Re: Blizz bans botters en-masse

**Tarenth** · 11-25-2006, 04:57 PM

So in short, you're saying its okay for cheaters to exsist if you, personally, can benefit from it.

There are two sides to every profession. A supplier and a consumer. The miner supplies the copper bars you consume to make the quest item. In turn you supply the quest items for the people to consume so they can finish their quest. You're saying its relevant to you because cheaters will no longer be there to keep your supply cheap so it will increase your production costs and thus cut into your profits. What about the profits of your suppliers? If you bought from someone who didn't cheat you'd have to pay a higher price thus increase THEIR profits. You could in turn increase your prices to meet costs and since there is such a demand for your item as you claim, people will pay for it. Do you honestly care for the people who purchase your item or for the profit and speed at which your item will be bought?

You want my example to show your standpoint? Fine. :P Its easy enough to expand something to include someone who states their position.

20 people fish for [item]Stonescale Eel[/item]. They each catch 20 and sell them for 1g each. You have 400 eels on the market for a commerce of about 1g each.

20 people fish for [item]Stonescale Eel[/item] and 1 person uses a bot. Each of the 20 catch 20 and sell them for 1g each while the botter catches 100 over the course of several hours while he's out at the movies and sells them for 75s each. As a result all 400 of the regular caught eel don't sell and the botter makes 75g. Why? When people see something at a lower price they are no longer willing to buy it at a higher price unless desperate. That's why people dislike undercutters and inflaters so much. When someone uses a bot to amass a good to sell at a lower price you cheapen the effort everyone who doesn't use a bot. If I spend 10 minutes at the computer watching that stupid lure for my 1g of eel then why does someone who use a bot and catch things while they go out and see a movie get all the money for little effort?

Now enter the alchemist into the formula who makes a profit by turning 2 [item]Stonescale Eel[/item] into [item]Stonescale Oil[/item]. Without botters they would have to pay 1g per oil and thus have turn around and sell it at 2.5g a pot to make a profit (2 eels at 1g each plus AH deposit and vial comes to around 2.1g with a 40s turnaround). However, with botters they'd be able to purchase their eels at an undercut price of 75s each. They could then keep the price at 2.5g and make a bigger profit (2 eels at 75s plus AH deposit and vial comes to 1.6g for a 90s turnaround) or undercut other alchemists and sell it for 2g with a similar profit margin and faster sales.

While the people who fish are still putting extra time for less profit, the alchemist is cheering on the cheaters and raking in the gold.

Try to expand your reasoning to include others and think outside the box. If you hate farming then what makes you think other people enjoy it? People farm so they can make a profit or get a benefit out of it. If you have someone farming 2 hours a day to sell 100 copper bars at a price of 1g per stack of 20 then they expect to get 5g out of their 2 hours of effort. If you cheapen their effort by instead supporting the person who turns on a bot and farms 500 bars of copper while they go out and watch a movie then you discourage people from doing the actual work and farming for you. Why? Instead of getting 5g out of their 2 hours they may only be getting 2-3g because that botter is undercutting their work. Of course you're happy because suddenly someone who spends 30 seconds to turn on a bot that farms for them over the course of hours with little to no effort is raking in the cash and you're just providing incentive to continue doing so by consuming what they produce because it benefits you. Heck, you're not the one doing the farming after all. Just some poor shmoe who got jipped out of what they earned for their effort.

Of course, if someone suddenly creates a bot that farms for copper bars AND creates that horde quest item for them while they go out and see a movie you'll be here screaming for bots to be banned because you'll become that poor shmoe.

**Manny** · 11-25-2006, 05:01 PM

I can't even comment on this post without getting my Hackles up...

Looking at the WoWglider forums presented me with a vision of whole lot of people who ENJOY running around in circles in some lowbie zone on auto and making cash. Then they sounded affronted when blizzard banned them.

Botting is cheating. We bought the game to play. if you say you don't like farming, then don't play MMO's... which, from what i can see, are ALL grind fests.
I don't care for the arguments that Gold sellers and chinese farmers keep the economy down. they don't. the things that keep the economy down are people buying smartly. if something is expensive, go farm it yourself... don't sell your wares at an even higher price to try to save up. if we stop buying ludicrously priced items, they won't be ludicrously priced anymore.
Getting mad at blizzard for making you have to work to make your in game buisness profitable is just kinda selfish. Copper bars are easy to farm... it takes like. 10 minutes to farm enough copper to make 30 or so bars.
:P All buisness takes effort. even the in game stuff. If people are botting, they're ruining the experience for everybody.

(posted after Tarenths post... which says what i was going to say in the second part of this post)

**ScratchMonkey** · 11-25-2006, 05:05 PM

It's unlikely that the alchemist can maintain the higher profit margin, unless the other alchemists are idiots. So he drops his price, returning his margin to its original value. But because his product is now more affordable, the volume goes up. More people can run instances with his pots. More alchemists enter the market to satisfy the demand. The margin shrinks as more information enters the system.

In my own situation, the loss of copper means I can't make my quest item at the original (relatively cheap) price that level 25's are willing to pay. They stop doing the quest that requires it, because the reward isn't worth the price of the input. I go out of business. A good quest stops getting played. Who wins?

Yeah, I'm greedy. But good comes out of it.

Stopping botting to make prices higher just benefits those who actually like tedious repetitive game play, or those incompetent to do something more productive with their time. It means people spend less time doing interesting things like following the story line.

**ScratchMonkey** · 11-25-2006, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Manetheren

if you say you don't like farming, then don't play MMO's... which, from what i can see, are ALL grind fests.

