A bot that most likely doesn't exist

With the way the current day meta is. It seems as though everyone is stuck on LUA and LUA unlockers. I'm not bashing it, it just simly appears to be the reality.

Even "pixel" and "memory reading" bots all require you to have some in-game addon or at the very least, lua unlocking / lua code interactions of some kind.

Suppose people are wary after what happened to honorbuddy, and that's understandable, considering barely anyone has ever successfully attained their former level of glory since without being shut down almost immediately after release.

It seems fair to say that this most likely doesn't exist, and is very improbable to ever exist, just maybe not impossible however.

Regardless of how expensive it may be, or for what game version it is, has anyone here come across or even heard of a bot or bot development project out there, which is actually functional to the degree of being able to level a character from 1-60 for classic era / 1-80 for retail, perform combat rotations, gather mats, and maybe even allows people to create their own profiles, without any in-game addons or lua code interactions with the game, that still exists?

To expand upon this a bit further...

After Honorbuddy's shutdown (via Blizzard lawsuit), public bot projects shifted to Lua-based approaches (e.g., PinkieBot, Haxxor, LazyScript). These tools exploit WoW's API via Lua unlockers (e.g., ConsolePort, LuaUnlock), which are detectable but easier to develop.

Non-Lua bots face immense technical and legal risks. Memory-reading bots (like Honorbuddy) require reverse-engineering game internals, which Blizzard aggressively monitors.

Project Atlas (defunct): A 2019-era OCR-based bot for Classic, is now abandoned due its poor performance.

Classic WoW Bots (2019-2021): Tools like Glider Classic (a revival of the 2007 bot) used primitive screen interaction but failed to handle post-20 content reliably.

The closest "existing" Solutions are open source frameworks like WoW-Bot (GitHub), which is a python-based pixel bot for simple tasks (like fishing) but lacks combat functionality.

RetailBot... a discontinued C++ project using DirectX hooks (not Lua), last updated in 2022. It was limited to Retail gathering...

So it seems that it's not a matter of impossibility, but rather, the improbability of someone willing to take the legal risk, and not give in to the allure of private and exclusive financing if they have taken that risk

Understandable tbh

You take legal risks whether you access memory or unlock protection functions; both require you to reverse-engineer game files. People prefer unlockers because it's just more efficient to make frameworks since they can utilize already existing API, and development in Lua is simple. In theory, Unlockers are harder to detect; the problem is simply Unlockers are now the focus of Blizzard's attention, and Blizzard also has 20 years of heuristics data to enforce findings without hard detections. I think maybe people forgot how often HB was banned and/or detected; It was frequent.

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Originally Posted by tamedbeast You take legal risks whether you access memory or unlock protection functions; both require you to reverse-engineer game files. People prefer unlockers because it's just more efficient to make frameworks since they can utilize already existing API, and development in Lua is simple. In theory, Unlockers are harder to detect; the problem is simply Unlockers are now the focus of Blizzard's attention, and Blizzard also has 20 years of heuristics data to enforce findings without hard detections. I think maybe people forgot how often HB was banned; It was frequent.

This is true, with that being said I believe it may be said that pursuing non-unlocker functions tend to increase the intensity of legal risk a lot more than not. It is true that honorbuddy faced ban waves, although I never got banned with it, for over a year and a half. I've never seen a bot public or "private" that even had anyone claim, with any degree of substance that they lasted that long with it.

Regardless of the bot, bans can and will eventually occur, it's only a matter of time. The name of the game, and what I believe where the "true value" lies in a bot, is to simply delay that from occurring for as much as possible, better than everybody else, which I believe is a fair measurement of worth.

Let us go with and pursue this train of thought however, and say that the legal risk is more or less the same, that then comes down to the idea that nobody has the talent required, time required, and / or resources required to create a "pixel-only" or "memory-reading-only" bot, and even if they do, they most likely have better things in store for them than wow bot development considering the overall capabilities and potential that an individual with those skills would possess, which is even more depressing than someone who is just too scard of the "legal risk".

