Hey, OK so I have a question, how do bots impact YOUR game? I get that no-one likes cheaters in any walk of life; but what does a bot do that impacts you directly?
For me as a non raider, I can’t find anything they do that negatively impacts me personally.
I farm my own materials (multiple alts with all professions so I can gather and craft all professions).
Rarely buy off AH (sometimes if an alt is lacking gear i’ll top it up with something level appropriate).
Never have issues farming the mobs i’m after.
Never had an issue farming gather professions (and I play on firemaw and earthshaker).
Never had an issue getting gold for mounts way before the level neccessary.
So, as mentioned, I am curious how they affect your gameplay?
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Everyone have lots of gold, since people just buy it (which comes from bots).
Not a healthy economy, and even worse: new people can’t farm gold to buy stuff due to inflated prices, so they ALSO starts buying gold.
And then there’s the moral aspect: cheating, people paying for boosts (with bought gold) instead of playing the game as it was meant: do the dungeon.
But the worst point is still Blizzards stance to bots: they literally don’t care at all 
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Stoping bots is a fools errand. They will always come back stronger.
The future for bots is bright. Soon there will be AI driven bots, abte to make choices and interact with real players.
It will get to the point where you cant even differentiate between real player and goldfarm bot.
The rogue parsing 99s in your raid the last 6 months. china bot.
Your bloodelf egf. russian fishing bot.
Left unchecked they are going to obliterate the integrity of HC servers, which is the last thing I’m going to play before retiring from this shell of a game for good.
I read people making remarks like ‘if you want integrity impose it upon yourself’, it’s the silliest thing I see.
Once the game is trivialised it affects everyone negatively. If you group with someone who has full access to a bot ridden world, your own gameplay is made easier. It’s a no brainer.
Not sure how this trickles down into the world outside of HC and I don’t care either. Literally my last ride and I want it to be great.
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There’s many reasons, but for me the immersion factor is the biggest.
This is an mmorpg and that means when I see someone in full tier 3 (I know old servers it’s not as impressive blah blah) I know that person played the game, he owns his gear, he put effort into it. Nowadays I can’t tell if it’s just some gdkp abomination or a true (no life) hero I’m looking at.
There’s also less incentive to have guilds, to communicate, to create interesting and lasting memories of adventure. Asocial people have less incentive to leave their shells.
I’d also argue that if you can’t socialise, if you prefer to be a solo player then maybe WoW isn’t for you, retail might be but not classic.
This game is about cooperation not soulless transactions.
This is escapism in its purest and it’s wonderful, the moment you add your wallet to a fantasy world it breaks this barrier.
The other points regarding economy and farming and all that are just as important but come in second place to the things I’ve mentioned (to me).
So again how does it affect me? Fewer guilds, fewer people ready to engage in social gaming, high end gearing becomes meaningless and all of that boils into an immersion breaking experience I tried to escape from in retail.
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When they farm where I want to. Fish “my” schools of fish in Tanaris.
Else not much. I not into PvP I not into end-game raiding because not time in evenings, and not long time in one session.
I love a social Guild for social things, for chatting, for events in Inn and so. This not impacted directly by bots, as bots not chat, but maybe indirectly bcause fewer players.
I never feel my accomlishements diminished because someone else did first. Even if I’m last on server to do, is still great for me. Maybe this comes from 10+ years of playing IronMan on normal server, I don’t know, but I still have fun levelling, and bots in Dungeons do not hurt me one bit, only those in open world, farming “my” nodes.
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At least you actually answered the question 
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I think it breaks the integrity of the game and the feel good factor of participating with others. It makes me less able to help other people in game, as people don’t need people any more, they need resources and the players seem disposable to other players nowadays.
That said, I don’t participate in the economy now, I never need lots of gold, as I have learn over many expansions to be self sufficient. I’ve known many people in guilds that I’ve been a part of that have bought gold and they all have a very similar personality type, most of them seem to have self esteem issues and the feeling that this is the way to find acceptance within their immediate community and if they don’t have more gold they feel less. It’s very sad and I very much feel that these people have a similar problem to gambling addicts. I think Blizzard need to address the issue as I think it poses very real health concerns for those involved, much like any other addiction suffered. I feel that these people are victims and the fact that nothing is done/acknowledged, by them or Blizzard, is the most worrying part. There should be helplines imho, though I’m sure some may say that sounds a bit daft but, there lays the issue….
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Well because they put that much gold into the economy, it inflates, and everything gets far more expensive, making it harder for new players and even veterans of era to buy basic consumes.
