although i would like to see the game companies get a legal edge against gold farmers, botters, and the like, the precedent of enforcing to the letter the EULA is a little unsettling, however, even if that is the outcome what do regular players have to fear? if your playing the game honourably what is the fear of being hit with the EULA stick?

i've been playing LOTRO recently, having given up on the WOW grind, and i have to admit, i will not miss the gold-farmers spamming chat every five minutes if the game companies get an edge with which to shut them down

I personally take the view that if you don't agree with an EULA, you shouldn't be clicking the "I Agree" button. It's like paying monthly for an MMO you constantly whine about - if you hate it so much, don't pay for it.

I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with the way EULAs are structured but even though it's an idealistic view, I think if more gamers voted with their wallets rather than their mouths then game companies would definitely start taking notice. And to a degree I think the standards SHOULD be stricter for MMO games like WoW.

That said, aside from a couple of posts I don't see much discussion of the specifics so far. How much of the negative opinion is really because of Blizzard's specific defense and how much is just because it's an EULA?

@puddington: I'm not a tech whiz by any means and I know almost nothing about Glider specifically, but my guess is that there are probably some nuances of RAM loading regarding what gets loaded and when. Things like Glider loading parts of the software that wouldn't otherwise be loaded, or altering the data contained in the RAM. As far as monitoring your RAM, even in detail, I don't see why that would be a problem as long as you're not altering whatever WoW keeps in RAM. And even if it were technically against the rules, do you think Blizzard would ban you for monitoring your RAM? I doubt it, personally.

@jds: My solution to the grind is simple: When it gets boring, stop playing. There's a good reason why after three years I only have one 70 and one other character above level 30. ;)

@James: "Plus, it’s only a game so get over it."

Ah, but there's the rub. It is only a game- but it's a game that people pay to play, both in dollars and in time. It's a very easy game, in fact. However, you still need to know how to play.

This is a problem my roommate has re: easy availability of character respecs, and a similar problem with a botter- let us say that a person has botted up to level 70. Unless this person has done it manually in the past, I don't expect them to know what they are doing at all. What sort of end-game content is he going to participate in? Probably the kind where he fails at his character's job and gets the party killed.
This effects other players, frustrating them. Frustrated players are NOT a thing Blizzard wants. Frustrated players are players that might stop giving them dollars.

@Jabrwock

Like I said, Glider was designed specifically to violate Blizzard's EULA/ToU. What Blizzard HAS been doing is shutting down every account that they found using Glider. However, this is an endless battle, and Blizzard now is turning to other options (like Copyright/DMCA) to nail Glider's developers. The most the EULA is brought up, from my understanding of Blizzard's position, is that the program was designed with the intent to break the EULA/ToU. So, Blizzard also is pointing out that the system was made for that explicit purpose -- but that is not a strong position to argue from, that's for sure. Fortunately, it isn't the only leg they are standing on.

EULAs are ruining the game industry. As soon as games are recognised as goods rather than services will gamers get anything resembling rights. EULAs ought to be banned.

@James

It does cause an unfair advantage. Namely -- botting helps provide for goldsellers, it is a cheap and effective way to get gold or items to sell for real-world money, to make a profit on Blizzard's game by selling things that a) have no real-world value, and b) are notowned by the goldsellers. It is effectively a scam to rip off players, and one that Blizzard is strongly against. Botting makes it so a single person can work on grinding out gold and items for multiple characters simultaneously -- increased volume.

That is the main thing Blizzard is protecting against.

Same guy as above.

Another quip. If you guys honestly think that shutting down Glider is going to do a single thing to the availability of bots, it's not, it's just going to outsource it overseas where Blizzard can't touch the botmakers. Meanwhile, we're stuck with the shitty ramifications of this law.

If the ECA wants to deal with EULA's this is their chance. Are we going to see anything out of them on this? Even just a press release?

Bot users and Farmers all SUCK. They ruin MMO's for normal users. Screw them. I hope they all get sued and kicked out of every MMO ever made. I got $50 on Blizzard wasting this fool in court. Good for them.

I'm conflicted. On one hand, I hate bots. If you're not going to actually play the game, then your avatar shouldn't be taking virtual space. Plus, bots are a oft used tool of the RMT (Real Money Trade), another type of activity I hate. Basically, I dislike most activity that goes against the intended spirit of the gameplay.

That being said, I also hate just how much power is behind those bloody EULAs. I understand that they're there to give the companies the ability to effectively police thier game and make it a fun environment for most customers. But so of the things we agree to when we click that "I Agree" button is insane! They definitely need trimmed down significantly.

"While we all hate bots, and I can see Blizzard wanting to use this as precedent to slap down farmers… I don’t think this is the right route."

Bots are cheating and buying from farmers is cheating. I think Blizzard should have the right to stamp both out. If you don't have the time to play the game legitimately, too bad for you. It doesn't give you the right to go ruining the game experience for others.

I have little sympathy for bot programmers and users.

Why's Blizzard's undies all in a bunch? They are still getting their monthly fees. Billions and billions of dollars of monthly fees.

Thing about WoW is, it's geared toward the casual player, so those using bots are just lazy in my opinion

If you don't have time to play the game, then DON'T PLAY IT!!!

# Todd Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Why’s Blizzard’s undies all in a bunch? They are still getting their monthly fees. Billions and billions of dollars of monthly fees.
--------------

Because it is screwing with the on-line economy of the game and that messing is up for other honest paying customers. Are you saying that Bot users and gold farmers have a right to mess up the game for honest players?

My only contribution is that I agree with everything EZK and jds said. However, I hate MMO's, so it doesn't matter to me. But if I were to somehow lose my brain and join one, I would totally use a bot.

So let me get this straight:

People are paying to play a game and paying to not play it.

That's pretty messed up right there.

# kaemmerite Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

My only contribution is that I agree with everything EZK and jds said. However, I hate MMO’s, so it doesn’t matter to me. But if I were to somehow lose my brain and join one, I would totally use a bot.
--------------------

EZK was playing a single player game. That is different. His actions do not effect other players. Bot users and gold farmers do. They cheat and it effects everyone around them for their own benefit.

You pay the fee every month because you wan't to enjoy the ingame experience.

But you don't want to have to deal with the constant grind that wastes your time and money.

Seem's perfectly fair.

Btw I don't play WoW, I don't have the time to waste on something thats just going to end up stealing my soul.

