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Blizzard Sues Creator of WoW Bot
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically. Blizzard says the software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. 'Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time,' Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no 'copy' of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case."
Don't really see how it infringes on the Warcraft copyright; but maybe it infringes on the trademark somehow if it's being marketed as something official to Blizzard and WoW, and giving customers the perception that this is an extension of the WoW service. As for damaging WoW by taking up more resources than the normal player would; what if I were an abnormal player who is on nearly 24/7; is there some provision in the agreement where I am charged more for the subscription or something?
This is only a problem in a game like WoW where you can't lose items on death (specifically to other players) and are built around a constant grind to get that next tier of armor or those next few points in the battlegrounds to get that next tier of weapons. Darkfall, while long in development, is a game that offers complete freedom to the players to run their world as they see fit. If they wish to just be in chaos all the time and killing each other willy nilly, then so be it! If they wish to form a world full with alliances throwing blows at each other here and there to capture more resources (which is the hope/intent of the game) and build more cities, then they can! You can be a roving assassin picking off lone targets who venture too far from a town by themselves, or you can join a massive player army to raid enemy towns and fortresses.
How? Unless he stole source code and used it in his program, I don't see how. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't think this program infringes on their copyrights, it may violate other things like their TOS, but this seems to be merely and intimidation act to make him shut down.
I'm really glad to see Blizz taking action against botters.
I've seen many folks using programs like this and they have ruined many MMOs, (esp. FFXI and Lineage 2).
It's about time a company really stands up and tries to prevent this sort of thing.
I don't know about free software, with that they may have trouble, but this guys program is pay to use, so they might be able to take him to task for it.
Less botters = less annoyance
For those that say this doesn't affect us regular players, just wait until you hit a battleground and ten people are botting, it really ruins the experience and wastes a lot of time.
so i can pay $10/month to have a bot do the boring grinding for me.
Oh wait.. that's why i don't play in the first place. Why the hell would you play an rpg that can be played more effectively by a bot than a human?
</flamebait>
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
This program almost certainly does not infringe on Blizzard's copyright. However, (1) this program exists for the sole purpose of cheating, and (2) cheating is a violation of Blizzard's terms of service. In other words, they're encouraging people to violate their contract with Blizzard, which could be considered tortious interference.
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I don't know whether Blizzard is actually arguing this angle.)
I like Blizzard, but this argument smells of Comcast logic.
"We sold you X access, but you are using X access. Even though we promised you X access, we really don't want you using X access, and we don't even want you using almost X access that much. So we're taking action."
-Comcast starts forging packets to kill bittorrent transfers, even though they advertise/sell that bandwidth, they don't want you using it all the time.
-Blizzard starts suing to kill automated clients that are in the game, even though they advertise/sell you that access, they don't want you using it all the time.
I understand there's more lying underneath, but this reasoning doesn't win them any sympathy from me.
They did.
Patch 2.3.0
> Leveling Improvements
> Many leveling improvements have been made for the old world.
> o The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60.
> o Level 1-60 dungeon quests have had their experience and faction rewards increased.
> o Many elite creatures and quests in the level 1-60 experience have been changed to accommodate solo play.
Guild Wars does it right. I think Blizzard should keep real world PVP, but implement it differently. I think as soon as someone initiates PVP, an new toolbar should appear, and everyone should be the top level with top gear so it it balanced. There should not be level 70s killing level 20s and other grief tactics. In other words, PVP XP and PVE XP should be completely different.
On some MUDs, if a player was suspected of botting, other players would give them an on-the-spot Turing test. Those who failed would be attacked.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Oh boy, another case of a company trying to make their own laws cuz they think they're powerful enough to do so. What is it with corporations and not being able to understand that their security can't detain or shoot people, they can't spy on their employees at home, and they can't sue bot makers. How arrogant can you get? If they would get over themselves and actually pay up to have their programmers create anti bot measures, they wouldn't be having this problem.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
"Perhaps if some great leaders played the game they could inspire the masses to band together and overthrow the griefers. A George Washington of the gaming world."
