I don't totally buy that this is cheating. Yes, WoWGlider is essentially a bot. But it aims to automate the most tedious parts of the game.

There are parts of WoW where frankly, I can't believe what they expect us to do. Like fishing - how many hours am I expected to stare at a bobbing hook, clicking at the right time? How on earth is that fun? You can call it pacing, grinding, farming - they all translate into the same thing - "busywork" in the game so you can actually get to do the fun stuff.

Walking is one thing I seriously considered getting WoWGlider for. If you're Alliance and in Desolace, it takes you 5 minutes to get anywhere you want to quest. I don't mind flying someplace 'cause I can alt-tab out of WoW and do things in the meantime. But I can't just click on a map and say "Go here safely".

Anyways, the legal aspects of the case have ramifications beyond WoW - I'm not sure winning this case in the long-term is beneficial to WoW players even if it does stop cheating in the game.

But these are the parts that make the rewards worthwhile in the end. How much longer until you find a bot that can do boss fights for you and think "oh well the fun part for me is getting the gear and PvPing with it so I'll use the bot here too"? And there are plenty of people who would happily do this because they find raiding boring but do it anyway for the gear. There are much faster paced MMOs out there if you want to just log-in and get straight into the action every time but they tend to lack the universal atmosphere that woW has in its game world.

I assume this is meant as a joke. This case has ramifications outside of WoW and even outside the games industry - laws are there for consistancy and fairness, not so they can just be ignored because "don't we all just want ?". No, lots of people don't want that.

I really hope this narrow-minded point of view is meant as a joke. Yes cheating can lead to annoying and even to unfair situations, but banning every last bit of cheating no matter what rights are to be violated? I almost wrote down the Benjamin Franklin quote

I think its good this particular case made it to court, and I do understand what moves them to their dubious claim, but for the sake of sanity I hope blizzard is going to loose this one and find a better way to get rid of bots.

In essence I believe that there is nothing wrong with bot usage in a game until the point where it causes a player to have a (substantial) advantage over the others, or it causes substantial damage to the gaming experience of the other players. To do this kind of damage does not necessarily require the use of a bot at al.

They came for the players who fished with an AFK tag on, but I wasn't a player with an AFK tag on, so I did nothing.

etc

Okay. Really these types of programs SHOULD NOT EXIST anyway. The author of this Slashdot article makes it seems to justify cheating. There is no justification for cheating. Cheating in the real world (like plagiarism) has real-world penalties such as fines and possible time in prison.

"Oh professor, I had someone else write my research paper because I was too lazy/busy to do it myself. Please don't fail me, throw me out of class, and tell the police because I broke the law!"

Frankly I feel that WoWGlider is breaking the law because its interfering with the operation of another piece of software against the agreement. Since it modifies the client specifically to bypass warden, blizzard could state reverse-engineering and a judge/jury could require WoWGlider to not include antidetection technology. This would be enough to allow Blizzard to enforce their TOS.

Also the stuff about anti-virus programs being ultimately affected if programs can't access the memory of a running application and modify it is BS. Theres a difference between a beign antiviral program and something designed to give an ingame advantage.

And yes, WoWGlider DOES give an ingame advantage. The game is designed with human limitations in mind, if a program removes human limitations some serious issues can arise.

Look at tool assisted speedruns of old NES and SNES games (tasvideos.org). These are basically pre-coded sets of inputs in a emulator done ahead of time to calculate every move down to the frame. This way the "player" can overcome human limitations such as skill and reflex to wtfpwn the game in record time. This illustrates the issues of robots playing a game with humans playing in mind. If Blizzard has to write encounters that take into the account a computer program is assisting them, then it would be impossible for normal people to do. This is the exact reason behind the 2.0 UI changes that were implemented. Blizzard wants the game to be played by HUMANS, not sophisticated computer programs.

Alrighty, I'm off the soapbox.

Well, almost all legal cases have propositions that apply elsewhere...

But, you list none outside of Wow...Why do you think this case is any different...? What ramifications do you see?

The legal ramifications of a case decision vary greatly depending on how the judge limits the opinion. If a case is limited to its facts, it is almost always distinguishable from any other case brought to court. On the other hand, if the court uses the case to state a broad legal rule or guideline, then the case will reach much much farther.

Well, while this may seem like cheating to you, technically it is no cheating.

WoWGlider emulates keyboard and mouse input, and does not modify WoW data directly, thus it's not really breaking the EULA.

But let me give a different point of view: WoWGlider is a wonderful tool to give people with disabilities an opportunity for playing WoW. Like many people, I am disabled, and without assistance - which is very expensive - I couldn't play this game.