@Simon Roberts

But I’m wondering just how bad the grind is in WoW that people would really use bots to skip on it.

When WoW launched, it was criticized for being "too easy" and things going "too quickly" -- that the grind was almost completely done with, since there was a feeling of accomplishment from doing quests and such. Compared to basically every other MMO on the market at the time, WoW's grind was short, sweet, and quickly blown through to the highest level.

It only has gotten faster, what with entire quest series having been added in areas and level ranges that were missing or short on quests, and then a ton of the quests that used to require groups to do were made soloable across the world, and then the amount of XP you get for doing quests was bolstered considerably for most levels, as well as the amount of XP you needed to go from one level to the next was significantly reduced for most levels, the grind is incredibly quick any more.

...but you’d think that Blizzard would be aware of that and work the mechanics to favour the exciting stuff.

Which they have. It now is faster than ever to get up to the "end-game" level (currently 70), and get into raids, battlegrounds, arenas, and other things that are "end-game". Raids were opened up to be more accessible to a wider range of players, etc. Which all of this has resulted in a lot of bitter resentment from a few of the players who felt that it is not fair how "easy" the game is now for people.

I don't like the precedent this might set, but I absolutely despise gold farmers, and I feel that apps like Glider circumvent the spirit of the game. I am against that, as a gamer and a game designer.

@ Simon

Yeah, level 20 is about the minimum that you can beat the Dragon Lord with a whole lot of luck on your side. About level 25 is where it is pretty effortless. Considering the game caps at level 30 I was not far off. I think I was about 18 when I got Erdrick's sword on that last play through.

The problem was with the fact that the max XP you get from any enemy is 105, it takes a while to get the 10,000 xp needed for each level after 20.

@ Dennis

Where's the rest of the article?

On one hand blizzard has an issue when there game is simple enough for a bot to do something that is central to the game.

On the other hand it gives some people an unfair advantage over others. This also helps gold farmers and others and frankly gold farmers are never a good thing in any game.

So maybe they need to make the grind and ingame money less important in the game itself.

I think you guys are overlooking the part where he was SELLING it which is probably where the real trouble for him is.

@Questionmark

"Ok first off technically copyright law is not criminal, it’s contractual. It fits more closely into civil law I believe."

By attempting to invoke the DMCA, they are trying to move it from civil into the realm of criminal.

"Moving beyond petty technicalities however, why is this a bad thing? Blizzard spent a lot of resources building a program. To put it simply. This person has gone outside the scope of their legal rights and abused this program for personal gain."

Have they a right to complain? Yes. Have they a right to demand laughably sad restrictions on you in order to protect their product? No.

My take on this, is they're not banning PLAYERS who violate their EULA, they're using the EULA to justify suing the botmaker for copyright infringement. If this was really about EULA violations, they'd be going after the players who use this app. But they're trying to argue somehow that through reverse-engineering a method for bypassing the anti-bot stuff, that the botmaker is in violation of the EULA. He might very well be, but violating the EULA doesn't not suddenly give Blizzard the right to demand damages...

Violation of the EULA, a breach of contract, just means that the botmaker can have his account legitimately shut down. Nothing more.

Which is why I hope they really go over the EULA with a fine toothed comb, and find out what other "rights" Blizzard has awarded itself...

@Jaborwock

The problem with you're argument is that you're not recognizing Blizzard's interests.

They're interest lies in protecting the experience of the players. Sure, banning each player that uses the software is within their power, but aside from the fact that the modder manufactured a way around their detection programs (which he claims are unauthorized but are actually authorized by the fact that the person must install them on their computers themselves and agree to their use by agreeing to the EULA) he is hurting Blizzard's interests by frustrating legitimate players.

Frankly I would like to see the courts hang him out to dry, not only with monetary damages but with time served. If you want to go into the extreme Blizzard could probably make a case that not only does his program affect the Client software but because of the nature of the relationship of the client and server software that the mod also affects and changes the server software, which he has no claim to.

Personally, I don't see why Blizzard is taking this to court. It's their game, put the banhammer on botters if they so choose, and let that be the end of it.

What's next, is the government gonna sue all the companies that sell radar detectors because it will potentially get them out of a speeding ticket?

My dad botted his warlock from 69-70, then fired up a lower level character. I glance over at his laptop occasionally since my desktop is right next to the desk he usually leaves it on, he's been botting his second character for about 4 days now (about 8 hours at a time, he turns it off at night), he has barely over 4 gold. The idea that botters "break the economy" is ludicrous. Farmers distribute gold widely, not to a small number of individuals, and they certainly don't spend the gold they accumulate themselves. The people who buy gold may receive a very high amount of gold compare to what their grinding would give them, but it's often a small portion of the gold a farmer wields over his usually multiple accounts. A very small portion of this gold is ever spent by the farmer, and never on high-demand items, since a farmer has no need for twink gear, or high level trade goods.

The only argument for "botting is bad" that I see has any merit is when a bot is set to farm in a high-traffic area, or patrols an area that lets the character whore a rare item drop, since this is actually disruptive. However, this really isn't a huge issue for players who are just grinding, since there are massive areas where mobs of a particular level spawn, though it may cause problems for "kill X of enemy Q" quests. Most players will put bots in low-traffic areas anyway, in order to avoid being noticed by other players.

I wanna see an MMO released that allows all the "disruptive" actions other games will ban for, just to dispel a few of these old wives tales about. "X action breaks the in-game economy!" or "P Action ruins the game for other players!" And if botting really DOES damage the in-game balance, then at least you'll have proof. I currently see no evidence that (properly used) botting does anything detrimental to other players, and I refuse to truly look down on it until I see something of the sort.

Uh, guys, you seem to be missing the point here. All Glider does is read memory. Your memory, that you own. Blizzard is claiming that you, as a computer owner, have no right to read your computer's RAM.

...

Yeah, fuck Blizzard.

@Questionmark

"The problem with you’re argument is that you’re not recognizing Blizzard’s interests."

Frankly my dear, I just don't give a damn. ;)

Seriously. Blizzard cannot legitimately justify a lawsuit against the botmaker over this. They can cancel accounts, as people who use the software must abide by the EULA in order to play. But they can't use the EULA to somehow transform this into a copyright infringement argument, which is what they are trying to do.

