Blizzard Sues Creator of WoW Bot 701
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically. Blizzard says the software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. 'Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time,' Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no 'copy' of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case."
Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyright infringement? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank God (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen many folks using programs like this and they have ruined many MMOs, (esp. FFXI and Lineage 2).
It's about time a company really stands up and tries to prevent this sort of thing.
I don't know about free software, with that they may have trouble, but this guys program is pay to use, so they might be able to take him to task for it.
Less botters = less annoyance
For those that say this doesn't affect us regular players, just wait until you hit a battleground and ten people are botting, it really ruins the experience and wastes a lot of time.
Re:Thank God (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe i should start a WoW account.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh wait.. that's why i don't play in the first place. Why the hell would you play an rpg that can be played more effectively by a bot than a human?
</flamebait>
Tortious interference (Score:3, Interesting)
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I don't know whether Blizzard is actually arguing this angle.)
Com-zard (Score:3, Interesting)
"We sold you X access, but you are using X access. Even though we promised you X access, we really don't want you using X access, and we don't even want you using almost X access that much. So we're taking action."
-Comcast starts forging packets to kill bittorrent transfers, even though they advertise/sell that bandwidth, they don't want you using it all the time.
-Blizzard starts suing to kill automated clients that are in the game, even though they advertise/sell you that access, they don't want you using it all the time.
I understand there's more lying underneath, but this reasoning doesn't win them any sympathy from me.
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Copyright infringement? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Maybe (Score:2, Interesting)
Patch 2.3.0
> Leveling Improvements
> Many leveling improvements have been made for the old world.
> o The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60.
> o Level 1-60 dungeon quests have had their experience and faction rewards increased.
> o Many elite creatures and quests in the level 1-60 experience have been changed to accommodate solo play.
Re:Maybe i should start a WoW account.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It turns out that computers are better than humans at just about any game. Does this mean that we can no longer entertain ourselves?
PVP and PVE gear should be completely separate (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
On a vast majority, death means you lose your set unless you manage to do a corpse retrieval. On for example the Two Towers [t2tmud.org], you don't even get to keep eq over logins; they can be stored in some ways but even that gets purged every (scheduled) reboot of the game.
If you don't get that attached to your set, there is a limit how far you go to improve it. A good player will have constantly decent one, a grinder rarely will.
Re:Copyright infringement? (Score:4, Interesting)
The pro-EULA faction's argument works like this:
Under copyright law alone, you don't have the right to make the copy(*). You don't have the right to run the software that they sell you.
In order to make their software usable (so that someone would have incentive to buy it), the copyright holder extends additional rights to its customer, rights that copyright law does not grant. One of the additional rights, is the right to copy the software to your hard disk and RAM.
These additional rights are given by a license: the EULA. If you accept the EULA, you gain the right to use the software. If you accept the EULA, you also give up some rights that you otherwise would have had, so read all the fine print. It can get very specific about under what circumstances that you are allowed to copy the program into RAM, and for what purposes. Copying their work to RAM for execution purposes would be something they grant, and copying to RAM to serve checksums to defeat bot detection would be something not granted.
(*) The catch: their claim that you don't have the right (without the EULA) to run the software, is questionable. Since 1) the purpose of the copying is noncommercial 2) the nature of the copyrighted work makes it useless unless copied to RAM, and 4) the effect of the copying has no impact on the market for the copyrighted work, it is arguably Fair Use. (Note I left out the number 3 in the above list.)
Re:Copyright infringement? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay - it's dubious, but I can see how they would at least make a legal argument that it was copyright infringement. That's a good explanation. But I don't quite get why they need to do this to spot bots. Presumably WoW has some sort of chat channel that the admins could use to communicate with players? If they roughly identify bots through their behaviour - e.g. the number of hours played, confinement to one location, repetitive actions or whatever gives the game away, could they not quickly confirm it by sending a message saying "Hey, enjoying the game? Could you just confirm your not a bot by answering this question, please..."
Re:Copyright infringement? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Copyright infringement? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does WoW have player-killing? (Score:5, Interesting)
whine whine whine (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You need only look at history (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, I've thought about that before. The problem is, I've never seen a game where the game mechanics lend themselves to player-policing. I mean, what are you gonna do to the griefers? Hunt them down and kill them? Ok, so they respawn in a couple seconds and start all over. Throw them in jail? What jail? In games, where death is usually meaningless, and even what you can lose is rather limited, there can really be no 'punishment'. At the same time, if a game developer *did* put something like that in, it would just be a tool for griefers to make your life even more miserable.
