World of Warcraft banned an estimated 100,000 online video game players for cheating, accusing them of using performance-enhancing bots to boost their play – sort of like an athlete taking a banned performance-enhancing drug.
The massive action represents about 1.4 percent of the World of Warcraft players globally, wrote
Tech Times. The bots, according to Tech Times, are third party code that automates tasks for gamers while playing the Warcraft.
"We've recently taken action against a large number of World of Warcraft accounts that were found to be using third-party programs that automate gameplay, known as 'bots,'" said
World of Warcraft. "We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft, and will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated."
PC magazine reported that Blizzard Entertainment had permanently banned players in the past for using bots in World of Warcraft. Players have accused others of using bots to play the game in the past, giving them an unfair advantage.
"What is happening here is that the vast majority of players in the battleground are not real people," a player nickname Ardailec wrote on
Reddit three months ago. "The characters are being piloted by a bot program called Honorbuddy, which is basically designed to play your character in battlegrounds for you."
"Botting in (World of Warcraft) of any kind is highly against the rules of Blizzard's terms of service. But because of the adaptive nature of the people who make Botting programs, Blizzard takes a very slow and deliberate method to handling the issue. They will wait for a long while, observe botting patterns and other ways they have to discover it, and then strike the hammer at once in massive ban waves," Ardailec said.
Blizzard community manager Bashiok went to Twitter to explain the different between a player-controlled game and one operated by a bot.
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