I received this review from a guy that I know. He wrote it for my review site, but I thought that it would fit better here on OwnedCore. I have only tested this bot very briefly, but the review seems to fit my experience with the bot too.
However, I did have two independent, non biased, Shadowbot users reading this review and editing it so it fitted their opinion, so this is infact a joined review spread out between 3 different and independant people.
One-time fee = $25 USD – however, only $10 USD untill the 31st of July
What do you get? Unlimited number of sessions, upgrades, and support.
Subscriptions
1 month = $7.99 USD
3 months = $20.97 USD ($6.99 /month)
6 months = $35.94 USD ($5.99 /month)
ALL subscriptions auto renew each period.
BUY IT HERE - OR CLICK THE BANNER ON TOP OF THIS REVIEW
When I was first approached to review Shadowbot the first thing came to mind was; 'Didn't MyWoW replace it?'. The short answer is yes. I had a chat with one of the owners of Ceiling Fan Software (makers of Pocket Gnome, the only Mac OSX bot on the market) regarding Shadowbot. His comments are below:
Q – Why move forward with Shadowbot and not rebrand to 'Pocket' something?
A – (Jokur) Great question. We initially wanted to partner with MMOLazy and distribute Shadowbot here in the US but we could never really get the deal closed. Instead, we purchased the Shadowbot code last year from MMOLazy. At the time the development group at MMOLazy was heading to fully injected code. We saw a great value in a fully passive bot and decided to keep the name as is. Shadowbot here in the United States never took off as well as I think they wanted it to but did in fact have a strong following in France.
Q – Is there plans to merge your Pocket Gnome and Shadowbot efforts?
A – (Jokur) Totally! With things like behaviors now integrated into Shadowbot, we see the opportunity of both bots running the same backend so to speak. Our questing feature (to be released very soon) will be readable to both Shadowbot and Pocket Gnome. Pathing, questing, behaviors (combat), PvP routes, gathering etc will be a single click and go.
Q – Seeing how your user interface for Pocket Gnome is well known for being user friendly, how much (if any) did you have to change the code for Shadowbot?
A – (Jokur) LOL. Not laughing at your question but I will sum this up as nicely as I can. Our lead developer and co owner of CFS, Tanaris4, has threatened to slash his wrists over the amount of coding he has had to do to the original code. It has taken almost a year to get it to a stable and releasable state. Combat, navigation and pretty much everything else had to be completely removed and rewritten. Shadowbot is using the latest and greatest .Net 4.0 with all of the bells and whistles.
Q – Your going up against a few other Windows bots. What makes your bot different or better then say Honor Buddy?
A - (Jokur) I would like to think we have a great relationship with the guys at Honor Buddy. They are the only real competitors that we see. We do at times chat with them and I hope nothing but the best for them. What we offer that separates us from every other bot on the planet is our 100% passive approach as well as integrated functionality. To date I think we are not only the first bot on the market that is 100% passive, but we also plan to have EVERYTHING integrated into the software so you can open, click a button and go. A 16 year olds mother could install Shadowbot and be functional within a minute. Nothing against Honor Buddy and the rest of the bots out there but you have to have some computer knowledge to do complex tasks with these other bots.
INTRODUCTION
Shadowbot is the only World of Warcraft bot that is 100% passive out of the box. Passive meaning that it does not write anything whatsoever to WoW's memory. Thus making it the safest botting program available. Not even Click to Move is used in this application.
Shadowbot also requires 0 programming or customization for behaviors. If you’re playing an arcane mage, or a resto druid, it will cast the correct spells appropriately. But if you’d like, you are able to create custom behaviors.
Shadowbot offers predefined routes for gathering that can be downloaded from within the application itself. Also, a very comprehensive 1-85 route system is available for leveling characters.
PvPing in battlegrounds is also supported.
Additional features include auto mailing, auto purchasing of food / drink, auto vendors when needed and auto trains as it levels.
DETAILED REVIEW
For my first step of the review, I created a level 1 warrior Horde toon. I also removed all of the spells off of my bars (I was told do it, its pretty cool??). I had downloaded the 1-60 automated route from the Shadowbot forums and became a little puzzled. I clicked on some of the other tabs (settings to loot and gathering or what not) and felt like I was missing something. Gladly I wasn't. I hit the start button and that was it. Shadowbot moved all of the spells and abilities that my character was to use INTO my bars automatically. As I leveled and learned new spells / abilities, the bot would proceed to my trainer and learn the spells and place them into my action bars. After 3 hours I was already at level 12.