Ultimately, there is nothing you can do to griefers. They might log out for a little while if they are getting ganked non-stop. Then log back in after a while, when the angry mob has moved and, and start griefing weaker players again.
Most game developers, instead of trying to rely on player-policing, just design the games to limit how much one player can grief another. One one end of the spectrum, you have games like City of Heroes / Villains where you have nothing to lose when dieing from enemy players, and PvP is completely concensual (you have to either go to special zones, or else to an 'arena'). On the other end of the spectrum, with something like, say Eve Online, PvP is still, at least, partially consensual (different zones are ranked differently, and if you are going to a zone where you think you might be griefed because of low security rating, you can at least prepare for it by maybe taking a ship you don't care about losing, and storing all your valuables in vaults in secure space stations).
Honestly, I don't mind that. The truth is, it's just a game and, just like I can't ultimately do anything to the griefer, griefers, ultimately, can't do anything to me. Of course, if you can potentially lose stuff that someone else can sell for real cash (like Entropia Universe), it becomes a little bit more worrisome.
Every MMORPG suffers the same problem.. (Score:4, Interesting)
If every level is as easy to reach as the last then no one would play because there is no challenge in it. The grindage is a simple function of the game to make the higher levels and stuff more valuable as the time commitment goes up dramatically the higher you go. There are only a couple other tools you can use to keep things interesting and neither are perfect. Quests require massive continuing development of unique entertaining single player experiences (on MUD's this was handled by the volunteer development community of former players), the second solution is forcing everyone above a certain level to automatically accept Player killer status such that moving about in the world is much more dangerous. The only other option is to bring in elements of non killing group interactivity (true role playing), which graphical MMORPG's seem to be unusable for.
Don't blame Blizzard for the game being about grindage, it's a fact of the genre that you would know if you had been around long enough to have played MUD's back in their heyday. As a for profit company Blizzard has a goal of preventing people from cheating at the grindage because it can get people to stop playing because the achievement of working through the grindage means a lot less.
Re:Thank God (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ummm, so don't grind (Score:5, Interesting)
WoW does mandate it.
The 25 man content in TBC was balanced around having 25 people turn up wearing the best available equipment, using every flask/potion/food buff/weapon buff available to them and also happening to play well.
While learning how to do those encounters it is inevitable that death will occur.
This means that for a group of people to progress through the game and see more of the content within the game, they have to generate substantial income across the group and use it on repairs and consumables.
The introduction of ZA and the new tokens have to an extent reduced the dependency on consumables, as you can now out-gear the content instead of having to use consumable items to boost you. However acquiring the new equipment still requires repetitive activities such as going through the same few instances day after day to 'earn' tokens.
So there is considerable pressure on people to grind in order to ensure that when they turn up on a 25 man raid they are able to contribute fully. If half the raid don't grind, and thus don't turn up fully equipped with potions, flasks, oils, food and the like, the raid will not progress through new content.
This isn't people playing to get the best of everything. It's people playing to have fun: The raiding and teamwork and social elements of the game are significant factors in its success and longevity.
Sadly the game design mandates grinding to participate in these aspects of the game. I know a lot of people that want to take part in raids, and enjoy the social side of the game, and explore new content, but lack the time or inclination to spend tedious hours grinding for the resources to do so.
This is why there is a market for people selling in-game gold for real-life money, and one reason automated bots such as Glider are attractive.
Re:neither copyright nor trademark (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:neither copyright nor trademark (Score:1, Interesting)
They have some great artists, but their biz guys can suck it for all I care. I've got better things to spend my money on.
Economy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Really, at the software can and does damage that economy, throwing off the balance of this economy. I'm a former player that used to try and make money through auction house deals and I slowly saw servers starting to decline economically as more and more goods flooded markets, with no real gold anywhere to spread about.
This may not neccesarily be the fault of Glider itself, but it certainly is a supportive factor. As for lost revenue, when someone's found to be botting, they get banned, and revenue is lost, it's that simple there.
-----
My opinion is biased as I was a player in a server with a ruined economy and rampant cheating, but I kinda hope Blizzard wins this one, despite the arguments used. I'd rather the sale, distribution, and development of Glider be stopped/halted.
Re:glider (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:5, Interesting)
What this really signifies: (Score:2, Interesting)
When people are so desperate not to have to play your game that they'll write a program to do it for them, the gameplay model is broken. Try to do better next time.
Sincerely,
An indie gamer
Re:Maybe i should start a WoW account.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thank God (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:5, Interesting)
Possibly they don't want people to experience the "end game", as then they might realise how boring and pointless the whole thing is and stop paying the monthly subscription fee.
