Playing World of Warcraft Classic I was struck by just how illogical monsters tend to be over spotting adventurers rampaging through their home. Most MMORPGs have pretty dumb Non-Player Characters, they stand around, or maybe wander around, but will completely ignore a party of heroes fighting only a few meters away from them. It’s perfectly possible to ‘sneak’ past such mobs without any specific stealth skills if there’s a wide enough gap. Proximity is pretty much the only factor to determine if you are ‘spotted’ or not by an individual or group.

Boss wanders past, deaf to the melee it passes…

There are a few other factors at work though, in WoW at least: if a character is drastically under the required level for content, then monsters develop a radar-like ability to spot you at much greater distances, even through walls sometimes.

Even stepping in there is probably a bad…