This has very serious implications for software developers. What about virus-scanners? They need to monitor RAM and other resources in order to do their job. Does the WoW EULA forbid them too? I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

The question is not if the botmaker is doing something disreputable. I agree that it is. BUT the question is whether a EULA can be used, not to punish people who use a bot (and are therefore in violation of the EULA they agreed to in order to play the game), but to sue someone who developed the bot? Does agreeing to the EULA "grant" Blizzard that "right"? What EXACTLY are the consequences to violating the EULA? Is the right to sue over monitoring your system listed?

I bot, regularly in fact. I'm not a gold farmer, and I'm not paying a monthly fee to not play the game.

I play it regularly to be honest, but I got tired of grinding mobs to get a new 70, spending my hours farming gold for a flying mount, and having to do it multiple times. The rep grinding got boring as well. So I bought glider.

There's a huge difference between botters and gold farmers. Most botters just do it to level or take care of rep grinding, you rarely notice them, because most only do it a few hours out of the day. I did it 3-4 hours a day to level my characters. And if someone is in the area and they want to grind, I stop the bot and let them have the spot.

Gold farmers are the ones who really have a hand in ruining your precious server economy, and they're the ones you tend to notice since they farm ungodly hours all over the place.

Sure there's still the unfair advantage of me being able to level in my sleep, and I have been banned for that, ironically I lost legit characters and not botted ones, but it's the price I pay.

@Questionmark

"Ok first off technically copyright law is not criminal, it’s contractual. It fits more closely into civil law I believe."

Copyright law contains both civil and criminal elements in and of itself, and the amounts discussed (in excess of 2.8 million) places this well into the criminal area. Blizzard is also alleging breach of contract, but that's mostly separate.

The violation of an End-User License Agreements should be separated from copyright law, in my opinion. Blizzard is alleging willful contributory and vicarious infringement by "copying the WoW software into Random Access Memory beyond the scope of the EULA." They're also saying that the software circumvents a technological protection measure (the Warden software), which would also make the software in violation of the DMCA. I think that's stretching it.

While I have no problem believing that potential infringement outside of the scope of a license could potentially be infringement, I don't believe that copyright should be the tool used. It this is the case of violating a license, then use breach of contract, not infringement.

As to your following paragraph, it's a bad thing not because they're stopping the cheating or the profit from cheating- like I said, I don't have a problem with that. I believe it's a bad thing because of the way they're doing it. The way they're going about it has repercussions beyond stopping someone cheating.

While I can agree copyright might be the wrong venue for this (mostly because it's hard to make a case of copyright infringement and not because I see any problem with the use of copyright to stop this) the fact of the matter remains that creating a program to violate a EULA should cause problems for the person that created the program.

I can't say copyright is the correct or even logical course of action, but there has to be some recourse for a company to stop the distribution of a program that is, by design, violating the terms they've set forth for use. Since there is no other way they can go about it, I have to support the use of copyright.

@Equinoxius: It's true bots can be used to farm trade goods or rare drops, and I think botting for that purpose is disruptive of the in-game economy and shouldn't be tolerated. However, Glider is ineffective for botting straight cash from corpses, since it requires far more food/drink than an actual player would use over the same period of grinding.

Because bot usage doesn't directly increase a user's income (they have to set it to loot certain areas or drops, instead of gaining simply by turning it on), most botters don't have an unfair advantage other than the grinding they do, which isn't really all that unfair unless you like to whine about people leveling faster than you do.

As for farmers, yes, they fuck up the economy, but only a little, and there's nothing you can do to get rid of them. I'd just allow it outright, but put something in the EULA that would make whoring rare drops/trade goods a banable offense. In Blizzard's case, however, their EULA has already been created, botting is completely against the rules, and they have every right to ban characters that use botting programs. That said, it's really not all that disruptive, and really only has merit as a good PR move.

@Questionmark

Thing is, the EULA cannot cover 3rd party utility software creation. 3rd party software USE, yes. But again, I ask, what exactly is the consequence of violating a contract? Does it give you the right to terminate the contract, and shut down accounts? Yes. Does it give you the right to demand a return of what was initially supplied? In most cases, yes. Does it give you the right to demand exorbitant payment as punishment for violating the contract? Not at all.

I'm going to make a weird analogy, so bear with me. The state lays down laws saying you can drive on their roads, but you cannot go faster than 110km/h. You, as a drivers' licensee, agree to abide by this rule while driving on state roads. Now company A makes a device, that makes your car go faster. Who is guilty, company A, or you, for both installing, and using the device with your car on those roads?

Now when YOU violate the speed laws, you get fined large amounts of money. But you sign the license, KNOWING what those fines will be. They're not merely listed as "some sum we'll determine later". But can you sue the part maker for "enabling" you to violate the speed laws? Nope. YOU took the part, YOU installed it, and YOU used it to go faster than the speed limit. Could Ford/GM/VW/etc sue the part maker? Nope. Can they terminate your lease, or refuse to service under the warranty, if they find out you're using that part? Absolutely.

Jabrwock

However do you think there wouldn't be any consequences for the makers of the parts? I can't say for sure whether a company can make something that allows people to perform illegal actions without any consequence. The only example I can think of that situation is radar detectors which are only illegal in some states.

Should a company be able to stop someone from creating software which will edit the function of that companies software? Yes. The glider software is essentially hacking the client side software, which then affects the server side software. The program is hacking the server software and changing it.

This is akin to someone creating a program to hack bank databases to edit the amounts of money in someones account. They then sell the software to people. Would the people be prosecuted? Yes. Would the person who created the software get away without being prosecuted? No, because causing the situation where the crime occurs is considered in itself a crime. Is it the same crime? No, but it is creating the crime and deserves it's own punishment.

Is the guy who created the software guilty of copyright infringement? not directly, but he did create the system which caused the copyright infringement (or even just the EULA violation) to occur, so he is responsible for the entirety of the EULA violations.

Frankly Blizzard could probably add a clause saying they can seize monetary damages to the EULA, do the normal you must agree to this in order to play and go after him for that. He would be free for the programs already distributed, but any new sales would be prosecutable.

@Questionmark:

Whoa, whoa. You have NO idea what you're talking about. Glider is NOT a hack. Glider does NOT modify the WoW code in any way. Glider READS from memory. Glider generates the keystrokes and mouse movements to automate the character in-game. Also, in client/server programming, YOU DO NOT TRUST THE CLIENT. The server is authoratative. 95% of all multiplayer-related game hacks stem from poor server code. Look at all of the projects based on the Quake engines. Since the projects source code has been released, all of the known 'hacks' have been patched.

