Solo vs. Botting

Originally, this forum thread peaked my interest because of something said in the Original Post. I'll summarize the thread, but you may enjoy reading it yourself. The drama of it is pretty funny. Hopefully I can capture some of it for you here:

The original poster (OP) starts off by including this statement about a topic that quickly didn't matter because the thread was about to be hijacked:

But for me its more about the journey as an independant, unguilded individual, who did it "my way" as some old man used to say.

It sounded to me that this was someone else who might play solo. (Note the reference to Sinatra's "My Way." It'll show up later.)

But soon thereafter another player (BB in post #7) says what seems to be the innocuous:

lol@your way

/afkbotting AMIRITE

To which the OP responds:

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. I report a few dozen botters a week...

Then in post #10 you see BB come back and ask the follow up:

So you've never used a bot for anything?

Now, if you were raised by my mother you would be immune to this trick. "You were at the library all night, right?" Trust me, that should be your first sign that you're caught NOT being at the library all night. But the OP falls for it and says:

Nope..wouldn't know where to get one or how to set it up...Didn't have computers when i was in school so I am self taught.

Well the trap was set and now it's sprung. In post #14 BB comes back to say:
"Then I'm sure you'll remember this:" and posts a link to this video starring the Original Poster apparently doing the thing he just said he's never done:

(In case there are problems with the embedded video, here's a link to the video on Google Video.)

Now this looks bad. Very bad. Because in the video two alliance characters come upon this guy, the OP, (a hunter) and thinking he is botting decide to test him by killing his pet over and over. The OP, however, does nothing and lets this happen. He just keeps fighting.

Queue the many posts stating that the OP was just completely owned:

That is ownage on a scale that has never been seen before.

etc, etc...
When the OP finally replies he says he was drunk and being stubborn (to keep resurecting his pet) to see if they would stop bothering him.

Now, this all interests me, particularly as it pertains to any perception that being alone and unguilded means someone is botting (only two of my characters are guilded - unless you count the day I was showing my mom the game, but that's a story for another day). See post #116:

You're unguilded atm, which REEKS of "I don't want guildies to find out that I bot, so I'll join a guild after I'm done".

Hmmm, is that what people think? Hopefully this guy is just talking about this instance.

Nonetheless, I'm paying attention to how this unfolds. What are the perceptions now? And this guy is going to be one more data point in building future perceptions - either as a legitimate unguilded player or as someone purposely avoiding guilds because he's botting.

From my own perspective, I tried to determine if this could be legitimate. I'm not fond of the PVP aspect of the game myself so I don't roll on PVP servers (except maybe as a tourist). But I do play solo a lot and when someone does something that bothers me, I often silently let it pass. Offensive whisper? Just ignore it, they usually don't keep bothering me. (Except for the showing my mom story - again - story for another day.) Begger? No response. Although on the stubborn front - just today someone (same faction) ran up to a copper node I was mining and started mining it as though I wasn't already standing there mid swing. That time I just kept mining, trying to beat him. Then I moved along my way. I wanted to yell at the guy but what would that gain? So I said nothing and went about my business.

So when this guy defended his actions, I thought... maybe... maybe... He certainly makes an empassioned plea that he was at the keyboard and not botting. I can't help but think, though - why didn't this guy run away? Anytime I am near a member of the opposing faction (and I'm on a PVE server and rarely if ever flagged), I'm scared I'm gonna get PK'd. I just couldn't reconcile this whole thing's being on an RPPVP server and this player didn't think - uh oh - I'm horde and these are two alliance in a guild known for ganking - I should run away. Log off. Something! I sincerely doubt I would continue to go about my business.

Anyway, back to the drama,... BB says - I've got more video coming and then later posts this follow up video with subtitles set to the tune of, of course, "My Way":

(Link on Google Video.)

So it really appears that the OP was botting. This is not good for perceptions of the unguilded.

I've also taken away two learnings. First - maybe it wouldn't hurt for me to utter a word or two on occassion to make sure players or Blizzard or whoever knows I'm not on autopilot and that I'm actually at my keyboard. When I walked away from that guy who tried to steal my copper mine, maybe he thought I was just a bot because I didn't acknowledge what he did. (Maybe he was the bot, hmmm can they do that?)

And second - /thanks mom! Because I'm just a little bit better on my toes today for your sleuthing skills while I was growing up. I can't believe the OP fell for it. At least I got a good laugh out of the thread for it though. Hopefully you did too.

