery passion. It is a cop-out, and a cheap way to generate content. That said, I completely understand why developers do it with MMOs, they want you hooked for as long as possible. I don't know how comprehensive these WoW bots are, but the ones I used could be used to circumvent grinding altogether with programmed pathfinding, hunting protocols, gathering protocols, quest turn in programs, with automatic spellcasting and combat maneuvers (if you have the time to program them by hand.)

The two most popular aspects were playing the game like you had seven hands, and not grinding ever. You see, I liked to play games for the events, for the big raids, that was FUN. Finding newer, better gear on my journeys, things like that.

So, I'd like to use bots. I'd like to use them to get to the good parts, to have a lot of fun, and not waste my time. I'd also like there to be a little bit of automation in-game (have you SEEN all of those buttons on the WoW GUI? I don't have three hands!) I believe that difficult to play does not make something a hard game. It makes it frustrating.

 

[unacomn]

No, and the only reason I've ever thought about botting was because the MMO I was playing became a grindfest, and I eventually quit because it wasn't fun anymore.

Plus, I was the only guy on the server left who wasn't botting, so it wasn't exactly a fair race. It really ticks me off when I'm made to feel like crap for not cheating like everyone else.

 

[Rallion]

Bots shouldn't be allowed. If you feel like a game is too grindy, then you can go play a different game. What some people see as grind, other people like. Bots ruin the game for those other people.

To those who say that a person who bought a game should be able to do what they want, I would compare buying an MMO to buying a house in a neighborhood. You can mostly do what you want, but there are limits to what's acceptable, because you have neighbors.

 

[rda_Highlander]

MMORPG should have the opportunity, even moreso - I think that bots should be implanted in the game itself - but there should be statistics showing how long and on what level did player used the bot - so "hardcore" fans that build their character by hand, could have something to brag about; maybe there should also be some kind of punishment for bots - like mobs not dropping rare loot, or bonuses for non-bot play, like faster level-ups or something like that.
In shooters or other non-rpg - simply no. These are games of pure skill and playing them with the help of bots is like f**king prostitutes at the swinger party. You will think you`re awesome and popular but everyone else will know that you are an ugly cheating lonely moron.
Yeah, I've got issues.

 

[SinisterGehe]

It's f*cking ridiculous that one can risk getting prosecuted because one has cheated in a f*cking GAME!
I voted they can do what they want because they paid for the game, but after a second thought, I think they should be able to be banned or restricted in somehow. But going outside the jurisdiction of the game is absolutely ridiculous.

He didn't only cheat, he sold ways for others to cheat.
Lets say you are a locksmith and you create locks for your living with the promise that these can be opened by a single unique key. A someone else find a way to expose your lock, see its secret and then sell tools for others to open any lock made by you and generates extreme profit. Would you be OK with this? (Think this a metaphorical question, do not think it as a realistic example...)







To the topic itself...
Let me quote this from the other topic I posted to.

I really don't understand it anyways.

So what if there is a bot playing your character? WoW or RS, it doesn't matter. On WoW, the player with the bot still gives money to Blizzard monthly, I really don't see the issue. I approve for bots to simply grind the tasks I don't wish to participate in and focus on more interesting sides of such game.

But I suppose I will get flak or arguments against it, be my guest.

Well, that is not really the issue here (in my opinion).
Since these people can stay on-line grinding materials and gold 24/7 if they want to, with those resources they are able not only to destroy the servers economy with the auctions house but also make gaming experience worse to other people of the community. When these other people of community get displeased to the game (Lets say we have one botter who gathered resources to crash the market and turn everything really expensive with the manner of buy everything and sell expensive...), and from the actions of one botter 10 people got displeased and lost their enjoyment for the game (since the servers economy plays a big part in the later gaming experience since gear, potions and such are vital for progress in harder content) and they decided to cancel their subscription, this is for 11euros income for person who both they will loose 110 euros, would you be happy about that as a businessman?

The question becomes a clear paradox since we have no set guidelines to limit this subject. On contrast hes freedom of speech and act allows him to use the license of the game as he sees fit (Unless the breaks the agreement he agreed to be allowed to use that license). Blizzard as a company has a right to make sure their license are not abused, or behavior of a certain customer will not disrupt the gaming experience of other customers (Abuse behavior rules). There is also a legal and contract wise aspect against the program and selling it, he is making money by selling a program that uses another program without the agreement of the owner of the program that is being controlled and if this is Illegal or against the terms to use the program, the person selling this program and hes customers using this program are in the situation to be punished.

I have myself played wow on a server that had a good deal of botters, cheaters and gold spamers. The lag to the server was horrible, economy of server down the drain, value of items high and basic resources low, people who didn't buy money just couldn't be able to sustain the amount or resources required to succeed in the hard PvE and PvP content, grinding all of these materials was impossible and extremely impractical, since all areas that had a certain resources were being harvested by people using questionable means for it.

( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.251462-Legal-Battle-Between-Glider-and-Blizzard-Will-Likely-Continue#9337449 )

 

[CardinalPiggles]

clearly no one cares about the developers rights

either that or they dont understand what that entails exactly.