I think it would be fair to say that the majority of players in WoW who farm do not mind sharing the resources of a server. Anyone who has farmed Sholazar Basin for herbs knows that the competition for herbs is huge, but that is fine because of the abundant number of herb nodes. It is when certain elements come into an area to farm that players get upset. More about that later.

Here are a couple of things to think about:

1) Farm all you like, but if there is another person near or on top of the node you want to farm pass it by, there are always other herbs.

2) It is not worth getting upset about loosing one or two herbs to another more aggressive player. They may not have seen you, or they may think you were at a particular location for some other reason. So, be understanding, it is only one or two herbs after all.

3) Topping off: Don’t: This is when players have full bags and are filling out the secondary harvests. We all can agree the Crystallized Life, Deadnettle, and Frost Lotus are good money makers, but when you farm for these leaving the primary herb (Gold Clover, Adder’s Tongue, and Tiger Lily) the node does not regenerate secondary herbs. Please take everything from the herb so the regeneration will spawn new secondary herbs. And here is something to think about; if you farmed 100 nodes and came up with say 5 Frost Lotus (doing very well) and never take the primary herb, if you were to visit those herbs again you would get NO Frost Lotus because the nodes did not respawn. If you only want the seconds, take the whole thing then literally dump the rest, or better yet sell it. Better for you, better for me, better for everyone.

4) Flight paths: If you spot another farmer, don’t follow them. Be polite, turn off and find another patch of herbs and farm those. I know it’s annoying when I run into the same person over and over again in the same general flight path as mine.

5) He who lands first gets the herb. If you run into a situation where you are going for the same herb as another farmer or two or three, the guy who lands first should get it and all other should leave and let him have it. Think of this as the right of way at a stop sign when driving.

What’s a Bot?

A bot in terms of WoW is any player using specialized macros, addons, or third party programs to run their character for them. Sometimes these bots run AFK and sometimes there is an operator watching. In any case running a character as a bot is against the WoW EULA but that does not stop anything. Most of these bots are farming bots. They can farm herbs, ores, skins, or specific drops. Generally they are then selling on the market (after offloading to a bank alt) for gold to use for a main, or to sell on the grey market for cash. Needless to say if there is real money involved these bots don’t give a damn about you and fairness in the game, all they want are the resources.

Spotting a Bot

Spotting a bot is really not too hard. If you watch them they will land on an herb perfectly every time they land. I don’t know about you, but after doing this a while I can land on a node perfectly, but far from every time, human reactions are just not that good. So, if they land perfectly every time you see them, they are likely a bot.

Another giveaway is speed. Now I know we can add haste to our characters, but it is no match for clock ticks on a computer. The average person will spend about 8-12 seconds per gather (land, locate and click the herb, call your mount again, and go) but bots will do this even faster by the several seconds we humans use to process.

Generally bots are not chatty, so if you say something about them in local they ignore it. You can even whisper them and they ignore you simply because there is no one watching to respond. Some of the newer bots will respond and give you some generalized reply to simulate being real. The simplest way to catch these bots is to ask a specific question requiring a specific answer. If you do not like the answer, they are a bot.

One thing to remember is that sometimes these bots do have operators watching and so will start up a conversation. Just because they are chatty does not mean they are not using bot programs. If confronted the operators will almost always point out that they are not running third party programs or that Blizz couldn’t know they are running third party programs. Sticking with the premise “me thinks thou protests too much”, they are probably bots. If other characters stick up for the confronted suspected bot, it is likely that they are the same player using different accounts to protect the bot. Remember, for the person doing the bot it may be a business and they have many ways of protecting their money source. Finally the suspected bot will either leave the area to farm some other patch or simply go offline until things cool down. The last thing a bot wants is to have Blizz look at them and find out what is going on.

For me it is the bots in the game that really screw up the dynamics of the game. It is only logical that players will farm in a game that has an economy but when the resources are artificially stretched because of farming, the game dynamic is effected and the relaxing pastime of farming becomes frustrating and players become stressed. The last thing Blizz wants is stressed players.

A Word on Druids

It has now become apparent that if you want to farm you should be a druid that has a flight form. Since it seems you can gather without having to dismount and remount, you cut time on herb by probably 3- 6 seconds increasing your gather rate substantially. I am wondering if this is fair. Personally I think that Blizz should not allow the ability to gather when in a different form to equalize the game. As it stands being a druid gives them an innate advantage in farming. But being a Druid that sorta makes sense. Or does it?