A History of Banwaves

A banwave happens when Blizzard comes up with a way to detect bot software. Often they've done this through updates to their Warden program which polices the games for bots. 

Major banwaves have happened on:

Nov. 16, 2006 (followed by a smaller wave in December)

June 11, 2007

May 20, 2008

It seems to take Blizzard a long time to create the software that will allow it to detect Glider or other bot programs and once they've banned thousands of people, the bot programmers quickly go to work creating updates that prevent detection. 

There's a great summary of the 2007 and 2008 banwaves on Serial Ganker's Blog.

I lost my first main account in the Nov. 16, 2006 banwave and created a new main account to play in Burning Crusade. I botted a toon up to 70 and stopped botting that toon in March of 2007. When the June 11, 2007 banwave hit, friends of mine lost their accounts but my new main account and another account on which I'd botted up to May were both untouched. 

This suggests that there is a 1-2 month window outside of which your previously botted account can be considered clean if you stop botting. 

About Me

I've been playing World of Warcraft since the weekend it was first launched and began using Glider to bot characters in the spring of 2006. 

Since that time I have successfully botted 6 characters to level 70 (all of whom are unbanned today and now live on clean accounts). I've also been caught in most of the banwaves, have lost a few accounts and have learned how to protect myself while enjoying the heck out of the botting experience. 

This blog will be a repository of my experience learning how to bot safer, a report on my current projects and a place to find links to some of the best botting resources. 

I'm not a professional botter. I bot for my own enjoyment and I hope some of these tips will help others who are botting so that they can enjoy the game and have a life.  

My history in detail:

For the curious who are still reading, I started botting around May of 2006 because I wanted to level up my first Horde toon (having played Alliance since the game came out) without having to do the grinding. A friend showed me how to use Glider because I'm not particularly technologically gifted. I botted a hunter up to 60 and then took over by hand to enjoy the battlegrounds. But I kept botting on that main account and was working on an Alliance hunter in Nov. 2006 when the first major banwave hit and I lost my main account. 

Discouraged I went off and played other games for a few months but then with the launch of Burning Crusade I wanted to start fresh and get back into WoW. I created a new main account and botted a toon up to 70, then stopped botting on that account. I also botted a friend's account and got a toon there to 70. 

June 11, 2007 hit and both the 70s I'd botted but had stopped botting in May were safe. Two friends of mine who were using Innerspace at the time were hit hard. I was encouraged because it proved to me that a toon I'd botted less than a month before that banwave was safe. 

I opened another account with the same name as my main and botted up another 70, waited 2 weeks and transferred that toon to my main account. Then I botted another 70 on that account and I'm now letting it sit unused until WotLK so I can bot a Death Knight on it. 

Meanwhile I botted another 70 for a friend of mine and created an account with a different name to bot up a farmer. When May 20, 2008 rolled around I was only botting on the farming account and lost that one to the banwave. The other 6 level 70 toons that I'd botted in the previous year and a half were untouched. 

Since May I've replaced my farming account and continue to bot on that one.