wow Changes to Multiboxing in Battle for Azeroth

[Sharknad0 67]

@z3rocool

Sorry bro. Just because you can't figure out how to properly do a rotation and move out of fire, doesn't mean it is fair to have a program do it for you. Your train of thought is totally wrong. It is automating your character. Just because you are controlling movement, doesn't mean that only handling your rotation is not botting. I am glad it is gone, because it made people like you look better than me, while I worked tirelessly on perfecting my character because I couldn't understand why I was getting my butt kicked. The day the major ban wave went out, and the 6 players in my raid group that didn't show up to raid for a week, leading up to instantly being worse on the meters the next time they did raid, was one of the best days of my life. Bet you never admitted to your raid that you had a bot do your rotation for you.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Sharknad0

[ionix 8]

Multiboxing should not exist. Period. It completely destroys some of the core concepts of the game.

The only reason Blizzard allows it is greed. There is no other reason. It doesn't improve the experience of anyone besides the multiboxer.

Edited July 9, 2018 by ionix

[Lawrenz 105]

4 hours ago, MadMilitia said:

[...] Is a singer broadcasting to two locations automating his singing? If I have one person on the phone and invite another via conference am I only talking to the first and automating my voice to the second? If I go to a forum and tag something to land in two threads am I automating my posts? [...]

yes, yes and yes. All of those are in some form more or less a form of automation. Admittedly your examples are just some handy things no one minds. But my offensive position against multiboxing comes from the fact that it CAN affect other players in the game.

I know its used for leveling and farming purposes, and i couldnt care less for the people that are buying multiple accounts to do so. But since it can be abused to annoy people in a very harsh way, it has to be dealt with. And i didnt say in my post, that i am all for the idea to ban it completely (but it's obvious, that i wouldn't mind a ban at all), but at least any form of pvp should be prohibited while multiboxing. It's not fun for anyone.

4 hours ago, MadMilitia said:

You want that broadcasting be seen as a form of automation for reasons obvious to your post.

I dont want it to be seen as such, i thought it would be common sense.  In a game, where interacting/fighting with other players is all about reacting and strategy, something that copies your commands onto several characters just is automation. You wouldn't physically be able to control so many characters "manually", so taking in support for broadcasting i would always have seen as "third party application" that helps you in game, being against the terms of policy for the game.

[PatrickHenry 293]

I can see both sides of this topic, so to say it falls in a very, very grey area is perfectly fair, and no side will be happy with whatever outcome is concluded, afa I can tell.

[multiboxing 71]

Let me first let me state  that I do multibox but I don't pvp, never really been a fan of pvp I would rather pve, quest, and grind, and collect things, show off stuff, grind/farm for gold to buy game tokens! BTW, I haven't had to pay for game time since the tokens came out! I box-farm-sell enough to buy in game tokens with gold for all 10 accounts!

"but at least any form of pvp should be prohibited while multiboxing. It's not fun for anyone."

Again I don't PVP, so how is it really any different if say 5 horde players group up and go around ganking players?  if anything the 5 separate players have the advantage over the multiboxers group of 5! they will have more detailed and accurate control over their toons where a boxer wont!  so if we are going to punish a boxing group then we have to punish the grouped players as well because the grouped players can cause more havoc that a boxing group!

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by multiboxing
more info

[blackstar128 30]

13 hours ago, multiboxing said:

Let me first let me state  that I do multibox but I don't pvp, never really been a fan of pvp I would rather pve, quest, and grind, and collect things, show off stuff, grind/farm for gold to buy game tokens! BTW, I haven't had to pay for game time since the tokens came out! I box-farm-sell enough to buy in game tokens with gold for all 10 accounts!

 "but at least any form of pvp should be prohibited while multiboxing. It's not fun for anyone."

Again I don't PVP, so how is it really any different if say 5 horde players group up and go around ganking players?  if anything the 5 separate players have the advantage over the multiboxers group of 5! they will have more detailed and accurate control over their toons where a boxer wont!  so if we are going to punish a boxing group then we have to punish the grouped players as well because the grouped players can cause more havoc that a boxing group!

  

well thats the thing it takes a group to take on you (one player). meaning by paying for more accounts (even with tokens blizzard gets paid) you get to win against the player who dosent pay for multiple accounts.

again i say you dont win much and with this new change even that would go away but it is very close to pay to win.

[MadMilitia 0]

On 7/9/2018 at 5:20 PM, Lawrenz said:

yes, yes and yes. All of those are in some form more or less a form of automation. Admittedly your examples are just some handy things no one minds. But my offensive position against multiboxing comes from the fact that it CAN affect other players in the game.

 

None of them are automation. You are again stretching the meaning of the word to fit your own agenda.

