i'm told arena net employees will at random times do things that make it extremely hard to run to droks. is this true?

No, it's not true.

Spawns in instanced areas are always random, and every now and then (maybe once every 3-5 runs), a bad spawn will grief a runner. Some spawns are so difficult even an experienced runner cannot make it through alive. It is most common in Drok runs because it is the hardest run in the game

For the most part, if you get past the first iceworm spawn you're golden if exp. Its not necessarily the hardest run, try Granite or Copperhammer

You know what's funny? I usually make it past the first ice warm spawn no problem, and die 5 steps away from dreadnaught's drift. I'm doing something wrong and I don't know what.

Granite and Copperhammer is just not worth the time to run, it's just too hard and too worthless for its efforts. I usually fight my way to Granite and Copperhammer because most runners I hire fail miserably.

Occassionally ArenaNet will put out a patch that makes life harder for runners. This is incidental, however. The real target is the farmer bot. Since farmer bots tend to rely on running, nerfing them often nerfs runners too. ArenaNet employees have stated on numerous occassions that running is an aspect of the game that they had anticipated.

Ummm... no!

Jeff Strain in the Gaming Steve interview said that runners were unexpected. That comment aggrivated me, as I was clearly a runner in the Alpha / Beta stages of the game.

Anyway... from the interview, Jeff stated that the running game was unexpected. Yet, they aren't trying to remove it from the game.

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Thats not to say they did not make it harder... Remember all the griping when Anet changed mob between Beacons Perch & Droknars Forge where the slow hex of the Ice Imp & Siege Ice Golem increasing the slow-down from 40% to 90%. And when the Frost Wurms started tracking the players...

The way I see it, they did make it harder, but not to prevent runners. That path was meant to be HARD, and when they discovered how easy it was to run through, they ramped up the difficulty a little. That run is still possible solo. Its a breeze with dual runners.

There use to be this rumor that Anet was going to close off a section preventing runners from making it from Beacons Perch to Droknars Forge... That turned out to be false!

Running as a trade was unexplected. And now that more and more and more and more and more people are doing it prices are WAY LOW. It would not bother me if Anet made some of the runs harder, for the challenge side of it.

I'd like to know how these bots work that you say, do the updates really destroy their farming spots (obviously the griffons). I'd imagine it would be a little program that has a series of button keys, then when item drops, check if its gold and then pick it up?

I agree - i haven't failed Droks for a long time (although that may be lucky spawns).

I even figured out a way to always succeed Warcamp to Granite.

But Granite to Copper - that is a killer, and the only run left in the game I have never done.

I rate order of difficulty as such (hardest to easiest):

1. Granite to Copper
2. Elona
3. Iron Mines to Copper
4. Droks
5. Warcamp to Granite
6. Sanctum Cay
7. Everything else (including Rankor to Warcamp, Ascalon to Desert, LA to TOA, Desert Running etc)

I'm starting to second guess Anet's intentions. This afternoon when I was running the desert, I got stuck at the first teleporter. Normally, I NEVER get stuck at the teleporter, just one quick jolt and the scarabs fall right off. Today however, I got stuck. I attempted the teleporter 3 times, and the scarabs just stayed on my tail, doesn't matter how many times I try to shake it off. It seems that the scarabs started running as fast as I do with both sprint AND charge up. I do not believe it was just a bad spawn, due to the fact that I failed 3 times in a row on 3 different spawns.

I don't know why Anet is making runs harder, since Jeff said he likes it so much, why grief the runners who's trying to make a living?