Let me be up-front with my own feelings: Bots are bad. Not robots, of course; we all know how I feel about robots. No, I’m talking about bots designed to automate playing an MMO in some way. Fishing bots in Final Fantasy XI? Bad. Skill-up bots in Ultima Online? Bad. If someone programmed a bot for World of Warcraft that just sat in the middle of a city and waved at players? That is still bad. Bots are bad.
And yet… yeah, I can see the alternate side of the argument. For one thing, any time you have a game that allows you some notable AFK system, that’s functionally the game giving you a bot to do certain things to begin with. There are a lot of bots in games where you’re potentially not gaining an advantage so much as catching up to existing playerbases. Heck, I’ll still give leeway to players who respond to everything with “Dude” and trade me melons. So how do you feel about bots in MMOs, dear readers?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