On Naming

I made a rookie mistake. Normally I take quite a bit of time to ruminate on a name before I create a character. Normally....

But I named two characters on the same server both with names that start with the letter "J." That doesn't seem like a big problem except the fact that I mail things to myself all the time. Herbs to the alchemist... items to be enchanted... food from the cook... armor kits from the leather worker... etc. And by naming two "J" characters I broke my general naming rules and my normally orderly mailing (read: autopilot) has now turned to chaos (read: no idea where I just sent that).

Here are some of my general naming conventions:

Name to take advantage of Autofill - Unique first letters
Step 1 - Put the names of my alts in each of the others friends-list.
Step 2 - When I mail something to an alt, type just the first letter and the mail system autofills from the names of people in your friends list.

And as I learned after the great Friends-List-Wipe of 2006, if there's no one in your friends list it autofills with the names of the people in your guild (which for me is filled with alts who haven't logged in since the great There's-Not-Enough-60's-In-This-Guild-To-Raid-With main-character-migration of 2005). It took a month for all that stuff to get kicked back to me.

Autofill, my one time friend, turned into my new problem with the two J characters. I would enter the letter J, for "Jill" for example, but instead it autofills "Jack" because his name sorts first. Oops, wrong mail. Again. At least this time its still to me, so it only takes two hours to fix.

Name to take advantage of Autofill - Avoid certain letters
I also try not to have names that begin with "W" or "B." Why? Because I can't tell you how many times I am in the middle of sending a piece of mail but change my mind. I then try to walk away and press "W" or try to open or close my bags and press "B." Instead of closing the Send Mail window, I wind up filling in the name of someone on my friends list. ("Briar" actually gets a lot of errant mail that way.)

To show you how truly lazy I am, my new rule is to pick names of characters whose letters are around the WASD keyboard position. E, C, V, R, T, G, B, F ... all good choices. This way my left hand barely moves. You think I'm kidding; I'm not. Someone can actually BE this lazy.

Although I tell myself it's "efficient."

Anticipate future name variations - Titles
This isn't really a problem for me because I don't engage in PVP. But I still try to anticipate what a name will look like with a title in front of it. The name "Rume" may sound fine on its own but rank up to "Private Rume" and expect some weird whispers.

Compare to Other Character Names
When you're naming you may benefit from reviewing Naming Patterns courtesy of PlayOn (Exploring the social dimensions of virtual worlds). It's a very interesting read. Also check out the link I mentioned previously that can show you existing player names across servers.

More Links:

Blizzard's Naming Policy

Sample Mule Names

WoWInsider's Take on Naming

Update 8/2/2007: Mark of the Wild's Naming discussion with good comments.

I Twink, Therefore I Am

(With apologies to Descartes.)

Actually I should clarify. I consider myself a "generic" twinker (is that a word?) rather than a "battlegrounds" twinker. I've actually never been in a battleground.

Generic Version of Twink:
Twinking used to be thought of as the limited practice of giving a newbie character hand-me-downs from a higher level character. Thus the lower level character quickly has access to equipment that he/she might otherwise take longer to earn for him/herself.

New Version of Twink:
As I read the posts out there it seems that Twinking has developed into the narrower practice of gearing up a character specifically for use in Battlegrounds(which are level based).

More Reading:

Live Journal Post discussing various meanings of Twink

Wowinsider Post that asks "Should Blizzared End Twinking for Good?" (Lots of comments)

WoWWiki

Wikipedia

(In some of the World of Warcraft forum posts you might see the word "muffin" used in place of the word Twink.)

My Version - Self Sufficiency
To me, this game is about the conquering, balancing and optimizing of all there is in WoW. Where other players may use their friends and their guildmates, I try it just with myself (and the Auction House). Here's my way:

I enjoy learning the different professions. For example, I'll have an alchemist on a server who will make and send potions to all my other characters. I have a skinner who supplies leather as needed, a leatherworker who can supply armor kits, a tailor who can supply bags (all the cloth gets sent to her), a chef, an enchanter, a blacksmith, etc... Yup. I always have a full mailbox.

I also like to stagger levels on the server. This way, as equipment is dropped, more senior characters can donate their armor and weapon drops to the lower level characters.

I try to make money. That challenge in and of itself is fun. The results get shifted to whichever character needs it.

So my point? Not all twinking is about Battlegrounds or getting the edge over another player. For me it's part of the solo game.