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but take it from somebody who knows what they're talking about. This is not a 'hack'. It doesn't patch any executable code, it only reads from your PC's memory much the same way an anti-virus program does to scan processes for virus signatures.

This is why this issue is so hard to bring into court, because I doubt there's a judge alive who understands the true heart of this issue, and Blizzard knows it.

@GoodRobotUs

It's true. Without them there wouldn't be much ice on the market. None of the regular players and miners want it.

I myself used to play quite often. If you don't mind me asking, what corp/alliance are you with? I used to be a member of XF before the break up, then we joined ASCN for a while, then they fell, not that surprising. Then I left for a bit. Came back rejoined my corp right as the alliance they were in was getting kicked out by Tri, then we joined Insurgency. Then I left again. Getting off Academic probation at school is more important than Eve.

@Questionmark

"The only example I can think of that situation is radar detectors which are only illegal in some states."

There's a reason I left radar detectors out of my example. Because they *explicitely* interfere with law enforcement. They don't make your car go faster, they make your car either invisible to, or warn you of, radar/lidar dectection. Had Glider interfered with "Watcher" in some way, by fooling it into thinking the software was not tampered with, when it was, you might have a smidgen of a valid case.

But Glider does no such thing. Glider would be the equivalent of driving down the highway at normal speed, making a note of all the police checks, and then telling people where they are, and they then use that information to speed at the places the police are not. Is it disreputable? Yes. Is it illegal? It would be very hard to justify that you making a note of police traps is. The speeders on the other hand... well...

"This is akin to someone creating a program to hack bank databases to edit the amounts of money in someones account."

No, it's not. This is akin to using virus scanning software to check your outgoing packets to your own account at your own bank. Only the bank doesn't want you to scan the packets for whatever reason. So they forbid you to scan for viruses while you do your online transactions. But you do it anyway. Is it in violation of the banking EULA? Yes. Does it give them the right to terminate your ability to do banking online? Yes. Does it give them the right to sue virus-scanning companies? Why?

Except in your examples there is no gain from "check your outgoing packets to your own account" Glider creates new value without any input from the user, thus you're not just checking your packets, you're increasing the amount of money in your bank account.

Please tell me HOW it would be legal for someone to create and distribute a program which incrementally increased the amount of money in their bank account without any actual deposit from said person?

I started playing WoW at level 1 just like everyone else. Problem was, my friends that got me started were level 50. They didn't want to roll alts. They didn't want to help me. So I got left behind on everything. I can relate to the plight to the people who use bots to level. Endgame calls, and just try to convince your guild to wait. By the time your ready for Kara, they're on Hyjal.

Well, how about this proposal. Cash money for a level 70 toon. From Blizzard. No eBay. No Bots. No grind. Just give Blizz say sixty bucks (about 4 months of service) and they give you a level 70, with greens.

It's essentially the same crap they're doing with the World Arena Tournament, but for the PvE. Then put a cooldown on it like their Transfers and Name Changes, and bam. Easy revenue for Blizz, leaving Gliders in the hands of only those who wish to use it to farm (mostly, can't always account for the financially or intellectually impaired) and then go after them.

Simply put: Make the crime legit and it will shrink the black market.

@CycloneTH

"Ask the people that make all the automated programs designed to sell stock in your portfolio when it reaches a certain price."

Good example. :)

Or eBay auto-bidders. Or subscriber auto-purchasers (my wife has one set up, so she doesn't lose her membership in a buyers club. if she doesn't make any purchases by the 15th, it auto-selects products and orders them for her).

The only difference between these, and Glider, is that WoW doesn't want you to use the automator. But since you aren't actually hacking the server, or even the client-app, they can't come up with a better argument than to sue the 3rd party automator under the EULA... which is only an agreement between WoW and the end-user...

Hmm. Well, look at it this way:

If Donnelly had just made the program for his own benefit, that would be one thing, and I highly doubt that Blizzard would have done more than ban him.

However, by marketing it and selling to others, the issue grows much larger. The more people do this, the more resources Blizzard has to devote to counteracting the bots. And the more money this one guy makes with his program, the more copycats he inspires, which causes more programs to go out there and thus forces Blizzard to use even more resources to stop it. And so on, and so on...

Blizzard, therefore, has a choice: either play a perpetual game of catch-up with the bot-makers, trying to put out fires as they happen... or they can pre-emptively put a stop to the whole shebang.

I feel they have every right to do the latter.

As for the objections to the 'monitoring RAM and keystrokes' thing... sometimes just because you own something doesn't mean you still have 100% control over it. Take, for example, your car: many states have emissions requirements, and if it doesn't pass an emissions test, you can't drive it. Thus, even though you own the car, if you don't maintain it at a certain level, you can't legally drive it. Not the best analogy, I admit, but the situation is somewhat similar.

"When a contract is broken as in this instance the party who broke contract is subject to certain penalties."

Such as? Does anyone actually know what the EULA says the penalties are? Or even what general ballpark they fall into?

This is why I want the court to go through the EULA with a fine-toothed comb. Because I'm pretty sure Blizzard is affording themselves certain "rights" to do more than is reasonable.

@KotatsuNeko: "As for the objections to the ‘monitoring RAM and keystrokes’ thing… sometimes just because you own something doesn’t mean you still have 100% control over it."

Ownership
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Own):

Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property, which may be an object, land/real estate, intellectual property (arguably) or some other kind of property.

So yeah, that's kinda exactly what it means.

Honestly I haven't looked, but it's just as possible that a clause says "If you break these rules you will be fined 10 billion dollars."

The scary thing is that if it's in the EULA, it can be enforced. As long as people are hitting "I accept" anything in the EULA becomes legally binding. The next thing you have to think about is what can happen assuming Blizz does lose the case. All they have to do is ass in a few small clauses and they can bring the man right back to court under the new EULA.

"They have a Policy Page about it. Basically, the most damaging thing they do is close the account. And for botting, it pretty much jumps straight to that."

So how do they manage to expand this to anything more significant than closing WoWGlider's accounts?

See, this is why they're resorting to claiming DMCA/Copyright violations. Because they can't come up with anything legitimate through other means that would do anything more than just force WoWGlider to buy another copy of the game...

I'm going to have to go with Blizzard on this one. Gold Farming is pretty bad, and they should have every right to get rid of this type of activity. I doubt that Blizzard would go after legitimate customers over their EULA. Granted it sets a standard down against this activity, which I don't particularly see as a bad thing, and I just don't believe that any company going after the real customers would win in court, but then again, anything is possible.

