Question of the Day, December 18, 2010

[AboveUp]

I don't really understand the whole point of running bots in a game. I mean, you're playing it because you like it, not because you have to. It feels kind of odd that people want to find a cheap way to escape what they do in their free time for enjoyment to the point they're a lot more sophisticated about it than they'd be with a paid job. That's messed up.

A friend of mine would run bots on the games he played and then proudly show me the result of how much more stuff he got in a shorter time. I basically told him that he didn't get any of it. The bot did. And that any form of calling him a proper player of that game would be a very loose definition of the term. He didn't really get it and said I was jealous. On a side note, I wasn't jealous. I was enjoying the game. He usually quits ages before me, probably because he didn't really feel any connection to it.

 

[Lucane]

I'm not that familiar with how WoW works, how exactly can this affect other players? Everyone can play at any rhythm they want, IMO. If some want to cheat and get around faster then it's their business. Where's the harm?

It'd be like you were playing poker or solitary and when you think no one's looking you slip an Ace into your hand you didn't have before to win a hand or so you can start stacking the Diamonds. If your completely by yourself then you can say your not cheating yourself, but when you have opponents/rivals/enemies/peers everyone playing with you has had to agree to play by the rules which is always set as the "Offical rules"(Terms and policy/rule book/manual/etc) unless you agree to special rules (which is given to everyone to choice to use or not.)which could be like adding cards to the deck or giving players private servers(Which MMOs don't do for a reason) but since letting players bring anything earned like that back to the offical mode would defeat the purpose as it's an outside advantage to the rules to the game.

 

[DAOWAce]

To me, running a bot in a MMORPG is like hacking in a FPS. It's cheating, unfair, it ruins competitiveness, but most of all it ruins the community, the economy.

I have fun competing in leveling races in MMORPGs, but there's people who bot (or account share), meaning I, and many others who play legit, never have a chance to win. (Happens in almost every single F2P game released.) Those people do not deserve anything but a ban and/or character deletion, not just for violating the ToS, but for foul play. Ever cheat in a tournament? That's what I'm talking about.

Bots and/or "chinese gold farmers" completely destroy any MMORPG which uses any type of ingame currency. I can't recall a MMORPG which was not affected by this. It's like piracy, a losing battle. Hell, this all like piracy. Illegal.


That said, I have used macros due to wrist pain. The most complex they've gotten were hitting a single button 10 times a second, aka turbo mode on any third party gamepad. I don't mind people using simple macros like that, but the more complex they get, the more they automate functions, the more they lean towards cheating. It just leads into a moral decision from then on.

I'd vote for options 3, 4 and 5 if I could, but I had to just choose 4.

 

[Ewyx]

People can whatever they want with something they've paid for provided it doesn't negatively affect others. And no, it does not hurt you other players when someone grows faster than you without "earning it." Being offended or annoyed or whatever is not the same as being harmed.

There are other games, where the use of bots can ruin an in-game economy, I think the official Lineage 2 servers were plagued with that.

 

[MorteSphere]

In MMOs, sure why not. Grind is fucking insufferable.

Though it raises the question as to why they would buy the game in the first place.

 

[captainfoss]

Definitely No. Takes away your integrity as a player. As you play a game, you personally are growing. Growing in skill, speed, reaction, comprehension, tactics, and etc. So to have a bot who can't gain or learn or grow play a game for you, well your loosing a lot of personal experience. As its been said over and over in posts before mine, Why would you buy a game...only to not play it? Unless you have an ego problem and NEED the top awards of everything and need this AMAZING Kill death ratio, then you should agree that bots are just a hinderance of everyones performance and take value out the game.

 

[spartan1077]

I remember back in Runescape when i would stand there and fish. For hours all it would be is click........click........click........click and so on. But there was always bots who had the liberty of being able to do that and go on the internet/play xbox and anything else. It pissed me off then and luckily I don't see it too much in WoW. Destroy the bots! You paid for it and by FSM you will play it!

 

[ajemas]

I like to think of it as being similar to steroid use. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but bear with me for a second. In sports, many steroid users say that they use them because they think that everybody else is. It's the same thing here: where a person can spend 12 hours grinding to get a huge advantage over everybody else. It practically forces the other players to use them.