Funny, I thought it was about a story. I don't play to grind. I play to learn more elements of the story. That's why I've found the Half-Life series so entertaining, and why I gave up in the middle of Doom 3 and Quake 4. The story wasn't worth the grind.

if we stop buying ludicrously priced items, they won't be ludicrously priced anymore.

Prices are a result of supply and demand. High prices are a result of high demand (or low information for buyers).

Getting mad at blizzard for making you have to work to make your in game buisness profitable is just kinda selfish. Copper bars are easy to farm... it takes like. 10 minutes to farm enough copper to make 30 or so bars.

That's 10 minutes I could be having fun following the story. This is supposed to be entertainment.

All buisness takes effort. even the in game stuff.

Work smart, not hard. Yeah, some people don't have the smarts to do that. Are MMORPG's to be only for them?

**ScratchMonkey** · 11-25-2006, 05:16 PM

Oh, and the piddly profit I make from the copper-based quest item is not worth my wasting time farming copper. (I make about 1g a day by selling 2 such items, or did before the shortage. Now I don't make any. And I see no competition on the AH, either.) If I can't make it cheaply, I don't make it, it doesn't get made by anyone else, and that quest is dropped. Goodbye storyline.

**Tarenth** · 11-25-2006, 05:26 PM

Or *gasp* someone asks a friend to make it for them when they supply the mats. I find it amusing you think you're the ONLY source of that item on the entire server. Perhaps you get no competition because everyone else is networked enough to get an alt or a friend to make it for them at a lower cost. Instead of preying on the new or uninformed they keep things simple and don't bother with you or the AH.

I suppose I could say I'm like Manny and this kind of discussion gets my hackles up as well. But honestly, I'm not. Really...I'm laughing at you so hard because this reminds me of something else. Here, let me illustrate with an interesting dialogue I'll just make up.

Meet Jim, he's a farmer. You know, crops, cows, outdoors, and manure. The real life kinda farmer. Meet Bob, he's also a farmer....except he owns a plantation.

Jim: Farming is difficult and thankless work. I have to hire out to others to help me harvest my goods and the overhead for materials is a killer.
Bob: Really? I'm making tons of cash as a farmer. I must be doing something right.
Jim: How do you do it? Your farm is as big as mine and we both sell cotton! I have to pay almost 2 dollars a day for each farmhand to pick and process the cotton. Not to mention the price of seed and tools to maintain the field.
Bob: Oh? I just buy slaves. Its so much cheaper to have all that work done for you without having to make any effort yourself. You save a lot on overhead as well since you don't pay them.
Jim: But...slavery is illegal and immoral. We should be doing things the proper way with our own hands and hard work.
Bob: Nah. Slavery is REALLY good for the economy because it drives the price of cotton down and makes it affordable for the masses. Since I can then produce more with lower cost it makes it really accessable to people too.
Jim: But...that means since I can't produce as much as you because I do it the hard way I won't be making as much money and I'll go bankrupt.
Bob: Not my problem man, you should've just bought some slaves instead of hiring farmhands. I mean, without slaves people would've NEVER bought cotton and we'd all be wearing animal skins for clothes or something. Slaves are good for the country I tell you!

**ScratchMonkey** · 11-25-2006, 07:39 PM

Substitute modern automated farming equipment (something as simple as a tractor, even) and your analogy exactly matches the modern-day whining over the death of the "family farm" to the industrialized combine. (Remember, we're talking about bots, not grinders.)

There's a certain view of the world popularized in the middle ages that the only moral income is one made from back-breaking hard labor, that income made from time (ie. interest, the deferring of personal extravagance to allow others to use one's savings first) or intelligence is unjust gains. Apparently the WoW community strongly subscribes to this viewpoint.

I also find it interesting that you see my action as "preying". My total net worth on that server is under 200g, across 4 toons, none 60's. I rarely buy quality gear. My bank account on that server could be much larger were it not for the stuff I make for guildies for free. Part of the satisfaction I get from my sales (not 100%, but a significant fraction) is the knowledge that people are able to find the items they need to complete quests. So I guess I'm not moral unless I'm one of those farm slaves.

In another game, I was quite annoyed that the publisher only allowed those who ground "rank" to play with l33t weapons. Those of us who ran regular servers were not allowed to make all of the content available to our visitors. You might have heard of the game: Battlefield 2.

**Tarenth** · 11-26-2006, 04:07 AM

Its like you type what you do with something else in mind and then forget what you said while being adament that you said it. Then you read something and proclaim you're not like that because you are exactly like that. Then when someone makes an example you then go off on a tangent to not address the problem and proclaim the issue resolved.

Its actually pretty cool to watch.

Anyhow, life is pretty simple. For the most part people wish to see rewards but they also want some effort out of it to make the reward seem like a reward and not a handout. Developers want people to play their game and then keep playing it. The new 'ranked' system popping up with games now is actually pretty good and most people like it. It rewards people who play and keep playing. Sure, you could grind it out in order to get all your niffty toys. Or you could just play the game and say "Hey! I got something new now!" as you go.

There is no such thing as instant gratification. Its sad when people swear by it.

I'm done. This is talking in circles.

**Lepmesiah** · 11-26-2006, 12:55 PM

I have always had gathering skills on most of my toons.

My first toon had , Herb/Skin, had plenty money for training and buying certain upgrades and mats needed.

Second toon, Alchemy/Enchanter.

Third toon, Miner/Skin.

I have made well over 5k plus in wow gold, while at the same time enjoy the story line etc. I got advice when I first got game, if you want to keep up with training, specially at the higher levels. Take at least one gathering skill. There is Herb (most profitable), Skin, and Mine, but there is Fishing as well.

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