The navmesh pathing / navigation system is quite impressive. It uses hotspots that you define and connects these hotspots with waypoints. There is a strict node method (which means don't try to mesh the waypoints just use a straight line of waypoints) as well as the traditional mesh method.
Here is a screen shot of the route I downloaded as well as some of the options you have:
Very complex route system
Settings tabs that apply to all modules (PvP, Gathering and Leveling)
Next, I hopped on my dusty druid that I use for farming herbs and ore and give the gathering module a spin.
The gathering interface is quite amazing. It has a beautiful overlay of the terrain and can show tons of things that are around your character. I decided to use one of the 'official' gathering routes that are supplied from the creators of Shadowbot. It is a feature that is in my opinion AWESOME. Click and download the route you want rather then fiddling with manual zip downloads etc. Not sure why they did not do this with the grinding routes but I will mention that later. Here are some screen shots of the gathering interface:
Below is Deepholm where I did my first testing using a predefined route.
Shadowbot's official routes that can be loaded within the interface.
You can 'view' the map prior to downloading it.
The review with the druid went very well. Some underground nodes gave the bot some issues, but it auto blacklisted them after a few attempts.
I chose Deepholm to test gathering. In the past I have used Honor Buddy and have found Deepholm to be very difficult for bots due to its terrain and multiple areas with multiple mobs. As expected the bot would get stuck, but seemed like the anti stuck mechanism worked fairly well. I don't really think any bot program will ever have the ability to never get stuck.
I was however disappointed in the fact that none of the dozens of routes that come with the bot have repair or mail routes attached. I had to add a small repair and mail route. Wasn't difficult but would of been nice if they had them already included.
For the next part of the review, I decided to create my own gathering route. I found the Shadowbot Wiki as well as the 'how to videos' that are available extremely helpful. In about 5 minutes I was able to create my own route. Luckily it has a very intuitive interface with not too many options.
PVP REVIEW
As with everything so far with Shadowbot, it comes with routes for Horde and Alliance battlegrounds. For some reason, they seem to have skipped 2. Unsure as to why, but all of the main ones are available on the forums. Again, I have to download to my local machine rather then use the gathering type interface that downloads it automatically. Still not sure why the do not have the ability for all of its modules.
After selecting the 'call of arms' battle ground route and clicking the start button Shadowbot chose the correct BG to join and waiting to queue. After a couple minutes it joined the battleground as expected.
For the review, I used a level 35 hunter that had terrrrrrrible gear and really had no business being near a BG. But a test is a test.
After running around for a bit the bot finally got into combat. It seemed a little slow to get itself into combat but once started it did a proper use of my spells and abilities. I would have liked to see a crisper combat system is the only thing I can say about it. It seemed to work for what my gear level is (DPS wise).
Other then the slow combat start, I like the look and feel of the PvP module. Looks very 'human' in movement and by using its 'random hotspot' route system it never went the same way twice.
FISHING REVIEW
Oddly enough Shadowbot does do fishing in the traditional sense. But it appears that you can only fish at Schools and while on a route. I created a route using the gathering module that traveled around the water until it found a school of fish. It fished until the school was gone and moved on.
Not sure as to why there is not a 'stand' and fish. I suppose if you’re only wanting a certain type of fish then it would work? Unsure.
SUMMARY OF SHADOWBOT
Support - After looking through the forums on both Shadowbot and Pocket Gnome I think the guys that are running / supporting these things are top notch. All of the issues or questions I had were answered immediately. So from a support aspect it is great (while testing the gathering I had a issue with the blacklisting. Posted my issue on the forums and had an admin who I didn't know help me over Skype). Other bots I have tried to get support for were mediocre at best.
Usability – Very easy to use application. Was pretty intuitive to setup and use.
Functionality – Other then the odd slowness to start combat in PvP, I think it functions great. Gathering, leveling and PvP. I would highly suggest that you remove any and all add-ons before using this bot.
PROS & CONS
PROS:
- 100% Passive
- Looks and feels like a person playing rather then a bot (less bottish?)
- Auto mail, auto purchase food / drink, auto repair, auto train at trainer and auto vendors as needed
- Integrated behaviors for all class's and specs
- Predefined Gathering and Leveling routes
- Excellent support
- Tons of documentation
- Intuitive Interface
- Advanced users can write their own behaviors if wanted
CONS:
- PvP start combat is slow
- No archeology module
- Because it scans the screen you cannot have any add-ons that interfere with the screen (bag add-ons etc.)
- Requires regional keyboard settings to be set to ENGLISH US (might be a problem for some folks in other countries?)
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