In my recent article about Spam in Multiplayer Online Games(smog), I talk about how spammers sell resources such as gold. Theseresources can be obtained with minimal user interaction, by using anautomated program to control characters and play the game. By doingthis, gold can be collected and either used or sold for real money.
As a massively multiplayer online game develops, an economydevelops. The value of rare items tends to emerge, and people will makefair trades or purchases from each other. People who play the game fora reasonable amount of time are able to purchase the same items asothers, by collecting gold (or whatever currency is used). Ideally, theeconomy will balance and end up at a fair point.
However, automated programs can be used to for this collection. Aprogram can run 24/7, doing nothing but harvesting gold. This gold canthen be used or sold to others. In both cases, it creates an abundanceof gold for people who want to automate it, or who are willing to spendreal money to buy it. Like in a real economy, an excess supply of goldbeing put into the marketplace devalues everybody else's gold, and theamount of time required earn enough gold to buy rare items increases.Suddenly, players have to work a lot harder because of cheaters.
A program known as Glider can be used for such purposes in Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft.Glider automates the play of characters by sending fake keypresses,fighting monsters, and implementing a number of anti-detection methodsto try to fool Blizzard's protection. This week, however, Blizzardbanned a large number of Glider users. This was reportedly the firsttime users on European servers were banned for cheat programs, and isthe second major round of banning in World of Warcraft (the first onebeing November of 2006).
Were enough people banned to reduce the flow of illegitimatelyobtained gold? Will this serve as a deterrent to others? Will this helpto reduce the amount of smog in World of Warcraft? Time will tell.