The popularity of World of Warcraft Classic has been pleasantly surprising, with Blizzard confirming that even a medium-sized server today has roughly four times as many players as the busiest servers during the original release of the game. Bots have been a persistent issue since the launch of classic, and now that two weeks have passed since Blizzard banned 74,000 accounts for the behavior, has anything really changed?
What Were Bots Doing?
There were several types of botting programs being used towards different goals. The most noticeable out in the world of Azeroth could be seen while leveling, as a character would appear to be grinding the same area, repeatedly, for hours at a time, or farming Honorable Kills in Battlegrounds. These bots sometimes get stuck in a movement loop and run over and over into an obstacle, never able to get beyond what a normal player would easily do.
There were also the bots that ran a similar farming loop in Stratholme, visible by using the “/Who” feature for instances. These would primarily be Mages and Druids who would farm all day, every day. However, players did see a benefit to this, as rare enchanting materials like Righteous Orbs were always in supply in the Auction House for cheap, which is a necessary reagent for the Crusader weapon enchant. Reddit user LJBlom points out how the players below are hard at work at 5AM in Stralholme, every single day, and these posts were all over the forums.
Lastly, bots were also being used to boost other characters. These bots would spam a message near a dungeon, accept payment from an interested party, and then proceed to pull virtually the entire instance and once shot everything. For 10 gold or so, players could rack up experience quickly, which may not have seemed like an attractive offer when Classic first launched, but for a fourth or fifth alt, is quite the lucrative method of leveling.
Most of these bots all work towards the same goal, and that is acquiring as much gold as possible to resell on a third party website, completely against the terms of service agreement, but clearly popular enough to sustain interest in a broad scale.
The Ban – Immediate And After Effects
On June 17, Blizzard confirmed that 74,000 bots cried out at once as their robotic souls were silenced with a wave of bans. The immediate effects could be seen right away, as Stratholme was suddenly without its same group of Mages, and there were fewer spams going around for boosts. The secondary effect could be heard by the lamentations of players in major cities as certain items, those found in Stratholme, became scarce in supply, and spiked in price. This second piece was interesting, as the complaints over prices were mixed in with the rejoicing of bots having been banned in such great numbers.
However, it was apparent within no time that a new wave of bots was being boosted as quickly as possible in the coming days. On most servers, images like the one below are common place, and actively inspecting most of these Mages reveals little more than grey and white gear, while fresh level 60 characters are decked out in a range of strange pieces of gear, most of which is Bind of Equip and purchased from the Auction House. Stratholme is once again quite full most of the time, and it feels like the ban has only a temporary effect on improving things in game.
Real Players Keeping Botting Alive
As mentioned, one of the benefits to bots is that the supply of certain goods is always high, and the prices somewhat low as a result. However, the main goal of most botters is to farm as much gold as possible for resale to players via third party websites. The implication here should be obvious, and that is that botters only exist because there is a market for their product. If real players were not eagerly buying up thousands of gold rather than earn it on their own, gold farming for sale would not be a profitable activity, but it clearly is.
A quick read online in forums like r/Classicwow reveal a common point among many players, and that is that buying some gold every now and again is incredibly useful to pick up that next goal that is gated by virtual currency, be it Epic Riding, Edgemaster’s Handguards, consumables for raiding, or something else. While the community may collectively groan and complain to no end about bots in Classic, there is clearly enough demand for their product to keep them working 24/7, even after a massive ban wave like that one from mid June.
Long-Term Impact
Ultimately, Blizzard is against botting, but if they do not take consistent, repeated action against botting, the situation is unlikely to change in the coming months. One point that should be noted is that botting software is vastly different today when compared to ten and fifteen years ago, to the point where Blizzard’s slow, methodical approach to banning bots may take time to ensure they are not accidentally banning real players who engage in repetitive behavior. As we wrote with regards to the Black Lotus market dominance a few weeks ago, it was not bots snapping up the rare and limited supply of herbs, but dedicated players who were online all the time and communicating through Discord.
In the end, we may not see a permanent solution to the botting in Classic, and that is a real shame since it does break much of the immersion of certain aspects of gameplay, but then again, players are certainly encouraging and supporting gold farmers to keep snapping up as much gold for resale as possible, and that is a cycle that may never be broken.
NEXT: 5 Theories And Rumors About The Dr Disrespect Ban
