Multiboxers have no place in an RPG

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
61

Just like multiboxing has.

They both had the same amount of support at launch.

The devs however, have talked in books how WoW almost DID NOT have PvP.

62

Multiboxers are a nuisance, but they can be dealt with, especially if you figure out which character is the “brain” of the entire group. Killing a multi-boxer is a fun accomplishment.
PvP solutions to PvP problems.

1 Like
63

Nah, when I came back to the new forums after a long break from the old, I got two strikes for not realizing that implying naughty words still counted as naughty words in the “report for not agreeing” crowd. So no MVP or TL3 for me since I got blackmarks.

1 Like
64

First, why are you making your own quote appear as if I said it? That’s odd.

Second, i’m not arguing whether multi-boxing is blizzard sanctioned, I know already that they accept it for what it is. The only two things i’m stating are that /follow and multi-boxing are very different thing, as in /follow doesn’t inherently make you mimic the actions of the target you are following, that is done by the second point; third party software, not manually alt-tabbing to each screen, and manually activating each character in each WoW game.

This is where the grey area comes for people. Allowing multiple instances of abilities to be used with one keystroke, for blizzard it’s okay because it’s all the same ability, 1 button = 1 ability, kind of.

1 Like
65

Wow, that’s happened to me once to twice too. I literally saw people posting worse stuff so I thought it was okay. I said, well, I won’t even say what I said but the minute after I got struck I read the same word spelled out in another post. :roll_eyes:

66

naughty words! ARGHHHHH my weakness!

1 Like
67

I’m admittedly amused by this portion of the “argument”.

I dual-boxed for years, and there actually were times I was engaged in RP on both of them with other players. (I’ve done it in pen & paper D&D campaigns, too - run two player characters, or DM’d and run multiple NPCs that I role-played.) So the base claim is false.

Yes, I get that people do sometimes allow for the distinction between dual-boxing and multi-boxing, the latter usually defined more as multiple-of-5 groups all set to move and act as a unit. However, even that could be seen through a role-playing lens if we really wanted. A highly trained merc unit that moves in unison, a necromancer and an army of minions.

There are many things in-game that “break immersion” if we let them. The most obvious is respawning named mobs, but even the sheer number of bears without intact livers no matter how we kill them is immersion breaking … if we want it to be. In reality, we ignore that just fine in the moment and tend to laugh about it outside the game.

A pre-made group of players, whatever multiple of 5, highly coordinated on an external voice system can all press a single button and kill a player or NPC too.

Five players versus a five-player multibox group might see one or two players killed, but then be driven into disarray and all five of the multibox group killed. The main reason for the advantage is the odd idea that 5v1 would ever be anything but an unfair advantage.

When a raid of 80 or 120 people hits a major city, they don’t have to be a multiboxer to cause stability issues or even crashes. It wasn’t multiboxers who crashed Silithus at AQ openings. There’s way more than 40+ individual player characters who tend to show up in Blackrock Mountain, sometimes getting into wild brawls. Streamers who show up with trails of fans cause stability issues.

This is a server stability issue, not a multibox issue.

Sorry, the community is not a hive mind. The fact that you are more willing to see the voices that resonate and match your belief does not make them the only voices. There’ve always been voices for, against, and not caring. That’s the community.

Ultimately, though, Blizzard has answered the question very strongly. Multi-boxing is fine as long as there is no botting/automation of character control. If a player is sitting there pushing that single button, they’re not automated.

4 Likes
68

lol what?! Multiboxing has never had any support. WPvP is a core feature of the game that has always been supported :joy::joy::joy:

2 Likes
69

It’s kind of always been a loophole. You can multibox as high as you want which amounts to pseudo-automation for some of those characters, but you can’t bot a single character, always seemed like kind of a double standard, though I have no interest in doing either and would rather see multiboxers than bots because at least some of them aren’t just doing it to pwn pvp, whereas a bot is just plain cheating and we can all agree on that. It is a gray area, to be sure.

1 Like
70

Your definition of multiboxing seem to only include broadcasting software.

Multiboxing in the MMORPG world is very different.

  1. Running 2 account on 1 computer and tabbing between is considers multiboxing in most areas.
  2. Running 2 instances of WoW, one on a single monitor is considered multiboxing.
  3. So is using 2 computers but allowing 1 software to coordinate both keypresses.
  4. So is using virtual machines on 1 computer which still requires 1 press on each windows to make an action happen.

All of these are considered multiboxing and are banned in some games or on specific servers (Like EQ’s truebox servers)

Players get around this by having 5 laptops (or more) with just a keypad to control each. You use macros and things like /follow, /target and such to control the following characters. Keypads dont take much space and are easy to use.

You can only assume someone is using software. All of the above could be used (and are every day) in areas where multiboxing is banned.

1 Like
71

Why do you think there are macros? Multiboxing existed long before WoW.

2 Likes
72

Thanks for elucidating exactly how all that works, I was under the assumption there were more software bypasses.

73

Honestly i’m not even going to read the rest of your post because this is the only point I care to address, multi-boxing in nowadays terminology is inherently connected with software. When the term multi-boxing is used, it is assumed and expected that software is used along with it. Thus allowing the problem people have with it to occur, a single action done by each character at exactly the same time.

If people were alt tabbing or using a keyboard for each character, nobody would have an issue with it because it wouldn’t be instantaneous.

3 Likes
74

It’s never good when there are crashes, but I’d rather have it be due to 80+ unique individuals participating in an event rather than a single jackass running around with 40+ chars making the game unplayable for everyone in the zone.

3 Likes
75

You never played D&D by yourself?

1 Like
76

I specifically went into more detail because TODAY, in EQ, there are truebox servers that ban the multiboxing software. People openly talk about how they get around the software ban to do the exact same thing. You cant stop it unless you are willing to IP ban anyone form the same IP (even then you can get a VPN). THat would also stop regular players playing from the same household (like a husband and wife team, or siblings)

Most of the major players work with the game devs. Blizzard even gives a plus to software like ISBOXER and their add on that makes things work easier.

2 Likes
77

I honestly can’t take you seriously if you’re trying to claim that macros were only included in the game to support multiboxing.

1 Like
78

The last one I saw, oh I don’t know back in Wrath maybe, was casting simultaneously. I don’t even remember what class they all were, but they were using the same spell and they came off so perfect the graphics for the cast were pretty much overlaid. Felt like facing a single character that’s five times as strong as you (I think he was a 5 boxer, no less than a 3). Just reporting what I saw, I’m not trying to judge in this post.

1 Like
79

Yes but what i’m trying to get across to you, especially when in regards to multi-boxing in WoW, is that software usage is to be expected. You can’t argue a point that doesn’t exist.

Nobody, and I mean nobody is complaining about the person who manually controls 5 characters, if anything, good on them for being so dexterous. The thing people complain about is the software that enables multiple instantaneous actions to occur when multi-boxing.

5 Likes
80

Love how you twist language there. How about “You’d rather have 80+ jerks running around intentionally making the game unplayable than 40+ characters controlled by a single individual making the game unplayable because Blizzard would rather use cloud servers and layers and shards to create what they call stability”.

Again, it doesn’t make your point any more than your opinion. An opinion that not everyone agrees with. And an opinion, at that, which Blizzard spent years reviewing before making a very clear final statement.

3 Likes