nah he probably wasn't outside, he was probably browsing AJ forums

O shiiii it's Jesus
Or at least the Artist Formerly Known As Jesus

The one who thinks a game is so important that they consider grinding for honor important enough to spend money on either way. If it's not fun, don't do it, but don't try to convince me that anything is important enough for you to have a bot do it while you go watch the latest movie at the theater.

I play around 4 hours a week, max, I just got my shiny Violet Proto-drake because that's all I played to do.

The real solution to botting is don't be a loser. Of course that's the real solution to gold-selling and all manner of other things to.

I don't grind, and I have sufficient amounts of fun and still have a life.

Honestly? If given the choice between someone who does a lot of something they enjoy, and someone who just wants to have the best rating at something they apparently don't enjoy that much? I'd say the botter is the loser. Especially since his approach is coming at the expense of those who really do just want to play a game against another human being.

Something being a "waste of time" is relative. Different strokes for different folks. Some people indulge in too much PvP, TV, Sleeping, F***ing, Eating, Working, etc. For anything anyone does, there can be someone like you with the "opinion" that it's a waste of time. Even things that a botter considers "worthwhile" are subject to this.

But to sit back and let something do all the work for you, just so a shiny scroll can flash across your screen? I find a bit more fault in that, because I don't see the point.

These are all just differences in opinions, though. One thing, however, is a fact...only one of those people is breaking the terms they agreed to.

And you botting affects affects this, how?

Actually, if anything, it lowers their profits when you bot and get banned for the offense.

Botting is a sort of categorical imperative-type rule. If everyone did it, the game would cease to be a game anymore with millions (literally, millions) of automatons running around the place. It would be pointless and the game would be ruined.

This is kindergarten age level ethics stuff, by the way. You can't run around the classroom like a maniac, because if everyone did, it would be chaos. It's unfair to everyone. So sit back down on the carpet and listen to the lesson about numbers.

Oh yeah...this makes me laugh, too:

"Blizzard won't do that, because it would allow the true no-lifers to finish gearing up too quickly (and then cry about it.)"

No, no...you're confusing your anti-Blizzard rhetoric. The current "QQ" is that Blizzard DOES give welfare epics to everyone. Jeez...at least get it right.

@Nick S - In answer to your original question, the biggest loser is the individual who has to cheat to attain what he thinks is so important rather than working for it.

To follow your line of thought to logical conclusion, the smartest move would be for everyone to AFK bot. However if that were the case, then you'd have 10 players standing at the graveyard, doing nothing, earning no honor.

Cheaters are a very low form of scum. They lack both self-respect (or have a false sense of self-respect) and respect for others. Not only have the decided it's okay to abuse the efforts of others, but they've managed to rationalize in their own mind fantastical reasons such as yours why they're actually "better" for doing less, being worse, and being abusive. Very low self-esteem.

They're also chronic masturbators. Just thought you should know.

The flames didn't take long. I want to reassure everyone that I'm not trolling; I think this is a worthwhile conversation, even if continuing it means getting flamed through multiple comment pages.

Talking about morals and cheating doesn't impress me - if I had some way to bot Arenas, where I'm actually competing against someone for a limited resource (rating), I might call that cheating. But the honor grind is an artificial mechanic designed solely to slow the rate of gear acquisition for PvPers. It's a rote task, and I choose to automate it. There is no requirement that you be skilled, or smart, or even involved in the action. With no challenge, there's simply no interest, and no actual advantage to be gained over someone else by breaking the rules of the game.

If botting is so incredibly offensive to your view of how WoW should be, you have the means to do something about it - report the "cheaters" every time you run a battleground. I accept that Blizzard's rules are law in the game, and if I get a ban, it'll be perfectly fair. To be honest, I'm increasingly of the opinion that it'd be a good thing.

If you have full Relentless off-set right now, think about how much time you spent getting it. Be honest. Was that time worth it? People who play this game like to tell themselves how great their real lives are, but I've seen firsthand what "hardcore" means, and I can tell you - if you're playing several hours every single day, your life is not what it could be.

The people who spend all day in battlegrounds, or all day completing daily quests, are the ditch-diggers of World of Warcraft - doing rote labor for small rewards. If I have to cheat to get out of the ditch, so be it.

Continue flaming.

"If I have to cheat to get out of a ditch"

So being a mugger, or embezzeler is better that ditch digging? Awesome.

Also, responding to a troll with a differing opinion isn't flaming, flaming would be attacking your pedigree or heritage.

"With no challenge, there's simply no interest, and no actual advantage to be gained over someone else by breaking the rules of the game."

You're trying to justify something which is fundamentally wrong. It's not an "artificial grind". It's an actual grind. You make it artificial by botting. But lets look at the statement I quoted. I wholeheartedly disagree.

The purpose of the grind you're going through is to get PVP gear, with which to more easily kill opponent players. Now - if you've botted 200 games, and you're up against someone who has PLAYED 10 games, your gear is going to be markedly better than theirs, despite the fact they put in 10 games of effort and you put in none.

You are trivialising their efforts. You see it as a grind. Others see it as reward for the time they're putting into playing. You call it an artificial grind simply to dismiss any reason for playing legitimately. However the fact is, the intention of said grind is to reward players who bother to go through it with better gear.

