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If there’s something I hate more than fishing, it’s World of Warcraft fishing. This has to be the most boring skill in the game yet it can bring with it great rewards.
Fishing and Cooking go hand in hand and levelling both at the same time (at least up to 300 skill) is the most efficient way to do things.
Unfortunately, I am no longer prepared to sit there for hours on end waiting for a bite and clicking bobbers. I decided to experiment with automated gameplay. The way this is done is by using 3rd party software products that imitate actual human play processes. This is frowned upon by a lot of players and strictly forbidden in Blizzard’s T’s & C’s. Blizard actively watch for botters, suspending or banning their acccounts when they are found.
My curiosity of how these botting applications work has finally got the better of me so here I am trying Glider (mmoglider, wowglider), known in botting circles as the best botting application for World of Warcraft..
I currently have 4 level 70 characters on my main account but I have a spare account that my son uses. Not willing to risk either, I signed up for a 10 day trial account to experiment with.
Glider is much more than simply a fishing automation tool, it allows you to follow a predetermined path (stored in a “Profile”), and act according to your configured class, possibly in a similar way as you would control the character yourself, but for the purposes of this experiment we are only interested in how it fishes!

Warning: I have to stress at this point that there are a large number of unknown variables when botting. Nobody knows for sure if Glider is detectable by Blizzard, but it runs as a rootkit meaning that it should be completely invisible and undetectable. This seems to be the general belief amongst the botting community. There are various other built in measures to reduce the risk of getting caught out but it is thought that the only way you can get caught using Glider is being seen by a player (and they report you) or a GM. Gliders regularly get banned

So the first step is to purchase Glider, which currently sells at $25. Registering on the forums is a must for support/news/updates. Installation is straightforward (.NET Framework 2 requried) nad the fishing Profile is simple enough to use and understand.
Setting up is simply a matter of putting your fishing skill in the configured slot on your attack bar along with your lures which will be automatically applied to your rod at time intervals specified in the Profile (usually 10 minutes). 

Teething problems

There were a few minor issues when I first clicked “Glide”. Firstly, as a fishing profile has no waypoints, Glider adds a temporary waypoint which seems to cause issues should you try to move after starting. To make this less of a problem I found my fishing spot then manually added a single waypoint by clicking [CTRL] [CTRL] [W].
The next thing I noticed was that after a minute or so, your character turns to face North. The way around this is simply to find a North-facing spot so that should the turn take place, you are not facing anything other than water. There are also some issues with pets so best to set your class to a none pet class such as Warrior for the purpose sof fishing.

Away our character goes. First glider casts for you and then finds the bobber, ready for looting when we have a bite. For this test I used a druid on my trial account with Fishing level 1. I sat him on a rock in Darkshore after picking up the fishing quest “The Family and the Fishing Pole”. The 5 Darkshore Groupers that I needed for this quest took much less time to catch than it would have manually and I left Glider going to get me to level 75, ready for my next fishing training.

Looking at a gliding character running a fishing profile, it is extremely difficult to spot any behaviour that would identify it as a bot. Chances of getting caught are increased however if you are AFK. When you glide, it is recommended that you are near to your computer in case of any “alerts”.

The other option is to use a seperate piece of software called Glider Remote. This will monitor your Glider remotely from another computer/location and alert you when there are dangers. It will even show you what loot you have collected and allow you to reply to “whispers” from other players or GMs, to give the appearance taht you are actually at your keyboard and not botting at all!

For the record, I have no intention of botting to improve my gameplay or increase my gold levels, this is simply an experiment to satisfy my curiosity. There may be other such experiments so watch this space!

Any comments regarding Glider fishing are welcomed and appreciated, be careful!

Further Information:

To read more about Glider or to make a purchase:
Glider Homepage

The only source of information that you will need for WoW fishing is the excellent website:
El’s Extreme Anglin’ - World of Warcraft Fishing Guide
This site is extremely well laid out, is completely free and is packed with useful tips and data.

written by ThaGeek