As a WoW player I find people who use these bots extremly annoying and don't understand why people use it! The purpose of the game is to enjoy leveling! And as for selling it... it's giving him money off someone else's program (sorry if anyone's already said this) but I mean, if I was the owner of Blizzard and someone was making money off me without permission, I'd wanna sue him! I personally hope Blizzard wins so I can play without all those lazy jackasses doing nothing to get to 70 while I toil night-after-night to level like a decent player

@Cafalump

"And as for selling it… it’s giving him money off someone else’s program"

So would you lump player guides/walkthroughs into that category? The courts seem to feel that walkthroughs are legit, even though they too make money off someone else's program.

okay then, he's getting money off someone else's program without there permission, as I slightly put later, but I guess it wasn't al that clear

The EULA issue aside, if the ECA were to intervene on behalf of a bot software writer, it would ensure that I would *never* join that organization.

The majority of entertainment software consumers are far more interested in making sure that online multiplayer games remain as fair an environment as possible.

For some people, cheating is anathema, and when some people cheat, everyone has to cheat or be at a competitive disadvantage.

MDY's motion is a good read. Especially the bit where they argue that EULA terms in no way afford Blizzard extra "rights" under the Copyright Act.

@ Angelfire

How would not having to do the mundane tasks in game (all the gathering tasks) ruin the game? You like fishing in game? Come on. Protect their game, fine. I'm not condoning anything else, I'm simply pointing out they've created their own monster.

@ Demontestament

Uhm you took what I said out of context. I never said Blizz should pay for the mod I said they should add it. It's their game and there's nothing against them creating a bot program. If you don't wish to use it you don't have to. It just seems stupid in the day and age of databases and the ability to create mailing lists that in order to get higher in level you sit around fishing in game for hours to make the higher levels... Oh fun.

On content let's take that into perspective... Take $15 x 9,000,000...

How often do you think content should be updated when a company intakes that much gross revenue per month? Currenly it's once every 3 months give or take.

The reason the gold sellers, hackers, and the spammer exist are people with your mindset. If you REMOVE the advantages there's no reason for them to exist anymore. Hence add the mods/hacks and the like in game. If you wanna grind manually, go for it. But why would anyone try to sell you gold, toons, stuff anymore when you press a button and the game will do it for you?

It's only cheating when only a select few can do it.

@Cafalump

The purpose of the game is debatable. While you may enjoy leveling, I do not, so I bot, because I enjoy end-game raiding, and do not feel like putting my time into getting extra characters up to 70.

My bot does not take your enjoyment of the game away if I don't interfere with you. Only one person on my server even knows that I bot, there are no complaints to me, only thing people say about my characters are nice things since I often give stuff away.

@cullarn

Glider doesn't message people to spam them. In fact most bots don't message people, at least the ones used for leveling and farming.

Also I don't get bot spam, I only got it once at level 33. A year ago.

@Godkarmachine O Inary

i have quite a few characaters at lower levels i do get spam (its not as bad as it was ill admit when i first started ploaying) but im still getting farmer spamming ( i didnt really pay much attention just enought to know that it was spam then register the complaint)

You know what is funny> If Blizzard says no, then no it is. All this arguing if WE think it is okay or not is a moot point. WoW is no democracy. You as a player get only one vote that matter, your cash. After that you get no more votes. AS IN NONE. Blizzard and and will tell you what to do on the servers because they own them. They can and will tell you what to do with the game code because they own it. They own everything in WoW. You won nothing, not even your characters. This is not Second Life. The fact that the code resides in your RAM does not make the code yours. Blizzard will win the law suit and bot fools will lose.

@Loudspeaker :

> Take $15 x 9,000,000…

$15/month is only the price in the USA, for people paying monthly. I pay in 6 month blocks and it's less. People in Europe probably pay more (they ALWAYS do) but in China it's per hour.

Anyway, it probably won't be too hard to see the actual numbers Blizzard pulls in now that they're owned by a publicly traded company (as well as what it costs them). It probably won't marked "World of Warcraft" in the 10-Q but the revenue stream will probably be the lion's share of any subscription revenue which is likely to shown separately.

There's got to be a middle ground somewhere. EVE Online similarly tries to stamp out farmers and other illegal exploits, however they've also worked with some in the community to develop third-party utilities. For example, EVEMon, a player-developed utility, will keep track of characters, skills being learned, and provide data on ships, items, and current mineral prices. The EVE Online developers actually set aside a server connection and developed an API so that these independent utilities could have a dedicated tie into the game universe to get the relevant (protected) player data and other information without impacting the game.

So I believe there is a way for independents to work with developers for a game they enjoy that doesn't trigger draconian EULAs or ruin the game for everyone.

But not everybody likes playing nice or respecting effort, I suppose ... ?

@Delin

Sorry for the late reply :) I was mostly a small-corp player in Eve, we weren't part of any real alliance, though we did arrange some 0.4 mining permission/support with one alliance and tended to work alongside them for a while, but only for industry & research.

I'm actually part of an NPC Corp at the moment, working on my standings, which is useful in some respects, but means that going into low-sec is a no-no. Everyone seems to assume a non-aligned Heavy Assault Cruiser is up to no good

uggg where to start....


Firstly i would like to address what world of warcraft truly is:A hobby and like any hobby many people spend money on it with some spending more than others.The next issue is time,some do not have 5 hours a day to devote to getting gear do to work,kids,rampant whack-a-mole addiction or whatever and need a slight boost to stay competitive in a ever changing world.
so for many its a alternative to keep pace so they can actually have fun when they do have time to play,which is the whole point of the game to begin with.Its time for numbers!!!

1.gold farmers are not all evil some of them are the brightest,funniest people i have ever met.

2.a fairly good chunk just sell spare gold person to person this helps the workaholic keep up and the one who plays more can use the money to buy pizza and arizona drinks to play more wow.everybody wins.

3.gold farming in wow has the exact opposite effect people think it does considering the data over many years that whenever blizzard does a mass ban of gold farmers prices inflate massively(as seen on dreden server when the shard farmers where banned......shard prices jumped by 30 fold for 5 weeks straight due to severe lack of supply).

4.wow is a near unlimited material supply game:which means the more materials out there to craft,quest or kill bunnies with grenades with the lower the average price.The only mmos who have this in reverse are ones that have rare spawns on set re pop timers that drop 1/8 trillion kills loot.
in which case the same thing happens if a regular player gets it anyhow(im looking at you FFXI -.-).

