AFK Bots - Are they a bad idea?

[AgentSoup]

I'm thinking of setting up a couple bots for leveling/gold farming while I'm at work or asleep. Is this a bad idea, or do lots of people do it? Do AFK accounts get banned often? Does Warden detect AFK bots and auto-ban you? Are there any special tips for AFK bots to make them less likely to get banned? I heard about a guy who got a phone msg any time a GM sent him a tell. Does anyone know how to set this up?

Sorry, lots of questions but I'm brand new to the botting community.

[Azelyn]

I have been using a Fish bot and Herb bot for quite awhile and have had no trouble as of yet. I have tried leveling with a bot a tid bit but its not easy or really effective for me. Also Leveling/Grinding bots are what attract attention a lot more often than gathering bots. As far as I know as long as its not a repeat offence, for a grinding or gathering bot its a 72 or 48 hour ban. but thats not 100% it also depends on how malevolent you are with your botting. If you get 600 of one herb and flood the auction house its much easier to get caught than if you post 100-160 at a time. Ruining the economy is also a no no. If you post 200 of a herb or ore and someone posts under you let them sell don't keep undercutting this will anger people and hurt the economy and also draw attention to you. Under cutting wile botting is also fairly rude because the chances of the other person actually going out and gathering there items is much more likely than coming up against another botter. Afk botting is an effective way to go but make sure you don't have to many ppl on your real ID or your normal friend list for the toon your on, Real ID hurts AfK botting bad. Keep in mind you never want to discuss botting over the game and if your afk and your friend sees that your fling around gathering and ignoring them they may assume you've been hacked and report you. As far as the phone thing goes I have no Idea :P All of this is to my knowledge information nothing is for certain. on a ending note just remember Botitng is about responsibility, help yourself with ought hurting your server, the programs writer is never at fault if you get caught, and always research a bot/program before you use it. Good luck and for the Horde!

[AgentSoup]

What bot do you use? How long do you go afk for? Also, thanks for the tips!

[Azelyn]

I usually use Lazy-Boy for fly gathering, they have a really nice site for getting profiles for what you need and also people post if and how they got baned and for how long to help others not make the same mistakes, you must sign up to the site its free and then you can do whatever. Then I use Mr. Fish it for Fishing its a really simple bot with some nice features, you get it here on mmowned. Dot forget to get you .net frame work installed almost nothing runs with ought it, most of the botting pages offer a link to download it. I wouldn't bot for awhile though don't know what has changed with 4.0.1