Your false sense of entitlement has led you to believe you deserve the gear, despite not putting in the effort. In fact you're going so far as to say that you're actually a superior individual than those who earn the rewards. There is no truth or logic to either of these. It's merely self-justification for cheating. You're so screwed up, you won't even admit it is cheating - putting the word in inverted commas to try and suggest "That's what people CALL it, but it's fully legitimate".

So no - other players are not unaffected by your actions. Every time you don your ill-gotten gear (or any upgrades that you've been able to earn as a result of your ill-gotten gear) and go and kill another player with it - that's just another person you've cheated out of the time they put into the game.

Furthermore, to your attempted justification that "Blizz should just remove the grind so we start off with good pvp gear", that's simply moving the goal line. We already start off with the same gear. We then play and earn upgrades. If we started off in "better" gear, nothing would change except everyone would start in the same better gear, and have to again play and earn upgrades.

You say cheating in arenas is bad because you're actually weighing one persons arena rating against anothers. Yet, by skipping the honor grind and starting arenas in gear far better than fresh 80-dingers could possibly get, you're artificially placing yourself ahead of most other beginner rated teams you come up against. You're starting with gear you cheated to get, hence your skill is not actually being tested until you moving up a few hundred ratings - to players who are in the same gear level as you.

There are complete sets of crafted beginner PVP gear for every spec. If you actually want to play the game as it's intended, throw away all the gear you got illegitimately. Go buy a full set of crafted PVP blues for your spec. Then, go to arenas, and start working your way legitimately up through the rankings into better gear. If you don't like battlegrounds - don't do them. You don't need them to get the best PVP gear in the game. There are crafted PVP alternatives for almost every trinket/ring/etc. For the few items you actually need honor to get, go play AV. Actually PLAY it. You might enjoy it.

This is the way I see it. People work hard for their money (irl, and I guess WoW as well), and they earn it, and they spend it on what they want. Now there are people who use technology to steal money from others, ie hackers, key-loggers, etc. Instead of working for their money, they would prefer to steal it, taking it from the people who worked for it, and giving it to themselves, who have not worked for it (sort of like Obama's plans, but thats not the point).

So I challenge you tell me, in however long of a post you like, using the word "flame" as many times as you like, why botting is not considered stealing. Seriously, I am very interested on why you think taking something without working for it is not considered cheating and stealing.

Oh, and another thing.... yes, you are trolling. There is a nifty little feature on WoW.com that lets you read a posters old posts. From reading them, I see you have a Warlock, Mage, Hunter, Priest, Rogue, and a Pally... not to mention that you post at least once a day on WoW.com. You also have a post on (http://www.wow.com/2009/08/08/the-colosseum-dimitrius-of-korgath/) saying how you should play as much pvp as possible, up to 100 games per week. Now all of this combined, and your saying you don't like 'hardcore' gamers?!?

Think again before you post...

Stealing: Bob has something. I take it. Now Bob does not have that thing, and I do.

AFKing: Bob has nothing. Bob runs around capping flags, causing Bob and everyone around him to have something.

100 games a week is less time than grinding one piece of Relentless per week, unless perhaps you play an ultra-slow outlast Arena comp. But the main reason your research is irrelevant is that 100 games a week isn't that much time, but 100 games a week plus 40 hours of honor farming is way, way too much. At least, it's too much for me. Some people are content to spend literally all of their time playing.

I used to play fair - going hard in BGs to help my side win. I used to play hours every day, thus the multiple 80s. Then I realized that by playing according to the rules set by reality (if you're caught, you're banned - this is a rule set by reality) and not by the moral expectations of the group, I could improve my real life and still participate in the parts of WoW that are actually enjoyable for me.

"Stealing: Bob has something. I take it. Now Bob does not have that thing, and I do.

AFKing: Bob has nothing. Bob runs around capping flags, causing Bob and everyone around him to have something."

Correction- AFKing: Bob and his team work hard trying to win in a Battleground and get rewarded for it. But since you were AFK in Bob's team, you also get the reward despite not doing jack shit to earn it. In other words, you're stealing from Bob and everyone else in the battleground.

Hmmm whos the loser, the person who plays a game, and enjoys it;
the person who plays a game, and but a program to play it for him, as he wants to do other things (like work/sleep/school), and then gets BANNED because of it, wasting all the money spend on it, and the bot program
The person who says, 'i dont enjoy it, so im gonna do other things' and comes back after weeks/months refreshed and eager once more, and uses blizz's easy gearing system to bring his toon upto date, in a matter of a couple of days grind?

Theres no excuse for using bots now. Its a gamble, where the pay off is some gold honor and maybe lvls, and the risk is losing ALL your toons, gold, equipment, as well as potentially the respect you have from your Guild/server. Seeing you can lvl ridiculously fast nowadays, and with a metric ton of gold waiting in the AT coffers with those dailys, is it REALLY worth it?

Oh and as for honor, i ground 25k yesterday, in 45 mins.
Worth risking my account over a bit more?
Not in my opinion.

The biggest losers were the poor players that had to carry your sad, feeble butt through the battle ground.