Broadcasting is the word you should be using and that is what multiboxing software does. But because you have an axe to grind with multiboxers you can't find reason in your approach. 

 

Here's another one to slam the point home. I speak and maybe the people in my immediate vicinity hear me. I then speak through a bullhorn so the whole neighborhood hears me. Is the process automated? No, it is broadcasted. If I do not speak the bullhorn doesn't transmit anything.

 

The issue here is your leverage of the word automation to suit your agenda. It's disingenuous and wrong.

Edited July 18, 2018 by MadMilitia

[Lawrenz 105]

40 minutes ago, MadMilitia said:

 

None of them are automation. You are again stretching the meaning of the word to fit your own agenda.

Broadcasting is the word you should be using and that is what multiboxing software does. But because you have an axe to grind with multiboxers you can't find reason in your approach. 

 

Here's another one to slam the point home. I speak and maybe the people in my immediate vicinity hear me. I then speak through a bullhorn so the whole neighborhood hears me. Is the process automated? No, it is broadcasted. If I do not speak the bullhorn doesn't transmit anything.

 

The issue here is your leverage of the word automation to suit your agenda. It's disingenuous and wrong.

thanks for your opinion on this, but i think you dont understand what i want to say.

I have to agree on your example with the bullhorn, that it is not an automation. But it is not broadcasting either. it's a form of amplifying. It enhances the range and strength of your voice. But it's not generating sound from out of nothing.

The broadcasting program generates button presses that come from nothing. You press a button = you confirm an action. The broadcasting copy pastes that as if there were 4 or 5 keyboards, that you pressed with your 4 or 5 arms. Oh wait, thats physically not possible. If you want to take your example of someone broadcasting a message to people, it would be more like if you are speaking into a microphone, and your voice is broadcasted to different cities in realtime. You wouldnt be able to be in all those cities speaking to people at the same time, without the help of automation devices that take your action and copy paste it to another place (or in WoW to another character)... making it an realtime automation of your action.

Thats how i see your example. But i hope you can understand my point a bit better.

[MadMilitia 0]

2 minutes ago, Lawrenz said:

thanks for your opinion on this, but i think you dont understand what i want to say.

I have to agree on your example with the bullhorn, that it is not an automation. But it is not broadcasting either. it's a form of amplifying. It enhances the range and strength of your voice. But it's not generating sound from out of nothing.

The broadcasting program generates button presses that come from nothing. You press a button = you confirm an action. The broadcasting copy pastes that as if there were 4 or 5 keyboards, that you pressed with your 4 or 5 arms. Oh wait, thats physically not possible. If you want to take your example of someone broadcasting a message to people, it would be more like if you are speaking into a microphone, and your voice is broadcasted to different cities in realtime. You wouldnt be able to be in all those cities speaking to people at the same time, without the help of automation devices that take your action and copy paste it to another place (or in WoW to another character)... making it an realtime automation of your action.

Thats how i see your example. But i hope you can understand my point a bit better.

 

I get it perfectly well. A bullhorn is transmitting a signal (yours) to a wider audience. No different than any other broadcasting tool like amplifier and speakers and even multiboxing software transmitting your keystrokes. You wanna talk physically impossible talk about signing to an audience of 20,000 in a football stadium without amplifiers. Yeah, good luck. And nobody in their right mind calls that automation.

This is EXACTLY what multiboxing software is doing. No, they do not generate keystrokes out of nothing. This again proves you are making up your mind despite the facts and the verbiage. 

People understand full well the distinction between broadcasting and automation. You are the very first person I've ever met who calls standard broadcasting techniques automation. A word has never been warped so badly to suit an obvious agenda.

[Lawrenz 105]

17 hours ago, MadMilitia said:

I get it perfectly well. A bullhorn is transmitting a signal (yours) to a wider audience. No different than any other broadcasting tool like amplifier and speakers and even multiboxing software transmitting your keystrokes. You wanna talk physically impossible talk about signing to an audience of 20,000 in a football stadium without amplifiers. Yeah, good luck. And nobody in their right mind calls that automation.

This is EXACTLY what multiboxing software is doing. No, they do not generate keystrokes out of nothing. This again proves you are making up your mind despite the facts and the verbiage. 

People understand full well the distinction between broadcasting and automation. You are the very first person I've ever met who calls standard broadcasting techniques automation. A word has never been warped so badly to suit an obvious agenda.

hm, okay. Fair enough. Maybe i am seeing broadcasting defined a bit different than you. Because for me "broadcasting" is the distribution of something to a dispersed audience, as i described in my last comment (distributing your sound to different cities.) and not "just" the amplification of sound. But i can understand if you want to see it that way.