5.I have sold gold to a few friends before who can't stay on for 11 hours to get the epic mount.I'm not going out of my way to sell them this but when the opportunity occurs for extra spare change to go towards a computer that doesn't lag to hell in shattratah so i can enjoy the game more than so be it.(its not like im out in skar farming 21 hours a day for the gold anyhow).

6.EULA's already have a very high amount of power as is,blizzard doing this is no different than the modchip raids not to mention they can twist this so far they could even take his patent on his program since blizz has a part in the eula saying they can use any and all information from mods used in future updates.aka eula stealing livelyhood.

6a.example:i make a mod that makes the screen flash red whenever illidan gets ready to use his instant death eye lazorzs,under blizz eula(hidden very well mind you)they can take the source code and use it for updates that do the same thing in game but without my permission.

6b.i make a new version but they slap a c.a.d on me saying im infringing on their copyrights...wait...who infringed who again?

7.I don't agree in the current "oh you bought it but we ultimately have last say in what you can and cannot do with it"crap.If i buy a truck and want to paint it silver with dragons on it i don't want ford coming to my house saying you are not allowed to have dragons on your truck...only their buyer agreement of unicorns...screw unicorns they suck.The fact is If i buy something I should be able to mod it to do whatever I want from a toaster n64 all the way to a wow startup disk that can kill a tiger in 1 shot.

8.originally the only way to say anyone copyright infringed is if they were selling the said copies of whatever they copied(as stated in the whole vcr recordings power thing so long ago)but now its getting to where if you play the song on a ipod that was originally designed for a zune you can be fined/have services shut off/sued.The way copyright laws are now(thanks a fucking lot clinton -.-)it won't be long until lobbyist start getting more and more pull to make owning the item with out a massive contract illegal(aka renting).

I think the best way to shorten this would be ...give blizzard a inch and they will take 100 miles,maybe instead of giving corporations more copyright power they should find a better alternative(like having a team decipher source code to block the mods perhaps)or just turning on world pvp everywhere so some fool hunter can try and kill my pally as i farm up some mana motes...cmon you huntard...i dare ya.

ps:this message brought to you by your local casual farmer...yeah i was the guy selling you motes for 40% of ah price you hypocritcal jerk :p

Oh I'm sorry, I was under the impression that when I make a game and release it for people to use, I should be the one making money off it. Not joe schmoe who made an ad on to completely destroy the entire game design because he didn't want to have to do any work for the rewards.

My bad, from now on when I design games I'll make sure to just give the player all the nifty crap at the beginning and then they can just run around doing whatever for however long.

Yeah, no quests, no obstacles, just a bunch of items and gold and nothing to accomplish with it. That will be fun.

To explain further, what this program does is remove the player from the game. Someone somewhere spent a lot of time and effort to create that experience, and people creating and using programs like this are basically saying all the time and effort put into it aren't worth anything. I'm sorry but frankly if you're attitude is that my time and effort working on building this experience for you is worthless, I don't want you to play the game I made.

Addenum: However, if botting were to give some unfair advantage, then I can see why it should not be allowed. However, if whether I'm level 20 or level 50 doesn't affect you in anyway, why should you care?

I don't play WoW, so I have no idea what bots or farmers are. Could someone fill me in?(If someone already asked this question, I missed it)

This has probably been brought up before maybe not I don't know and I don't have time to read all the comments (since frankly I am currently losing my addiction to the MMORPG I play).

But still

To all those who complain that they don't have time to level up characters and whatnot.

As we have all repeated again and again games are not designed for everyone. If you don't have time to play WOW you should take that into consideration when deciding whether or not you want to continue playing instead of trying to stretch the rules.

I'll give you an example, take Risk.

Risk as most of you know is a game of strategy and as such if you are not very strategic you won't be very good. Shall we change the rules of Risk to accomodate those who are naturally bad strategists?

Now some may say it should be OK if everyone playing says yes, and I agree. The problem is I have not found one MMORPG where all the players agree to allow bots there.

A suprisingly large number of people commenting here seem to enjoy playing games with rapant cheating and horrible player experiences.

I think as far as EULA should go, they should just cut down all that garbage to this simple statement:

"We reserve the right to refuse service"

If someone goes to Denny's and drinks free coffee (after paying for the initial cup of course) for 12 hours, the Waitress or Host can ask them to leave and don't have to worry about any legal hassles, why don't game worlds work the same way?

if you don't have time to play a game, why pay to play it?

# Todd Says:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Why’s Blizzard’s undies all in a bunch? They are still getting their monthly fees. Billions and billions of dollars of monthly fees.
----
But you forget. If I can bot from 60-70 in less than a month, that's one less month I'd spend playing. Say a normal player goes from 60-70 in 3 months (idk, I'm one of the few who don't play WoW), the program just cheated Blizz out of 2 months of fees for each person that does it.

========

@CycloneTH

I've found an example where botting did ruin the game economy: FF11. When I played actively a few years ago, items would go for 6-7mil+ gil. And sometimes that was for level 1 items for the new jobs, which you could get by a quest. Sony had to ban transfer of gil via Auction House and they reset all of the prices for items. They also banned auctioning of most rare/special items. I recently started playing for a month (quit again because I didn't have the expansion and was about level 50 instead of everyone else's 75), and while the prices had receded, they were still inflated somewhat.
==

Anyhow, I think the whole point of this is to cut off Glider from the source, so Blizz doesn't have to spend money to find everybody using it, then setting the banhammer to them. It also sets precedence so they can go after the real gold farmers that may not be selling the program commercially. It's easier to go after this guy and then go after the farming bots rather than go after the farming bots first.

@Xlorep

Yes, I understand the process of farming: getting items and equipment then selling them for real money. However, how does this negatively impact other players? It allows the farmers to work more efficiently, but it's not stopping other players from getting equipment and enjoying the game.

@Are'el

I don't agree with your arguments on how it negatively effects the game.
1. Higher trade prices: In general, prices should be lower due to farmers cycling more equipment back into the market. There might be some bidding wars for the highest priced items, but inflation is a market-wide effect so overall it won't cost any more.
2. Inflation: Inevitable in any game. However more equipment being created for the market should lower prices to counter this effect.
3. Level 70 newbies: Don't group with them. It should be obvious right away if someone just bought a level 70 account.

