Post
by Cherek » 29 Aug 2012 15:38
One thing I feel about this topic is that this discussion is very black or white. Usually the reality is more grey.
Many say that we can just delete botters since they are merely NPCs or less who give nothing to the game. I think this is an extremely incorrect and dangerous view.
Most people who use scripts and sometimes bot unattended (which is a rather large part of the population I think) does not always do it. Usually people bot from work, or while doing other stuff iRL, etc. But that usually does not count for all their activity in the game. Even the most automated bot will also play the game actively at least sometimes. Gathering EQ, questing, most likely even RPing now and then depending on guild.
How about for example a ranger who RPs alot, often talk to other players, especially at night when the player has time to play, but uses scripts to herb during daytime at work? Yes unattended, yes illegal. You say we lose nothing by deleting this player?
I think most botting cases look like this. Yes there are some extremes who almost only bot perhaps, but I think the majority is like the exemple above. Part-time botters.
Best case scenario if caught is that they stop their botting and remain as active players, but it's also likely they'll probably stop playing completely if punished, and even more likely if they are deleted. Even if they have other chars they could play. You say we lose no more than an NPC by deleting them? I strongly disagree.
And dont get me wrong now, I do not like botters at all, but as Laurel said since the gain from botting is so big, and the bottable tasks, like herbing, smithing and grinding are pretty boring and repetitive tasks, I can understand them, and I am not sure hunting botters down is the best solution to the problem.
