WoW: Season of Discovery enters final phase and bots are still a huge problem
Blizzard EntertainmentWorld of Warcraft: Season of Discovery entered Phase 4 on July 11, heralding the exciting conclusion of the experimental game mode. Unfortunately, the issue of bots still hasn’t been addressed.
The biggest change heading into this phase is that players have been able to complete their journeys by leveling to the new cap of 60. Despite the accelerated cadence in Season of Discovery, this is a lengthy process and a large portion of the player base is yet to reach the milestone.
Sadly, many of those that have appear to be bots. In a post on Reddit, one user shared a player search for Level 60 characters. This showed a large number of toons with randomized names, a telltale sign that they are actually bots farming valuable materials and raw gold (though we aren’t able to confirm that all of those pictured are bots).
Bots cause myriad issues in both Classic and Retail WoW, usually by farming to earn immense amounts of gold. This currency is then sold on third-party websites for real-world money, unbalancing the economy of several servers in the process.
Though there hasn’t been a particularly competitive element this time, the race to become first on each server to reach the cap has also been ruined. On several servers, players have reported that the winners were also bots, not held back by inefficient pathing and the need for sleep.
Over on Classic Era servers, Auction House prices have been inflated massively by real-world gold selling. Though that is yet to happen in Season of Discovery, the problem will need to be addressed quickly.
Phase 4 of the seasonal mode is set to continue over the next few months, with no specified end date at the time of writing. What happens after that is unclear, though the developer has promised that players will have somewhere to put their characters after everything concludes.