The Definition of Botting

Yesterday the ban-hammer was brought down on a number of accounts. I've heard numbers as high as 600,000. Also heard that some are temporary six-month bans while others are permanent. Blizzard themselves didn't release actual numbers or violators so I'm not sure how accurate they are.

Apparently is was largely prompted by abuse from a botting program called HonorBuddy:

I admit I have used a botting program before. It must have been five or six years ago now, but it was fun. A program called Glider. You could write fairly detailed programs to kill mobs, harvest reagents, etc. As a coder I found it amusing—yet I did get caught and lost two accounts. Glider was pretty underground though. Something as brazen as this Honor Buddy was bound to get busted.

Yesterday afternoon Bashiok tweeted something that caught my eye:

Botting is defined as automation of any action, not just character movement. If a program is pressing keys for you, you've violated the ToU.

— Bashiok (@Bashiok) May 13, 2015

Now that's interesting. That is not the publicly accepted definition of botting. Even recently I have loaded up two instances of WoW and uses AutoHotKey to do things. This is not botting. I am not leaving the computer unattended to automate activity in Azeroth. Yet from Bashiok's terse summary apparently I am—according to Blizzard.

Interesting. And they are apparently enforcing it this narrowly as the crazy boxer PreparedWOW has been banned...

I'm guessing Blizzard wants to make it look like they're serious about maintaining the integrity of their online world. Personally I think pushing content faster would be more effective.