So - Blizzard doesn't get their day in court because you think their game is "boring and pointless."
But, contrary to your assertion, they want everyone to experience the end-game. Two patches ago, they greatly reduced the amount of experience points you need to get to level at every level between 20 and 60. (Getting to 20 only takes a week or so of casual play anyway.) In addition, the same quests between levels 30 and 60 reward more XP.
Up to level 60, it takes less XP to level and you get it faster. Why? Because at around 55, you can experience the new content in the "Burning Crusade" expansion. They've also made instanced dungeons less tedious to run - needing only 25 people instead of 40 - so that more people can experience these areas. They also made PvP loot more powerful, so people who don't want to be raiding for hours every night can pick up and play, and still get comparable loot.
Their goal is to have even casual players at level 70, so that they can move their next expansion that'll let you go from 70 to 80. They make more money and sell more expansions if more people can reach the "end game" - so they've been making it easier to get there.
How it all works (Score:3, Interesting)
The automation of simple tasks does not need this memory hacking to work. In my days pre-macroquest, I used to take a nostromo speedpad, or other USB joystick of sorts, and program mini-macro's into them. Just a recorded set of keystrokes to do thing like autofire and such.
The use of Memory alteration, does a lot more then press the same button over and over. It can intercept, and redirect information being sent to and from the server changing what will happen. It can tell the server a new location for your character (warping) it can tell the server your default speed should be "x" so you can run as fast as you want. the list goes on and on.
In the Macroquest world, there are a few levels of "hacking", you have your non invasive macro's, which automate keystrokes, mouse movements, and clicks. Next are plugins, which are a little more difficult, it requires actually writing a program extension (.DLL file) to perform things, some are passive, utilizing the information recieved from the server, but not normally available to the player. Although not available, it's still being sent, so not really against the rules to use it. Lastly using plugins to access your memory, and "hook" game memory addresses, to alter the information and changed it to what you want.
All in all, cheating like this is not a simple task, it requires reverse engineering the programs exe, figuring out memory offsets for each thing you want to change, writing a programs to find and latch onto the memory offset to change it, and then figuring out the value to change it to to get the desired effect. Doing this is what we call an active hack, these are the ones that places like Sony and Blizzard can find using there tracking programs. These are what hurts them, using more resources then a normal player.
The simple automation of button pressing can (and has) be argued to be allowed based on most games EULA, which prohibits the use of 3rd party applications to alter game play. Automating keystroke/mouse click tasks does not alter game play, or change the way the program they wrote works in any way, if anything it may prevent carpal tunnel.
What I'm trying to say is: The user is chosing to use a program to violate the EULA, they should be punished. It's like sueing a company that makes bolt cutters because a customer of theirs bought some bolt cutters and broke into your house, or shed. The person performing the breaking and entering is at fault, not the manufacturer of the tool used to break and enter.
Re:You need only look at history (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:neither copyright nor trademark (Score:3, Interesting)
I was all for BNETD, actually. I loved StarCraft, hated seeing ads while using their service while games like Quake didn't have that centralization. BNETD would have been great! But they had too many ingredients stacked against them. First, it's Blizzard, they're successful, they have an enormous stash of lawyers and given that their money comes from games run on PCs (i.e. easiest to pirate) they are filled with resolve. Second, they quite intentionally designed Battle.net to be THE way their on-line games are matched. It's quite clear they had bigger plans to make money from that service. More resolve. Third, for reasons that either incredibly greedy or incredibly practical, they used this service in an attempt to maintain their CD-Key system to keep the gamers legit. Forth, all this was happening right when about the time the DMCA was out and about and untested. I remember when this was going on I couldn't believe they were actually going to try this battle. Worse, they were using the EFF to help them. I wanted them to win, believe me, but I just couldn't see how there was any way they thought they'd actually win this. From where I sat, the best outcome they could have hoped for was a racking up of huge lawyer bills and a precedent set against them. They made a nice PR push: "Well we tried to ask if we could have permission to talk to their servers to okay a game being played, but gee golly gosh they wouldn't let us into their copy protection system! Jerks!" But it wasn't a PR battle, and the CD-Key was a pretty big deal.
So, I will correct you, sir: I am not stamping on the guy standing up for something. I'm kicking the idiot for picking the wrong battle to fight and making it worse for everybody. That's the sort of thing that caused some content makers to seek the DMCA's introduction into law, and if the people involved had been running more on practicality than idealism, some serious trouble could have been spared. I wish they had won, but I wish more that they hadn't fought it at all.
