The explaination I've heard on that is a lack of demand due to people not using credit cards in EU as much or something. Seems weird to me but then again most EU people I know seem to use Gamecards for playtime whereas its mainly credit cards in the US (some people I know who work at gamestores go with gamecards since they get discounts).

Ah, but that's exactly what makes this case potentially interesting. IANALBGI, yet it's fairly clear to any interested observer that the issue of MMOG ToSes is extremely tricky, and is bound to start hitting the courts in full sooner or later. Is this going to be the case that 'breaks the silence' and determines the outcome of the broader issue? I dunno.

What the crap?

I second this. WTF is IANALBGI? Is it dirty?

I Am Not A Lawyer somethingsomethingsomething.

I especially like the somethingsomethingsomething.

I am not a lawyer... but Gurgthock is! (So he may have a better idea than I do about the (il)legality of MMOG providers' ToSes. Or he may not.)

I think this is right. At least in France, many people consider buying gold online to be cheating, hence don't do it. I don't mean no one buys gold. I said unlike what happens on the US servers, the "average"non/casual raider doesn't buy gold. That rule of course has a lot of exceptions. But basically they the proportion of players willing to buy gold is somewhat less important.

We sometime randomly see bots in Azshara/winterspring, farm farmers (the ability to gank farmers is one of the privileges of rolling a horde toon), receive ads from lvl 1 toons, we used to see the result of DM teleport famring ... . But a "legit" palyer can find dreamfoil and rich thorium veins. famring is less widespsread, and I think lesser demand is the reason. BTW some gold sites offer to buy gold from players on Us servers, not on euro servers.

Well even tho I'd think the demand is lower in europe, I still see more farmers on my euro servers than I saw when I was playing on US servers(after they started mass banning asian ip accounts). Might only be an impression, but it seems they banned people more freely in the US than they did in Europe, which combines with the higher demand there and results in 2x-3x prices.

As for the rich thorium and dreamfoil, I haven't seen a bot able to do this yet, because of random spots and all the enemies in the way(especially on pvp servers). The ones that do farm these are real farmers, not botters, and imo they have all the rights to loot the stuff. However, afaik, bots can only go back to their corpses if they're not moving, but they're not able to find their way back to their corpse if you fear them a few screens away from their farming spot, which is why they'll stay in the lower level zones farming mobs or fishing. Might be wrong tho.

Hence they have virtual WoW clients that look at where the node is teleport underground below the node they are harvestiing and then harvests it. Now thats really easy to catch due to teleporting but they could make it a lot more lgit with smaller teleports.

I don't think it is the main reason, because you can pay over PayPal, and you don't need a CC for PayPal in most countries in Europe, you can simply let them take the money from your bank account.

Blizzard will not ban by IP address as the majority of their client base has dynamic ip addresses and would be an ineffective use.

He meant if Blizzard sees your account and a botted account coming from the same IP during the same time period they'll ban both accounts, not that they would block the IP itself.

bots/farmers not hurting the rest of players?

well today I logged in just before going to work (8 in the morning on a monday) to farm some herbs. Went to Aszhara, where there are something like 50 dreamfoil spawn points.

in an hour i met 6 different hunters, with names like Zyyx, a pet called 'cat' or 'boar' and no pvp rank at all. Needless to say; not many herbs around.

I don't give a toss if they are ("professional") farmers or bots. but i DO know that because of their presence, I shall have to buy the dreamfoil I need for my raid pots (BWL tonight) at 20g a stack. And yes, that does bother me.

shame all of them were horde or i'd have gotten some satisfaction/honor at least.

That, of course, is the ultimate "problem" with farmers and bots. Do they bring more goods into the economy and thus lower prices? Probably somewhat. But when they do it by farming resources that are capped (i.e., not an infinite supply like you find in an instance) they are taking away options for people to generate their own gold/mats from those resources. Some people may hate picking herbs or mining thorium and prefer to buy those things anyway - that's fine but at some point you have to ask why bother with gathering professions in the first place. Maybe Blizzard should just set up vendors for anything and everything you need to make and sell gold directly along with the monthly cards.

The "Limited Supply" farming problem is one reason I rerolled on a pvp server, because I am thrilled with the idea of ganking farmers and botters.

There is honestly nothing more rewarding in this world than nuking to death some hordie caster who is trying in vain to pick a night dragon spawn. Long live pvp servers FOR THIS REASON ALONE.

As a regular farmer (well regular being the 2 hours out of my week I have that are not for other things) it is annoying to no end to see someone else grabbing mats I can use who will just sell them on the AH.

I'm also uneasy when a guildie does the same thing just for profit yet we're short on SR/NR pots. /mumbles

I'd rather lose a spawn to someone who needs it as much as I, not someone using the game as a regular job.

What is the price of Night Dragon's Breath on the Auction House?

I was refering to the satisfaction of being able to kill your competition for mats/consumables, not necessarily just botters or just droppable materials.

NDBs are a better representation of my innate happiness because they are on a set timer and there are only four spawns which are generally *locked down*. It applies to dreamfoil and all other mats as well. )

He knows. :)