You know, I've thought about that before. The problem is, I've never seen a game where the game mechanics lend themselves to player-policing. I mean, what are you gonna do to the griefers? Hunt them down and kill them? Ok, so they respawn in a couple seconds and start all over. Throw them in jail? What jail? In games, where death is usually meaningless, and even what you can lose is rather limited, there can really be no 'punishment'. At the same time, if a game developer *did* put something like that in, it would just be a tool for griefers to make your life even more miserable.
Ultimately, there is nothing you can do to griefers. They might log out for a little while if they are getting ganked non-stop. Then log back in after a while, when the angry mob has moved and, and start griefing weaker players again.
Most game developers, instead of trying to rely on player-policing, just design the games to limit how much one player can grief another. One one end of the spectrum, you have games like City of Heroes / Villains where you have nothing to lose when dieing from enemy players, and PvP is completely concensual (you have to either go to special zones, or else to an 'arena'). On the other end of the spectrum, with something like, say Eve Online, PvP is still, at least, partially consensual (different zones are ranked differently, and if you are going to a zone where you think you might be griefed because of low security rating, you can at least prepare for it by maybe taking a ship you don't care about losing, and storing all your valuables in vaults in secure space stations).
Honestly, I don't mind that. The truth is, it's just a game and, just like I can't ultimately do anything to the griefer, griefers, ultimately, can't do anything to me. Of course, if you can potentially lose stuff that someone else can sell for real cash (like Entropia Universe), it becomes a little bit more worrisome.
Every MMORPG suffers the same problem. How do you keep a game interesting and maintain incentive for people to keep playing the more they play? Every Single MMORPG, that I'm aware of, going all the way back to the very first network MUD's solved the problem with grindage. Grindage is play where all you do is hack and slash for experience/equipment. That the new generation of graphical MMORPG players is becoming aware of this and using the same techniques the text based predecessors used (scripting or bots) is absolutely not unexpected.
If every level is as easy to reach as the last then no one would play because there is no challenge in it. The grindage is a simple function of the game to make the higher levels and stuff more valuable as the time commitment goes up dramatically the higher you go. There are only a couple other tools you can use to keep things interesting and neither are perfect. Quests require massive continuing development of unique entertaining single player experiences (on MUD's this was handled by the volunteer development community of former players), the second solution is forcing everyone above a certain level to automatically accept Player killer status such that moving about in the world is much more dangerous. The only other option is to bring in elements of non killing group interactivity (true role playing), which graphical MMORPG's seem to be unusable for.
Don't blame Blizzard for the game being about grindage, it's a fact of the genre that you would know if you had been around long enough to have played MUD's back in their heyday. As a for profit company Blizzard has a goal of preventing people from cheating at the grindage because it can get people to stop playing because the achievement of working through the grindage means a lot less.
WoW does mandate it.
The 25 man content in TBC was balanced around having 25 people turn up wearing the best available equipment, using every flask/potion/food buff/weapon buff available to them and also happening to play well.
While learning how to do those encounters it is inevitable that death will occur.
This means that for a group of people to progress through the game and see more of the content within the game, they have to generate substantial income across the group and use it on repairs and consumables.
The introduction of ZA and the new tokens have to an extent reduced the dependency on consumables, as you can now out-gear the content instead of having to use consumable items to boost you. However acquiring the new equipment still requires repetitive activities such as going through the same few instances day after day to 'earn' tokens.
So there is considerable pressure on people to grind in order to ensure that when they turn up on a 25 man raid they are able to contribute fully. If half the raid don't grind, and thus don't turn up fully equipped with potions, flasks, oils, food and the like, the raid will not progress through new content.
This isn't people playing to get the best of everything. It's people playing to have fun: The raiding and teamwork and social elements of the game are significant factors in its success and longevity.
