Back in the old days, bosses and most raid encounters were 'global'. That means that when a boss spawns (usually on a timer such as 1 week, 3 days, 24 hours, etc.) the first guild or group to get there first and get the kill, gets the booty and or the progression.

Loot is often so valuable people will pay real cash for it. This means that if you're on a server where bosses and encounters are 'global', it becomes really important to set timers for yourself. Google Calendar appointments, and appointments in Outlook are both good for this purpose. On servers like this, if the timer is currently unknown, (i.e. nobody knows the last time that boss X was killed), then you'll want to place a single character in that zone so that you can log in every 30 minutes for a quick check. This is where cheating comes in really handy. Even basic programs will be able to tell you if a boss is in the same zone. Some bosses, when attacked or killed, will send out zone wide shouts, that can also be an excellent way of knowing.

If bosses and encounters aren't 'global', then they're 'instanced'. That generally means that you can fight them any time you want, every guild gets it's own private instance, private timer, etc. Handy for sure. Really simplifies things. A lot of farmers will level up characters on multiple servers so that they are able to do back to back instances, all day long. Think about how much money that's worth. Mmmm, sexy.

There are often also 'group' dungeon instances. That's getting really popular these days because it means dungeons don't get congested, and players generally like it. One of the best things about instances is that they are PRIVATE. So if you got a bot programmed to farm an instance of a dungeon, that bot gets to do it's work uninterrupted, and unseen, pretty much forever. A GM very very rarely ever goes into instances to check on player behavior. So instances aren't just great for farming, they're also great for automated leveling due to the privacy factor.


Thinking Clever: There was one boss that was nearly impossible to kill in Everquest because he had an area of effect ability that would make everybody drunk. This means that healers can't heal anymore. The way to kill this guy was to have a series of healers that were logged out and already in position. When one becomes useless, log in the next one. The point - sometimes it's really useful to 'think out of game'. A lot of games have the ability for certain classes or mechanisms which will allow for group members to be 'summoned'. Do the same thing. Get your 'summoners' in place, and then you may be able to skip hours of hack and slash that is normally required to arrive at an objective.

Another way to skip ahead of things is with a custom map. The way most MMO game clients work is that the 'map' is actually on YOUR computer, client side. So long as you're in a game where you can safely edit the maps, you can do stuff like removing walls, poking holes in structures, adding big bridges, etc. Don't do this in WOW, warden checks to see if certain files may have been edited. A LOT of stuff is often completely client side, such as ability cool-down timers. In EQ, hacking the timers used to allow one single monk to have the same power as well... a whole raid. It was very Chuck Norris.