Blizzard loses a round in the fight against botting
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Mar 20th 2008 at 11:00AM
In Blizzard's attempts to get rid of gold farmers and hackers, one of their most annoyingly persistent enemies has been the WoWGlider bot, now known as MMOGlider. They've been throwing suits and countersuits at each other for a few years now, but the latest salvo seems to have gone against Blizzard, the Game Activist reports. Blizzard was trying to subpoena Joe Thaler, owner of Lavish Software LLC, maker of programs such as EQPlayNice. While Lavish Software's programs do not appear to be cheat programs on their own, they did make a deal with MDY Industries, maker of MMOGlider, to use the programs within MMOGlider.
According the judge's decision, Blizzard was hoping to obtain all documentation related to the deal, all communication between Thaler and Lavish and MDY and its owner, Michael Donnelly. They also wanted a list of all WoW accounts owned by Thaler and Lavish, as well as the contents of the WTF folders of every installation of WOW used by Thaler and Lavish Entertainment. Unfortunately, the Judge ruled that Blizzard was demanding information that could compromise Lavish's trade secrets and client confidentiality, and that the demand for the information within 9 days did not give Thaler and Lavish enough time to respond an gather information.
It's worth noting that the judge did specifically say that Blizzard could file another subpoena that would be more narrow in scope and allow more time for Lavish and Mr. Thaler to respond, so this is probably not a fatal blow to Blizzard by any means. I personally hope not. I've never had much patience for bots, or people who feel they have a civil right to cheat at games, so I'm rooting for the big bad corporation on this one. What about you?
Thanks for the link, Tyrsenus.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
kidpheonix Mar 20th 2008 11:12AM
I think I've found the solution for Blizzard without the useage of heavy litigation or resources. Since almost all goldsellers I've come across have been lvl 1 toons and bots dont have a person at the helm...Bliz should implement an active duel, wherin...if the duel banner goes unaccepted for x amount of time...the duel starts (barring afk or dnd)...which would allow all real ppl to challenge and massacre all bots and goldfarmers. Just start wiping them off the face of Azeroth with the approval of the GMs and fans of WoW. But thats just my 2 cents.
Kezzy Mar 20th 2008 11:17AM
I can see sooooo many problems with this. Often times I run off to do something without setting afk/dnd. There would be a lot of innocent real players that could potentially be hurt by implementing something like this.
anonymoose Mar 20th 2008 11:30AM
This would not work for another reason--irritating young people like to repeatedly duel challenge. If you have turned down one or more duels already, the standard method of dealing with this is to simply leave the duel flag there so they can't keep spamming you with it--giving you enough time to put them on /ignore.
Additionally, it doesn't really wipe them off the face of Azeroth. They rez, come back and do what they need to do. It's a minor inconvenience at best.
Justin Mar 20th 2008 1:03PM
they would just install an "auto decline duel" addon... If they don't already...
Justin Mar 20th 2008 1:03PM
they would just install an "auto decline duel" addon... If they don't already...
Naix Mar 20th 2008 3:55PM
Why not have a USB type key that you use with your PC to play with along with a daily encrypted DLL downloaded from Blizzard daily.
Kiriy Mar 20th 2008 5:28PM
@Naix:
Because that would be a lot more trouble than what it currently takes to wipe gold spam off my screen for the few times it is seen (on my server, I haven't seen a gold spammer outside of Trade chat for a good long while).
Right-click; report spam.
VSUReaper Mar 20th 2008 11:27AM
I kinda like the idea of killing the spammers. As for the botters, they are all lvl 70 mages and hunters (mostly hunters!). I will sometimes post names on a thread on my realm forum and the other faction will keep thier eyes open for them and camp them when applicable.
Perfect example was a BE Hunter out in the Spawning Glen of Zanga. She was stealing all the mobs out there that drop the motes of life, and after repeated attempts to talk to her, I came to the conclusion that she was a bot. So I wrote down the name, popped onto the thread, and literally in 30 min, a handful of allis (i'm horde) showed up, waved/greeted me, and proceded to kill the bot. They camped the body off and on for a week.
PXP Mar 20th 2008 11:28AM
so then the botters/goldfarmers just set DND and go on their merry way. i just broke your solution in 1/2 a second :( sorry
kidpheonix Mar 20th 2008 11:38AM
It sounded like a good idea in my head.
I guess I have no real working knowledge on how these bots work internally. Can someone give me an explanation in laymen's terms?
Krick Mar 20th 2008 11:42AM
Imagine if a VCR maker sued TiVo for making a smart device that can automatically record shows for you completely without user intervention.
