hey before ppl get pitchforks up… only multi-boxed as a hobby and the closest thing I did that may rile some people up was using multiple accounts while waiting for world bosses to spawn… a.k.a. kazzak/azuregos/which green dragon spawned where so in essence most of their play time is literally staring off into the void
if anyone does not believe this… talk to any alliance/horde about our guilds world boss tag rates/kills >> it wasn’t a one man show but it helps to have a few dedicated members to keep watch at night if they are able to
basically… to sum it up i never did any real farming only leveling (mostly when world boss watching with a toon or two) just wondering if I have to really setup a hardware solution to continue multiboxing or am I really going to get a ban for basically leveling through quests like I had been doing before — currently my rig was actually designed to act as 4 computers (if you ever seen LTT 7 gamers 1 pc or wateva video the concept is basically the same) or can i go back to just using hotkeynet and be left alone as long as I’m not griefing anyone… honestly with how low the horde pop is on my server normally I’m more helpful since I’m going through the regular leveling zones and what few other people I encounter they either join my band of merry men for group quests (generally 3 chars) or I help them with my groups firepower after they tag
i just don’t understand the concept of banning multiboxing hobbyists when the bots are still roaming freely… or is this more of an issue of its a retail issue versus a classic one due to how they made changes in retail’s systems?
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As a fellow casual multiboxxer let me offer some explanation.
The days of just running a couple of toons screwing around, or even a party, were not the problem. Software used has evolved to a point where it’s ridiculous. People can play semantics games all day, but the truth of the matter is people were basically botting. People were ruining the experience for others.
Never once in all my time of tinkering around on a couple of characters did anybody complain, even people that didn’t like multiboxxing.
It was ruined because of how people behaved, the tools developed, etc.
It’s still doable, but you’ll have to do it all manually.
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It is very manual but very doable. I still play my 5 mages everyday and do the same stuff i used to. It’s just not as easy or effective. Best bet is to use joe multiboxer which is the new isboxer without broadcasting and a addon called
EMAC (Ebony’s Multiboxing Assistant Classic).
Yep the problem isn’t playing a couple toons at the same time. It becomes a problem when you can start running 10-40 instances of WoW quite easily and start ruining the experience using software for other players. Insta gibbing in PvP, farming all the mobs in an area. There’s nothing wrong with this but it shouldn’t be to the point where it is essentially automated by 1 button press.
Destroying a raid team with 40 mages is fun but it’s not fun when it is just 1 person and 1 button at the wheel. It turns into that you’re just playing 1 super op character
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Multiboxxing isnt bannable
Just another cheater crying because they can’t cheat and pay-to-win anymore.
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Having/using multiple accounts, fine
Automating all accounts for profit, botting.
the issue here isn’t the amount of accounts, but the automation of said accounts.
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its not really cheating as nothing was automated… hell the main thing my accounts were used for other than world boss watching was just summoning people for buffs / to raid i actually handled this by myself until a fellow multi-boxer showed himself… thing is hotkeynet has been around for a long time and i bet was the main free way people handled multiboxing
all i want to know really is will i actually be banned if im not griefing anyone… as I play on a pve server not a pvp one… I’m not an idiot but if someone is purposely griefing on a pvp realm with 40 chars that should be enforced as it is already griefing…
i’ve seen some comments from other forums about starfall (isn’t available in classic) or multiple druids farming herbs (which isn’t possible to have multiple chars farm an herb node in classic) just seems like the banwave for multi-boxers seem to be made across classic for the main reason of retail…
Yep. And people tried to hang on to the specifics of every word they used to try and defend it and deny that it was automation. It was REALLY stupid. End of the day, I pressed 2 on a single keyboard and both mages cast pyroblast. They can argue the technical jargon until Hellfire freezes over. I don’t think anybody that is sensible doesn’t understand what it was. It even felt cheap and cheesy.
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“Multiboxing, or playing multiple World of Warcraft accounts at once, is not a violation of our End User License Agreement. Please note, however, that use of input broadcasting software may result in account penalties.”
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Fellow multi boxer here.
First but of advice: lose hotkeynet. Like now. Take it off your system. People sharing ban info is obviously anecdotal and not always the whole story, but hotkey can get you banned. Period.
Basically, the concept of software broadcasting is the problem. Pressing one button to make two or more toons perform actions is what’s no longer allowed. Hardware boxing is fine. Someone mentioned joeboxer which seems to work well although I prefer WoWOpenBox. They lay out the screen similar to isBoxer with none of the key broadcasting. So, in theory, they’re legal.
That said, there have been ban posts in discord or Reddit saying they were banned for using non-broadcast software. Usually these ban posts are either quickly updated with news that the account(s) has been unbanned or more info comes out that the person was legit doing something illegal. To my knowledge, nobody who has used these solutions have been banned explicitly for the software.
People are still going to report you and your logs will be reviewed, etc. I think most folks just don’t understand the difference between multiboxing and botting or the difference between a ban on input broadcasting software and old school “1 button press, one client, one action,” so they just report everybody. It’s understandable.
Best bet is to make sure that any suspect software is nowhere near WoW even if you’re not using it. I almost crapped my pants one night when I realized isBoxer was still showing in my addon list even though it was disabled. Deleted it because better safe than sorry.
Hope this gives some info. I’d suggest looking at joemultiboxer and WoWOpenBox and their corresponding discords for a much deeper and knowledgeable discussion.
All the best. Let me know if I can help. I want the multi box community to stay strong but I also want us to do it the right way.
So, coming in late (returning for TBC Classic), EMAC is fine? I use a dual-box setup with 2 PC’s and completely independent controlled characters, DPS+Pocket Healer. I have a keypad for the 2nd PC with macros, but EMAC is a great help for things like taking the same flightpath and handing in quests.
There’s no issue with doing it that way is there?
I’m not an expert, but that is almost certainly bannable now. If you’re not clicking the button on each toon at the flightmaster, that’s software duplicating your keystrokes which is absolutely verboten.
Other non-multiboxing tools like Guidelime continue to do that though. You open the Flight Master manually, and it chooses your route.
With EMA you still have to manually open the flight master, but when you choose a route on one, it also selects it on the other.
If EMA doing that is bad, why isn’t it the same issue for things like Guidelime which auto-complete quests etc, after you’ve opened the dialog?
If I read their latest post correctly, it is a problem for ALL addons.
I personally deleted ALL addons associated with any sort of multiboxing.
multiboxing ‘hobbyists’ aren’t the audience the game should be catering to.
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Then why does the macro and addin API allow automatic dialog interaction? If they wanted to kill that part, all they’d have to do is kill the interface. I’m not doing anything like keycloning etc. I literally have two PC’s and two mice, keyboard and a keypad.
I did it before all the tools were out there, so I can definitely go back, but it seems like a massive overreaction to neuter things like interactive levelling guides.
I do not disagree.
All I know is that someone at Blizz is big mad at boxxers.
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Well, I guess I kill EMAC then.
I don’t think I’ll remove Guidelime until I hear more about people getting in trouble for a simple interactive levelling guide.
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You know activision recently had curseforge pull that addon (EMAC)? You won’t find it on curseforge anymore, so there may be some risk in using it now.
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