I always think of automated bots in MMOs as a type of game criticism. As in, if your players can, without mod tools, write scripts to easily automate some part of your game, probably that part isn’t as engaging as it should be. Probably there’s a reason why players want to bypass it.

I also understand why it’s bad for a game’s community for such things to carry on, so I don’t blame Blizzard for winning another lawsuit and a $7 million settlement against a World of Warcraft botmaker last week, as reported by WoW Insider.(more…)