Blizzard awarded $6 million in damages from WoW bot maker

This is retarded. Blizzard makes a huge amount of money off WoW and they are picking on some guy carving out his own living with his Bot program. It's also setting some bullshit precedents by letting them do this.

This just in:

Blizzard owns your RAM. You do not. If you do something to your own RAM that Blizzard disapproves of, you have to pay them all of your money.

Wait...WHAT? If you USE a bot, it's copyright infringement?

That makes no freaking sense. If you buy a game, then it should BELONG TO YOU. Buying a "liscence" to play a game makes no sense. It's like saying: "Yeah, you paid 60 bucks for the disk and box, but we're only renting it to you"

I can understand them being ticked at people who make bots, but sheesh... you want to go after the newb guy who's just using a bot so he can catch up to his level 9999 friends, and actually have some fun?

Oh, and how the hell is it COPYRIGHT infrigement? You're not pirating the game and mass distributing it, or making a blatant rip off of the game. You're just using a program that allows the game to play on it's own (and you're still paying Blizzard for that month's fee anyway)

What's next? Your future employers can hack into your brain, and if your mind is too dirty, you are automatically turned away?

Hmmmm.... this is kind of interesting. It seems to me that Blizzard is trying to say that if you alter WoW in your RAM by running it with a bot, it suddenly becomes a different piece of software which contains unlicensed code copyrighted by Blizzard. From this perspective you are guilty of copyright infringement by running or distributing the altered program. This brings up all kinds of issues with mods, patches, or user-created content within a game.

As far as the license goes, it seems like a really jerk thing to do, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal. Stop playing the game if you aren't okay with never actually owning a copy of it. That's one of the reasons that I don't play.

I also don't believe that bots add to the overall happiness within the game. The one person using a bot might be happier, but the 100 people that he rapes with his newly-gained abilities are probably not. Regardless, that doesn't really make any difference because this is a purely legal issue.

I do find it funny that people will pay money to avoid playing a game that they pay money to play. What the hell is that about?

I've never played Wow or any other MMOPRG besides Runescape, and that was years ago. I guess this is an incentive for me to hate Blizzard now.

[quote="Zank_Tripper "]This brings up all kinds of issues with mods, patches, or user-created content within a game.[/quote]
Not really, so long as you use Blizzard approved modding tools within the agreements of said tools.

[quote="Zank_Tripper "]Hmmmm.... this is kind of interesting. It seems to me that Blizzard is trying to say that if you alter WoW in your RAM by running it with a bot, it suddenly becomes a different piece of software which contains unlicensed code copyrighted by Blizzard. From this perspective you are guilty of copyright infringement by running or distributing the altered program.[/quote]That sounds logical. Aegix Drakan, your concept is what Microsoft has been doing with Windows for ages now. You pay for the software, not the medium it is provided on.

lol, thats so retarded but coming from a WoW player it's awesome they are cracking down on bot programs. That shit ruined D2.

Aegix Drakan wrote:Wait...WHAT? If you USE a bot, it's copyright infringement?

That makes no freaking sense. If you buy a game, then it should BELONG TO YOU. Buying a "liscence" to play a game makes no sense. It's like saying: "Yeah, you paid 60 bucks for the disk and box, but we're only renting it to you"

I can understand them being ticked at people who make bots, but sheesh... you want to go after the newb guy who's just using a bot so he can catch up to his level 9999 friends, and actually have some fun?

Oh, and how the hell is it COPYRIGHT infrigement? You're not pirating the game and mass distributing it, or making a blatant rip off of the game. You're just using a program that allows the game to play on it's own (and you're still paying Blizzard for that month's fee anyway)

What's next? Your future employers can hack into your brain, and if your mind is too dirty, you are automatically turned away?

I'm pretty sure in the ToS, it says bots are illegal. If you don't like it don't play. It's not complicated.

Bots are for noobs any way. If you need a bot to level you deserve to get sued.

So, Getting a bot to do things for you VS wasting literally DAYS/WEEKS/etc. of your life to do it yourself counts as noobish? It may just be me but that sounds illogical.


And Blizzard is just doing what any company with a giant wad of cash does, be a gigantic douchebag.

majoras_wrath wrote:So, Getting a bot to do things for you VS wasting literally DAYS/WEEKS/etc. of your life to do it yourself counts as noobish? It may just be me but that sounds illogical.


And Blizzard is just doing what any company with a giant wad of cash does, be a gigantic douchebag.

If you feel like you're wasting your life playing WoW than why are you playing?

Getting a bot to play the game for you is noobish. Like what Beldaran said. You're paying money to play, but you want to buy a bot that will play for you? Whats the point of even playing then.

The point is that MMORPGs are garbage. Some people do like the aspect of being elite and they will pay money for it. So, rather than waste time playing a retarded MMORPG, they just spend money to do all the retarded part of the game and only spend their time doing whatever is actually fun in the game by being powerful. Sounds to me like THEY ARE the smart ones playing the game. But you know what, I don't give a shit. I just think this sets a bad example and expands the power of corporations to fuck over the little guy.

