Key Pages
- |Changes [Feb 26, 2009]
The camera
He told me with gravity when I mentioned that I played with bots for my account in Ragnarok, a popular Korean MMORPG more appealing for girls due to its cute graphics. Both my brother and I used bots because we were simply too lazy to level up all the way to level 99, usually taking several months for a diligent player. For me, it was an easy way to have fun fighting high level monsters without having to put in 40 hours a week to fight through the easy mechanical stages. But for him, it was boring, not honorable, and blatantly cheating.
I really wanted to tell him- but… why don’t you try it? I guess he is right. There is no reason to pay a subscription fee and have the computer play for you. There is also no reason to feel accomplished if you didn’t achieve it with your own hands. But actually, now to think of it, bot-ing is pretty difficult. Many players use it, get caught, and get their account suspended. In some cases, the suspension is indefinite. I remember one time when I was bot-ing, the game master, abbreviated GM, messaged me. I happened to be staring at the screen so I got lucky. I quickly replied to GM and said- hey, what’s up- in order to convince him I was actually playing or else my account might have been suspended.
After that one time, I became very cautious. I wrote my macros, a script that played the in-game character for me- the act of bot-ing, in such a way that whenever the GM became visible, it would log off automatically for 15 minutes before it reconnected. On top of that, if the GM messaged me, it would automatically reply with- hi! Wassup! Sorry GM, my mom wants to go shopping with me- or with- hi! Sorry GM, my dad wants me to massage his back. I thought of creative messages that I could recycle and make it even harder for the GM to tell that I was bot-ing. For me, that was a different type of fun, a more intellectually stimulating entertainment, I got from the game and to this day, I am proud to say that I have never gotten caught.
Bot-ing, or AFK (Away From Keyboard) gaming, is when the player uses a script or macros to control the in game character without the player having to click the mouse. Most macros are either hard to operate or require monthly payment. Not surprising, there are companies who sell this macros software. What surprises me is that Game Developers have not made a big deal out of this, rather, have not been able to make a big deal out of this.
There have been many cases where Blizzard, the Game Developer of World of Warcraft, have ban people for using bots. I read an article dated the end of last year that said the following:
“The official World of Warcraft web site has posted word that Blizzard has banned 18,000 accounts for the best selling MMORPG over the past three months.” (Source 3)
Apparently, 18,000 accounts have been banned from October to December last year for using “third party” programs, i.e. macros and scripts, to gain undue advantage over other players thus, undermining the virtual society and everyone else’s entertainment. Not only does it cause an economic burden to everyone else playing, more on this in the next entry, it simply frustrates other players:
“Among players, RMT was controversial. "I'm pissed if someone can buy themselves ahead of me in what's supposed to be my fantasy game," says Greg Boyd, 31, an intellectual property lawyer … who has been playing the games since the early 1990s.” (Source 4)
In the same MMORPG survey I did, more than 20% of the people who play online games have used bots. I wonder if players realize how widespread bots are. I fully understand why he hates bots. It just doesn’t have the thrill of success. It just doesn’t have the sense of ownership. But is that a bad thing? If he used bots then he might not be this attached to the game and to the sword. Maybe then he wouldn’t have yelled at my cousin for a lost sword. Maybe then he would have sold his account and moved on. Hopefully, by the end of these journal entries, I can find some way to alleviate the situation.