Also the immersion gets disturbed when a bunch of same-named people stand into each other casting/farming, + it makes it harder for you to farm/aquire gold.
Ofc you have no problems. You are irl bot yourself
Good point bro, why do bots affect your game? I don’t know what’s wrong with bots for server economy either.
Blizzard should go a step ahead and enable bots for everyone with a monthly subscription ofc.
We won’t see any difference in what we have now anyway.
A smart man has something to say; a fool has to say something [Plato].
Never debate with a retard because he will pull you down to his level and defeat you with his own weapons.
[Son Goku]
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i guess on PvP cluster are much more bots then on PvE one
I don’t care for bots existent or not
if I join my farm spot in Azsahara I can’t find bots for real
if they run dungeons it wouldn’t affect my game
In Bg‘s afker‘s, or chat wining ppl are a bigger problem, on Valley Weekend I see sometimes some bots on map but not rly much
So in the end the only thing here wich rly happens is, cuz of bots every stuff is available in Ah for low prices and I like, so I don’t need farm everything by myself
I guess I like bots 
What if you are a bot sir?
Are you AI based?
Ohhh the mind games very soon.
What if I am the AI trying to misslead you?
*beep grinding stuff *beep
They don’t other than making it easier to sell stuff at the AH at low levels for more money simply because everyone has so much of it.
I don’t believe people who say they can’t make money on a “bot infested” server.
I mean the fact the level 7-12 greens already sell for up to 50sp-1.5g is pretty amazing. Good low level items sell for 2-10 gold, blue items easily 10 times more.
Same goes for raw materials. Prices are higher so you actually earn more with less.
Sure competition for nodes and herbs is high but like someone else already mentioned I’m also on one of the busiest realms and am still able to gather the materials I need if I don’t want to buy them off the AH.
I’m not for bots but I don’t see an easy fix for Blizzard unless they employ enough actual human GMs per x amount of players. That would tighten everything up because with the help of automated scripts and sweeps ‘GM governors’ would probably catch and filter out most bots within their ‘population designations’ but this is a pipe dream.
Blizzard isn’t going to hire real people to do a job developers world wide are working hard to make obsolete within the next 10 years.
I recently created a character on Firemaw EU and got him to 60 and I havn’t touched him since a month. I just don’t want to be a part of the “community”. Here is my view;
-Gathering professions is nothing at all like it was back in the day. Level 40+ zones are completely barren. Bots are vacuuming all ore etc. I don’t care what anyone says. For example, last time I tried farming Thorium I spent a little over 2 hours in EPL and WPL between 0400-0615 and found 1 small throrium vein with 1 thorium ore in it.
-Completely insane inflation. The prices are mad. Let’s say you used paid 150g for 6 arcanite bars back in the day, today you pay that per one item. As a newcomer the uphill to buy lets say an arcanite-rod for your enchanting profession or whatever you will have to pay half an epic mount for that item… And sure, eventually you can join the GDKP-swamp and get paid and partake in the bot-gold but I would never do that as a matter of principle.
I can keep on going but lets get to the biggest issue for me. It has turned the culture to pure toxicity. While I was leveling I have had people in full raid-bis gear put on masterlooter in brd and ninja items and then telling me “Chill bro, I didn’t think anyone wanted loot in here anyway. Just go buy your bis instead.” The amount of time ppl do this and just straight up ninja upgrades to vendor items for gold… I’d say less than 5% of my dungeons have been a normal clear without that kind of bs.
Sure botting is not the only reason why people behave like scumbags, but in my view it is a part of the problem thats shaping the culture.
Even if I could afford to buy my bis-gear I don’t want that. I want to play the game. Back in the day vanilla used to be an adventure, a journey, teamwork and having fun. Today it’s more in line with:
-Create a character and name it with something along the lines of genitals.
-Use your moms mastercard to buy gold and then buy XP-boosts to 60.
-Use your moms mastercard to buy gold and then buy your bis-gear in raids.
-Argue for hours with people in a level 40 dungeon that they have a slightly wrong spec for endgame raiding and compare logs to see who has the biggest… dps.
It’s disgusting what this game have become, or the players rather… The mentality which bots/goldbuyers help foster is nothing I want to be a part of. Which is why I stopped playing.
4 Likes
Leave that cluster and play your game
Yes, should my vanilla-hunger return from the dead I will definitely reroll on a PVE-server. I’ve heard the culture is completely different there. Although I’m not sure it will ever come back after this experience tbh.