So it appears that quite a lot of people got kicked off the EU servers for using bots. When I read that the first thing that springs to mind is battlegrounds. When you get feared instantly while you’re casting something. It was interesting to see the forum thread that was linked in GC by Aska. There seems to be more than one thread like this on the service forums.

Some of the bits from players/friends of players: Most complaining that it was raiders that got banned. Main tanks, officers, the DPS.

Then you get the odd person who points out that the use of bots is probably why their tanks, dps are so ‘pro’ and therefore got the boot.

And there is the person who ‘sees nothing wrong’ with using it. Possibly from the level 1 Ocr they are posting with, they use it, got banned, and are trying to ‘explain’ why they don’t think people should get banned for using it.

Followed up by the person who points out the exact reason why they should get the boot…

And then the reply, which is hilarious. I’m sure people with only one arm can still use a 16 button mouse… They clearly haven’t failed at life because of being one limb short… It is beginning to look like Ohpewpew got banned for using a bot. Great justifying the use of it right there *slowclap*

Even the Greens were bemused by the sheer scale of the ban.

And then the rest of us. Those that play as nature intended. Making oopsies and stupid mistakes because we are human but managing to get by just fine… and relishing in the fact its going to hopefully be a level playing field once more.

The masses then went to the forums of exploit/hack/bot websites to try and see what was going on. The website was taken out by this poster alas, they were already reported (probably by someone pissed off that they had been caught out)

There was also this, on another thread started by someone who was bitching that their friend had been booted off. They were saying that the person ‘doesn’t know how to use the chat screen or configure their interface’ trying to establish that there is no way in hell the person would know how to use a bot. Further down, this person chucks their two cents in. When can you get banned for farming? When you use a bot to do it for you perhaps? And of course they are never going to tell you that they are only in the core team due to their amazing performance, which is all down to a bot…

Thankfully, no one in my guilds raid teams has been binned by Blizzard. We all make mistakes but we learn from them. Im not sure how using a bot would make you a better player as you don’t have to do anything? Seems a bit pointless to just need to move around and something else plays the game for you. (I had to google what a bot for WoW was) I know I’m far from being at the top of my game. Isn’t that the whole point though? Being able to keep doing things until you master it (and then Blizz makes a change so you have to master it all over again) rather than having something do it for you. Must be like riding a bike with stabilisers all your life because it makes you stay upright easier… if you took them off you just wouldn’t be able to ride at all, wheres the achievement in that?

Having a look through the websites that are trying to discover who/why/how the banwave went down, it seems to be several thousand of players being caught out (here) another tread on the same website has someone asking how likely they are to get banned and someone replying ‘not likely at all, unless you play PvP…’ further down the reports of players being banned start flooding in. Its sad to see posts like this:

They don’t know how to play their class as they can’t do it for themselves. They need it to be able to focus on boss mechanics??? So without this they wouldn’t know Garroshs elbow from his arsehole? Or to them is the only part of boss mechanics is where to stand? This may just be me, but surely this would never work properly? The amount of times I’ve been in a raid group and we have had to switch around who does what and when, to make sure that everything is as mess free as it can be. If you’re firing off spells willy-nilly that the bot thinks is best but isn’t what the RL is asking for surely must be a recipe for disaster and an eventual raid kick, which means… you actually suck at playing… (possibly why you used a bot in the first place!)