Hi, my name is Josh. It has been 190 days since I last botted. There seems to have never been a story from a former botter in the Tip.It Times, so hopefully I can help some people who have considered breaking the rules and show them why it is a terrible idea.
First for some back story: I have “played” RuneScape since 2004. I started botting around 2008. I found myself becoming distant from the game the higher level I got; it just wasn't fun spending 8 hours gaining only one level. After a while I discovered private servers. Private servers are copies of RuneScape's source code that people tweak, sometimes by applying a 150x experience rate multiplier, adding flying baboons, or any other variety of changes. Private servers appealed to me because they were quick and focused on combat. Once I started to play on private servers, I began to view RuneScape in general as an unimportant, silly game.
It started out innocently enough with auto-clicking for money overnight on a private server. Then one day someone mentioned a popular bot site. I thought to myself “I don’t care/play RuneScape anymore, why not?” I regret my decision to visit that site to this day. I downloaded the bot and in a weekend I took my account from 80 to 90 fishing. I was stunned. Everything could be done so easily; I did not think things like this were possible. About a month later my account got banned. This was the first account I ever created, the one I spent my time and effort to manually level 90% of its stats. At one point I had spent a month on that account fishing 20,000 lobsters for full Gilded Armor, which I wasted in the dueling arena. Since then, every single one of my RuneScape memories had been tied into that account. It hurt to see it get banned. I couldn’t believe that all of my hard work could disappear like that in an instant. All the memories from when RuneScape was actually meaningful to me - gone. But, being the cool, suave teen I was I decided it did not matter - I could bot a new one. So began my botting career.
Botting on RuneScape has filled me with regret. But the biggest regret by far has been losing friends. Not losing friends because I botted, but losing them because I stopped responding to PMs. As I stopped talking to my friends, they began removing me from their lists one by one. So when I would finally decide to play RuneScape legitimately, I enjoyed it even less. I had no one to talk to at all. There were a few times when I would decide to give up botting forever and play legitimately, but after a few days of not talking to anybody it grew tiresome. I remembered RuneScape as being a blast with friends, but it was a different, lonely game without them.
Recently I have started to play again - no botting. The biggest hurdle I have had to overcome was not knowing anybody. There was no one to ask for help and advice or just hang out with. I had grown accustomed to trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible because a bot wants to be invisible. I did not reach out to players like I used too. It was tough to play a game with no friends.
I have had about half a dozen separate accounts banned for botting. They ranged from a throwaway clay miner to a maxed, fully quested Zerker, to my account that was banned on Nuke Day (a maxed combat 2000+ total account). I can honestly say that I never felt an ounce of pride in a single one of them. It seems silly, but I still remember my first account - I was so proud its levels. His fishing was my crowning achievement. All the things I did by hand I was proud of, but when I started to bot I stopped caring about them. I might have a bot run for a long amount of time and post it to the website I was on. People would compliment the program, but they never complimented the account. What are a few levels when you did nothing but click a single button?
The account I play on now has been botted. I hate this account. I hate what it means to me. I hate that I can’t look at its skillcape and think “I did that, that was me.” My desire to start over is much less than my disgust with my own account so I still play on it. Maybe a long time from now, when the levels are mostly mine I might like it. But no matter what I do there will always be an asterisk to the account: *This pride is a lie, you don’t deserve the stats or respect, you did nothing.
Botting without a doubt ruined RuneScape for me; it belittled the game and reduced it to something I didn’t enjoy. RuneScape became nothing to me. Botting became the game: wake up, get the bots going, game over - I win. Get an account banned? I lost. I didn’t care how much money I made or how many levels I got - it was all about if my statistics for the bot were above average. I competed against other botters on forums rather than against other players.
It was strange - RuneScape still interested me, I still read guides, followed updates, and browsed forums. I just became complacent about the actual gameplay. There were times I tried to get back into RuneScape, times I thought “I am going to start playing legit again, I'm tired of botting.” But the game had changed for me. I found no joy in anything at all. Nothing satisfied me in the game. I couldn’t fish, I couldn’t chop, I couldn't mine or fight or smith or merch. Nothing seemed interesting because I had taken my own joy from the game. When I began playing again a few weeks ago, it was the same story, only this time I had no bot to turn to - they were all gone. So I kept at it, browsed forums, and watched videos - anything to break up the boredom. Then something awesome happened - I began to enjoy the game more. I began to feel like I did when I used to play it. I had cut over 10,000 maples logs in the last two days. Wildly enough, I really enjoyed it. I had a blast setting a daily goal for myself and hitting it or surpassing it. RuneScape has become fun again, I have a list of goals, items to flip, and farming runs to complete. I find it all a blast.
Hello, my name is Josh, I have not botted in 191 days and I plan to never bot again. I lost this game once to programs that changed what it meant to me and I don’t ever want to again. This game is fun and exciting again. I know little about a lot of things now, but I am trying to catch up.
Lastly, I want to apologize - not for whatever part I played in reducing prices or taking your spots, but to everyone who has ever completed a goal in this game, anyone who has ever achieved something big or small. Because by botting I belittled that, I reduced it, maybe not in your eyes but in others and my own. I apologize for being too lazy to earn the satisfaction of an achievement. I am not asking everyone to forgive me, I just wanted to share my own story to maybe show people that some don’t bot for the game, but in place of it. Thanks for your time, hello, my name is…
