Let’s say week one your one account that boosted and is farming brd got 168 hours of golf farming done on that bot, now week 2 comes around and your at 336 hours of farming in (this is assuming no downtime)
Now let’s say instead of the boost you got 4 extra account and it took one week to get them to lvl 58 (more than reasonable considering how much faster the lvling is for 1-58 with the changes coming) the 5 accounts have 0 hours farmed and we will assume broke net even on gold. From leveling costs, riding training for the 60% mount and the mount, exc (they should have more gold, but we will just assume a net even). Now week 2, the 5 accounts would generate gold for 840 hours. Now let’s assume then it took the bots half of the second week (10.5 days of leveling total) so they only got half of that 840 hours, and instead have 420 hours of farming brd by the end of week 2. That’s STILL more than the boosted account. Now let’s go a step farther and say by week 3 3 of those accounts got banned and the boost account still isn’t banned because of luck. They would still be outpacing it. But by having more accounts they lose less from a ban. Because they don’t have all their eggs in one basket.
Bots are here for the long haul, they act as a business, there is more profit and less risk in MORE accounts during the long haul than using boosts.
So inflation? You can say inflation, we all know what that means. The bots already exist in the game now. You havent convinced me that there will magically be more.
Anyways, already there. That’s why we saw a player unload 100k on a item
Yeah so theres your target. You have found the disease. You think punishing the players is the solution but as with most antiboos you are just dead wrong
You are solving nothing asking for a non solution and convincing yourself you are accomplishing anything.
You are spraying the neighbors house and pretending it will stop the blaze. Treat the source
No bot would operate 24/7. This would immediately get them flagged. Bots generally operate 3-6 hours a day. This supports the longevity of the industry.
You say this as if these are the only choices… They would do both… More accounts, more boosts. The overhead increase in cost is barely a drop in the bucket compared to the income. I assure you, no business mentality is concerned with this distinction. You are still viewing it through the eyes and mindset of a consumer.
Second point to this, 4 additional accounts that are not boosted would take considerably longer to reach income potential at 3-6 hours a day. Even with mage boosting.
I get the more profit and less risk arguement… But there is even more profit despite any inherent risk at such as low increase in overhead.
Yes, bots are unfortunately here for the long haul. And they will abuse the heck out of that boost button. Sorry if you are unable to grasp it. I understand the mindset of a consumer - this likely does not make much sense to you and that is fine. I apologize if that comes off as condescending at all, because that is not my intention. I once thought the very same way.
Either way, I am not against boosts. I am a pro-booster. Boosts will bring more players into the game and that is a good thing for the classic project as a whole. Bots will also generate blizzard more income. I doubt Blizzard is secretly whispering to themselves “oh no…”
I do feel like fresh TBC servers without boosts/cash shop would placate many of the playerbase (even though they are a minority, they are still a sizeable group of players).
I would rather give up my geared toons, epic flier gold, farmed consumes, bank alts full of transmute and profession materials etc… to play on a fresh server. The community itself would be less likely to foster to bots.
Would there still be bots? Oh yeah, possibly even more - a fresh economy would entice that many more since they could charge even more initially for gold farmed. The community would be less likely to purchase though and many of the players who buy gold are already vested in their current servers after spending hundreds or more. The players willing to give up their weeks or months of play time are less likely to endorse real money trading.
How is Blizzard supposed to solve the problem of botting, while simultaneously making it worse? How does one put out a fire while simultaneously throwing gasoline at it?
Ah, and THIS is where your position falls apart. No other MMO has a bot problem? You have some statistics or data to back up that claim? Blizzard doesn’t WANT to fix the problem? How do you know that?
The math has already done about how boosts make bot accounts far more profitable. I don’t know if I’m allowed to link to it or not, but a simple google search will yield what you’re looking for.
But since you ducked, I’ll ask again: how do you know Blizzard doesn’t want to fix the problem? Because I tried to do a little research to see if Blizzard ever did or said anything that suggested they didn’t want to fix the problem, and all I could find was this blue post:
"I’m sorry, but the suggestion that bots help Blizzard make money or can be viewed by the company as even remotely positive is laughably ridiculous. Such an idea illustrates a fundamental lack of understanding of who these people are.
First and foremost, the majority of botting/farming accounts are exploitative. They are usually compromised accounts (meaning they’ve been stolen from normal players, often who are currently inactive so aren’t aware of the theft), or they are created with stolen credit cards.
In both cases, dealing with fraudulent charges costs the company money. That isn’t counting the negative impact is has on normal players, who may get frustrated and quit playing because they don’t want to deal with bots, gold sale advertisers, etc.
No, we certainly don’t make money from them and the amount of resources dedicated towards efforts to deal with them is substantial."