I feel like a lot of developers, as talented as they may be, are either too cocky and / or too busy to invest into any real operational security to any meaningful degree of "true" obfuscation, at least to conceal themselves for as much as a subpoena and lawsuit may attempt to reveal, which isn't particularly challenging in my opinion, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

After all, a bot like this most likely doesn't exist, and most likely never will.

Be it a lack of ingenuity, capabilities, talent, fear, or simply being snagged up by a "CCP-tier" operated bot farming tycoon, or otherwise, I think it's safe to say that it will never see the "light of day".

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Originally Posted by Cdue86 This is true, with that being said I believe it may be said that pursuing non-unlocker functions tend to increase the intensity of legal risk a lot more than not. It is true that honorbuddy faced ban waves, although I never got banned with it, for over a year and a half. I've never seen a bot public or "private" that even had anyone claim, with any degree of substance that they lasted that long with it. Regardless of the bot, bans can and will eventually occur, it's only a matter of time. The name of the game, and what I believe where the "true value" lies in a bot, is to simply delay that from occurring for as much as possible, better than everybody else, which I believe is a fair measurement of worth. Let us go with and pursue this train of thought however, and say that the legal risk is more or less the same, that then comes down to the idea that nobody has the talent required, time required, and / or resources required to create a "pixel-only" or "memory-reading-only" bot, and even if they do, they most likely have better things in store for them than wow bot development considering the overall capabilities and potential that an individual with those skills would possess, which is even more depressing than someone who is just too scard of the "legal risk". I feel like a lot of developers, as talented as they may be, are either too cocky and / or too busy to invest into any real operational security to any meaningful degree of "true" obfuscation, at least to conceal themselves for as much as a subpoena and lawsuit may attempt to reveal, which isn't particularly challenging in my opinion, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. After all, a bot like this most likely doesn't exist, and most likely never will. Be it a lack of ingenuity, capabilities, talent, fear, or simply being snagged up by a "CCP-tier" operated bot farming tycoon, or otherwise, I think it's safe to say that it will never see the "light of day".

Risk Vs. Time Vs. Reward just isn't there for most developers. WoW itself isn't a very hard game to reverse engineer. However, the game is old and has a lot of heuristic data, and they're very proactive in combating most bots regardless of what methods they use. I just don't see anyone willing to risk their time in this scene doing such a large project, considering how active Blizzard Anti Cheat developers are and how active they are with cease and desist letters.

The secondary and most underlooked thing is simply that most people who make bots, to begin with, are passionate about the game itself and also have the ability to do either basic RE or Advanced RE. There are smaller projects like Project Sylvannas, and Who Even Plays Wow (WEP), Bottie (wow jack), PixelMaster(not a pixel bot), which all are not pixel bots and not unlockers. There is also Ragnar, who is owned by the robot team and is kept under lock and key, which basically uses the Wrobot framework, which is something like honor buddy. However, good luck getting into it or them even acknowledging it exists.

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Originally Posted by tamedbeast Risk Vs. Time Vs. Reward just isn't there for most developers. WoW itself isn't a very hard game to reverse engineer. However, the game is old and has a lot of heuristic data, and they're very proactive in combating most bots regardless of what methods they use. I just don't see anyone willing to risk their time in this scene doing such a large project, considering how active Blizzard Anti Cheat developers are and how active they are with cease and desist letters. The secondary and most underlooked thing is simply that most people who make bots, to begin with, are passionate about the game itself and also have the ability to do either basic RE or Advanced RE. There are smaller projects like Project Sylvannas, and Who Even Plays Wow (WEP), Bottie (wow jack), PixelMaster(not a pixel bot), which all are not pixel bots and not unlockers. There is also Ragnar, who is owned by the robot team and is kept under lock and key, which basically uses the Wrobot framework, which is something like honor buddy. However, good luck getting into it or them even acknowledging it exists.

Exactly. Not to mention that most developers as talented as they are, simply do not have the mind of a cybersecurity professional and lack critical knowledge or execution capabilities when it comes to operational security, literally with just a few hours or couple days going through some onion BH forums and sites, or consulting with a professional, you could learn how to easily, easily become 99% untraceable on the internet and launch a project like this that can't easily be shut down.

