I don't understand how multiboxing is different that botting

its $30 on amazon with free shipping.

Or they’ll just run virtual machines which is much more of an option now than it was.

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I agree. And, really, Blizzard’s stance is that whether a player responds or not, is at the keyboard or not, isn’t the back-side meaning of botting.

Botting isn’t actually about individual keypresses. It gets broken down to that when people get mad about multi-boxing, usually because of the single keypress that led to their death (whatever damage ability got them because they were hit 5 times or 40 times instead of 1 time.)

When speaking of Botting in World of Warcraft, most often we’re referring to one of two things.

One is a botting software program. In this case, it’s a long sequence of many actions, with qualifiers when to perform some. The botted character moves along a pre-determined path. If it’s an herbalism bot, it moves to each and every known location where an herb has spawned and performs the interact option at that location, delays long enough to have collected the herb, and then moves again. It might have basic handlings if a mob attacks it or if it dies. Whether a player is in the seat actually isn’t relevant so much as that the player is not making the decisions, is not pressing the keys to perform the actions.

The other is attempts to use macros or the API to perform multiple actions in a way that has been very explicitly made not possible. One example is people using fancy computer mice with macro buttons to try to externally handle things like time delays.

If you look at the sticky post Macros: Essential Information and the third section, “Macros - What can they not do?”, those are rules that Blizzard has made, what they consider vital to the integrity of the game, to not allowing players to bot. For example:

Macros cannot make smart decisions for you. They can’t cast spells based on cooldown, or check if a buff is active, or magically fit all your abilities onto one button.

If the way you control another character is set it up so pressing “1” on the keyboard activates a keybind in the other client to /tar [main] and /cast [heal], you’re making the decision and controlling that character - even if “1” to your main tells them to /cast [spell].

A multi-boxer is sending “1” to every client, but they have to have decided that they actually do want ALL clients to perform the keybound action. If no one needs a heal, and they press “1”, nothing stops it from casting the heal.

The bot you described doesn’t require the player realizing they’re at 40% or deciding what heal is needed or pressing the key to do so.

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Same reason there’s bots swarming every server. 15$ a month per char.

Thanks. I personally dislike multiboxing but it’s clear it’s not any form of bot, whether kick-bot, heal-bot, etc.

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Simple, Blizz makes money off of multiboxing, whereas, botting doesn’t. It’s all about the money.

But one has a human controlling the program to make it work and the other involves no human at all. Blizz is ok with multi boxers.

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/follow is a blizzard provided macro. I know, it is too much for your pin sized brain to understand. having more than one account is also a blizzard provided option, that you PAY for. Having an AB box to use one keyboard for 2 (or more) computers is also a legitimate possibile tactic. I guess your mommy will not pay for more than one account and certainly not for more than one computer… so you are left out of some of the challenges presented by multiboxing. Botting on the other hand is unattended game play. I am sure this is too much for you to understand.

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A single person cannot camp 40 spawn locations simultaneously without multiboxing. I know you’re a multiboxer trying to protect your little scheme, but at least dont lie in the process.

The behavior of corpse camping spawns can be done without multiboxxing.

You just seem very poorly informed about what multi boxxing is and what the actual issues are.

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Doing it in multiple places simultaneously cannot.

You just seem intent on distracting from the obvious. Having multiple accounts open at the same time is multiboxing, whether you’re using software or not.

Both botting and multiboxing are detrimental to the integrity of the game.

Only reason why blizzard let this one slip is due to the money they make on “x” amount of account subscription the multi boxer is paying for !

Subtle pay to win.

The “player does all the actions” argument goes out the window when you understand that it’s one “main” character and 4 other mimic characters. The player does only one action for one character. The other 4 are scripted to mimic the main character.

But let’s be real. Blizzard says its okay because it’s more $$$ in their pocket.

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Well you answered your own question. it’s not automation like a bot it’s duplication of a user input. The user does have control of the input in every instance as they can have separate binds and macros in each one so they’re performing completely different actions based on inputs.

If you ban multi-boxers you’d have to ban things like having 2 accounts and running yourself. Having a main on follow, etc.

So long as a player is required to push a button for an action to happen, that’s all Blizzard cares about. Automation is not the same as replication, or else you’d have to break macros too.

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Blizzard permits it more or less because it has always been permitted in these kinds of games. Everquest had boxers, too, based on the same reasoning. WoW’s core dev team was initially led by Everquest players, and they had no issue with boxing, so boxing has always been permitted here, too.

Well, that and they have no real reason to not allow it. A handful of players expressing dislike of the playstyle isn’t enough to warrant such a big move when multiboxers are also subscribers.

Basically, the way I see it is this:

Is multiboxing against the Terms of Service? No.

Is multiboxing against the spirit of Vanilla/Classic? Absofreakinglutely.