WoW Classic bot hunter vigilante gets banned with botting reports

The WoW Classic servers are home to not just a whole host of players but bots as well. It’s something that’s been in the news a lot lately, with a massive conspiracy of gold botters being exposed by YouTuber Madskillzzhc. To hear the phrase “World of Warcraft has a botting problem” isn’t new though — anyone who has played the game even for a small amount of time knows. They aren’t likely to ever go anywhere, either.

However, sometimes players fight back, delivering a bit of vigilante justice. According to a Reddit post by u/Potato_Abuse, their guild's main tank was banned for six months for “botting,” as they were out killing other bots. It’s an unfortunate turn of events, but not a surprising one.

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WoW Classic’s botting problem continues to grow with a bot hunter being banned

According to the Reddit post, the main tank of a guild on the new WoW Classic Fresh servers spent two hours killing bots in the Blasted Lands. There’s nothing wrong with this since it’s a PvP server. However, as a result, the player was served a six-month ban for botting — likely done as retaliation from the people controlling those bots. The player in question also had a plea for Blizzard in their Reddit post:

“Is blasted lands just completely off limits to real players on the new pvp server? It feels like we’re supposed to ignore the bots and buy gold and that is just sad. Please blizzard we are begging you to step up and stop the botters mass reporting.”

Our main tank banned for 6 months for killing bots in blasted lands byu/Potato_Abuse inclassicwow

Sadly, anytime servers open WoW Classic or otherwise, bots will immediately move in and start to try and make a profit. Even worse, they’re always going to succeed. It’s easy to say “Stop buying gold from botters,” but even if every single player did, it likely wouldn’t solve the problem. They’d just shift to other means to make money.

The problem in this case is the automated ban system. The WoW Classic system received enough reports against this one player, who wasn’t doing anything wrong, but that’s not what the system sees. Instead of looking into it, the player is then immediately banned — and for six months — without doing anything wrong.

Another problem is that in zones where bots are farming — such as the Blasted Lands — completing any quest is a nightmare. Those bots are always there, taking up mobs and claiming quest items before anyone else can. It can truly make for a miserable experience.

Bots will always find a way, no matter the server - except perhaps a server where Solo Self Found is the primary ruleset. (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

It’s certainly a system that must be looked into. A more cynical player would say that this is Blizzard’s way of protecting gold bots — they do pay for subscriptions, after all. That’s not what we’re saying. I do think that the automated report system does need some effort put into it, though.

However, all is not lost for that player. If they can reach out to Blizzard’s team and discuss the issue, they’ll likely get unbanned. After all, they did nothing wrong in the first place. This happens every time a WoW Classic server opens up, without fail. These Fresh Servers are only a few months old and it took almost no time for bots to move in and start making players’ lives miserable.

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Is there a solution to the bot problem in World of Warcraft/WoW Classic? It’s hard to say. Perhaps it is simply too late since Blizzard has let the problem go on as long as it has. Some suggest banning directly, instead of only really manually banning players in “waves”. It’s hard to say what the real solution is, but for now, things like this will no doubt continue to occur in the World (of Warcraft).