And with that, it most definitely wouldn't be discoverable by any law firm anywhere in the world to even have someone to send a C&D letter to, at that point the only people who would even be capable would be some three letter agency and international cyber-crime law enforcement organizations, if at that, and it would be even more difficult if you exclusively host the sites on .onion and have everything be paid for in crypto such as monero, domain and email paid for in crypto, let's say 10 standard mirrors and 5 secret mirrors on onion, and even the three letter agencies wouldn't be able to take you down for good without a fight, they would have to spend millions with agencies and lobby the government just to even try and track you down with a BH-tier setup, and if you play your cards right, they won't be able to even if they tried. The only agency that might be capable would start with a C and end with an A.

PixelBot uses lua / in-game addons, I suspect PixelMaster also does the same thing.

WEPW is memory reading and similar to HB but also requires an in-game addon and at least occasional lua code interactions / in-game addon interactions.

Project Sylvannas, heard of it never got into it, I'm almost certain it also requires some sort of addon or lua code interaction from what I've seen / head.

Ragnar, never even heard of it, but if it's any good it would for sure be kept in some super secret and "hush-hush" lock-and-key vault just like you said.

It's definitely not impossible, it's just people don't see the risk vs time vs reward of it just like you said, someone would not just have to be passionate about it, but actually want to do it and know how to do it properly, with a respectable level of operationally secure execution.

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Originally Posted by Cdue86 Exactly. Not to mention that most developers as talented as they are, simply do not have the mind of a cybersecurity professional and lack critical knowledge or execution capabilities when it comes to operational security, literally with just a few hours or couple days going through some onion BH forums and sites, or consulting with a professional, you could learn how to easily, easily become 99% untraceable on the internet and launch a project like this that can't easily be shut down. And with that, it most definitely wouldn't be discoverable by any law firm anywhere in the world to even have someone to send a C&D letter to, at that point the only people who would even be capable would be some three letter agency and international cyber-crime law enforcement organizations, if at that, and it would be even more difficult if you exclusively host the sites on .onion and have everything be paid for in crypto such as monero, domain and email paid for in crypto, let's say 10 standard mirrors and 5 secret mirrors on onion, and even the three letter agencies wouldn't be able to take you down for good without a fight, they would have to spend millions with agencies and lobby the government just to even try and track you down with a BH-tier setup, and if you play your cards right, they won't be able to even if they tried. The only agency that might be capable would start with a C and end with an A. PixelBot uses lua / in-game addons, I suspect PixelMaster also does the same thing. WEPW is memory reading and similar to HB but also requires an in-game addon and at least occasional lua code interactions / in-game addon interactions. Project Sylvannas, heard of it never got into it, I'm almost certain it also requires some sort of addon or lua code interaction from what I've seen / head. Ragnar, never even heard of it, but if it's any good it would for sure be kept in some super secret and "hush-hush" lock-and-key vault just like you said. It's definitely not impossible, it's just people don't see the risk vs time vs reward of it just like you said, someone would not just have to be passionate about it, but actually want to do it and know how to do it properly, with a respectable level of operationally secure execution.

Ragnar is wrobot, but private.

Project Sylvanas seems to want to be like HB, but who knows how far that passion project will go. So far, since its inception, it's had a couple of detections in a rather short period of time, which doesn't give me much confidence that it's any better than unlocking methods in terms of safety. There does seem to be a strong community around the project, though, so if they can get a good grip on keeping it undetected, It could develop into something bigger. It mostly appears to be the same routine for all bots, unlockers, and pixel bots: plenty of promises about safety, but in reality, most, if not all, fail to provide any.

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Originally Posted by tamedbeast Ragnar is wrobot, but private. Project Sylvanas seems to want to be like HB, but who knows how far that passion project will go. So far, since its inception, it's had a couple of detections in a rather short period of time, which doesn't give me much confidence that it's any better than unlocking methods in terms of safety. There does seem to be a strong community around the project, though, so if they can get a good grip on keeping it undetected, It could develop into something bigger. It mostly appears to be the same routine for all bots, unlockers, and pixel bots: plenty of promises about safety, but in reality, most, if not all, fail to provide any.

I see. Well that's interesting. I really don't think these people know or are confident in how to create something that can't be C&D'd or sued let alone tracked.

I sent you a DM.