Sadly the game design mandates grinding to participate in these aspects of the game. I know a lot of people that want to take part in raids, and enjoy the social side of the game, and explore new content, but lack the time or inclination to spend tedious hours grinding for the resources to do so.
This is why there is a market for people selling in-game gold for real-life money, and one reason automated bots such as Glider are attractive.
Some of us are still boycotting Blizzard ...
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"For a short time"? I haven't bought or subscribed to a Blizzard game in 10 years.
They have some great artists, but their biz guys can suck it for all I care. I've got better things to spend my money on.
A large portion of World of Warcraft and other MMOs is the scope of the game's economy. I've been hearing rumors about the WoW Gold (piece?) being labled as a known and accepted form of currency somewhere, but I'm not sure.
Really, at the software can and does damage that economy, throwing off the balance of this economy. I'm a former player that used to try and make money through auction house deals and I slowly saw servers starting to decline economically as more and more goods flooded markets, with no real gold anywhere to spread about.
This may not neccesarily be the fault of Glider itself, but it certainly is a supportive factor. As for lost revenue, when someone's found to be botting, they get banned, and revenue is lost, it's that simple there.
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My opinion is biased as I was a player in a server with a ruined economy and rampant cheating, but I kinda hope Blizzard wins this one, despite the arguments used. I'd rather the sale, distribution, and development of Glider be stopped/halted.
Empathetic-- 94% You tend to walk in someone else's shoes a hundred miles before pointing a finger.
Yeah, by their logic if I hibernate my computer with WoW running I would be violating their copyright.
Dear Blizzard,
When people are so desperate not to have to play your game that they'll write a program to do it for them, the gameplay model is broken. Try to do better next time.
Sincerely,
An indie gamer
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
As an Ex-Programmer and user of Macroquest (Glider for Everquest essentially) the act of using active memory to alter game play has been around for a long time.
The automation of simple tasks does not need this memory hacking to work. In my days pre-macroquest, I used to take a nostromo speedpad, or other USB joystick of sorts, and program mini-macro's into them. Just a recorded set of keystrokes to do thing like autofire and such.
The use of Memory alteration, does a lot more then press the same button over and over. It can intercept, and redirect information being sent to and from the server changing what will happen. It can tell the server a new location for your character (warping) it can tell the server your default speed should be "x" so you can run as fast as you want. the list goes on and on.
In the Macroquest world, there are a few levels of "hacking", you have your non invasive macro's, which automate keystrokes, mouse movements, and clicks. Next are plugins, which are a little more difficult, it requires actually writing a program extension (.DLL file) to perform things, some are passive, utilizing the information recieved from the server, but not normally available to the player. Although not available, it's still being sent, so not really against the rules to use it. Lastly using plugins to access your memory, and "hook" game memory addresses, to alter the information and changed it to what you want.
All in all, cheating like this is not a simple task, it requires reverse engineering the programs exe, figuring out memory offsets for each thing you want to change, writing a programs to find and latch onto the memory offset to change it, and then figuring out the value to change it to to get the desired effect. Doing this is what we call an active hack, these are the ones that places like Sony and Blizzard can find using there tracking programs. These are what hurts them, using more resources then a normal player.
The simple automation of button pressing can (and has) be argued to be allowed based on most games EULA, which prohibits the use of 3rd party applications to alter game play. Automating keystroke/mouse click tasks does not alter game play, or change the way the program they wrote works in any way, if anything it may prevent carpal tunnel.