WoWGlider can handle all the tasks, I can't handle myself. Now what, do I have to file a lawsuit against Blizzard for discriminating disabled people with their game now?

After all, most people misunderstood what WoWGlider does. It does not play faster than a normal player, it even plays slower. You can not even run it unattended for more than 30 minutes, cause it will surely get stuck.

The real bots which which are used by professional botters are yet undetected by Blizzard.

Two things, a) the makers of WoWglider, afaik, have admitted that they reversed engineered the WoW client so they could get their program to work with it. Which in and of itself is a violation of the EULA.

Testing needed to be done folks, to see if everything worked. Meaning, they agreed to both EULA and ToS, hence breach of contract as well. And I am not completely sure if said reverse engineering is legal either (there has been some contradicting verdicts on that issue iirc).

b) Like I said over at Gucomics (unless Woddy decides to delete it). Considering the writing style and choice of words. I think I know who said anonymous reader is. And let's just say that he's very very heavily involved in the WoW hack community.

In lineage 2 botting and botters are extremely rampant, and so is buying virtual money from auction sites and specially tailored gold selling sites
In lineage 2 oyu get a *MASSIVE* advantage from buying gold, and/or botting

The entire game basically revolves around it taking a LONG LONG time to level up and you dont actually make that much money leveling up (the game is actually made with players having to buy money in mind)
To get top level in Lineage2 (legitly) it will propably take you the same amount of time as it takes to level 2 full accounts in WoW to lvl 70, yes it takes you around 250 days /played to get top level

About 80% of the active (logged in) player characters at any one time are bot groups, run by gold farmers and with a extremely professional bot program that can actually play the game better than the legit client (walk through trees and rocks, loot faster, walk through players etc) or players that wants to just get to the endgame

Oh and the funny part is that ever since the game released (easter 04) the bot program has been active, it uses some corrupted packets which are easy for the people that run the game to notice and they could have easily within seconds banned all accounts that are botting, yet maybe a grand total of 5k accounts has been banned so far in the lifespan of the game.



WoWGlider sounds like nothing in comparison, heck it could even be compared to EVE Onlines auto pilot system

Reverse Engineering is legal under many laws, and EULA's disallowing it are breaking laws.

E.g. the U.S DMCA is considered illegal in many countries, and most countries would simply render the Blizzard EULA as invalid. Why? Because the EULA change the contract with the customer in a way, which changes the contract balance to only benefit the vendor, and not the customer. This is illegal in most countries in this world.

What else? Only in the U.S you can buy usage licenses for software. Other countries handle this very much different. Usage licenses are not possible there, as you buy a piece of software like a car. You simply own it, thus usage restrictions are rendered invalid.

Actually, that would be dependant upon Competitiveness Laws in certain areas. Microsoft's EULA's with that regard run into trouble, because they have a monopoly on the OS market. Same cannot be said of WoW and the MMORPG market, despite WoW's dominance in this regard.

If, a rootkitmaker were to reverse engineer say Icesword, to see how it ticks, so he could make a better rootkit, then the Competitiveness Laws would not apply. He's not reverse engineering it to create programs which can interact on a normal benign level with it.

It is reminiscent of iirc recent EU rulings on radar warning devices, used by police to catch speeders. While, the manufacture of these things isn't illegal, the use of them is, because they are interfering with a legitimate function of the devices used by the police.

In this case, WoWGlider interacts with the WoW client on a level that Blizzard deems unacceptable from a security pov. In addition, the makers of WoWGlider are making money off of their software, but they created their software by violating Blizzard's intellectual property.



If, the contract is void, then you are not entitled to play the game. Because that would only benefit the customer, and considering this is essentially a lease construction, that is a non-workable situation.

Incorrect, usage licenses for software is also applicable in the EU at the very least (if memory serves me, same applies to most nations belonging to Oceania, as well as Japan and I think S-Korea as well). Hence, the whole issue that Microsoft has with the EU Commission Antri-trust department.

AFAIK Glider does nothing to actually alter the WoW client. I'm not 100% on that but I was always under the impression that it just "hides" from Warden.

The ones like ISX are the ones that mess with the client because they virtually disrupt Warden's scans and inject into the client.

Actually the DMCA has a limited exception for reverse engineering. I think the real problem is that they copied the WoW code so they could develop WoWGlider. That's the copyright violation. And there very well could be a DMCA violation if WoWGlider operates in such a manner to circumvent any anti-circumvention measure placed in the game by Blizzard.

