Blizzard Sues WoW Glider

The addon is created and designed to go against the way Blizzard wants the game to be played, and circunvents the systems Blizzard puts in place to avoid this kind of bot-programs. If the developer had just created an addon for “insert random thing” and people misused it for boting I would understand your point of Blizzard being a bully… but this guy reminds me more of the gold-seller websites.

If I created software to duplicate items in game and then sold it saying clearly that duplicating items is illegal in that game, Blizzard would go after me as well and nobody would think twice about it.

I read up on the prog, it’s actually pretty impressive. It gets around Warden(Blizzards util to detect third party programs) by loading WoW as a subservient program. It then has an AI that will walk a preset route and attack any mobs withing a user set list of criteria(level, faction, etc). It can attack players that attack it, auto-loot/skin, auto-res and grab your corpse and quite a few other things. All in all a pretty impressive little program.

I also read both Blizzards claim and MDY(makers companies) counter-suit, both have some pretty good points. Blizzards is HUGE, and a few things of a questionable nature… but hey, throw enough mud at the wall… One thing they do have a very solid standing point on is trademark infringement, MDY choose a bad name by using WoW(which is trademarked) in it’s name.

Should be interesting to watch the suits fly back and forth and see how it turns out. From what Blizzard is asserting MDY has sold 25k copies, which would amount to 625k USD in revenue, nice little chunk of change.

It’s a tough call.

On one hand, I remember checking out the glider program a long time ago when I first heard about it, because I was curious. Their forums were (might still be, too) openly crawling with threads about how to beat Blizzard’s security system and avoid banning by doing something that everyone knew and acknowledged was against the ToS they agreed to every time the played the game.

Furthermore, Blizzard believes that botting is not in the best interest of their customers and has gone to great lengths to prevent it. WoW Glider is specifically designed to circumvent those systems and make money at the expense (as perceived by Blizzard) of Blizzard’s game. MUD clients are not designed to bypass security systems put in place by the MUD owners… they’re designed to have convenient features for MUDders that are allowed on many text games. If someone designed a client that was specifically aimed at doing things within an Iron Realms MUD that violated your stated policies and helped the player avoid your detection, you probably wouldn’t like it for obvious reasons: it hurts legitimate players, because your policies are there for a reason. That’s what WoW glider does. It’s not a generic tool.

On the other hand, I see your point. It’s a slippery slope when you start coming down on people for trying to sell their useful software because you don’t like the implications for your business. If WoW glider had a generic name and worked in multiple games, it might be less of an issue, especially if they removed the anti-warden stuff. Of course, if they don’t step up, someone else will drive the tractor. There has to be a design solution, and I agree to an extent that the simplicity of WoW combat and gameplay contributes to the problem.

“the way Blizzard wants the game to be played”

This right here is a pointless, silly, hopeless battle. You cannot control how users use your product.

The only parallel I could think of would be to assume that one of our own IRE players created a script for auto ratting, advertised it, and gave/sold it to other players.

I’d imagine there would be some implications for the player as far as his character goes, but I can hardly see legal actions being taken against someone for something like that.

Either way, suing someone for money because they let people get virtual items in your game is ridiculous.

I have mixed feelings on this, mostly since I can see both sides and want to agree with both.

I want to in the end I agree with Matt, it should be primally the companies’ responsibly to police the players. But at the same time, I think that companies should have some rights to stop programs that are created with the clear intent to “exploit” the game.

If nothing else, the battle could help settle some outstanding TOS/EULA questions and be a good chapter(s) to be added to “The State of Play” in a second edition.

Long live Glider!

I realize that this it far overdue, but here is my say on this.

The argument that I see between the Zmud and Glider is about intention of the programs use. Zmud was not made, as far as I can tell, to be used against a certain mud. Glider, however, was designed to stealth past WoW’s detection to be used to break the TOS and EULA.

Glider shows that’s intentions are to be used with a specific game on it’s website: “Glider is a tool that plays your World of Warcraft character for you…”

Now let me try to put this into comparrison, much like people have done before, but in a different manner. I saw it mentioned that gun factories should not be held responsible for a man shooting another man. I completely agree with this statement, but let’s try to compare it with this specific case.

Glider is made with the intent to avoid detection. This is not illegal.
Let’s say a gun company designs a gun that looks like a cellphone. A person legally buys this gun and keeps it in a cell phone holster on their side, in clear view for everyone to see. Like Glider, this cell-gun avoids detection.

Glider is made specifically for World of Warcraft, which can be seen on their site.
The cell-gun is made specifically for the use at a park, something that is included on the packaging. In fact, it is so specific that it includes the name of a particular park, just as Glider does on it’s website.

Glider is made specifically to do things that may, and probably will, get the user suspended or banned by the company in use, something that is stated in their FAQ. However, it also states everything that can be done with the Glider program.
The cell-gun clearly states that it is against the law to shoot at a person, and that doing so may and will get you arrested. However, it goes on to explain certain spots on the human body that could injure and/or kill a person if they use it.

Now you may argue that the difference between the cell-gun and the Glider is that the Glider isn’t illegal. Make a note that the cell-gun does not tell people to go out and shoot a person, it just gives suggestions on how to use it efficiently, just as Glider does.