 

[Nazulu]

I used to love this game called Lineage 2 but ever since it was over run by bots I just couldn't play it anymore. It's annoying to know that I'm taking all the challenges head on with the limited time I have while botters put no effort in besides setting up the bot in the first place. Usually I hear those people farm and sell the money over ebay destroying the challenge altogether, and when you have as many as L2 did it also raises the prices of all the rare items making it twice as difficult for those who don't cheat.

I selected "No, it hurts other players" because it does ruin the fun, it makes a lot of people believe it's just not worth it. Who the hell wants to play an online game with people who hack?

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Depends.

Gamers should be able to modify their games as long as it doesn't affect other players without their consent.

So a mod to make a custom map in a custom game in Halo should be fine, but no mods in matchmaking.

Of course, this wouldn't work with reach do to universal Cr.

 

[Catalyst6]

I'm not that familiar with how WoW works, how exactly can this affect other players? Everyone can play at any rhythm they want, IMO. If some want to cheat and get around faster then it's their business. Where's the harm?

Three biggest issues:
1. Since you don't really work for your gear, it is meaningless to you. And since there's a lot of bots, it drives down the intrinsic value of items that would otherwise be a joy to have.
2. Having a bot endlessly searching for a rare spawn will kill the competition for it. After all, why would John want to search for the dragon when there is 24 people that set their bots on "find dragon" and went to bed for the night?
3. The bigger problem for me is that people who bot a lot have no idea how to play their classes. You slowly learn to optimize your class by actually *playing* it. I can tell you one thing: if there is someone in your group that botted his way to level 80 then you WILL know it, if you catch my drift.

But really, it's the last point in the survey that boggles my mind. It's a game, one that you paid for. It's an experience, one that was crafted to be a lot of fun. Why would you want to ruin it?

It's like playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent with all the lights up and while watching TV. DUDE, what are you doing?!

EDIT: Since a lot of people are talking about shooters, I'd still ban them there. After all, you would have to regulate the reflexes and timing of the bots, since a human can *never* outshoot an limitless bot. But how to you regulate something like that?

 

[Bob_F_It]

So you spend XXX $/£/? on this game then you dont play it? I fail to see the point really. Where's the fun in that? It's a strange person who buys somthing then makes no use of it....like a shinny new red bike but then you dont want to scratch it so you leave it in the shed for 10 years.....Why bother?

The idea is that your bot does all the boring grinding for levels and money, and then you jump in for the more fun bits like quests and raiding. If you're one of the more damaging types, the fun bit will be selling your grinded items for real money to other players.

 

[crudus]

Why would you pay for a game and not play it? If you just want to play at the higher levels then I think you are playing for the wrong reasons. If you don't want to do that grind, there are ways to make it easier. Example, it isn't just you in the game. Talk to people, bring them with you, play with your friends, etc. I never found grinding all that mind-numbing since I played with other people. It was fun. It also gives an unfair advantage to the people using the bots, etc.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

As I posted yesterday, when this first hit the News section here:

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the concept of paying a subscription fee for a game and then buying a program to play that game for you because you can't be bothered to play it enough. Some folks have more dollars than sense, I guess.

WoW in particular, and a lot of MMOs in general, is balanced with the assumption of human play and human limits on play. What Glider (or any other bot) does is get rid of those limits... it's like corking the bat in baseball, or using a laser sight in a biathlon [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon] match, giving the user an unfair mechanical advantage over others.

It also disrupts the game economy, making rare items and encounters scarcer for players who don't 'bot... so the "it's just cheating the computer" argument doesn't apply.

Grinding is a part of WoW, just like not touching the ball with your hands is part of soccer/football or not using a compressed air-cannon in golf. Don't like it? Find another game to play (as I do) because it's just not the game for you.

-- Steve

 

[CCountZero]

2. Having a bot endlessly searching for a rare spawn will kill the competition for it. After all, why would John want to search for the dragon when there is 24 people that set their bots on "find dragon" and went to bed for the night?

This is 100% true, and it translates quite well to the game economy as a whole. One might argue that there's not all that much economy in WoW, but if there's even a shred present, there's a shred to destroy.

3. The bigger problem for me is that people who bot a lot have no idea how to play their classes. You slowly learn to optimize your class by actually *playing* it. I can tell you one thing: if there is someone in your group that botted his way to level 80 then you WILL know it, if you catch my drift.

