That’s not mine, I’ll still be boxxing 
Kuar, I agree. I’m just devastated by the loss of my playstyle.
I’m sure you’re doing your best not to intrude on anyone else’s fun, but it’s not feasable for Blizz to distinguish the ‘good’ multiboxers from the ‘bad’ ones.
This thread is a great distraction from the other news I have 8 tabs open following.
3 Likes
“Multiboxing, or playing multiple World of Warcraft accounts at once, is not a violation of our Terms of Use. Please note, however, that use of input broadcasting software MAY result in account penalties.”
Yet it doesn’t say anything about giving a warning or being banned for doing it.
May is binary. They will or they won’t do something.
May doesn’t mean that they WILL issue you a warning and they WILL ban you. It means may. They WILL or they WON’T.
I think this whole thing is an idea in motion.
If not, it would read something like,
“If we detect input broadcasting software, you will be issued a warning. Further use of the software after the initial warning WILL result in account penalties.”
It sounds like they’re fishing for feedback from the community. If this was a solid change in the TOS, they would have used better word choice here instead of using “MAY”.
It’s also great press and exposure for WoW. The internet is a blaze with multi-boxing on wow news.
There are solid choices in this thread that will allow multi-boxing to continue that will not hurt other player’s personal gaming experience and will not cripple the economy.
A few of mine are:
- Change loot to make hyper-spawning 2x4 not viable. That hurts the economy if one person is controlling 8 accounts or if it’s 8 separate people.
- Change mining/herbing to one node one loot like it used to be. This was a horrible decision when they made it in the first place.
- Limit simultaneous logins to 5. Then people can challenge themselves running dungeons.
- Disable WPVP somehow, and if not possible, issue 24-48 hour bans on multi-boxers that do.
All they need to do is work out the details while this horrible band aid is on.
If I can’t use ISboxer to mirror commands and autofollow my 5 member teams, I’m still going to alt tab and macro follow to do my panda worldbosses and run Dragon Soul for mounts. Its just going to be a little more irritating.
I’m not hurting, nor was I hurting “your” gaming experience, by using isboxer.
Traveling in a party and waiting for a world boss to spawn for 20 minutes, opposed to doing it 5 separate times for 20 minutes each does not constitute “ruining your player experience”. That’s just called jealousy.
Keep in mind that this announcement is not going to hurt actual bots at all from farming things. Bots don’t use multi-boxing software like ISboxer. ISboxer can’t automatically run 10 druids in a train around an identical path independently moonfiring everything, looting everything separately, and correcting their path if say someone mind controls them into the ocean. Heck. ISBoxer can’t make them run back to their corpse, resurrect, and continue about their business either. Personal experience of mine. This is some legitimate computer programming business and not input broadcasting software.
Botting is not multi-boxing. Botting is pushing a button, walking away, and coming back to bags full of loot and gold. -_-
11 Likes
Well said. From your mouth to Blizz’s ears.
It’s pretty messed up that you’re punishing people who are trying to make WoW Classic interesting by playing multiple characters at the same time… just because you can’t figure out how to stop people who abuse the game and bot the game using programs!
You guys screwed up WoW Retail, and now you’ve managed to screw up WoW Classic. If this happens, I’ll be canceling my 4 accounts/subscriptions and start playing other games.
I hope this move costs you the loss of MANY accounts and hurts your bottom line. Maybe then you’ll see that it would have been better to figure out how to detect botters without hurting multi-boxers. 
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If you honestly think you it’s ethical to control multiple characters using 3rd party software to automate the same key click to all of them … you are scum. Goodbye!
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Agreed. It’s a lazy fix. Clearing Mara in classic or wiping in Mythic Freehold for hours doesn’t hurt anyone.
WTB smarter fixes.
Me too, I only ever multiboxed in classic, and it was just for leveling not farming.
I deleted my Hot-Key finding out about this. It was fun leveling that way, but not really a big deal for me.
In retail I alt-tab when running more then one at a time. I usually do it when a lower level character can’t seem to get through a boss or some rough area, because it’s a squishy.
Or I have my own little dungeon group for transmog, pet, and mount runs, with only the tank or damage in the lead, switching them out if need be.
As Alt-Tab is still allowed, I am fine with this.
I wonder how others are going to faire, I know there are some multiboxers that just do leveling and not farming, because they like having the backup of multi characters when questing.
Botting is the use of any process which is fully or partially automated to play any part of your game for you no matter how much. Blizzard in the past has just taken the stance that it is not botting because you are physically at your keyboard pressing a key to trigger the bots. Which is a fine stance to take however, Cloning your actions is still something that is part of the automation process. As you do not have direct control, only indirect. That said, while I agree with the choices they took here. I do feel bad for those of you who multi box and invested in this believing it is something that would never change. Although they had always been open that its something they could change at any time.
I’m hoping it’s aimed at the people with 10 accounts mining and herbing and disrupting entire zones for hours with 20 boxes. I don’t see how I should be punished so severely for running Dragon Soul semi-simultaneously on 5 accounts at once. Especially now that the loot vendors for next to nothing. I just want my mounts. ;-;
It will very much likely be part of the Warden software and be more of a automated process then a case by case process. Blizzard doesn’t want to pay people to sit around and do case by case scenarios.
As someone who enjoyed having 2 gathering professions and had to give them up because I couldn’t compete against multiboxers continuously fully tapping out nodes. Thank you.
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I’m fine with this, no really, been doing it for over a decade and I was assured by Blizzard it’s legit and ok to do, you’ve changed your minds, ok, I just want the cash back for all the accounts I have active, as long as you’re fine with refunding hundreds of dollars per user for paid time, sure do what you want.
Don’t your odds increase (and loot drops as well) if you do all 5 individually? Are the mount drops a per character or a per kill chance?
I would think each character in group whether on the same account or not would add to the chance of claiming said mount. I could be wrong though.
They pay the GMs to handle things on a case by case basis as tickets are submitted. I suspect this will be the case with multiboxing software. They use very wishy washy wording that implies it is at their discression. They never say it IS prohibited or action WILL be taken. It comes across as very selective with the wording used. At least for me.
I always assumed that it was part of the loot table, and that each kill there was a chance for a mount. So by doing it 5 times I have 5 chances, vs doing it once with 5 characters and only having 1 chance. I could be wrong though.
Looks like blizz updated their policy and still
have contradictions lol.