Hey lady, you call him Dr. Jones!
These words can sum up not only the questing experience in Uldum, but also the new secondary skill added with the Cataclysm expansion, Archaeology.  Now that the release rush has died down, most people have settled down to grinding out their professions.  Archaeology has many unique pets and mounts that one can earn using the skill, but it is VERY grindy, boring, and tedious.  Many people will resort to buying items off the AH which allow you to complete projects without having all the artifacts.  While there is at the moment no easy way to bot your Arch skill, if you have the urge to grind it out there is a good profit making potential in the items used to powerlevel the skill.  Currently 1 Troll Tablet goes for 150g on Area 52's AH, horde side obviously.  You will dig up many of these tablets, scrolls, etc while leveling the skill.  It may not be the fastest way to make money, but it is an added income stream, and the more of those you have going, the faster you'll generate gold to sell.

Sorry this blog is so short, and so infrequently updated, but work takes up much of my time.  Will be posting a review of the new version of Gatherbuddy here in a few days after I give it a test, same with Honorbuddy.

This week must have been pretty busy for Bossland, Hawker, Nesox and all the others on the buddy team over at Gatherbuddy.  They've suffered through a DDoS attack on their Auth servers, evidently instigated by some people of a certain decent from a certain communist country that is very jealous of their stranglehold on the bot market.

Not only have they stopped the DDoS and added new Auth Servers, but they have updated Honorbuddy and Gatherbuddy to give them more robust defenses against those kinds of attacks.  For Honorbuddy they have also added some good features such as corpse camping detection, which will be a godsend for those who bot on PvP servers.  As for Gatherbuddy there have been some problems with it skipping nodes.  Personally I would wait a couple days before upgrading to make sure the bugs are worked out.

Speaking of bugs, a few changes to HB have me revamping my questing profiles so I haven't really done much botting lately.  Combine that with the fact that my wife has gone on a gearing rampage has left me little time to work on those profiles.  It doesn't help the fact that I'm making the profile an Alliance profile whereas I primarily play and bot Horde. 

Gatherbuddy is the first generation of flying gathering bots created by Bossland and his team over at Gatherbuddy.  Unfortunatly it does not use the navigation and combat systems of their other great bot, Honorbuddy.  Because of this you must use macros in order to fight effectively.  Macros will also help you keep your bags somewhat organized since you can set up a macro to combine any crystalized or motes that you have into their primary items (Eternals and Primals).  The first macro I'll show you does exactly this.

#showtooltip
/use Crystallized Fire
/use Crystallized Air
/use Crystallized Earth
/use Crystallized Water
/use Crystallized Shadow
/use Crystallized Life
/cast Turbo-Charged Flying Machine
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Obviously you can also add your motes of whatever into that, but since I rarely farm the Outlands I do not have those in there.  The /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear() is the most important part of that macro in my oppinion.  It keeps your screen from being spammed with "You do not have enough of that item" and whatnot.

Next I will show you what I use for combat.  Please note that I primarily play hunters, so I will post my macros for combat in Gatherbuddy for a Survival hunter.  First we'll go with the two Survival macros that are dependent on where you're farming.  The first is a single target macro:

/petattack
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=target Serpent Sting(Rank 12), Explosive Shot(Rank 4), Steady Shot(Rank 4), Frost Trap, Disengage, Explosive Shot(Rank 4), Explosive Shot(Rank 4)

This macro is designed to take advantage of the Lock and Load proc that is almost guarenteed from the frost trap.  The next macro is better suited for places where you will more than likely have a group of mobs on you.

/petattack
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=target Explosive Trap(Rank 6), Snake Trap, Frost Trap,  Disengage, Explosive Shot(Rank 4), Explosive Shot(Rank 4), Multi-Shot(Rank 8)

Again this macro takes advantage of Lock and Load but also grabs damages other mobs in the area.  This is particularly useful if you are farming Sholazar Basin and are allied with the Oracles and drop down to get a node in Kartak's Hold where the Frenzyheart are grouped up.  Honestly this is the only combat macro I use anymore.

Now for some other usefull macros to use with Gatherbuddy, or just regular gameplay.  I'll start with the simple Eat/Drink macro which gives you a 1 button way to eat and drink.

/use Mead Basted Caribou
/use Honeymint Tea

Pretty simple.  Now for you hunters out there, a 1 button feed pet macro:

#showtooltip
/cast Feed Pet
/use Mead Basted Caribou

Obviously you just replace what food and drink you're using and feeding your pet with what I put in there.