I like a few of Blizzard's games. But unlike the people that play WoW religiously and suck Blizzard's cock, I have better things to do with my time.

Archibaldo wrote:If you feel like you're wasting your life playing WoW than why are you playing?

Getting a bot to play the game for you is noobish. Like what Beldaran said. You're paying money to play, but you want to buy a bot that will play for you? Whats the point of even playing then.

While it's a given that MMO's require work to become powerful (or equivalent, depending on the MMO) so that you can do most of what the game offers (if not all), World of Warcraft is just retarded. I play WoW on private servers where the experience rates are around 15-20x of what the "official" rates are and it feels just right... I actually feel a sense of accomplishment (well, if MMO's actually accomplish anything :P) as opposed to giving up at level 5 because I've been playing for a week commiting genocide to wolves (or whatever weak animal is near the starting point of your race) and getting no where fast. Lemme rephrase: Bots on a game like WoW is almost (ALMOST) necessary if you expect to reach a point where you can actually have some FUN. The fact that you play to play WoW (well, I don't, so :tongue: ) means they can make reaching level 2 cost 4572346951236051251 exp points and you get 1-5 per kill on any monster and you'd still play.

RuneScape, even though its graphics are shitty, is reasonable with the whole levelling thing. even at early levels you can still do a bunch of things, as opposed to WoW where you can't do 95% of things until you reach level 70 (or otherwise the max level).

(I've tried MapleStory and RO, and in my opinion they both suck, in my opinion)

EDIT: And judging by the rep Archi gave me, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he's one of those religious players of WoW that suck Blizzard's cock.

EDIT2: And noticing that I only lost a point, I will go laugh out loud without using the acronym for it.

I actually don't play WoW anymore and haven't for a long time. But I've heard that Blizzard has made it retardedly easy to level now, with the refer a friend double level and reducing the amount of experience needed to level between 30 and 40 or something like that. Buying a bot to level for you is the definition of lazy. Leveling is half the fun of playing. It's like playing a game on easy just to see the story. You could do it, but you're a total noob if you do.

People who use bots have no sense of reward for hard work. Blizzard makes end game so awesome because its a reward for being so determined to level all the way. If you need a bot that badly, then maybe video games are not for you.

majoras_wrath wrote:So, Getting a bot to do things for you VS wasting literally DAYS/WEEKS/etc. of your life to do it yourself counts as noobish? It may just be me but that sounds illogical.


And Blizzard is just doing what any company with a giant wad of cash does, be a gigantic douchebag.

There are people who expect non-developer *nix users to write their own device drivers, along with zealots who also think it's n00bish to use X instead of running your system completely out of the shell. The internet is a strange place.

That aside, the only joy that WoW can ever bring you is that feeling of empty satisfaction you get when you tell other WoW users that you've spent more time playing the game than them. So having a bot play the game through the boring, repetitive leveling is cheating that.

This will do absolutely nothing. Bot makers aren't only from the USA, they're also from countries who don't give a flying fuck about US rulings, and even with WoWGlider taken out there are still tons of them.

Also, WoW is pretty dumb. I still have an account, but only to keep up with some friends of mine. I've actually given Warhammer Online a spin recently, though, and it basically takes the only fun part of WoW (Battlegrounds and PvP) and focuses the entire game around it and allows you to level from it.

Good. Game companies need to get rid of these ass holes one at a time. Fucking things up and ruining good games for everyone by letting the lazy ass holes of the world have it all for nothing.

6 mil? Throw it on the pile.

How are the lazy people ruining anything? MMO's (but especially WoW), in regards to leveling and things of that nature, are like trying to walk from one coast of the US to the other. You're complaining about people who get there using cars/trains/planes/etc. to travel. Sure, walking is more rewarding, but that's just it. You're walking for no other purpose than to reach your destination. So instead of doing it the sucker way, be a lazy asshole and save yourself time and frustration (among other things), and actually have the FUN you're (ideally) supposed to have by being powerful. And I don't mean "cheat your way to the maximum level", hell, if you wanna get to level 30-40 in half (or less) the time, do it and then level/play the hard way from there.

Samson007 wrote:Good. Game companies need to get rid of these ass holes one at a time. Fucking things up and ruining good games for everyone by letting the lazy ass holes of the world have it all for nothing.

6 mil? Throw it on the pile.

All the "hard working (retards)" in the end receive the same thing as the lazy assholes: NOTHING BECAUSE IT'S A GAME.

It's the exact same thing as using cheats in a game to get past a hard part. It's noobs like you who ruin the video game industry. People who complain about games being too hard and thus they can't finish the story. Besides, it doesn't take months to level to 70, takes about 3 weeks if you know how play the game properly.

Another one is still bound to come out...

Archibaldo wrote:It's the exact same thing as using cheats in a game to get past a hard part. It's noobs like you who ruin the video game industry. People who complain about games being too hard and thus they can't finish the story. Besides, it doesn't take months to level to 70, takes about 3 weeks if you know how play the game properly.

Dear me, I seem to have forgotten about how everyone is born knowing how to play WoW properly.