Further, WIPO (the world intellectual property organization, I think) has adopted a copyright treaty. Article 11 of that treaty says - countries must “provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights … and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned."

You are serious that it has taken you 125 days PLAYED, to get to 70?

It takes 4-10 played (not calendar) days to 60...What did you do the rest of the time?

Unless it is actually written in the code that reverse engineering is mandatorily considered legal, you are incorrect.

My guess is that the codified law is silent on the issue, making it ripe for contract.

Some more views on the case from people at rootkit.com.

http://www.rootkit.com/

That last bit on explorer***** is wrong. That process can be completely disabled and not active and the WoW***** is bootable; most of the GUI wouldn't be running, but that only hiders your ability to hit the pretty button, not the technical environment in the slightest. In reality, there is no depedency on explorer***** anymore than there is a dependancy on the taskmgr***** they are only an interfacing programbtween the user and the operating system, and do not actually interact with the executables by themselves, the same cannot be said for WoWglider. Thus the conclusion is operating without a supporting premise.

Correct it could be disabled, but how many ppl out there do this. Probably not many since i would assume everyone even the technicaly inclined ppl will use the nice double click icon. Ergo explorer is the one launching the program, so if it is legal for explorer to launch it why is it not legal for Wowglider to launch it?

a full ACCOUNT of lvl 70s, that is 10 level 70s
it took my draenei shammy on a new server 9 days /played to get to 70

I stand corrected...

Since you are being technical, I will also...

A FULL ACCOUNT of WOW level 70's is FIFTY 70's, not ten.

Thus TWO ACCOUNTS, as stated in the note I quoted, is 100 70's.....

Because Explorer isn't issuing the command, it's not self-autonimous. It's acting a user environment, explorer***** doesn't choose to run WoW***** of it's own accord. Unlike WoWglider, which does. In regular Windows, it's the user that activated WoW***** by either hitting a fancy GUI button, or old fashioned typing.

Explorer is only making the environment, not executing anything by itself, it'll go on for years and never try to open WoW*****. Ergo, Explorer isn't launching the program. The user launches it.

Same can be said for Wowglider, it will stay for years and never open WoW until the user clicks the pretty button. Same as in explorer it won't open till the user clicks the pretty button. I don't see any difference here. If the user clicks the button explorer issues the command to run the game or if the user clicks the button WoWGlider issues the command to run the game. Seems the same to me.

Launch an application in Windows. (I used XP for this) Check it's parent with ProcessViewer from SysInternals. It's Explorer*****. Much as I dislike the idea, the same deal applies here - WoW is launched and has Explorer as it's parent.

However, that is sophistry. Explorer is hardly a process designed to interact and manipulate World of Warcraft. It's part of the Operating System, without which you couldn't even run World of Warcraft.

Personally? I hope Blizzard wins in this instance. I'd rather have people in the game to group with who are playing it, than having their computer play it for them.

The real difference is that explorer***** is OS native. It is an interface that lets the program in question (WoW) gain access to the features the OS has available. One example allowing the OS to run WoW and your file system at the same time. WoW does not work without reading the filesystem on your HDD. The same is said about manually loading WoW without explorer***** running. The process is there to allow WoW access to the resources it needs to run.

WoWGlider on the other hand launches WoW so it has access to the program itself. Sure you can say that explorer***** manages WoW and it does. It prioritizes and allows the interface between the program and the tools it needs to run. However the key difference here is that WoWGlider interacts with WoW rather than WoW interacting with glider. WoWGlider tells WoW to perform tasks. WoW then goes through the interfaces set up by explorer***** (and other various OS related processes) to run. WoWGlider is running WoW. WoW is not running explorer*****. WoW is simply asking explorer***** for permission and position in queue to use OS and system resources.

Note: The descriptions are very general to illustrate the point. There are many low level processes involved in running any program that I am not completely familiar with. However I feel that the simplification allows the point to be understood.

To recap:

explorer***** launches WoW in such a way that WoW can run on the OS/system. After the initial launch WoW goes to explorer***** and asks it to perform tasks related to the file system.

WoWGlider launches WoW (through explorer***** as well I may add) in such a way that it controls WoW. WoWGlider is in no way facilitating WoW's use of available OS/System resources. That is the fundamental difference.

