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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Multiboxing, Its Solutions, and Why it won't be as much of an issue in AoC
Xrael
Member
Buckle up me mateys, this is going to be a long and detailed post. There are 3 segments to this post: a little info on multiboxing, why it wont be as much of an issue in AoC as in WoW, and finally, possible solutions to Multiboxing. I've boldened and italicized these headings, so feel free to skip around. However, if you have the time, I suggest reading the whole thing through.
After the recent AMA with Steven, a large portion of the community has been discussing about multiboxing.
A large amount of the people posting about Multiboxing, have come from WoW where they have had bad experiences with Multiboxing. (Basically, from Asmongold’s recent stream, where he watched the AMA live.)
Before I jump into possible solutions and discuss why multiboxing won’t be as much of an issue in AoC as in WoW, I will first give you a little context.
So, what exactly is multiboxing? Multiboxing refers to playing as multiple separate characters concurrently in an MMORPG.
Most game developers allow multiboxing in their games. To date, Age of Conan, Aion, Anarchy Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Lineage, Lineage II, Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft all allow multiboxing. So, it’s something that has existed in MMOs for a long time.
Now, I’ll talk about multiboxing with regards to WoW specifically.
In World of Warcraft, Blizzard allows players to multibox on the SAME hardware. This means that players can play with multiple accounts on the same PC or on different PCs. They are ALSO allowed to use SOFTWARE (macros and scripts), that allow them to master-control multiple accounts. What this means is that say for e.g., one person is playing 3 druids across 3 accounts. When you press an ability on a single druid, there is software available, that is allowed by Blizzard, that will replicate this command onto multiple other characters. So essentially, by pressing a single ability on one of the druids, you can make the other 2 druids cast the same spell as well.
What this results in is a group of x amount of characters (from 2 to 40 to sometimes around a 100), of the same class, moving in a group, gathering important resources that spawn in a certain area, and not letting anyone else get any of it.
The main example of this is the Zinanthid herb in Nazjatar, a neutral zone in WoW. Tons of multiboxers farm this herb, which is used in crafting several combat-boosting potions and other things. Even though it is a neutral zone, players from the opposing faction cannot contest these multiboxing groups as they will get one-shot (Because of the master-control thing I mentioned above. Getting hit by 7 to 40 copies of a high dmg ability, will one-shot anyone of a comparable level).
Not only does this sometimes ruin the game’s economy by flooding it with resources, it RUINS player experience by creating game lag and crashing the server. (This happened with the Emerald Dream server, in WoW, a couple of years back. At that time, there were MULTIPLE multiboxers running around with over a 100 characters each.)
Now that I’ve given you a decent bit of context on multiboxing, let us move on to why multiboxing won’t be as much of an issue in AoC, as in WoW.
1) Steven has said that macros and scripts will NOT be allowed. This is the MAIN reason that multiboxers exist in WoW. Because they can master-control multiple characters of the same class. Not allowing this has the potential to, on its own, remove the ENTIRETY of the multiboxers population, assuming that the game is perfect at tracking macros/scripts. Now this is obviously unlikely, so we will most likely still have to deal with multiboxers.
2) Steven has also said that multiboxing is ONLY allowed if the player that is playing on multiple accounts is playing it on MULTIPLE PCs i.e. one account per PC. This is different from WoW. In WoW, you are allowed to play with multiple accounts on the SAME PC. So, this further restricts multiboxers, forcing them to spend extremely high amounts of money on PCs if they wish to run multiple accounts at the same time.
3) Another MAIN reason that a large amount of these multiboxers won’t exist in AoC is because Ashes does not have something similar to a WoW token. The WoW token is an item that gives you subscription time in exchange for a large amount of in-game gold. This is the main reason why multiboxers with multiple accounts are able to sustain themselves. They are able to farm gold efficiently and pay for subscription time with in-game gold. This results in them not having to pay subscription fees for their accounts, reducing their costs significantly.
4) Multiboxers won’t be able to ruin player experience in AoC, unlike in WoW, as Steven has said that default player appearances and other features will be used to help with rendering and reduce server lag, when a certain no. of player clients come in radius of each other. These features don’t exist for open world PvP in WoW, and is the main reason for the server lag and fps drops caused by multiboxers.
5) Because distance matters in this game, unlike in WoW, this also limits multiboxers to an extent. According to the wiki, we will have one time resources (resources that can be collected only once and respawn randomly on the map after a cd), moving resources (like herd of sheep, that move constantly on the map) and finally, resource clusters (large mines with a particular type of ore in it). Multiboxers won’t benefit from the first two due to the huge distance between spawn locations. What they will benefit from however, are the large vein resources. However, there is an easy fix for this that I will mention in the solutions below.
