Can a dev please provide some clarity on what is and isn’t against the rules when multiboxing now?
I was under the impression that as long as you do everything manually you’re in the clear; so I’ve been playing 5 accounts on SOD and manually tab though clients and use my mouse wheel up and down as key bindings to cast 2 abilities. I used no software or hardware for it, just a regular mouse and keyboard.
For some reason however I have been banned for 6 months and upon appeal I’m being told that what I did was against TOS and that the ban is being upheld. If I did legitimately break the rules then okay; but please help me understand what I did wrong for future reference. I’d like to be able to multibox, so is using my mouse wheel as a binding not okay because there isn’t enough time between inputs? It felt like it would only take a few milliseconds to get casts off between game clients, so is that too fast?
There are no Devs on the Support forums so you won’t get an answer from one. The only statement they have made is the Support Article and the Forum Post.
that use of all software or hardware mechanisms used to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multiboxing in any way may result in account penalties.
Even if you are using a keyboard and mouse, if you use anything at all to streamline the process, that is against the rules. That includes hardware solutions as well as software solutions.
So were you using a macro to switch game instances and binding a key cast or cast sequence to the mouse wheel? Yeah that is going to get you in trouble if that is what you did. That is def automation.
I’m not totally clear on what OP is doing, but binding mouse wheel up or down to a single ability can be done right in the standard UI, so I can’t imagine that alone would be an issue.
No macros. I manually swapped windows. I’d open up my wow accounts and arrange them next to each other and click as I move my cursor over the windows to select them and use my mouse wheel to cast abilities. The only thing I can think of that could have triggered it is that I used my mouse wheel as a keybinding. In my mind that is normal gameplay since I’ve always used my mouse wheel as a binding…
In hindsight the way they’ve written the new rules on multiboxing is a bit ambiguous. What do they mean by hardware that streamlines it in any way? Does me having 2 monitors count as hardware that streamlines it? or the fact that my mouse has buttons on the side or a mouse wheel counts as hardware that streamlines multiboxing? I assumed they meant that anything outside of things that a normal player would use. I was actually very careful with what I was doing and I’m just confused at this point at what I did wrong.
Yeah no I didnt do that at all. I just bound mouse wheel up and down in the game. I don’t know if this mouse is even capable of running macros like that.
I meant more along the lines of a free scrolling wheel that can do like 100 “clicks” a second or whatever. I think those have gotten people into trouble in the past that’s why I was asking about what was keybound to the scroll wheel. No idea if that’s the potential cause or not.
This looks like something new. I haven’t played WoW seriously in years, but I remember many, many debates over the issue of whether one keypress should be able to cause actions on 5 different clients running the game simultaneously. So many people vehemently defended the practice while others insisted it should be considered cheating.
So, am I reading this right to understand that Blizz has finally come around on this and banned this type of questionable gameplay?
It is now prohibited gameplay. That decision was made three years ago.
On November 3, 2020, we posted an update to our policy for input broadcasting software, and soon thereafter, we began taking action against accounts found to be using third party software to automatically mirror keystrokes to multiple game clients.
So not exactly “new” anymore, but not something that was in place for most of the history of the game.
Not sure how on earth you can control 5 accounts and dps from all of them around the same time. Something just does not seem right, to be able to switch between clients and then cast on each one in very quick time.
Something does not seem right sure there is more your not saying.
What I’m envisioning is someone with five game windows up, scanning their mouse over all of them quickly while spinning the mouse wheel. If they’ve got Windows set to activate a window on mouseover and macros set to fire abilities on ANY mouse wheel scroll in a specific order of rotation, “playing” the five accounts would be more like…just zipping the mouse around the screen while scrolling the mouse wheel blindly, and because of all the setup of macros and inputs each window follows preset actions.
It’s the “preset actions” part that would give me pause, I’m not sure how much addons, WeakAuras and macros can set up, say, first mouse wheel move casts Frostbolt, second one Frozen Orb, third one Frost Nova, fourth one Ice Lance without that being considered “automation”.
They have not offered any official clarification of this at all. Generally, it seems like your interpretation is what they’ve gone by, and all normal windows functions are ok, or common hardware like 2 monitors or a mouse with extra buttons are also ok. Anything and everything beyond that is at least questionable.
My only advice would be to keep appealing. Just say that you only use normal windows functions and built-in warcraft capabilities to multibox and you’d like it reviewed again.
And they will not beyond what has already been published. They keep a lot of their rules on things ambiguous and fluid because both legitimate players and bots/cheaters are always finding new ways to one-up the system, or get around it.
It’s the risk of playing an unsupported playstyle. The game was not created with multiboxing in mind. If you have questions or doubts or care to roll the dice and see if you get caught? This is the price of playing.
What ever you had been doing. Well considering you got a 6 month suspension I would really consider retiring multiboxing. The next stop would be a perm ban.