The same cannot be said. Explorer***** has no scripted connection to the Wow*****, and it has nothing to do with the booting of WoW. WoWglider does however, on both counts. It is actually interacting on a level above and beyond simply providing a hot link, but actively executing based upon programmed events. Big difference. UIs don't automate functions, they provide them for the user to initiate. By providing a possible link, Explorer***** is in no way activating them or operating them. WoWglider, once again, does that all on it's own.

i hope blizz wins, i want to finish my alts quests in winterspring.

online game + cheat/bot = perma ban, only wish they could find a way to do it same day and not wait 2 months to ban the &^$%£*

as for the disabled post earlier what a crock of crap thier is lots of tools to help you use a keyboard no matter what your disabilty so using ur disability as a excuse to cheat is a insult to the rest of us disabled who use proper tools to use keyboards/mice

Why can't people realize the truth?

I read here that this can be used to help disabled people, and thats great. But that is not what this is used for.

WoWglider= for lazy people.

Thats it. These are the people who are either 1, are lazy or 2, have money and think they are entitled.

I don't think i agree with that, it is automating task they don't feel like doing. Now unless you never write macros you shouldn't call ppl lazy, in essence WoWGlider is a hellified macro.


To: Kalos - I don't disagree that it is interacting with WoW but no more so than my mouse does or my keyboard does. The question isn't if it interacts which we know it must but as to whether that is a violation of DCMA. Blizzard was claiming that the actual calling of its program was a violation, if that holds true then Explorer is also guilty of it. This is the point i was making.

The only reason I make a macro is to make a near impossible task (shackling in kara on moroes) possible.

Saying I shouldn't call the kettle out if I'm the pot is another issue.

I quote this directly from dictionary.com

"averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion;"



WoWglider= you are lazy.



If you want to call me lazy for my kara shackle macro, so be it.

But I've already said, Explorer doesn't interact with WoW in the same way, it doesn't call up the program in the same fashion. There's nothing specific to the WoW***** that was scripted in it. WoWglider has only one purpose, directed soley at executing the WoW***** as part of a sequence in a scripted fashion; while in Explorer the option is there to be clicked upon, human activated. While you have tried to point out, ultimately they both need human firing triggers to commence, the engine that makes the two of them work is drastically different. One is a universal standard for executable launching, the other is a sequential series of commands preprogrammed for one specific purpose.

As for the mouse+keyboard comparison, as they aren't automated and require constant human monitoring and input, the other allows the humen operator to sit back and actions are carried out without input, the comparison is a poor one. Sure it interacts, but the degree to which the player does is interchangable, and thus difference in the interaction is recognisable. Blizzard tried to disable CTraid assist's ability to auto-cleanse debuffs, not because they wanted to stop the dispelling of debuffs, but the automated mechanisation of it, turning it into a DDR style button hammering. It's all in the interaction of the player verses the interaction of a script. I think it is undeniable that there is a severe difference in the interaction through scripts and the active presence of player through mouse+keyboard, the resulting actions is not the only issue. Active, second by second interaction against potentially minutes of automation.

Why is bliz evil for trying to control what they allow people to do with the software they wrote?

It may be questionable wether or not the existence or sale of WoWglider is illegal (correct me if I'm wrong but I think is what this case is actually about), but there is no question as to the fact that the end user actually using WoWglider to automate tasks within WoW is against TOU.

Bliz wants to stop people from breaking the TOU and in an attempt to do this they are going after one of the sources which is the program.

Making this out to be a civil rights case is just silly and will backfire in the faces of those fighting this if they win. Software companies will stop taking ownership of their product and when a massive exploit or fault is discovered in the software they can simply say "we sold it as is, it's your product now you bought it so deal with it yourself"

This is actually good strategy...Go after the provider of the offending item, rather than filing hundreds or thousands of lawsuits for usage of the offending item.

It is much more efficient this way, and accomplishes the result they want. And, former users of the offending item might be allowed to continue paying blizz for gaming activities, if blizz desires....a win from both ends.

What I really hope is wowglider put a character/account tracker in their client, so when blizz wins this, they can buy WoWglider, press a few mouse clicks, and perma-ban 100,000 people right away.

That would make my day.

yep, same here. ban the cheating ******. If you cant be arsed to play the game normally and just want to strot around shattrath in your shiny lvl 70 character with epic mount and AHed epics you deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

I visited the Glider forums yesterday out of curiosity. Man what a bunch of chumps they are...and that is putting it nicely. A few things I observed:

1. Blizzard is seeking all sales records and ownership of their verification server. This is huge. It will provide Blizzard with a full account of everyone using the software, including IPs. The server verifies based on number of attempts and IPs per account. The users of Glider are very fearful of this happening, and for good reason. The problem is that almost all of them seem to use accounts other than their main with which to bot. It is trackable, but there is alot of detective work to be done.

