Lately there has been a lot of talk about bots in WoW. Many of us can remember just how bad the bots were in WoD. They were so bad in battlegrounds that it was common to have a solid 1/3 of the participants in a battleground to be bots. You can see masses of them farming herbs and ore in the world, all tailing each other in the same path. if you don’t remember or were not around just head over to youtube and search for WoD battleground bots and you’ll find some hiliariously pathetic videos showing just how bad it was.
During WoD, when the bots were so bad, Blizzard finally did a suspension wave. It wasn’t a ban wave, it was a suspension wave. Nearly every single cheater that was suspended was right back at it 6 months later. WoD was the first expansion where suspension waves became a thing and Blizzard stopped actually banning in waves.
Every other Blizzard game out there Blizzard will actually ban a player caught cheating. Try cheating and getting caught in Hearthstone, Overwatch, Diablo, or Heroes of the Storm. There is a good chance you will actually be banned and the only way to play again is to buy a new account. Here in World of Warcraft Blizzard claims that suspending cheaters makes cheaters stop cheating while banning cheaters makes cheaters keep cheating. Many of us laugh at something like this, it’s whatever though. I am a firm believer in closing the account on a cheater, ban them all. The cheater didn’t respect the game nor did they respect all the legit players. They just wanted to get a one up on the rest of the population that doesn’t cheat.
If I ran a video game company I would want players to look up to my responsibility and integrity for said game. I’d close the accounts on cheaters.
If you, the reader, ran a video game company would you ban cheaters or just slap them on the wrist for cheating and allow them to keep coming back?
Here is a reference as to why Blizzard doesn’t ban cheaters anymore. https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20043676375?page=2#24
Except that they weren’t, or Blizz would’ve gone back to banning them. It’s easy to say, “Oh, but Blizzard wants money.”
People who cheat more than once are spending more money to buy a new account and cheat than to resume cheating on their original account. If it were about money, Blizz would unilaterally ban.
People using this line don’t care about the actual integrity of the game or the end effect on its playerbase. They’re only thinking about satisfying their own vindictiveness.
They do suspensions because they found when they banned people they’d just buy a new account and start cheating again right away, whereas more of them will wait out the suspension if it’s not permanent. Whether or not they resume botting or what have you after those 6 months doesn’t really matter if the suspensions keep them gone longer.
I imagine people that steady bot would likely have multiple accounts since you can buy accounts and time with gold. losing an account or two for a handful of months isn’t a huge hit when you have numerous accounts paid for in gold.
Blizzard is free to have any stance on cheaters they like, but when it comes down to it, people don’t like playing a game where cheaters are rampant and get only a slap on the wrist. Let the sub numbers decide
Every time there was a wave I spent some time lurking on the forums of that bot that no longer exists. I can tell you two things: Lores post from that thread you linked does have some truth. Not for every botter of course, but for more than one or two for sure. The second thing, and this is the real big one, is that blizzard wants to break the bot itself more than go after the botters. This makes sense to me.
Why continue plugging holes in the dam if you can build a stronger and better dam with less leaks? They actually study the botters once they are on their radar and gather information to fight the bot company itself. Go directly to the source. Once someone has botted, they are probably on the radar with that account forever, even after their suspension is over. Much easier to track then down if they’re already on the list rather than looking for whatever new account they made.
With that said here are a couple of other random notes from what information I gathered back then. Most botters have more than one account. They were encouraged to make a report when they were banned or suspended based on a template provided by the company. It seemed like every post was like “6/8 accounts suspended on this date”. There was also the golden rule: don’t ever bot on account you can’t stand to lose. Don’t use your main account because it’s not a matter of if you will get caught but when. So, in the face of all of that I would say the focus should be on taking down the bot itself.
Delving even deeper I’ll say this: for that one you bought a key for eacg account or you bought a lifetime key. If I had bought 8 keys and I could get it back in 6 months I wouldn’t want to start over. I dunno what the lifetime thing was like.
Also, you’re skirting around the main point. Kill the bot itself and they won’t have a way to bot.
I remember when you saw what was a bot, then a GM would come look. Of course , as the game grew, that became impossible.
Now it is automated detection, with ban waves.
It looks worse to us, but I’m sure blizzard would back me up when I say more people are banned. Those people are also more pro with more throw away accounts.
![:sunglasses:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sunglasses.png?v=6" ":sunglasses:")