And yet one more that will rez, mend, and feed your pet if it's dead.  Probably best put in the after rez button for Gatherbuddy.

#show [modifier:alt] Mutton Chop
/cast [nopet] Call Pet
/cast [@pet, dead] Revive Pet
/cast [pet, nomodifier, button:1] Mend Pet
/cast [pet, nomodifier, button:2] Dismiss Pet
/cast [pet, modifier:alt] Feed Pet
/use [pet, modifier:alt] Mutton Chop

That about does it for the macros I use for my farmer in Gatherbuddy

There are other macros you can use for differnt classes, but since I farm on a Hunter

that's all I have.

Somewhat late news on my part, but Honorbuddy released their newest version of their bot which includes better rez logic etc...  I think the change I like the most about this release is the new profile switch called QuestOrder

QuestOrder allows you to set the order that HB does the quests you have listed in your profile.  This allows you to hold of on doing some quests until you're at a higher level.  While the current build of HB is still compatible with older questing profiles, it does have a few issues with older profiles such as standing at the quest giver and not turning in quests.  This doesn't happen often but it does keep you from being able to afk the bot, though as I have said before since the Questing mode of HB is in beta you really shouldn't be afk with it anyways.

How does the new questorder work in a profile?  Take a look at the snippet below to get an idea:
(QuestOrder>
(!-- A Threat Within(lv1) -->
(PickUp QuestName="A Threat Within" GiverName="Deputy Willem" QuestId="783" GiverId="823" />
(TurnIn QuestName="A Threat Within" TurnInName="Marshal McBride" QuestId="783" TurnInId="197" (/>
(!-- Kobold Camp Cleanup(lv1) -->
(PickUp QuestName="Kobold Camp Cleanup" GiverName="Marshal McBride" QuestId="7" GiverId="197" />
(Objective QuestName="Kobold Camp Cleanup" QuestId="7" Type="KillMob" MobId="6" KillCount="8" />(!-- Wolves Across the Border(lv1) -->(Objective QuestName="Wolves Across the Border" QuestId="33" Type="CollectItem" CollectCount="8" ItemId="50432" />
(!-- Turn Ins -->(
TurnIn QuestName="Wolves Across the Border" TurnInName="Eagan Peltskinner" QuestId="33" TurnInId="196" />
(TurnIn QuestName="Kobold Camp Cleanup" TurnInName="Marshal McBride" QuestId="7" TurnInId="197" />
(!-- Consecrated Letter (replace this quest with class specific quest) -->
(PickUp QuestName="Consecrated Letter" GiverName="Marshal McBride" QuestId="3101" GiverID="197" />
(TurnIn QuestName="Consecrated Letter" TurnInName="Brother Sammuel" QuestId="3101" TurnInId="925" />

This would have your brand new human character pick up and turn the starting quests at Northshire Abbey in the order they're listed.  It does make the profile run a lot more smoothly.  If for some reason you wish to use this snippet please replace the ( at the start of each line with the proper < as I have yet to figure out how to get blogger to post code yet.  I'll upload a video of my bot running this profile later.

Lately the Honorbuddy forums have been seeing a lot of 72 hour suspensions for the use of Third Party Automation Programs and Exploitation of the Economy.  Personally I believe that many of the Automation bans are automated (i.e. your account gets flagged for not turning in any quests while not lv.80 etc.), while the Exploitation of the Economy are the result of player reports.  These bans do not constitute a Banwave nor does it mean that Honorbuddy has been detected by Warden, so I have decided to post some general tips to botting safely.

First and foremost do not Bot on an account that you can't afford to lose.  No matter what safety features are included with your bot there is ALWAYS the chance that Warden will detect the bot and your account will be flagged and banned.

Bot smart.  Do not use public profiles, instead use profiles you have made yourself.  There is nothing more obvious than 7 bots running in the same area, killing the same mobs, getting stuck in the same places.  Using a public profile is basically begging to be caught.  Now I will add one caveat.  If you are using the beta questing version of Honorbuddy then by all means use the public profiles out there.  Most people who think you're a botter will check your armory to see if you've been questing.  If you have some questing achievements they are less likely to believe you're a bot.

