Guild wars has instanced world areas. WoW's world areas are persistent. A person does not need to be in your party to be in the same world area you are. In effect, all of WoW is like a Guild Wars "common area".

Who claimed that WoW would cease to exist without this lawsuit? And what makes this lawsuit an overreaction or over the top? What are you trying to say here? That Blizzard should have no right to protect its investment from people acting in bad faith to damage it?



So you think it's perfectly fine for a guy to write and sell a program that allows people to play World of Warcraft without actually being at the keyboard, and that Blizzard's wrong for trying to put him out of business for publishing unlicensed software that drastically affects the playing experience - not just for the people who are botting, but on the in-game economy as a whole as the items and gold farmed are used in the auction house to alter that economy, with resources that no human player could accumulate.

Or better yet, to inflate prices on the auction house (by buying up everything and relisting it at a higher price) while also selling gold for cash?

It seems to me that you have no idea what's going on here, that you're objecting to this just because it's a lawsuit without also considering the effect that botting has on WoW as a whole.

Also, the uneven playing field isn't actionable - everyone has to start at first level, and Blizzard has made it easy to get to 70th level, to get access to epic gear without needing to raid for it. It's not even remotely comparable. It's humanly possible to level up to 70 in a short period of time, get good gear, get mounts, etc. What's not humanly possible is to compete with bots. It's an entirely different kind of uneven playing field. It'd be like if you were in a foot race and one guy was riding a motorcycle.



Then you don't know the game well. I would say most players are aware of gold farmers and botters and report them as soon as they see them. You can find complaint threads about them in server forums, in the customer service forum, in the general forum. If you join any active guild, you'll find guildmembers talking about them.

While it is possible (even probable) that many players are not directly aware of the bot itself, they're aware of botting in general. Many are also aware of the impact this has on WoW's economics. You're trying to appeal to the idea that most subscribers don't know about bots, and thus bots aren't really a problem - but no reasonable person would accept that as an argument even if it were true - ignorance of harm, even if the majority are ignorant of that harm, does not mean that no harm has been caused. In this case, Blizzard has access to datamining tools and Warden that can at least give an idea of how many people are using bots, what they're doing with those bots, and how much of that is going into the economy and warping it. Even if individual players don't notice, Blizzard still has hard numbers.

So why do you think it's wrong for a corporation that's been harmed to file a lawsuit? Why do you imply that the harm should potentially destroy their business before it's okay to file that lawsuit?

YOu just said the keywords, potentially destroying their business, I highly doubt that would ever happen and on top of that I have a hard time with preemptive lawsuits, just because you think it may hurt your business is not enough you have to prove that it hurts your business, and last I checked WOW has continued to add to its astronimical amount of subscribers while still increasing its cashflow from WOW by  the truckload.

I think if he wants to automate his game to play for him he should be able to.  As far as I can tell he is not breaking the game machanics so everything he is doing works within the game worlds rules.  He is still killing things as the game requires he is just doing it more efficiently, if that is not the case then it may be a different story.

I never said it should destroy their business what I did say is that I don't see Blizzard getting on less truckload of money because of this.

why would u think the law is justice or logical... its an industry the USA leads in (for now)

I'm sorry, I did not say he was potentially destroying Blizzard's business. I asked you if you believed that Blizzard could only act to defend itself when someone was taking actions that could potentially destroy their business?

Me, I can see that it's possible to cause material harm to a business without potentially destroying it. Can you? If you can, do you think it's wrong for that business to defend itself? It looks like that's exactly what you believe.



The game world's rules include "A human being must be at the computer, pressing the keys and using the mouse to make things happen." A bot circumvents that. It's already explicitly disallowed in the EULA. Botting allows him to play 24/7, to play multiple characters at once all doing different things - these are not possible for human beings.

It's also not his game, it's Blizzard's, and Blizzard wishes to maintain a game that's fun to play for as many of their 10 million customers as possible. His bot actively interferes with gameplay on multiple levels - from dominating areas in the game world, making it difficult for legitimate players to also farm those areas, to warping the in-game economy. Why should his fun take precedence over everyone else's? Why should he be allowed to do whatever he wants no matter how it affects other players?



So, you think that if botting reduces Blizzard's monthly gross from $60,000,000 for US accounts to $50,000,000, for example, then there's no reason to put a stop to botting? That's ignoring the additional costs for programming warden to deal with the bot, for GMs dealing with complaints because of the bot, and so on.

Yes, Blizzard is still making a lot of money, but the cost of having to deal with and neutralize the bot shouldn't count as damages?

It just seems to me like "As long as Blizzard's making a lot of money, anything should go" and that's pretty unreasonable.

Nope never said that but until they show proof to the contrary and letters from upset customers are not proof sorry, I fail to see how their business is being hurt.  Show me a profit/loss statement?  Show me a drop in subscribers that specifically said they quit cause of this guys bot, customers threatening means nothing?  Maybe then we can feel that it is affecting them.

If that is the case then so be it, I am not top to bottom familiar with the EULA, however they have always had the right to ban people so go for it.  I am only speaking of the lawsuit, they can ban until they have no one left to ban I could careless.

Again I don't think potentially makes a case, you need to come to the table with proof, as far as I can tell from what I read they have only come up with scenarios where it might damage them.  That just doesn't cut it, if they can show true damages then so be it.  As for costs fighting bots; come now they would have to do that even with out this particular bot, that is just part of running an MMO and to place the blame on one bot as if it would go away then they could just stop doing that is wishful thinking(and a pathetic argument).  Their are costs associated with running a business and one of those costs unfortunately is dealing with idiots and thieves it doesn't matter if you are a brick and mortar store or an MMO company.  Last I checked if I shoplifted something from a store they could get me for the cost of the item and penalties but they couldn't sue me for the cost of their theft deterent systems.  That is just the cost of doing business.