All these things the botters are doing are made possible by the game itself. Like piracy and intellectual property, they exist and the only thing you can do is adapt to the new market.

Finally, the argument that "if you don't like the game, don't play it" is wrong. Clearly the botters like playing SOME parts of the game, so that's what they're going to play. Alternatively, one might like most parts of the game, but also have a preference. They will play the parts of the game that they enjoy most. Therefore, they bot through the boring parts to get to the parts they like. Pretty simple really.

@ Tua

"But you forget. If I can bot from 60-70 in less than a month, that’s one less month I’d spend playing... the program just cheated Blizz out of 2 months of fees for each person that does it."

I think that's the crux of Blizzard's concern; WoW is designed as a time-sink because that's how Blizzard makes it's money. The longer you play the more you pay, whether you're having fun or not. In my opinion, this it's a little sleazy to force players to spend time and money just to receive the opportunity of paying more money to play the fun parts. I only like paying for things when I get value from it.

@Xlorep DarkHelm

"I fail to see how it is “affording them extra rights”. Blizzard has all of the rights from the Copyright Act. And, they can attempt to shut down those who build software that infringes upon those rights. Glider was explicity made to infringe on Blizzard’s copyright (as well as explicitly allow other people to violate the EULA)."

Read Blizzard's filing, now contrast it with MDY's filing.

Blizzard is arguing that the Copyright Act forbids Glider from making a copy of WoW in RAM. But Blizzard already allows the user to make a copy in RAM, for the purpose of running the game. Glider doesn't make any extra copies other than those authorized already by initially running the game. MDY's point is that Blizzard is trying to use the EULA as an extra right to define under what conditions you are allow to "copy" the game into RAM. And MDY argues that you can't do that. You have to judge the act of copying based on the initial permission to run the app. Which the EULA doesn't cover. It covers USE of the app, but you have to load it into RAM first in order to USE it. Once the game is copied, the EULA comes into effect, which then gives Blizzard the right to ban your account.

So that's what I mean by Blizzard attempting to give themselves extra rights under the CA. They are using the EULA to try to define how your right to copy the game into RAM is accomplished, and they're not allowed to do that under the CA. MDY is arguing they're only allowed to say whether or not you're allowed to copy the game into RAM, not how.

@Questionmark

You've defined a lot of "disreputable" acts. But you have yet to explain how any of them are illegal...

@James

Yes, I understand the process of farming: getting items and equipment then selling them for real money. However, how does this negatively impact other players? It allows the farmers to work more efficiently, but it’s not stopping other players from getting equipment and enjoying the game.

Economics 101, applied to a virtual world. What happens when the supply of currency rises at an increased rate?

WoW's in-game economy is a somewhat fragile system. Money in the game is effectively created from thin air. All that is needed is kill a monster, sell something to a vendor, finish a quest. It assigns basically a currency value to the time and effort put in to get that cash. Botting trivializes that effort. Blizzard defines the effort as what a single individual can do, but if that same individual is doing 2x as much, or 10x as much through botting, that drastically impacts the balance struck in the game's economy.

People can argue that there is a balance in the system already, and there is through vendor goods, or other methods to remove the currency from the game. But, there is a basic requirement that more money appears in the system at a given rate, or else nobody would be able to buy anything (there always has to be more currency coming into an MMO's server economy than going out of it, there can never be an equality nor where more currency leaving than being added, or else all of the currency would rapidly disappear or nobody could buy anything).

Now, there does, by necessity, have to be a form of inflation on a MMO economy (where would people get the money to begin with otherwise). Blizzard has done a lot to handle this, and manage it... under the presumption that a certain amount of effort is required, and a certain amount of deductions take place to remove the currency for the system. Botters basically can circumvent this, resulting in the same person gathering potentially one or two orders of magnitude more currency than usual for a person. This money then gets infused into the server economy. More money across the server results in prices going up on items... which servers hit hard with botters in the past have had. Blizzard's raising the amount of currency freely available in Burning Crusade helped destroy a lot of that, at least temporarily...

Basically, the gold-seller/farmers using bots affects a server's economy, and can drastically do so. This is frequently the argument that Blizzard themselves has used, and they have had the logs from their servers to back up the claim. The whole activity rapidly can be detrimental to a server's economy, and a lot of Blizzard's actions to prevent this has been to prevent the problems. For the most part, they've done a decent job handling it, and have gotten better as time progressed.

@Jabrwock

So that’s what I mean by Blizzard attempting to give themselves extra rights under the CA. They are using the EULA to try to define how your right to copy the game into RAM is accomplished, and they’re not allowed to do that under the CA. MDY is arguing they’re only allowed to say whether or not you’re allowed to copy the game into RAM, not how.

Explaining yourself definitely does help me understand more what your point was :) And I'll agree, I'm not certain what Blizzard is trying to do there.

But you have yet to explain how any of them are illegal…

Last I checked, a lawsuit doesn't require that something be defined as "illegal"... but I could be mistaken.

To put the whole thing together to make sense of it.

MDY isn't being targetted for actually making copies himself, he is being targetted for creating the ability for other people to create unauthorized copies. When a customer agrees to the EULA saying they will not use 3rd party software and then uses glider, they are breaking EULA, the copy made to their RAM becomes unauthorized because it breaks the terms Blizzard set out that are required of the user to constitute authorization of the copy. Now that gives Blizz the power to go after each individual who uses glider, but in that aspect it's much cheaper just to ban accounts.

However they can go after the maker of the glider program for creating the process through which users create illegal copies. This is why companies go after other companies like Napster. Napster didn't actually make illegal copies, but they created the program that allowed others to do so.

"
K-OSS Says:

March 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I started playing WoW at level 1 just like everyone else. Problem was, my friends that got me started were level 50. They didn’t want to roll alts. They didn’t want to help me. So I got left behind on everything. I can relate to the plight to the people who use bots to level. Endgame calls, and just try to convince your guild to wait. By the time your ready for Kara, they’re on Hyjal.

Well, how about this proposal. Cash money for a level 70 toon. From Blizzard. No eBay. No Bots. No grind. Just give Blizz say sixty bucks (about 4 months of service) and they give you a level 70, with greens.

It’s essentially the same crap they’re doing with the World Arena Tournament, but for the PvE. Then put a cooldown on it like their Transfers and Name Changes, and bam. Easy revenue for Blizz, leaving Gliders in the hands of only those who wish to use it to farm (mostly, can’t always account for the financially or intellectually impaired) and then go after them.