Back to the multiboxing issue. I definitely have not a "stretched" view on automation, and i never said that "when it is automtion, it cant be broadcasting". You are broadcasting (yeah, i agree, that the term fits) your orders inGame WITH automated orders. It's not as big of an automation like using bots. But automation can be simple as that.
In the case of using multiboxing software i would compare it to a waterboiler-kind-of-automation. You set the waterboiler up manually,  it waits for a specific situation, and then does the programmed order (water boiling = shutting off). Multiboxing software does the same, you set it up manually, it waits for the right situation (your keypress), and acts accordingly (key pressed = copy that and press it as well). Yeah it is broadcasting, but automated order distribution to different accounts. Easy as that.

I have to say, i am totally fine with multiboxing IF you are doing it with like 2 accounts, swapping your windows and manually playing both (if you are capable of doing that, props to you man...). But using software to copy your orders is automated broadcasting that should be prohibited in total.

And just to come back to your broadcasting sound example, software-supported-multiboxing in the game, for me, would be on the same level as if a jogger is listening to music (like a normal player plays his character), but now he is using support (amplifiers or broadcasting sytems) to have everybody in his close vicinity HAVE to listen to his music as well.

It IS affecting the experience of other people around you in a negative way, especially because you use support. That's not okay (!imo!)

And if Blizzard now, is making it not able to use in fight, thats a welcome change for me. As long as they are stopped affecting others, they can do as much shit as they like with farming or leveling.

[MadMilitia 0]

On 7/19/2018 at 6:27 AM, Lawrenz said:

your orders inGame WITH automated orders.

 

No, again this is wrong. There are no other orders. If I do not press my 'forward' key then none of them move forward. There are no phantom keystrokes happening. You really want to believe something is being made out of nothing here.

It's pretty simple. Automation implies that something happened without user input. A decision was made and an action resulted which the user had no part in. This seemingly huge deal in your mind is dwarfed by all the popular addons in WoW today that automate decisions in some extremely game breaking ways. Like TSM and the auction house. These addons not only automate the processing of actions but also make decisions for you based on market conditions.

The bottom line for me is simple. What impact do multiboxers in the main have on the game? None. Some QQ envy on the forums. And Blizzard reaps a far greater reward for allowing it. 

That doesn't mean multiboxing cannot reach a point where it's detrimental for the game. Such as 40+ boxers who crash the server. Controls can be put in place to deal with that scenario. I think the pendulum has swung far too into crazyland though and we're well past that logical position.

 

On 7/19/2018 at 6:27 AM, Lawrenz said:

And just to come back to your broadcasting sound example, software-supported-multiboxing in the game, for me, would be on the same level as if a jogger is listening to music (like a normal player plays his character), but now he is using support (amplifiers or broadcasting sytems) to have everybody in his close vicinity HAVE to listen to his music as well.

It IS affecting the experience of other people around you in a negative way, especially because you use support. That's not okay (!imo!)

And if Blizzard now, is making it not able to use in fight, thats a welcome change for me. As long as they are stopped affecting others, they can do as much shit as they like with farming or leveling.

 

Noise pollution?  If a 10 boxer is riding down leveling toons how is that any different than 10 people on solo accounts doing the same thing? You see this isn't as simple as you make it out to be. More often than not and I'd say if you aren't on select servers you will most probably be jumped by 2-10 PEOPLE more than you would be jumped by a multiboxer. That's just reality. Like in the real world people don't like a fair one. They want advantages and roll in the world with those advantages. Boxer or not. In WPvP numbers rule and good luck getting your fair one on a regular basis. Banning multiboxers will have zero effect on this pain for most people.

[Lawrenz 105]

On 7/21/2018 at 12:33 AM, MadMilitia said:

 

No, again this is wrong. There are no other orders. If I do not press my 'forward' key then none of them move forward. There are no phantom keystrokes happening. You really want to believe something is being made out of nothing here.

It's pretty simple. Automation implies that something happened without user input. A decision was made and an action resulted which the user had no part in. This seemingly huge deal in your mind is dwarfed by all the popular addons in WoW today that automate decisions in some extremely game breaking ways. Like TSM and the auction house. These addons not only automate the processing of actions but also make decisions for you based on market conditions.

So that's where you just get it wrong. It IS Automation. Waterboilers shut off automatically... or are you denying that? Just because there is an initial manual input, it's magically no automation anymore? And you call me out for stretching the meaning, or reasoning around that? i could revert that to you. You are denying simple automation. And yeah, most addons automate things, and i am all for it, to ban them all and play the game solelely how it was designed. In my opinion, i think addons should only be visual changes to the game. Heck, even some simple macros are already automation, when you use one that activates several skills, and trinkets at the same time, and i think that shouldnt be possible either. Because of such things, this game becomes less of a "strategic decision making"-game (which blizzard wants it to be), and more of a "who looks up more useful macros"-game, which makes competition obsolete.