Being a veteran of the EU Open Beta and a non-stop player and hardcore PuG'er, as well as Raider and Dungeoneer, I'd be very much inclined to support this statement. (No-Life'r)
But, I do feel it has to be said that, in my opinion, WoW is getting increasingly simplified.
At this point, most classes pretty much look alike in terms of gameplay mechanics.
Feels a bit as if Blizzard is digging the hole deeper. My biggest issue with Bots is the same as yours; that they kill the individual's knowledge of their class, but I see so many players, too many to pin Bots on, with no idea how to play, Bots or not.
I don't know why this is.
Maybe it's me getting better, while they're at a standstill.
I think a lot of people these days avoid Dungeons as a whole though, or maybe they just don't get in there that much because they have no WoW friends to help their DPS classes avoid the 45 minute Dungeon Tool queues.
This will naturally lead to them leveling alone, never learning anything other than that.

Personally, I've always hated leveling. I've never used a Bot, opting instead to Dungeon my way to the top.
Having Cataclysm now has definetely made it more enjoyable, seeing as I haven't seen the quests fifteen times before, but this Bot case long predates that.
I can't help but feel some sympathy for the people avoiding the long, and frankly completely unneccesary, leveling chain.
Leveling alone simply doesn't teach you any skills that would have been helpful to other players in your five-man or raid group.
Because of this, this point in the criticism is slowly losing it's meaning to me.

But really, it's the last point in the survey that boggles my mind. It's a game, one that you paid for. It's an experience, one that was crafted to be a lot of fun. Why would you want to ruin it?

Speaking again as a very, very long time Vet, the experience of leveling yet another toon in the same places that I've seen, literally, fifteen times before or above, is not a good one.
I strongly symphatize with people who feel that skipping the first 70 levels or so is neccesary to their enjoyment of the game.
That's not to say that everyone would have the same excuse as me. (and I never used mine.)

EDIT: Since a lot of people are talking about shooters, I'd still ban them there. After all, you would have to regulate the reflexes and timing of the bots, since a human can *never* outshoot an limitless bot. But how to you regulate something like that?

In shooters, using a bot, who will often have superiour reflexes, aiming and observational skills than a human player, comes down to ruining the gameplay experience for the legit players.
It's despicable, and there's no excuse.
I have no symphathy for this.
I can see why people might wanna Bot their way to max level in Black Ops, to get access to the AK or whatnot, but by doing so they mess with the other players.
That's inexcuseable.

 

[Evilsanta]

I just have to qoute the option i choosed "Why would you pay to not play a game you paid for?"

Ok, I can see why you would us a bot but id rather play and have somewhat fun then not play at all.

 

[Dora]

I really don't get the big deal here. I don't see how someone being able to use a program to get what they want somehow invalidates my experience or enjoyment of doing the same thing. I can sort of see the appeal, personally; I don't really play MMOs anymore because to be any good at anything you need to grind all your skills, and to me that's not fun, that's work, and that's not what I play a game for. How is this any different than, say, Ultima Online allowing players to purchase advanced character tokens or super powerful weapons? Admittedly I don't play competitive PvP, though isn't that what banning players from servers is for if you don't like how they play? WoW HAS to be a big enough game that if seeing a bot upsets you so much there are other places you can adventure. As far as I'm concerned if someone just wants a strong character to have fun on when they DO play, I could care less. It doesn't hurt me. It's just a game.

 

[Guest_Star]

Why use bots at all?
If the game is so grindy that you can't be arsed to do it yerself, why bother to play?
And if it's a pay-for-play game, like WoW and all those other EMEMEMPORGEES, it's even more idiotic.

Now, I've used bots myself in numerous games, but as trainers or to fill up otherwise empty servers. But I've never considered using bots to advance my stats or whatever. Why would I?
Yeah, I could consider using a bot to harvest wood or sumthing in Minecraft SP, but then again it's easier modding the savegames.

 

[coldfrog]

I have a weird feeling about this, but this is because I like to roleplay - it would be fun if a guild that role-played was allowed to run bots in a certain way - the idea being to put on a complex show in an area. You wouldn't let them fight things, but you could have them move their characters in specific patterns and speak in time so that it tells a story without having to eliminate your entire bar filling it up with macros for instance. If Blizzard released a sort of role-play bot that would let you move and talk but nothing else, it could make for some decent roleplaying situations. But I guarantee people would find ways around it so I'm OK with the current situation as it is.

For a lot of things, though, it hurts people's fun, and that's just rude.