Cheats and Hacks ruin the games for all and can eventually be a games downfall. I played mechwarrior for over a decade. fighting cheaters and hackers along the way. eventually the games development was dropped mostly from what I was told due to hackers ruining the game. MS got tired of throwing money at the game trying to fix the games and patch it as new hacks poped up. In time the cost of fighting hack/cheats ate up a good portion of the games full revenues. Thus the game series was dropped.

It is my belief Hackers and cheats killed off the simple buy and play games, how? As stated above, once the games were sold the companies had to keep throwing money at them to keep the game play fair for all, deducting from the bottom line. So a new game style was born "pay to play", the monthly subscriptions are used to keep development going and fight off cheats/hackers.


This has been an ongoing fight behind the scenes for more over a decade. The costs are astronomical, these costs fighting the hackers/cheats get passed on to us the consumer. Now a game that once cost $50 one time, costs $20 a month for as long as you play it. you do the math.

Yes I severly blame those who wish to hack/cheat for the problems of the gaming industry in this fashion. But as with the music industry, the developers/Mfgs/Publishers are trying to combat hacks/cheats/thieves, and we have to pay the price.
So I dont shed a tear for hackers and cheats that get busted.

I've been around internet gaming going on 2 decades now,Have had articles written about me and my MechWarrior Unit on gaming sites. So Im not coming at this from an Uninformed position.

I don't see it either...but then there's a valid reason for that...I am not privy to Blizzard's bank accounts.

Blizzard doesn't need to convince me...or you that they are suffering 'loss'....only the Judge hearing the case.

*************

Re the directions of this thread....there's no harm referencing the 'politics' of Law and how it may or may not affect an outcome....but let's NOT make any part of it 'personal'.

'attack' the opinion, NOT the opinion-holder...

I wasn't stating that they had to show me, I was simply stating that should be a criteria for a case to go to court.  Just like this case should.

I never said that they had to convince me, but that doesn't mean I can't disagree with it now does it.  Last I checked a Judge wasn't infalable and I just happen to believe in this case this judge was.  You are free to disagree, isn't that great!

 

Uhm what the heck are you talking about?  Just about every game released has a multiplayer option! 

Right Mechwarrior went away becaues of hackers and cheats, please show me the proof.  Last I checked there were something like 6 mechwarrior games all with multiplayer.  Gimme a break!

That's nice.

The issue goes beyond one game though - Blizzard just has the success and resources to attempt to do something about an issue that plagues the entire MMORPG genre, if not all of gaming.

I hope Blizzard wins and it puts the royal smack down on all botters and cheaters. One can dream.

Seems like something that'd be hard to enforce but at least if they win it'll send a message and it's a step in the right direction.

I think the bigger underlying problem is that a lot of this stuff is still a new or gray area as far as legality and enforcement goes.

The bottom line for me is that I'm a gamer and I don't appreciate cheating or cheaters. If I'm playing an online game, especially one that I'm paying a subscription to play, I want the game to be fair for everyone. I don't want a bunch of cheating losers getting advantages over honest players.

um ?? I never said they werent multiplayer ,just that you didnt have to pay a monthly subscription to play once you bought it .. Go buy one and test it out..no pay to play.


Mechwarior 2 titanium was the first multiplayer capable version, then MW3,MW4vengance, blackknight,mercenaries, the expansion packs, MW5 was in development but after all the Balloney with online issues Hackers etc. The MW community was told development would be dropped.

You dont have to believe me. But most of the MechWarrior comunity know the reason. Many of us Dedicated the Time helping the devs and @ Admins on the MSN Gaming zone, or were @ admins our selves. Just like here.

Even though it's a game, yes, it does have an economic system. A bot can easily give the bot user a competitive advantage in the economic system that no human can ever have.

By the way, the real point is not the damage it causes to other players, but rather the damage it causes to Blizzard. The damage it causes to other players is a side issue, and unlikely to be a large factor in the judge's decisions.



Yes. The number of people who bought Glider is somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, I believe. Which is plenty more than enough to have the economic impact of millions of players who aren't using bots. This can be extremely unbalanced, and yes, I have seen the economies of MMORPGs cave from the number of bots.



This is very true: Many of the facts and figures may actually never be disclosed to the public.

For those discussing the numbers:

MDY has sold 100k+ copies of the Glider program, earning about $2.8 million over the past three years.

Blizzard spent $970k per year specifically combatting bots during the same period.

An expert witness called on MDY's behalf could only name ONE additional bot program currently usable on WoW.

Blizzard had received more than 465k complaints about bot activity in general, with "several thousand" specifically referencing the Glider program. An unspecified number of additional complaints have been registered on the official WoW forums.

Blizzard claims $10.5 million losses from accounts banned due to glider use - accounting method assumes each banned account would have continued subscribing an average of seven months had it not been banned.

Using an economic model not entirely disclosed, Blizzard claims an $18 million yearly loss due to customer dissatisfaction specifically related to Glider.

These numbers were taken from the actual filings in the case, specifically filings 39 and 40

I forgot to mention the incident in November 2006 where MDY paid "a third party" (presumably a Blizzard employee) $18,000 for proprietary information about Blizzard's Warden program.