You pick the one definition of a word that favors your point of view. It’s not incorrect only simplistic and limited since there are several other definitions of the word. There are other forms of cheating in addition to legal or illegal or following the rules or breaking them. For example farming the MCP can be considered a form of cheating even though it follows the rules. From my link.
3. A technique that exploits a flaw or hidden feature in a video game or computer program.
No need for F2P. They could simply allow multiboxing with 1 account, but they won’t, then you wouldn’t pay extra subs to do it. That restriction only exists for 1 of 2 reasons; either to prevent multiboxing in the first place, or funnel more money into their wallet from multiboxing. One or the other. If the restriction is to prevent multiboxing, then it shouldn’t be allowed with any number of accounts. If money is not the concern, then there’s no reason for the restriction on 1 account.
When you’ve been crushing multibox defender arguments for a year, you get good at it. 
It IS cheating, It’s just cheating that is allowed by Blizzard. Just because a company allows it doesn’t make it any less wrong. Right and wrong is decided by social morals and ethics. Just because a gaming company decides to allow something doesn’t mean the social morals or the ethics of something are changed. If Blizzard allowing it made it right and morally/ethically okay, you wouldn’t see 20 of these topics arguing over multi-boxing every week.
Take freedom of speech for example, you are allowed by the American government to walk the streets screaming any kind of derogatory remark you want at any individual you come across. That doesn’t make it okay or right. That just means you exploit the rules set in place at the expense of others.
My question to the OP is do you think the arguement of Black Americans or women having the right to vote was dangerous? Do you think the arguement of slavery being abolished was dangerous? Because that is exactly how they received those rights. Individuals who noticed that it was morally wrong for them to not have it spoke out against it until it became so. That is the same situation here as it comes to Multi-boxing, A rule set is morally and ethically wrong and a community is speaking out about it to invoke change.
The difference here between a game and actual politics is this isn’t a democracy. Your voice technically is non-factor. You cant “vote” on who runs the company based on their ideologies. You can voice your opinions on what you think should be changed because of what is right or wrong, but at the end of the day it isn’t your decision. It’s more like Russia or China where rules are made and once they are tired of your voicing concerns you just get muted on the forums and threads get locked.
Multiboxing does not fall into this category IMO since it doesn’t use a flaw in the game itself, only tools/programs that are available outside of the game. And, since Blizzard says it’s okay, it’s not cheating. That’s simply how games work. And it can’t even be argued that this is a new change since it’s always been that way.
Drain gave the example of Activision not paying taxes and saying that they were cheating the system. IMO, those laws are written so that they can do just that, so still not cheating.
Your example with MCP could be considered cheating using the definition that you provided. However, Blizzard seems to think that is equivalent to traveling in basketball. It’s something that should probably be called way more often, but it makes the game more exciting so they let it slide. And since they started letting it slide, you see it way more often.
You refuse to acknowledge any definition of a word that doesn’t support your point of view. The concept of cheating is much broader than that. Again, from my link.
**2.**cheating - violating accepted standards or rules “a dirty fighter”; “used foul means to gain power”; “a nasty unsporting serve”; “fined for unsportsmanlike behavior”
unsporting unsportsmanlike, foul, dirty
Violating accepted standards. A case can be made that multiboxing violates accepted standards.
Unsporting or unsportsmanlike. Again a case can be made that multiboxing is unsportsmanlike.
We can debate all these points but it’s very clear that cheating is a larger concept than simply breaking the rules of a game.
Or it could be they decided it was less of a problem to allow people to cheat than face the backlash from correcting the game design flaw.
any code and/or software, not expressly authorized by Blizzard, that allows the automated control of a Game, or any other feature of the Platform, e.g. the automated control of a character in a Game;
The difference here is the Multi-boxing argument is all about semantics. Trying to use a different word for Automation so it slips past the rules. Blizzard bought into that semantic debate long ago and is why they allow it. By definition it is against their own rules, it was just argued and beat to death until Blizzard finally said FINE it’s “replication” as someone in the thread stated, not “Automation”.
“not expressly authorized by blizzard” was a phrase that wasn’t added to the EULA until years later after several expansions were released. This allowed them to make changes to the allowed list via blue post, rather than having legal type up changes in the EULA every time they wanted to change something.
Let me make this clear, there is a big difference between having 2 clients running so you can reset your own dungeons, and or having a bank alt in town to be able to trade with, vs having 5 characters which 4 of them have an automated/replicated response based off what keystrokes you use while playing the first character with the aid of extra hardware or scripted software.
By all means if someone wants to have 5 characters and play them all individually and alt tab between clients to heal and and cast spells individually and play at the rate of 2000 actions per minute have at it . The problem lies in the fact they are using THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE to accomplish the task is what the argument is about. If third party software is just okay to use, why not just allow botting, why not allow software that is more in depth than the TSM addon, that literally tells you exactly what items to purchase and what to relist them for on the AH to make thousands of gold a day flipping the market. Why not allow fishing software that makes the tedious work of fishing for hours go away? If you are going to say using THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE is okay then it’s either all okay, or none of it’s okay.