What I'm trying to say is: The user is chosing to use a program to violate the EULA, they should be punished. It's like sueing a company that makes bolt cutters because a customer of theirs bought some bolt cutters and broke into your house, or shed. The person performing the breaking and entering is at fault, not the manufacturer of the tool used to break and enter.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
I was all for BNETD, actually. I loved StarCraft, hated seeing ads while using their service while games like Quake didn't have that centralization. BNETD would have been great! But they had too many ingredients stacked against them. First, it's Blizzard, they're successful, they have an enormous stash of lawyers and given that their money comes from games run on PCs (i.e. easiest to pirate) they are filled with resolve. Second, they quite intentionally designed Battle.net to be THE way their on-line games are matched. It's quite clear they had bigger plans to make money from that service. More resolve. Third, for reasons that either incredibly greedy or incredibly practical, they used this service in an attempt to maintain their CD-Key system to keep the gamers legit. Forth, all this was happening right when about the time the DMCA was out and about and untested. I remember when this was going on I couldn't believe they were actually going to try this battle. Worse, they were using the EFF to help them. I wanted them to win, believe me, but I just couldn't see how there was any way they thought they'd actually win this. From where I sat, the best outcome they could have hoped for was a racking up of huge lawyer bills and a precedent set against them. They made a nice PR push: "Well we tried to ask if we could have permission to talk to their servers to okay a game being played, but gee golly gosh they wouldn't let us into their copy protection system! Jerks!" But it wasn't a PR battle, and the CD-Key was a pretty big deal.
So, I will correct you, sir: I am not stamping on the guy standing up for something. I'm kicking the idiot for picking the wrong battle to fight and making it worse for everybody. That's the sort of thing that caused some content makers to seek the DMCA's introduction into law, and if the people involved had been running more on practicality than idealism, some serious trouble could have been spared. I wish they had won, but I wish more that they hadn't fought it at all. It's not just 'fun to villify' Blizzard for this - they deserve far worse than villification - they've abused the courts to wreck other people's hard work because it exposed the obvious flaw in their copy-protection system I'm not happy with Blizzard's decisions that led to BNETD getting developed. Despite that, I don't agree with this here. For one thing, Blizzard did not act out of the norm. They created something and sought control over it. Anybody with a surprised look on their face that the C&D went out would not be able to claim they're very much in tune with how corps work. Nobody working at BNETD had any right to say "You gotta be kidding!" Second, you're not the judge of when a game's put out to pasture. There were copies of StarCraft still in stores after this whole BNETD thing died down. Third, that's nice that they had a flaw in their scheme and all, but BNETD still fought the battle they didn't have to.
That whole thing should never have escalated that far. A little bit of common sense would have prevented that. Instead, what we got was an appeal for sympathy. All I could do was shake my head and wonder just how many of the DMCAs teeth were sharpened over it.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Somehow the statement for me depends on wrong and right.
"wrong target" for me means, that morally, the creator should not be blamed for creating a piece of software which can help you in a specifical task, even if this task may be unmoral.
it is like suing weapons producers for making wars. of course on a high-moral ground, we can debate this otherwise, but with high-moral ground i mean idealistic morality, which has more to do with world-view and beliefs.
so of course, strategically it is the right target to catch the dealer of something illegal. if it IS illegal.
otherwise, you HAVE TO catch the customers, which are the USERS of the program.
you can't destroy cigarette companies, to free all smokers, because nicotine is legal.
on the other hand, you have to catch the dealer of pot, because pot is illegal.
for legal stuff (even wow) the customers are responsible for USING them. blizzard claims bots play longer, but maybe somebody has, whatever, disabilities and is very fond of his bot program, because it helps him catching up with his friends - and he does not let the bot run longer, than he plays. so we see, it depends on the usage of the tool, the tool is not used to attack the server and is not performing illegal tasks per se (maybe it does, but from what i see it does not, or blizzard would sue for other reasons)
this makes the programmer morally the wrong target. and also legally the wrong target.
if blizzard succeeds in this, it may be fair on high-moral ground, but absolutely injust in terms of justice for all the other developers on the world creating little tools.
it is of course the right target strategically (and i think you meant that), but this again will make the whole move "evil", since they DO attack the wrong target (legally, morally), even if their motives and anger may be understandable in some way (high-moral).
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt