When choosing a bot there are many things to consider and they should be inspected carefully in order to avoid wasting money (obviously).
Now many people may be thinking "There's nothing to choosing a bot, just ask what the best bot on the market is and go buy it." While for many this may work to some extent, for many it won't. People may have a lower end PC that can't handle certain features of "the best bot" the primary one that comes to mind is navigation for e.g. Often having a slow computer will lead to laggy movement.
So where to begin? Well below this so far useless, block of text, is a list of key aspects that everybody should consider when selecting the bot for them.
Compatability is my first topic as obviously, it's useless even looking at a bot that cannot run on your computer, so might as well define a list of bots that will run on our computer.
I. Operating System
First things first, will we be able to run the bot on our computer. Whilst this might seem stupidly obvious, people often forget to take into account some bots may not run on an x64 OS (Although these bots are generally poorly coded, either that or they use some sort of root kit/driver(?).)
Now if you are running a mac then the main bot used by mac users is pocketgnome which is a free and can be obtained at:
It should be stated that pocketgnome can also be run on select PC's with the appropriate hardware and software, there are various guides scattered around the forums.
However the other obvious solution for mac users is to run bootcamp or parallels and use a normal windows bot. A table will soon be added showing what operating system each bot is compatible with.
The main point/tldr; that should be taken away from this sub-category is double check that if you are running an x64 operating system that your bot is able to run on x64 OS's.
II. Hardware
For this subcategory I am going to say that you should mainly take a read of the pathing section and the sessions section.
Here's a section I really shouldn't be giving advice on, so I'll try and just cover the basics. Obviously not getting your account banned is a bit of a key priority, seeing as they aren't cheap to replace so protection is an important thing.
I. Warden
Many of you will know Warden is Blizzard's (in)famous anti-cheat system put in place to bust bots. I'm not going to go into how it works cos I don't know the specifics but I will state some common misconceptions/facts.
Warden:
- Can be updated at any time, it does not require a patch! You will have no idea it's updated.
- It does not at this point in time scan for windows titles or perv through other processes running on your computer.
- Deleting Scan.DLL will not disable Warden =.=
A common software system used to combat Warden is tripwire. Tripwire was first seen implemented into Glider (AFAIK) and it's main purpose is to detect for any changes in Warden and if a change is detected turn off the bot so users cannot use the bot until the owners know it's safe to use again. FYI, tripwire was just the name given to it by Merc/Hamut (Guys behind Glider), but every other bot has decided to call their system tripwire as well, so ye....xD
Whilst this is a very good tool it doesn't ensure your account to be 100% safe, why?:
- If warden is already capable of detecting a bot without an update, scans can just be pushed through without warden requiring an update, therefore the tripwire system will detect no change and the bot will keep running and being detected by Warden.
- Blizzard can also detect bots through the use of adding code to the client (Requiring a patch) and tripwire is completely useless in this instance (Ref. to Gremlin).
tldr; Check your bot has a tripwire system or some other system to stop your bot getting owned by Warden.
II. Detection via the client
Blizzard can add code to the WoW client itself, requiring a patch that users have to download. Blizzard often do this to bypass (or help bypass) tripwire systems. Often disabling certain functions of a bot/hack that hide the bot/hack from warden and therefore allowing warden to now find it. At least, that's apparently that's what happened in the latest (LUANinja and WoWGremlin) banwave.
Not much you can do to avoid this except hope that the maker of your bot is/has a good reverse engineer (RE) to check each patch for code added to the client that may aid in the detection of your bot. It should be noted that most, if not all, public bots coders at this point in time are far too incapable/lazy to RE each patch
When a bot says they are fully passive it means that the bot does not hook or write to the WoW client making it very hard to be detected/competely impossible to be detected via Warden.
III. Blogs
I am constantly reading Kynox's and Cypher's blogs as they have very interesting posts on Warden activity, bots that have crap detection and how bots are being detected. I suggest you bookmark them!
Pathing determines the way in which the bot navigates around the land of Azeroth. Pathing is a key element of a bot and can make or break a bot. There are many different ways in which a bot can navigate throughout Azeroth but I will go through the main three atm. For an excellent explanation on Waypoint and the mesh system I suggest reading the bottom of KuRI's Honorbuddy review:
I. Waypoints
Waypoints act by the user walking along marking out a place that the bot can walk/follow. The bot will then proceed to follow these waypoints around (generally in a circle) killing mobs along the way.
Advantage:
- Generally much lower than other pathing systems on the memory useage, good for low end PC's
Disadvantage:
- Going around in a constant circle for many hours can look very suss, especially when you are following the exact same path the whole way.
Bots currently using this system:
All bar Honorbuddy (Thanks KuRI)
II. Navmesh:
I'm not too knowledgeable about navmesh but I'll give it a shot. It was most famously used in Open-bot (no longer publicly available) but is now similarly used in HonorBuddy. It works by being given a co-ordinate(hotspot) to go to and using previous paths to get to the hotspot. It will calculate the quickest path generally. However the paths more often than not have to have already been mapped out by the user, but nav files from other people can be loaded.
Advantages:
- Generally not too bad on memory useage (Good for low end PC's)
- Won't choose the exact same path every time
- Walking long journeys is easily possible
Bots currently using this system:
Honorbuddy
III. PPather:
PPather was first a custom class made for Glider. It was able to be given any point (coordinate) and calculate it's own way there, theoretically avoiding objects in it's way, with no mapping required from the user. However it wasn't written so efficiently and it had quite a few bugs. Since it's appearance in Glider a Lite PPather library has been released that can be ported to other bots like WoW-Robot has apparently done and it is apparently being ported to Omega bot.
Advantages:
- No Mapping required
- Can sort of avoid objects
Disadvantages:
- High memory useage (Mind you if it was re-written it could probably be made much more memory efficient.
Custom Classes are generally user developed classes that tell the bot what spells to cast etc. a good CC can determine the XP/Hour and survival etc.
Pricing is always going to be an important factor when looking at a bot. The main feature that should be looked at is how much per month and how many sessions you can run at a time.
I. Sessions
The amount of bots you can run at a time. Example if a bot was capable of three sessions it would mean that you can run three WoW's and three bots at the same time.
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Any other suggestions/requests post them here or drop me a PM.
-Odd/Apollo