A person downloads Glider, which makes Blizzard ban the user, thus losing a customer. This is, of course, the users fault.
A person buys the cell-gun and shoots a man at the park suggested, thus getting arrested. This is, of course, the shooters fault.

Glider supplied what was needed to use specifically on a program that bans it’s use.
Cell-gun supplied what was needed to use specifally in a park in which it is illegal to shoot a person.

I realize, of course, that shooting a person and using a program are two completely different things. But you must keep in mind the concept of it. Coding a program and selling it is not illegal. Designing a gun and selling it is not illegal. I can almost guarentee that a gun that was designed for the purpose of being used at a very specific place where somebody may or may not get hurt in the process would certainly be up for scrutiny. It is the very same thing with Blizzard. Somebody may or may not get banned, which inadvertantly may make them lose a customer.

If that makes sense to anybody but myself.

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“the way Blizzard wants the game to be played”

This right here is a pointless, silly, hopeless battle. You cannot control how users use your product.

Long live Glider!

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You 2 are fucking dumbasses this completly ends the point of the game.

Despite how I feel about Bots and Hacks, being a mostly honest player (I use an FAQ or two sometimes, when my patience stat is not set to “limitless”) taken from the perspective that suing someone over virtual game property is rather rediculous, I have to agree. It *is* rediculous to sue a third party or anyone for that matter over who gets more gold or gil or items or mushrooms in a computer game. I think, however, that if this was a case of someone building a program that was targeting something a little more serious/important than a game, there would be no argument from the masses that what the suing company was doing was completely appropriate. Even if there is no harm being done by the hack (just a “joke” or “annoyance”) the hacker just proved that he can infiltrate your system and as a matter of fact, anyone he sells the program to can as well. The hacker calls it just a joke or no big deal, but someone else buying the program might use it to do something far more nefarious. I think it might be wise of Blizzard to try to instead establish the precedent of “We don’t care what it’s designed to do or who it targets, what you are doing to our system is unnaceptable and we believe it should be illegal so that we can protect ourselves.” We get angry when people hack our credit card numbers and hack our bank accounts and our “secure” government facilities (though sometimes it’s funny when they haxx0r the gov’t facilities…), but we ignore the hacking of something else less important because it’s no big deal? No one got hurt? That’s like saying speeding is only illegal when you maim/kill someone. Either hacking is wrong for everyone or it’s wrong for no one. Naive of me I know, but I still live in a world where I think everyone should try to play fair.

I have to agree, and disagree with you Arcadia, I totally beleive in what you say about how hacking should be considered always serious, but I also think that suing is out of the question in a 3rd party program. FFS guys blizzard makes a rough 3-5 hundred thousand dollars a day or more, they should spend a little of it making a better security system, not complaining cuz someone got free money,

Cheers , Rourke

Hmm I reread my comment, and I sound like an idiot, w/e you get the general idea.

You do not own your character, you own a client.
You rent your characters out at the rate of appr. 15 American Dollars a month.
So yah, Blizzard can tell you how you can play…… Hence why I can’t play by constantly cursing……. Hence why my style of play cant involve harassment.
IF you read the forums, someone almost got banned cause they used the dancing piccolo, its how they wanted to play but Blizzard says “Nope, it disrupts other people, so you cant use our property that way”

ktx, remember that.

It comes down to this: WoW glider would make exactly $0 if World of Warcraft didn’t exist. Because Blizzard has to ban ppl who use the program (In breach of contract) blizzard losses $15/month per person banned per average life of a player. Which in Wow could be many years. So if you ban 1000 ppl and the average is 3 years would be a loss of $540,000 And those are just small numbers. So in essence WoW Glider makes its money at the expense of World of Warcraft software and at the cost of Blizzard. Should Blizz get its money back?

You know, this is interesting as I face a similar problem. I own a large building near Toronto’s city centre. A few years ago, we redid the front entrance to the building and commissioned a large concrete sculpture to be integrated into the plaza in front of the doors. The sculpture is large and pretty cool. What I didn’t forsee was that it would be a popular skateboarding attraction.

For a long time, we had tons of kids riding around on our sculpture. This was a bit of a problem as they were a nuisance to the clientele of the shops in my building. A lot of people started complaining so we started booting the kids off (with a great deal of protest), even though a lot of them did spend some money at the convenience store inside the lobby. Of course, they always came back to play.

What I didn’t know was that there was a particularly treacherous slope (or curve, or whatever) on the sculpture that was difficult to ride unless you were either a) incredibly skilled or b) bought some sort of modification kit that was made by local shop. So a lot of kids bought this kit and would come back to skate on this particular feature of the sculpture (I guess it provided some sort of thrill you couldn’t get elsewhere).

So, because these kids scare off some of my other customers, and that shop is selling something that allows them to come back and use my sculpture in a way I didn’t intend (and is costing me money), do I get to sue the shop selling the modification kit?

Anyone know where i can get a wow glider ;] ?
I’m thinking of quitting, i could setup up my account to farm my friends some gold.

If you really looking to get banned, email me