So for my part, i am avoiding any addons that take decision away from me, and i know that most of people disagree on this. And i dont care for others using any addons they prefer, as long as they are not winning any advantage in pvp competition scenarios.

On 7/21/2018 at 12:33 AM, MadMilitia said:

The bottom line for me is simple. What impact do multiboxers in the main have on the game? None. Some QQ envy on the forums. And Blizzard reaps a far greater reward for allowing it. 

Are you kidding me? "some QQ envy"? That was never my point, a point that you missed again. I am fine with multiboxers continuing to exist, because blizzard does a good change to prevent pvp actions (if i understand correctly), so they have less of an impact on other players, and this is FINE.

On 7/21/2018 at 12:33 AM, MadMilitia said:

Banning multiboxers will have zero effect on this pain for most people.

That again is not what i want! I think you feel way to attacked by my arguments. Banning all kinds of automation, i would like, which i know will not happen. But then i at least hope that competition will prevail and be held "as fair as possible", so preventing pvp actions for multiboxers is the right way.

[MadMilitia 0]

On 7/23/2018 at 10:24 AM, Lawrenz said:

Waterboilers shut off automatically... or are you denying that? Just because there is an initial manual input, it's magically no automation anymore?

Terrible comparison. A water boiler is engineered to shut off automatically given a danger zone in temperature that's all an automated process. It requires by safety standards to be fully automated.  That means it requires zero input from you to perform its duties. This is not broadcasting and nobody in their right mind would compare it to broadcasting software.

I don't know at this point if it'll ever make sense to you. I've given numerous examples of real world automation and what the word entails but you continue to compare things that aren't comparable. It makes it look like you can't grasp the idea of automation at all.

[Lawrenz 105]

On 7/31/2018 at 4:50 AM, MadMilitia said:

Terrible comparison. A water boiler is engineered to shut off automatically given a danger zone in temperature that's all an automated process. It requires by safety standards to be fully automated.  That means it requires zero input from you to perform its duties. This is not broadcasting and nobody in their right mind would compare it to broadcasting software.

I don't know at this point if it'll ever make sense to you. I've given numerous examples of real world automation and what the word entails but you continue to compare things that aren't comparable. It makes it look like you can't grasp the idea of automation at all.

You just don't get whatever i am trying to say. My whole argumentation is based on the FACT that broadcasting inherits a form of automation (a very simple one), and i compared that simple automation to the waterboiler automation. A "waiting of input and do something in an automated behavior". It is as simple as macros. That's it. And i am not camparing waterboiling to broadcasting, that would be ridiculous. You always just pick fragments of my arguments to throw back at me in a skewd form.

I know that my standpoint is a bit harsh, liking to get rid of such simple automation (which would even include macros), and for the end of the discussion i want to repeat myself again. I dont want to get those, who use broadcasting, banned, and i am fine with them existing, as far as blizzard is trying to keep it fair in situations that matter. And i see blizzard is doing that, so i am happy. I dont know how you see blizzards choice here, but to me it seems, you are pretty frustrated about the fact that you will not be able to annoy people with your broadcasted mob anymore...

Peace out

Edited August 2, 2018 by Lawrenz

[MadMilitia 0]

On 8/2/2018 at 5:11 AM, Lawrenz said:

waiting of input and do something in an automated behavior

 

This is really absurd. Arguing over the internet has run its course with me.

Peace out.

[Notoriousthf 19]

Does the move to interact still work where the main player uses something like traveler's tundra mammoth and your alts will "move to interact" with one of the vendors while using that hotkey?

[Daydreamfaze 0]

Yet here we are in 2020 getting ready for the NEXT expansion to come out, shadowlands as it is, and multiboxing is completely out of hand in every zone you have packs of boomkins steady farming 24 hours a day.... go check out the hexthralled mobs on your server. Boomkins huh? Pretty ridiculous blizzard refuses to do *filtered* all about it. Are the 5 accounts per botter subscription worth that much of your player base blizzard? Would your numbers suffer that hard if you actually did the community a solid and banned all these assholes? I guess the answer is pretty blatant and in our face at this point, YES YES it would be devastating to your subscription numbers... otherwise you Would ban them for botting 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365.....

[Lawrenz 105]

On 8/6/2018 at 11:53 PM, MadMilitia said:

 

This is really absurd. Arguing over the internet has run its course with me.

Peace out.

2years later.... but finally.

your arguments have been absurd. And even blizzard now agrees with me. Multiboxing will be gone ? finally. This silly thing was just meant to be banned someday. bye bye