Use some form of auto-responder or alarm, weather it's AIMLbot or KingReply for Honorbuddy.  Personally I rarely leave my bots AFK.  When I do I set an alarm to sound when I get a whisper, there are many add-ons for wow that you can use to do this.  I have also used an AIMLbot addon for Glider that was great, but there hasn't been a very stable release of it for Honorbuddy yet.  Kingreply is an app that sends whatever is whispered to your sms enabled cellphone, and you can reply from your phone.  Seems like a good app, though I have yet to really use it.

Do not AFK bot on High Pop servers or at Peak time.  This just raises the chance of your bot will be reported by another player.


Check your bots Ban or Security forums daily, this can save you from a ban during a detected period.

Lastly I will reiterate what I said at the beginning.  Do not bot on an account that you can't afford to lose (read that as your main account.)  If you do happen to get banned, do the right thing and post a coherent report on your chosen bots Ban forum detailing what you were doing and any other third party apps you might have been using besides the bot.

As you no doubt know from my last post, I am a sometimes botter.
Many people who play with me in WoW do not realize that I bot. It is not that I think the stigma attached to botting will make them dislike me, it is simply a matter of perceived safety. So you may ask yourself, if botting is so dangerous why do I do it? That answer is simple. I pay Blizzard/Activision $15 dollars a month to play a game. I play it to relax. I play it to have FUN. Pure and simple. There are some aspects of the game that I do not find fun, but are for the most part required if you wish to have gold to spend on family and friends....or even sell. Why should I waste 8 hours of my time flying in circles around the basin when I could be spending time with my family or even out on a date with my wife? My addiction to making gold in this game caused quite serious problems in my personal life before I began botting. I would literally spend 20 hours a day farming, mining, gathering, crafting, browsing the AH for deals etc...

Needless to say this had a negative impact on my personal life. My wife came very near to divorcing me. When I stumbled upon Glider and then Gatherbuddy after Glider was shut down, I was ecstatic. I could spend time with my family all the while doing all those things that were so time consuming in WoW. I could have fun in the game again. This is why I bot.

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged, but being deployed to Iraq will do that to you I guess. The last time I posted on this blog I had mentioned Gatherbuddy and Gnometools as the two bots I used the most. I've had to revise my opinion on that. Gnometools pretty much fell apart, and Hawker, Bossland, and their talented crew over at Gatherbuddy have built a great bot for leveling your characters in WoW. That bot is called Honorbuddy. Now I know what you're thinking...another PvP bot...but it's really not. In fact, in my opinion, using the bot in a battleground is a sure fire way to get reported by other players and eventually banned.

What does Honorbuddy do for you? Well like other bots it automates the gameplay for you. This is technically against the EULA and you can have your account banned. Now if you're reading this I'm sure you understand the risks of botting, so I won't go into that any further. The two things that caught my interest about Honorbuddy (other than the team developing it) is the way it navigates and the fact that it can quest as well as grind on mobs or in the battlegrounds. Let me tell you a little more about those two features.

Navigation. What do I mean by that? Simply that the bot downloads a mesh from the Honorbuddy database that allows the bot to navigate to new waypoints, cities, fp's, inside buildings etc... with very little risk of getting stuck. This is an important feature of any bot simply because spending 8 hours sleeping while thinking your bot is farming and leveling, when in reality he's running into a fencepost and getting reported by every player that comes by kind of sucks. Check out this video to see Honorbuddy's navigation at work.


Would you have ever thought there would be a bot that could run through Stormwind and you'd never have to worry about it getting stuck? Amazing.

The other feature that is most interesting to me is the Questing feature. Now this feature is still in Beta so it isn't advisable to leave the bot unattended while you're questing. Thankfully there have been features added to the bot that allow you to blacklist certain quests that the bot gets stuck on. This makes it a little safer to leave for short periods of time, but if you're trying to level up by questing in this bot I would defiantly suggest that you babysit it. I'll upload a video to youtube eventually of this bot questing.

Now, lets say you need to level characters but you do not want to babysit the bot, what does Honorbuddy have for you? Only the best farming capabilities of any bot out there. It uses custom classes like Glider Elite did so the combat is smarter and more efficent. Many of the great custom class builders and plug-in authors from Glider have made a new home with HB. Check out this video to see the grinding in action. Please note that the speed on this video is accelerated, HB is NOT a speedhack.


What else can I say about Honorbuddy? Not too much more, I can only just encourage you to give it a try, I'm sure you'll be satisfied.