Mass bannings strike Glider users
by Eliah Hecht 
May 20th 2008 at 8:00PM
We've gotten more tips on this than any other topic in recent memory: apparently many users of the popular WoW botting program Glider have been hit with the ban hammer, including some of our very own readers. You may recall Glider as the company with whom Blizzard is currently embroiled in a lawsuit (does the word "embroil" have any use other than lawsuits?). The Glider forums are abuzz with comments and complaints, to which I can only reply "QQ." Botting is clearly against the EULA, the spirit of the game, and the best interests of the other players. Yes, I would be sad if I got banned, but honestly, anyone who was botting had it coming.
There are various objections to be made to this stance. Most of the people who wrote in claim to have been botting in order to bypass the tedious leveling process. I agree that it can be boring to level 1–70 multiple times, even with the new, faster 20–60 process. However, that doesn't make it OK to cheat. Others claim that with fewer bots in the system, the supply of primals will be reduced and therefore the price will go up; I'm not much of a WoW economist, so I'll leave that to others. But to this blogger, banning botters can only be interpreted as a good thing: some cheaters got what they deserved. Whether you agree or disagree, please feel free to sound off in the comments. And if you are a botter yourself, and haven't gotten banned yet, I'd advise you to stop -- they're clearly getting serious about this.
Filed under: Cheats, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
inthemidst01 May 20th 2008 8:11PM
Hooray, I say! It's about time there was another wave of massive bans. Hopefully the BGs will be clear for a while of the usual botters. :D
Mike May 26th 2008 3:45PM
A guild member on my server got banned for using a 3D modeling program. How is that a right to get banned?
Scott May 20th 2008 8:15PM
Its sad that Blizzard makes people compelled to have a robot play instead of themselves. I blame Blizzard.
Vidi May 20th 2008 10:16PM
This is one of the most ridiculous attitudes and comments I've ever seen.
Sakerin May 21st 2008 8:44AM
I blame the American culture of laziness and instant gratification.
Orestes May 20th 2008 8:14PM
I won't be shedding tears over the botters getting their asses handed to them. I've leveled toons to max level the "boring" way as have a majority of players, so what the **** makes the Gliders think they're special enough to skip it?
Brandon May 20th 2008 8:44PM
nothing, because you can skip it too... why work 15-20 days (thats actualy time... /played) when you can skip to the end game on your alts...
c0ke May 21st 2008 9:01AM
i am so gonna take advantage of this mass ban next time. you think prices are high for AH items now? lol... wait until i'm banned, buwhahaaa
/me spanks %t.
elfla419 May 20th 2008 8:16PM
omg.... thx blizzard there always in the bgs
Fel May 20th 2008 8:20PM
I've level'd characters to 70 but if you guys have jobs and school like alot of the people i know, you'd see why they bot. WoW is a time sink, the more time you spend on it, the better rewards you get. Botters are many times people that are at work or school and just leave their chars soaking up honour while they are doing so.
Unless you guys have never pirated music or any software, you can't really criticize someone for botting, and its their account so let them ruin it if they want.
inthemidst01 May 20th 2008 8:23PM
That's no excuse. I go to work and I have school, and still that's no excuse for botting in BGs while leeching off the work of others just to have honor. That's just being lazy and a cheater.
FYI. Life is a time sink, the more time you invest in the right things the better the rewards you get.
The Goose May 20th 2008 8:25PM
By that logic Blizzard should allow everyone to bot, after all if the people who don't have school or jobs don't need to spend all their time playing WoW they would be able to enjoy other activities.
Orestes May 20th 2008 8:26PM
Umm... plenty of people have full time lives and don't resort to cheating. It's not an excuse so much as an admission of being a lazy bastard with an overactive sense of entitlement.
"Oh noes!, I don't have time to farm my welfare epics!" Cry me a goddamned river.
Sean Riley May 20th 2008 8:27PM
@ Fel
"Unless you guys have never pirated music or any software, you can't really criticize someone for botting, and its their account so let them ruin it if they want."
... intriguing argument. How are you comparing botting, ie. cheating at an online game, to piracy, ie. theft? I'm not arguing both are wrong (I refuse to do either, out of professional sensibility) but I don't think you can claim doing one precludes you from criticizing the other.
Fel May 20th 2008 8:29PM
I didn't say it was right, i was just trying to explain the logic behind most of it. Their logic is "its unfair that i don't get what x gets, because i can't spend as much time as he can!"
Fel May 20th 2008 8:33PM
In my mind botting and piracy are pretty close, they are both using the way its distributed (digitally) to twist it so that they recieve profit (music, wow gold / levels) without actually contributing (actually playing the game or playing)
because of the nature of how things are on computers they are all very similar in my mind, its just another form of piracy to me really.
Vidi May 20th 2008 10:16PM
Outrageous. Botting the same as downloading music? Its not even remotely the same thing.
I work 50+ hours a week, spend time with my wife and kids, co host a podcast, work on my blog and still had time to get a new character to 70 post 2.4 patch.
If they made the game any easier they would have to hand you a free character at level 55 or thats right they ARE!
Gryphon Hall May 20th 2008 11:01PM
If one is too busy to play the answer is obvious: don't play.
It's like parents that are too busy to spend time with their own children, goes ahead and uses their money to buy them company, toys, cars and the like... only because they can. And then expect that their children love them as much as the children of attentive parents would love.
People who actually play their own toons will ALWAYS have a better playing experience, and those who don't just contributes in ruining it.
Ancalimon May 21st 2008 2:01AM
Gryph, i totally, 100% agree with you, if you dont have time, you shouldnt be playing. simple as that.
And Fel, those two instances have nothing to do with each other when your just trying to lvl a toon, which is what your explaining, when your using a bot to farm for online gold to make REAL money, then they are similar, but still not the same. by pirating electronic media you are STEALING money directly from the owners of the media by simply not spending the money on it. in the case of botting for real money, you are not stealing directly from Blizzard, but you are gaining money from their copyrighted product without their permission, which is still just as illegal, but not exactly the same.
basically, these situations are not very similar, and by NO means the same.
Fel = Idiot
Gryphon Hall May 21st 2008 2:41AM
Thanks Ancalimon.
Addition: the use of bots to level a toon only becomes an excuse if they want to reach the level cap quickly. When I first played, I had a full time job and a (then) non-player wife and it didn't bother me that I went from level 20 to 30 in 2 months. Since my wife became a player, levelling became quicker, but levelling slowly was not an unpleasant experience.
Now I'm levelling a toon from the opposite faction and he's been level 11 for 3 months. But what can one expect if you are busy? And I find it nostalgic that I can actually "experience" the game rather than just go through the rat-race of accumulating XP and gear.
IMHO, people who have no time should be happy with what they have and not be envious of people in epics and raiding Kara.