How much intelligence does it take to go to a website, enter your credit card number, download the bot and use it?

If people were required to write their own software, then maybe you could make an argument that the game would be AI vs AI, but downloading someone elses work doesn't really make you intelligent.

I think you have it backwards. Activity drives learning, learning becomes skill. Glider does nothing to improve the player, other than to put gold in the players pocket so they can buy what they want.

These people are not 'smarter than your average noob'. They are simply slackers who want the same rewards as a guy who plays 4-5 hours a night but they make no time commitment. Bots use up server capacity that other people, who actually want to play the game, could use.

Also, since they 'create' more gold, they actually make everything more expenisve. Increased money supply leads to price inflation. Commodity prices might go down, but anything of real value goes up since the BOT Player has more gold to bid on it than you do.

That being said. Blizz interp of the DCM is morally wrong and will have ramifications far beyond their intended, mostly reasonable, goal.

@candida...

Well said, the idea of the victimless crime is not in play here... the idea that this artificially inflates the economy is one the honest (re:non-botting) players are left to conted with.

Same reason I abhor Gold Farmers... I don't mind someone making a buck, but their practices throw the rest of the world out of balance.

And we can all agree that Blizz does not need any help throwing things out of balance...