And your comparison of Bots -> WoW/MMO's to Cheats -> Games is unfair because MMO's are completely different than console (and basically all non-MMO games, be it console or PC/Computer games) games.

Non MMO's are designed to be completed (not necessarily 100%'d, but otherwise final boss/challenge/etc. beaten) within the span of less than a month or so.

MMO's are designed to take at least a month to "complete", complete being in quotes because MMO's can rarely be completed 100%

Using bots (or similar cheating methods) takes the "consuming" out of "Time consuming game", as opposed to just being flat out lazy by using cheats on non-MMO's (unless you've beaten the game already)

EDIT: You're futile attempts to use YouTube are in vain as I am on dial-up and cannot view it.

Yeah! We should all write our own damn device drivers!

Noobs don't ruin the industry, it's the elitists who aren't happy unless everyone else in the world has the same warped opinion as them.

majoras_wrath wrote:Dear me, I seem to have forgotten about how everyone is born knowing how to play WoW properly.

And your comparison of Bots -> WoW/MMO's to Cheats -> Games is unfair because MMO's are completely different than console (and basically all non-MMO games, be it console or PC/Computer games) games.

Different as theres just more to do? Isn't that one of the most important aspects to a game? Lots to do?

Non MMO's are designed to be completed (not necessarily 100%'d, but otherwise final boss/challenge/etc. beaten) within the span of less than a month or so.

Game completion is relative. If you consider beating the last boss "complete" than the equivalent of the last boss in a MMO is the level cap. So if you use cheats to skip half the game to get to the last boss, its the same thing as using a bot to skip all the levels before reaching the level cap. In both games there is still plenty to do after the "last boss". So really MMO's and non-MMO's are the same.

MMO's are designed to take at least a month to "complete", complete being in quotes because MMO's can rarely be completed 100%

Exactly, so if you want to play an MMO, you need to expect to invest time in the game. So if you want a game that lasts a long time, why are you paying to not play it? If you consider playing WoW a "waste of time", then why are you playing?

Wanting to skip all the work to get to the reward is the definition of lazy. If you disagree, then the public school system has failed you.

EDIT: You're futile attempts to use YouTube are in vain as I am on dial-up and cannot view it.

It's not my loss. You're the one suffering with dial-up.

Revfan9 wrote:
Noobs don't ruin the industry, it's the elitists who aren't happy unless everyone else in the world has the same warped opinion as them.

You mean the opinion that games should be challenging and that they should require some effort to play and time investment to acquire skills. Like the video said, if you want a story read a book or watch a movie. If you want to be challenged and have some real fun, play a game and don't cheat.

The only reason why game companies don't allow bots is because if they don't it ends up as Diablo II. For those of you who have played online and knew the v1.07-v1.09 era, you all know that a lot of people ended up having things like maphack and pindlebots running while they are away. At that point, it's just a bot that runs you through a part over and over to gather items. So far so good.

However, eventually, the flow of items gained by such techniques flooded the market, which will have an effect on the economy of the game. All prices will rise because the rare items acquired by these techniques will be much more common. This has the effect of having legit players unable to buy or trade for these equipements every guy running bots will be so much more richer than him. Eventually, legit people will get tired and leave the game out of frustration or download the bot and do the same thing.

With Diablo II, it was not that much of a problem instantly because it is not pay-per-month, but for pay-per-month MMORPGs, thousands of legit players leaving the game IS an issue.

Bots affect other players, in a way or another, even if it is not easily noticeable.

g.iaroos wrote:The only reason why game companies don't allow bots is because if they don't it ends up as Diablo II. For those of you who have played online and knew the v1.07-v1.09 era, you all know that a lot of people ended up having things like maphack and pindlebots running while they are away. At that point, it's just a bot that runs you through a part over and over to gather items. So far so good.

However, eventually, the flow of items gained by such techniques flooded the market, which will have an effect on the economy of the game. All prices will rise because the rare items acquired by these techniques will be much more common. This has the effect of having legit players unable to buy or trade for these equipements every guy running bots will be so much more richer than him. Eventually, legit people will get tired and leave the game out of frustration or download the bot and do the same thing.

With Diablo II, it was not that much of a problem instantly because it is not pay-per-month, but for pay-per-month MMORPGs, thousands of legit players leaving the game IS an issue.

Bots affect other players, in a way or another, even if it is not easily noticeable.

Excellent point.

Why would more rare items making them more common make them cost more? More supply/less demand = cheaper product. I see your points though, but personally I think P2P MMORPGs are trash anyway so I couldn't care less. Your reasons also don't give Blizzard the right to stomp on these people like they just did. It's bullshit.

Blizzard is the only company that has the power to take on these bot makers. Other MMO companies are too small or don't have the resources to fight these guys in court. So it's not aright, but an obligation. Bots ruin all the MMO's out there.

If the bot maker made that much or more money off this then he rightly should be sued for it.

I doubt he made anywhere close to that much.

I don't see why you guys defend MMORPGs so much. WoW was cool for alittle while cause it was Warcraft, but then it gets boring. I liked Ragnarok Online cause atleast it had some decent original artwork. But generally MMORPGs are dull and boring and I don't give a shit if bots ruin them.