Changes that others considered game altering - New Honor/PVP systems, flying mounts, Paladin/Shaman switches... none of that changes anything for me. But if one day everything were say, suddenly Bind on Pickup... then I'd have to reconsider the game. Would it still be enjoyable for me? Probably not.

Update 8/20/2007:
Patch 2.1.3 Improves Mailing Between Alts at wowgrrl.com says that:

Mailing between your own alts is instant for both cash and items now.

WoW and ADD

Today is ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) Awareness day. So I thought I'd describe how my having ADD affects me, the blog and WoW. This is not to say that everyone with ADD or ADHD plays World of Warcraft or writes their blog with the same quirks that I do. But I thought this might be helpful (for me at least).

Writing Posts
Essentially I write posts in the same way that I would want to read them. Easy. I'm surprised that more ADD writers don't do the same. You will find my posts generally adhere to the following:

Relatively short in length (like I said, generally adhere).

No long text walls.

Break it up and provide structure with Tables and Bullets. (Example: Children's Week)

Use pictures to tell the story (Example: How To Unlearn a Profession)

Where possible use headers to explain what I'm writing. (Example: Patch Feedback)

Use colored text to highlight concepts. (Example: Patch Notes)

Combine all of the above to get the message across assuming that readers spend only 5 seconds reading the post. How can I help them capture the message in that time?

Also, the fact that I'm still blogging after 9 months is probably atypical. I guess I'm still at it because I keep finding ways to express myself differently. I enjoy it.

Post Content

Distractions: I wind up expressing in my blog posts all those distractions I see when I play. I don't know, do non ADD people just go right by them? I wind up pondering them.

Examples: Notice how I got interested when I found A Cannon outside IF, Goblin Gallows, A grinning Dog, Kool Aid parties etc...

Process Information: I also use blog posts to process information. With ADD I find information floats around in my head. But I don't really understand it until I process it and find its proper home in the larger context.

Examples include: Priest Racial Skills, Priest End Talents, World of Warcraft Subscription Prices, Jewelcrafting Notes

Creative Outlets: I didn't know I had it in me. But boy do I enjoy playing with photoshop and WoW.

Examples: NPC Commercial Breaks, Comparing WoW to Real Life Sights and Sites, or my amateur comics.

Playing the Game

Transitions - One of my friends noticed this (when I used to play well with others). We'd all be logged on after work but I'd need time before we'd all rush out to whever we were questing. Had to check the mail; had to go to the bank and the Auction House. (Maybe it was all that time checking alts.)

Multiple Alts, Multiple Servers - I get a brand new idea. I discover Shamans. I'm going to make all my players different races. I make a male character. I make an all unarmed character. Invariably, whatever the idea is, I come up with another one that tickles my fancy before I'm finished with the last. The result is a lot of rested bonus.

Short Play Times - Do an instance for an hour? No thanks. Raid for several hours!?! Not for me, no way. I've been known to log on for 10 minutes. Or play for an hour and never kill a single thing. On the rare occasion I play for several hours I was probably playing and got up to go do laundry while in flight. I finally made it back and decided I wanted to play a different character. (Although loading Titan Panel and the "time to next level" mod made me want to level more.) Eventually, I wound up migrating from playing with friends to a solo play style because I wanted to be able to change what I was doing on a whim. Which is also why they all leveled to 60 and are doing raids right now and I'm writing a blog.

Hyperfocus - On occasion I will get engrossed in the game or a project (see the wands post to see how I spent probably 8 hours on Saturday) and I keep at it for hours. If I find something interesting I can lose hours of time investigating it, pulling it apart, trying it different ways.

Forgetful - This trait is another reason I find myself playing solo. I get too embarassed by some of my forgetfulness. One day we were in the Arathi Highlands doing a quest where you have to run around to various "Stones of Binding" and fight the different elementals. Well I had completed it very recently and knew which elementals were at which Stones. I happily led my friends here and there until I was proudly showing them where the water elementals were, only to be advised that we had already done the water elementals (only 5 minutes before). hmmm of course then I couldn't remember exactly which ones we had done already and had to ask.

I've read some negative comments about ADD and WoW ("this kid must've had ADD or something...") and I'm not sure I've given the best impression of ADD & WoW either. So I'd like to say I think I'm not representative of other ADD'ers who play WoW. This is just how I am with it.

If you'd like more information, I picked a few links.

ADD Information Links:
What's it like to have ADD?
Hyperfocus
Diagnosis of AD/HD in Adults