Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
2003-2010 and even today.
I would hope multiboxing trains gets cracked down on though when reported. It looks really bad to have them in a game. Like, sure you paid for the advantage, but just like we don’t want people to be able to pay for stat boosts, I would think that extends to a dislike of being able to pay to speed-level multiple characters at once.
I'd be all for wither not having a follow command in game at all - or perhaps more reasonably (I know people that follow others in groups all the time), make it so the follow command can't be used on a character that is following another character, and each character can only have one other character follow it.
With this last one, you could have a player follow another character if there is reason to do so (which happens), but would essentially kill the notion of multiboxing trains (as a multiboxer, even I don't really like these).
It should be pointed out though, that multiboxing isn't related to botting at all.
You can bot a single character and you can multibox many characters without botting. There is an association that many players have between the two, but that association that many players have doesn't mean that they are inherently connected.
You can murder someone without a gun, sure. And there are many more uses to guns than murder; hunting, self-defense, law enforcement, recreational target shooting, etc. But clearly they are related; it’s a very efficient way to murder someone and it happens all too often.
Just as multiboxing is definitely related to botting. It’s much more efficient to farm with multiboxes if you run bot scripts. They are certainly linked. It’s not a reason to ban multiboxing, but you can’t pretend there is no relevance at all.
I don’t personally have anything against someone who multiboxes for fun. Have at it, more power to you. You’re definitely doing more than your share to financially support the game. But there’s a stigma for a reason; it is a heck of a lot more cost efficient to multibox and run bots if you’re farming, and they do often go together.
I don’t know if that’s the best comparison, but the entirety of what goes into multiboxing is required for botting. So they are directly linked as said here.
Without a follow command, which imo is entirely unnecessary to have at any point in time, that eliminates scripted trains of characters as a significant issue.
Regardless of who or what is controlling characters en masse, it would have a markedly detrimental effect of the health of the game economy if one person could reap the benefits of ten+ people.
The simple act of multiboxing brings attention to you. If you are running a script, the main thing you want is to be inconspicuous. If you are inconspicuous, then your bot won't get noticed, thus won't get banned, thus won't waste the time/money you have put in to it.
Generally, most people that are multiboxing are actual people that are multiboxing, rather than people running scripts. Most of these people won't answer questions from random players, as experience dictates that this usually just leads to abuse (people tend to not abuse people if they get no reaction). The reason these multibox groups tend to stay around a long time is because when a GM comes along to have a look at the "botting" group that players have been reporting, the player answers questions the GM has on what ever question they are asked them on. This leaves many players to assume the develop/publisher does nothing at all about bots, when really they are complaining about a multiboxer that is not botting at all. All that is required for multiboxing is having access to more than one account. This isn't required for botting.
There is literally no other requirements in most games. A few games have anti-cheat systems to prevent you from running more than one instance of the game client on one PC, but all that does is add the need for a VM to the otherwise very short list of requirements for multiboxing.
Botting only needs one account, and is usually only done with one account (for reasons stated above). However, botting requires running scripts, including multiple options for dealing with potential discovery.
As an occasional multiboxer, I have been accused of being a botter several times, and so have looked in to botting in MMO's a fair amount. While I have not looked in to it for a while, last time I looked, the really easy way to spot a botter from a multiboxer was it you sent them a whisper, the multiboxer would ignore it, the botter would log out - at the time the only real way to spot a botter was for a GM to ask them a question via whisper, so if the script detected a whisper it would simply exit the game client, thus avoiding the question. Again, this was a while ago, I would expect more sophisticated systems by now, but this was very common from 12 years ago up to at least 6 years ago. I've only ever heard of multiboxers running that many characters - I have never seen it myself. That many characters absolutely does require scripts - but that many characters isn't required for multiboxing (technically, only 2 characters are required).
I've been in guilds where more than half of the members had the ability to run two or more characters at once, and have chatted with many, many others. The most I have ever seen in any game was one player that ran 5 characters in Archeage, but that was literally just a train of haulers to run trade packs - it involved nothing more than auto-follow (and was kind of amusing to watch - a traffic jam in an MMO is more amusing than a real one).
If you are talking about multiboxers in general, assume 2 or 3 characters at a time, not 10+. That many is definitely both an exception, and a breech of the rules - even if the game allows multiboxing, it won't allow for running scripts, and 10 characters would require scripts.
Uhh no. If paying real money gives an advantage, then that is P2W. Multiboxing is P2W, it gives an advantage over those who do not do so.
Oh sorry, you can't play because the whiners think it is bad.
Virtue is the only good.