There is a very obvious answer to this 15 year old debate and that’s moderate it if you are going to allow it. Lock IP addresses to only being able to log 2 clients at the same time.
Side argument, Don’t leave the rules open to the point of being able to exploit servers and basically shut them down if someone wanted to, because by blizzards standards currently multi-boxing 10000 accounts and making an entire server your own isn’t against the rules if you wanted to spend that much money on it, effectively ruining the game for thousands of players on that server. even if it wasn’t just one player doing 10000? what if you had 250 players doing 40 to run their own raids? what if you had 500 doing 20? what if you had 1000 players doing 10? what if you had 2000 players doing 5? see what i’m getting at? What if Multi-boxing was just widespread to be morally okay? If during corona players had no issue with Multi-boxing and didn’t worry about being shamed for it, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think half the server’s player limit would be filled by Multi-boxed players, effectively only letting half the community even play the game they are paying for.
I agree with this statement. But at the end of the day, we are in fact, talking about a game. One that has rules that are set by a ruling authority. Blizzard ultimately gets to decide what is or is not cheating.
No, they get to decide what the rules are since they have the power. We can opine on those rules and conclude it is or is not legalized cheating
Fair enough. I’m sure there are some old timers out there that would say dunking a basketball is just legalized goal tending, but lets just agree to disagree shall we?
We can disagree whether this or that action is cheating. That’s subjective. But you are simply wrong to claim that if it’s not illegal or doesn’t break the rules it’s not cheating.
It’s less to do with the real multi box players who are actually rare and almost always to do with the Real Money Traders who also multi box and are 90x more common.
No kidding so far I have found one actual multi box player on my server that’s a real player doing the multi box thing, the rest are bots and RMT who also multi box to level cap for various reasons, mostly because it’s extremely effective at making a lot of gold to sell, or because many of them are character leveling services or character sales services.
Those are the bulk of the multi box characters I see in game, and until Blizzard cracks down harder on cheating your very small and insignificant little community will continue to have a bad name because of the illegitimate accounts that use multi boxing because it’s a powerful tool that reduces the difficulty level by a power factor of the number of characters you multi box.
This definition is itself subjective. You seem to be assuming that we all have the same cultural norms/value system.
In a sports setting, there are penalties for being a dirty fighter. On the streets, well, many people think that the only thing that matters is did you win. Not saying it’s right, but again, subjective.
I guess this could be “cheating” as well. If so, I guess all of human history is full of cheaters then. And I’d bet $20 that most of them wouldn’t even consider themselves cheaters cause, again, different cultural norms/values.
Things that apply specifically to a sports setting. Which has certain rules that have been put in place by the governing body. Just like a video game
The only objectively clear form of cheating is if there is a violation of accepted rules before the act took place. Anything else is subjective and up for debate…kind of like we’re doing now.
Yes it is subjective and up for debate. You attempted to circumvent that debate by claiming that if it isn’t illegal or doesn’t break the rules it’s not cheating. That statement is objectively incorrect. I think I’ve convincingly proved it’s incorrect. So you should let it go, if you were a better man you’d admit your error. Then we can debate the subjective interpretations of whether this or that action is cheating and to what degree.
What i said:
What you seem to have read somehow:
These two statements are different.
Let me make my point clear. In the context of this game, multiboxing is not cheating because the governing body (Blizzard) says it’s not cheating. You can argue that it destroys the integrity of the game (maybe), you can argue that it’s pay to win (maybe), but you can’t argue that it’s cheating because it does not break any of the rules set forth by the governing body of the game.
In the context of this game, Blizzard is the ultimate authority on what is cheating and what is not. Anything else is subjective and open to the interpretation of the individual and based around their own moral values.
I don’t care that by one definition of cheating multiboxing isn’t cheating. No one cares what the rules are when determining what is fair play or cheating. The only time anyone cares is when the rules support their position.
Yes. Unfortunately, cheating, cheesing, exploiting, and pay-to-win tactics are not only okay to many people these days, but they are actually a point of pride.
My position is that multiboxing, even if not all the way pay to win, tip toes right up to the line. It’s even worse if the OPs claims are true and it’s primarily used to level accounts to sell. I believe that Blizzard allows multiboxing because it’s more profitable for them and because there’s no cost effective way to really stop it.
WoW has been f2p up to level 20 for the past 10 years
and you can twink and do BGs
so piss off with that argument
Thinking more about how Chinese GDKP Organizations/Bots/Gold sellers ruin the game?
It’s all about regaining power that is stripped away when someone multi-boxes.
I didn’t see anyone else mention this, so I will: a fundamental motivation for a number of multiboxers seems to be to gain power over other players (or to strip away their power, to use the OP’s terminology). I think that’s an interesting point in terms of the P2W argument.
But to answer the original (silly, perhaps trollish) question: no.