Obviously, the VCR maker's business is being threatened so it should be allowed to sue to protect it, right?
What if a record company sued LiteOn for making CD-Recorders?
Obvously, the record company has the right to prevent people from copying a CD, right?
I don't Bot or purchase farmed gold, but I think what Blizzard is doing with this lawsuit is wrong. It amounts to intimidation because they know that Lavish Software doesn't have the money to fight back.
If Blizzard wants to stop bots, they need to implement code in their game that detects bot-like activities and then have their employees investigate and ban people for it.
...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com
Pzychotix Mar 20th 2008 12:25PM
How is this related in any way?
Your analogies would only work if Lavish Entertainment was creating a competing product, e.g. another MMO.
Matt Mar 20th 2008 3:04PM
i agree with the above poster...they arent competeing, they are comprimising gameplay, and also most likely hacking and stealing accounts...if they were doing nothing wrong they would have offered up their accounts and WTF files...cmon now. I think your a gold purchaser...may your account be hacked and your epics be sharded!! =-D
GG
Krick Mar 20th 2008 6:41PM
How does botting equate to "hacking and stealing accounts"?
A smart group of programmers have developed a piece of software that plays the game for you. It essentially automates boring repetitive activites like level grinding by repeatedly killing mobs over and over again. This doesn't take any money out of Blizzards pocket or the pockets of other players, it doesn't compromise accounts, and it's not "hacking".
Mankind strives to find ways to eliminate boring repetitive tasks or at least make them easier. It's what we do. Consider the printing press, washing machines, farming machinery, assembly line robots, electronic calculators, personal computers, and even software like TurboTax, Excel and Mathlab to name just a few.
Blizzard doesn't like that the guys at Lavish Software came up with an ingenious solution to simplify a boring repetitive task and their way of preventing it is by exerting legal pressure on them. There's no way that Lavish Software can possibly afford to fight back so Blizzard is guaranteed to win.
All Lavish Software has done is create an artificial intelligence program that can play a game. IBM did the same thing with Deep Blue, which eventually beat world champion Gary Kasparov at chess. There is nothing illegal about this. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone eventually create a program that is able to play competitive arena PvP. Rather than praise them for their programming ability (or even hire them), Blizzard will just sue them out of existence. It's sad, really.
Makari Mar 21st 2008 3:42PM
@Matt
I fail to see why people don't realize that allowing botting is actually a defense against hackers / identity theft. If you allowed botting then the farmers wouldn't NEED to steal your info because they could just turn on their computer (or two, or nine) and start a program to gather stuff to sell on the AH or whatever.
Because the 'botting' functions have been largely disabled (which kills the use of them for a lot of potentially useful things such as a macro that just lets you defend yourself if attacked because you had to go AFK) now the farmers are trying to find other 'quick' methods of grinding the same items.
People are lazy. As noted above, we look for easy solutions so if there is an easy solution built directly into the game why would they go through all the time and potential legal trouble to do the same thing?
Kieron Mar 20th 2008 11:44AM
I think if your not going to play a game like this properly and take the time to fully enjoy every (or most - i dont really like arena) aspect then why bother.
turkeyspit Mar 20th 2008 11:48AM
I fully support each and every person's Civil Right to Cheat at a Video Game...
..in Single Player mode.
If you're going to play with other people, play FAIR!
As for detecting Gold Farmers / Bots, anyone whose character is named "W0ezzlyyie" is likely not a real player.
Drew Mar 20th 2008 12:47PM
WOW! That's my name!
Oldbear Mar 20th 2008 11:58AM
Personally, I love bots - I'll follow them all afternoon taking their skins and getting some free "honour" kills...
But to follow the article, I hope Blizzard carries on with this. If it becomes a long legal battle I believe Blizzard will win.
Botterbob Mar 20th 2008 11:59AM
Botting is a good thing. Helps inflate those subscriber numbers that blizzard touts so much. I know I have 4 accounts, with 6 level 70s that all currently bot every day for at least 8 hours. Blizzard has gotten a fair chunk of change from me in monthly charges, which leads me to believe that they're in no hurry to start banning botters.
My guild loves me cause I have so many variations of Level 70's... I can fill any spot in any raid at just about any time. Also I infuse the auction house with items that people need for a fair price. See I'm sort of a saint.
The best part of it all is listen to you guys talk about how "I can spot a bot a mile away". If that were true then perhaps someone would have reported me in the last 2 years and I would have been banned. Guess what you don't really know Jack about spotting bots or realize how much Blizzard doesn't care about what we do.
Viva La Glider!!!