Botting and “overseas” farmers have been a hot topic in almost every popular online RPG that has some kind form of Economy. With the introduction of Real Money Transactions in Diablo 3, the issue of botting and farming has huge significance to Diablo 3 in particular.

We are often asked questions about how much of an impact bots and farmers have on the economy. For clarification, when we use the word “farmers” in this article, we are referring to overseas organizations whom farm the game for in-game items and currency, and sell it to local players (North American / European players respectively) for a profit. A lot of players fear that overseas farming organizations will find Diablo 3 to be a very attracting game for them to operate in due to sanctioned Real-money Transactions. In essence, they have a green light to farm and sell items to players. So how will botting and farming affect Diablo 3?

To answer this question, we must firstly look at the how rather than the what. Overseas farmers make utilize extensive use of botting, as botting maximizes efficiency and increases profitability. Typically, these organizations assign 1 employee per several dozen bots to basically monitor and keep all the bots functioning. It is somewhat of a past-time to see actual humans doing the farming one-by-one. In fact, it is almost a certainty that without the extensive use of bots, these organizations would not be cost-effective to operate, as it would require them to use actual people to farm the game by hand.

So realistically, the question is more about bots rather than the farmers themselves, as the bots are the how. Which begs the question: Are bots a threat to Diablo 3?

In my opinion, bots/farmers will not harm Diablo 3′s upper-economy. The term “upper economy” is defined as the end-game item market, basically the items you deal with when you are at max level. To put that in perspective, the upper-economy is what the vast majority of transactions will consist of, as the end-game is where the item-game really begins. One could say that the upper-economy is THE economy, and the only one that actually matters and has meaninging. As an example, the low-level crafting materials are only used for the low levels so after the first month they won’t be meaningful to the game, where as the end-game materials will be used extensively for years to come as people perfect their gear.

The reason I believe that bots won’t harm the end-game is simple: Bots do not have any chance of surviving Inferno, or even late-hell.

To illustrate why bots have no chance of surviving Inferno mode, I’ll need to explain how bots function.

In MMO’s, (I’ll use WoW as an example as that is the biggest and has many botters) the environments and monster paths are static, meaning that one can easily see where certain monsters spawns and that never changes. This is important because bots are scripted actions that are coded to do the same actions repeatedly. The second significant difference is that combat in an MMO is extremely slow-paced and almost turn-based. Attacks are done one at a time, targets are static and do not require aiming at. You basically select the target and your character automatically attacks it. The monsters are also very generic, only attacking you with a basic attack and have very little variation. With these concepts combined, you have a very high level of predictability when designing a bot. You know where the monsters are, what they are, you only need to target one at a time and you simply need to instruct the bot to attack with a generic spell or ability. Very little can go wrong, and the bot is very much safe.

In Diablo 3, it is the polar opposite. Combat is extremely fast-paced, requiring swift logical actions and response/awareness to what is happening. In the later difficulties, you can simply die in a matter of 3 seconds by running in to the wrong spot. In addition, environments AND monster spawns are randomized so you have no idea what, or even how many monsters you’re going to encounter.

Designing a bot for this type of gameplay is like trying to create a human robot. The Japenese have been trying for decades, but at the end of the day if there is a hump in the floor, the bot is going to fall over.

So I hear some of you saying “But what about Diablo 2? That had bots and its fast-paced and random”.

The answer to that is a number of differences between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. Firstly, Diablo 2 had bots that were specialized to target specific areas of the game that were static. The most popular example is Pindlebot. Pindlebot would enter a portal from town that led to a static building that had literally a single pack of monsters to kill, including a mini-boss. The bot simply needed to perform a very basic set of instructions, enter portal, run 50 paces, spam X ability for 5 seconds, collect loot. Logout. Repeat.

This worked for two reasons, 1) Pindleskin was easy and your character could kill the pack with extreme ease. 2) The environment and accessibility to Pindleskin was static.

Diablo 3 addresses both of these issues plus more. There are no easy-access bosses in static environments, and Inferno is supposedly extremely challenging. You can’t outlevel and grossly outgear end-game sub-bosses / named monsters like you could in Diablo 2. You can’t kill a boss in a matter of seconds with no risk to yourself, and finally, named monsters are completely random and non-static, and have 4 random affixes in inferno. So you might see the boss there one game, and gone the next. Or you might see a boss but he’ll have 4 completely random affixes that require TOTALLY different strategy to defeat them. On top of that, the best loot comes from totally random champion / boss packs. Their locations are totally random and cannot be predicted.

The last point I’ll make on why I think botting won’t significantly harm the Diablo 3 Economy is because Blizzard intend on supporting the game and its economy thanks to the Real Money Auction House. It is in their interest to keep the Diablo 3 Economy safe and uncompromised, and they invested in it. And to put it plainly, they will likely support the game with more “care” than they did with Diablo 2, which all but lost its development team due to problems within the company.

There will undoubtedly be “tricks” and “legal” exploits that will crop up that may harm the economy. In fact, some have already have been found in the beta. But I feel confident that Blizzard are watching closely and will rectify these problems very quickly

With all that said though, there is an area in the economy that won’t be as well-shielded as end-game items are. And that my friends is Gold. Gold can be farmed from the easiest part of the game, so level 60 bots can very easily mow through that content without risk of death, and farm gold effectively. I personally don’t know what Blizzard have planned to prevent this from becoming a widespread problem – it is easily doable by sending a level 60 bot in to level 10 content. There is no risk of death and the things I mentioned above do not apply to this.