That whole thing should never have escalated that far. A little bit of common sense would have prevented that. Instead, what we got was an appeal for sympathy. All I could do was shake my head and wonder just how many of the DMCAs teeth were sharpened over it.
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheating was completely out of control when I was playing WoW, and I quit years ago. I can't imagine anything has changed. I put "server hacks" as my reason for leaving then, so it at least cost them 24 months (that it's been for me) x $15 = $360. If it's 10000 people we're talking about real money here. And thus, the action by Blizzard.
They also couldn't care less what attack vector they use, as long as the problem goes away. They probably chose the one that they felt was going to do the most damage so they can nuke the problem out of orbit. Naturally it won't work and another will spring up and the pattern will continue. God I hate cheaters.
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if they'll try and force him to give up his source during discovery. That might very well be the angle they're looking at in this whole thing.
That's realling interesting! Two outcomes if they manage to do that:
Win-win if that's allowed during discovery.
depends on wrong and right (Score:2, Interesting)
"wrong target" for me means, that morally, the creator should not be blamed for creating a piece of software which can help you in a specifical task, even if this task may be unmoral.
it is like suing weapons producers for making wars. of course on a high-moral ground, we can debate this otherwise, but with high-moral ground i mean idealistic morality, which has more to do with world-view and beliefs.
so of course, strategically it is the right target to catch the dealer of something illegal. if it IS illegal.
otherwise, you HAVE TO catch the customers, which are the USERS of the program.
you can't destroy cigarette companies, to free all smokers, because nicotine is legal.
on the other hand, you have to catch the dealer of pot, because pot is illegal.
for legal stuff (even wow) the customers are responsible for USING them. blizzard claims bots play longer, but maybe somebody has, whatever, disabilities and is very fond of his bot program, because it helps him catching up with his friends - and he does not let the bot run longer, than he plays. so we see, it depends on the usage of the tool, the tool is not used to attack the server and is not performing illegal tasks per se (maybe it does, but from what i see it does not, or blizzard would sue for other reasons)
this makes the programmer morally the wrong target. and also legally the wrong target.
if blizzard succeeds in this, it may be fair on high-moral ground, but absolutely injust in terms of justice for all the other developers on the world creating little tools.
it is of course the right target strategically (and i think you meant that), but this again will make the whole move "evil", since they DO attack the wrong target (legally, morally), even if their motives and anger may be understandable in some way (high-moral).
Re:Not the question at hand (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What this really signifies: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats the reason why I don't play MMORPG's.
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:4, Interesting)
Blizzard doesn't own or even have any legal right to any software that has been independently created and developed outside of its own software code base. If this developer had any brains at all, he would have been using a compiler and development tool set for a "non-standard" software development language like Object Pascal, Smalltalk, or Lisp. By doing that, it would be incredibly hard to suggest that the defendant has "copied" software when the structures look so much different.... certainly you could create some considerable doubt to a jury of even professional software developers much less twelve random "citizens" who know nothing about computer software development.
Demanding source code during discovery might backfire just as awfully as the "glove test" that happened during the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and if I were a consultant to the plaintiff I would strongly discourage even trying this approach unless there was some strong evidence that the defendant had in fact broken into the Blizard HQ (electronically of physically) and stolen actual source code which was later incorporated into his software. Based on what Michael Donnelly is trying to say, this seems like a rather dubious possibility when there are so many other possible approaches that could be done.
Also, Blizzard may not want to obtain the source code at all due to future copyright conflicts that could arise. If any, and I mean any, Blizzard software engineer took a look at Mr. Donnelly's software and later incorporated the concepts (even but one algorithm) into Blizzard's software.... the tables could turn very easily and have Mr. Donnelly sue Blizzard for copyright infringement. I can't believe that a software attorney would even want to touch such an explosive legal bomb like that.
As demonstrated with the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, fighting copyright infringement via source code is not always a good strategy... and SCO had a much stronger case than Blizzard.
Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's about money. If the player has to play the game longer to get to whatever point they feel "complete" then they pay more subscription fees. If they bot while they are not playing, they can achieve more items in less time and therefore pay less. It's what makes me sick with MMOs. They aren't about a fun game. It's about an end goal, and making it time consuming to get to. Instead of the developers out-thinking the power gamers, they are taking the easy way out and increasing the time to acquire _____. Unfortunately, companies are seeing MMOs as good money making models because many people are buying into it. I'm interested, and kind of hoping, that all these millions of WoW players will get to the point where I am (Sick of grind MMOs) and start buying games that actually innovate and create entertainment.