Simply put: Make the crime legit and it will shrink the black market.
"
============

How about: $60 gets you a lvl 70 with basic skills, no faction and no gear.

Questionmark, are you a lawyer? You seem to be awfully certain about what is infringing or not. However, the lawyer who filed the defendant's motion for summary judgement makes a seemingly equally valid argument, at least to my untrained eyes.

The protection of creators is a means to an end- copyright protection is there "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." ^_-

@jabr:

I just realized that if they lose in this battle they can sue them for damages related to harming other customer's enjoyment of the game.

I still don't see why GMs can't immolate people when they're B&.

I took the time to read the user agreement, bots, wheren't listed except for use of spamming advertisements.

Another thing Blizz pissed me off when I played WoW had a character named Admiral for neear 3 years and they forced me to change my name citing "violated the agreements" BS, I couldn't make a name the was a Title and a name (KingJames kinda thing) nothing agaisnt a single title. Besides I took the english translation of amiral-bahr arabic meaning Commander of the Seas. Nothing in the ToA agaisnt using foreign words.

[...] According to this, World of Warcraft creator Blizzard is claiming that Glider Bot author Michael Donnelly has earned a total of $2.8m from sales of his software. [...]

"If Blizzard wins this case, EULA’s become legally enforceable"

It is leagally enforcable already. It's drafted by contract lawyers, and approved by the company.The EULA is a contract that you must agree to, to use said product. If you ignore said contract you are in violation and are subject to ramifications.

Off topic, I just noticed the WoW watch dog group, jerks stole my idea. Oh well.

@ Lol

Companies have done the easy target before. Glider in it's self doesn't break the EULA when it comes to leveling up, farming it's a giant loop hole, but it mentions specificlly no bots to adverstise.

Personally, I don't find anything wrong with using programs, other players, etc to help you lvl. Everything in WoW is geared for end game raids. If you're a casual player, without a large raiding guild, or simply not able to chain yourself to your pc for hours and hours on end then you'll never EVER be able to even see half the zones that you're paying for. That's the part that finally pissed me off to the point of quitting. Casual players should be offered a partial monthly refund for every month they don't get to experience the whole game. Get mad at Bliz for that, will ya?

However, I do not agree with earning real world money off of these methods. After all, this is Bliz's product and only they should be able to profit from it. But you'd think that people would be more upset over cheat programs that enable players to track you down on pvp servers, hack kill you, steal things from your inv, etc rather than someone just enabling you to pass through the bs of lvl'ing. You'd also think that Bliz would be more interested in correcting those types of issues and problems first and foremost. But they're not, because they're not losing profit with those. Or are they? I know of several people that have quit due to those cheats rather than the farmers. A farmer has never ruined my play time.

So, I read almost all the posts here since I thought it would be interesting, but my oh my was I wrong... so many posts filled with nothing but the same thing repeated over and over!
Well, I'll throw in some stuff to, when the comments get this many people just reply anyway without ever reading it!

1. the EULA, this is one scary part, and everyone of you should stop for a while after the next part and read it... bah, I can give a short recap! Basically your character isn't yours, the monthly fee to Blizzard is a rent, it's their character and if they even suspect that you in some way are breaking it they will ban you... your mouse is broke so you keep playing with the keyboard, not in a guild and someone reports you for botting... bye bye char! :P

2. Farmers, I agree that I hate them... and love them... I'm a Blacksmith and trying to level that or any other profession is a real PITA tbh, if it wasn't for the AH... with the help from farmers that sell their minerals I could lvl my profession faster... Am I cheating then since I give my gold to botters.
And they isn't ruining the economy either actually, if I want to sell something at the AH I usually put it a few silvers or coppers lower then the ones out there since I want it sold... and so does everyone else even the farmers since they want to maximize their profit, if they had always sold their stuff for 50% of the rest... then they would have ruined it!

and

3. You must see a difference between botters and farmers, I'm a casual player and my char is getting close to the 100 days played mark, all human played but it has taken me a few years... It's the only 70 I have and I really enjoyed the questing the new things to see in each zone and so on... but I have 3 jobs IRL and my friends really want to have a tank instead of my normal char, sure thing I said... I can lvl a druid and tank with, or heal or even dps with but I must admit that the questchains wasnt all that exciting the other time I did it... or the third since I try to lvl another char at the same time...!
What I want is that 70 stuff again, playing the instances that you actually can get a group 2 (anyone tried getting one to BRD or UBRS know what I mean) with my compadres! So if botting was legal, sure, I would have botted it while at work, just to skip all the things I've done before!

FUCK OFF

Greetings.
I know if I make a game, and I set forth my "agreement" and you agree to it. your done.
If you violate my agreement by using programs or exploits or in any other way do NOT play my game on my server the way I intended My game to be played,then Fuck you. You are going down. nuff said.
First of all I wouldnt want anyone hacking at or stealing what probably took me about 3 years of my life developing. After al it is what we do. we develope games for people to play.
If you dont have the time to do what is required the way it is required.....log out close account and go somewhere else.(solitaire is good for you).
If you dont like the fact that you have to frind or do quests to accomplish anything......log out close account and go somewhere else.
The truth of the matter and the proverbial bottom line is this:
Someone cheated,used a program that is in direct violation of the AGREEMENT they agreed to, they got caught cheating...good bye.
no excuses no justifications fuck em they are gone.
Now as for the developer of this bot.....He probably should have contacted Blizzard and told them we was a developer ,and he made a bot program and he is interested in working for them to aid in bot prevention.
He probably would be making a hefty paycheck by now.
At any rate...no matter how you try to justify or make lame, lazy, wothless,dumb ass excuses for cheating..it is cheating..it is a violation of the agreement. If you didnt read it too bad for you. you agreed.
Play the game the way it was intended or don't. Its your choice asis many other thigns in life. but dont fuckin cry because you got caught cheating or someone has been busted who found a wau to cheat etc.
Here is a brilliant Idea for you...Go to your family members or friends you have IRL...go out and ride a bicycle( if you know how) take a walk with them, go see a movie, go do something that is actually valuble to life.
Your family and friends are nOT going to be around forever. they ARE going to die. YOU ARE going to die. Try spending some quality time in your life for a change instead of wasting it on some trivial assed exploited entertainment. gah 2/3 oft he world is going to hell why do you want to go too? because everyone else is? Ha sucker..too bad for you.
Later losers.