2. WoWGlider and its website have been renamed to MMOGlider. Kinda like the child stealing cookies wiping the crumbs off his face.

3. MDY changed alot of the content of its website and FAQ in direct response to the case. Same as #2 above.

4. The forums there seem to be confusing this as a civil rights case. They are under the impression that big bag Blizzard is out to get them and steal their personal files. The biggest argument is that Blizzard does this without consent and arbitrarily accesses personal files without stating so at any time. All of that is simply not true...it is purely a sign of the users' general lack of intelligence and perspective. I can guarantee that if any of them wrote a program, they would be irate if someone reverse engineered it and created something like Glider.

5. They all think MDY will win the case, and that if it does so, Blizzard will be forced to accept botting as a legitimate process. Even if MDY wins the case, Blizzard simply pays what they need to, then modifies the code a bit more to continue catching botters for banning. Simple as that.

6. Everyone there is fearful of what would happen if Blizzard wins. Aside from being hunted down and banned, they also state that the repurcussions will extend very deeply into the computing world. This very well could happen, but not in they way they all think. One key decision that may come of this is the ownership of a system's memory processes. There would usually not be much issue with programs that don't "share the same space" but could come into play with virus software. IMO...worse thing that can happen is that such programs will need to be put on a list of authorized programs by software companies.

7. The explorer***** fact is talked about there as well. The thing that is left out of the discussion is that the program is native to Windows and key to its normal operation for most users. Since Windows is listed as a system requirement, explorer***** is therefore implied as well, thus being an authorized program for running WoW. The argument citing explorer***** as a violation holds no water.

8. If the proceeding finds judgement against Blizzard, and decides that (a) reverse engineering was not infringement and (b) developing and selling this software was not harmful, would Blizzard have legal precedent to justify doing the same to Glider in order to stop its use? I would be inclined to think they already have a copy of it and are already doing this anyway, but who knows.

9. One thing I wonder about having seen a particular post on their forum. They state that they have had success in getting banned those who report them for botting. They seem to take great pride in storing the names of the characters they encounter and, when reported to a GM, they file claims against those players. Most commonly they report them for kill stealing and harassment because they followed them around and /whispered them to see if they were truly bots. I don't know if this is true or not, but it does raise the question.

In my line of thinking, I really hope Blizzard pulls through on this one. I really hope they get all reparations they are seeking, and they ban all accounts associated with Glider. There could be some minor negative fallout if Blizzard wins, but that is far less than the negative fallout that would come from a judgement in favor of MDY. The protection of intellectual property is pretty important IMO.

One potentially bad thing will be that if MDY folds, I bet that the code will be leaked and thousands of developers will make their own little "shards" of Glider in an attempt to capture the market. I don't think our botting problems are even close to finished if Blizzard wins this case...on the contrary, they will be just beginning. I think that a win for Blizzard will at least give them the capacity to battle these future programs as they ought to ba allowed to do.

Several of my friends write games for a living, and they are generally flattered when someone takes the time to do a really elegant job of cracking their stuff. The happiest coder I ever saw was back in the era of the Amiga though- when a friend of mine had to really struggle to get his game packed onto a single floppy (remember those? :), and the crackers managed a perfect crack, but managed a repack to allow them to include a decent crackintro too. He boggled at how they'd got it any smaller, and was oddly pleased that anyone would bother to spend enough time on it to do such a good job.

A lot of games programmers couldn't give a Rat Sass. Piracy and reverse engineering is rife too- the party line comes from the suits in the development houses and worse yet the publishers, who are culturally and philosophically on a different planet to the coders. Yes, there are the exceptions, the but most games developers are somewhat exploited by their "industry", whether they work for EA (possibly especially, in this case) or a little podunk dev outfit who handles contract ports of games to handheld machines.

It's kinda OT, just addressing the specific point that you made above. Games programmers are some of the biggest pirates and tinkerers that you'll ever meet.

Well, I don't presume to know how defense by MDY is being funded, but I doubt there is a tremendous user following that is out there donating a million or more dollars to fund their defense.

Even if in the unlikely scenario that MDY 'wins' (which merely means they would possibly not have to pay damages), they may be permanently harmed and out of funds to keep afloat. [Alternatively, and hopefully, Blizz would win an injunction...]

On the blizz side, whether they win or not, they still have capability...8 million people paying $15/month is alot of cash to play with, after the expenses of their infrastructure are subtracted.

Ya just never know.

They also had a post asking for donations, seemingly indicating a lack thereof. Very true that a win in court can still mean a huge loss financially. Will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.