So these are the main reasons why AoC will not suffer from AS MANY multiboxers as in WoW.
Now let us talk about possible ways to deal with the HANDFUL of multiboxers that DO manage to escape detection. How do we combat these people?
I came up with two solutions after reading through a few rage-filled blizzard forums.
1) Limit the no. of IDENTICAL classes per IP address. If a family were to be playing an MMO together, it is extremely unlikely that all of them will pick the same exact class. Only multiboxers do so, because they want to be able to master-control them.
2) There is an easy fix to prevent multiboxers from farming large-vein resources. Simply make large vein resource locations into PvP zones, so that players don’t gain corruption from killing other players that come to contest the resource. Because multiboxers are controlling multiple characters at once, they will not be efficient at large scale PvP. Since combat in AoC is skill dependent, this will result in an organized group of around 20 to 30 players, being able to take out 40-man multiboxers fairly easily. This will make it extremely difficult for them to consistently farm resources. If you wish to make large-vein resources less contested, you could also give players personal mines for these resources that give them a certain fixed amount of ores, on a regular basis.
I also came across 2 other solutions that players suggested:
3) Herbs, Minerals, as well as other collectibles should be made so that they can only be looted once per node by a player, per Intrepid account and per IP Address.
4) Another suggestion was to make the resource nodes, that were available to be collected in a particular region, being different for each character. So if there are x no. of nodes in a particular region, that is available for collection, it will appear in different locations for every character.
Not sure how effective 3) and 4) are at stopping multiboxing, but I put them up just in case.
So to conclude, I don’t think multiboxing will be a significant issue in AoC. Those that do manage to get through will be few and far between and won't have much of an impact on the playerbase.
After the recent AMA with Steven, a large portion of the community has been discussing about multiboxing.
A large amount of the people posting about Multiboxing, have come from WoW where they have had bad experiences with Multiboxing. (Basically, from Asmongold’s recent stream, where he watched the AMA live.)
Before I jump into possible solutions and discuss why multiboxing won’t be as much of an issue in AoC as in WoW, I will first give you a little context.
So, what exactly is multiboxing? Multiboxing refers to playing as multiple separate characters concurrently in an MMORPG.
Most game developers allow multiboxing in their games. To date, Age of Conan, Aion, Anarchy Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Lineage, Lineage II, Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft all allow multiboxing. So, it’s something that has existed in MMOs for a long time.
Now, I’ll talk about multiboxing with regards to WoW specifically.
In World of Warcraft, Blizzard allows players to multibox on the SAME hardware. This means that players can play with multiple accounts on the same PC or on different PCs. They are ALSO allowed to use SOFTWARE (macros and scripts), that allow them to master-control multiple accounts. What this means is that say for e.g., one person is playing 3 druids across 3 accounts. When you press an ability on a single druid, there is software available, that is allowed by Blizzard, that will replicate this command onto multiple other characters. So essentially, by pressing a single ability on one of the druids, you can make the other 2 druids cast the same spell as well.
What this results in is a group of x amount of characters (from 2 to 40 to sometimes around a 100), of the same class, moving in a group, gathering important resources that spawn in a certain area, and not letting anyone else get any of it.
The main example of this is the Zinanthid herb in Nazjatar, a neutral zone in WoW. Tons of multiboxers farm this herb, which is used in crafting several combat-boosting potions and other things. Even though it is a neutral zone, players from the opposing faction cannot contest these multiboxing groups as they will get one-shot (Because of the master-control thing I mentioned above. Getting hit by 7 to 40 copies of a high dmg ability, will one-shot anyone of a comparable level).
Not only does this sometimes ruin the game’s economy by flooding it with resources, it RUINS player experience by creating game lag and crashing the server. (This happened with the Emerald Dream server, in WoW, a couple of years back. At that time, there were MULTIPLE multiboxers running around with over a 100 characters each.)
Now that I’ve given you a decent bit of context on multiboxing, let us move on to why multiboxing won’t be as much of an issue in AoC, as in WoW.
1) Steven has said that macros and scripts will NOT be allowed. This is the MAIN reason that multiboxers exist in WoW. Because they can master-control multiple characters of the same class. Not allowing this has the potential to, on its own, remove the ENTIRETY of the multiboxers population, assuming that the game is perfect at tracking macros/scripts. Now this is obviously unlikely, so we will most likely still have to deal with multiboxers.
2) Steven has also said that multiboxing is ONLY allowed if the player that is playing on multiple accounts is playing it on MULTIPLE PCs i.e. one account per PC. This is different from WoW. In WoW, you are allowed to play with multiple accounts on the SAME PC. So, this further restricts multiboxers, forcing them to spend extremely high amounts of money on PCs if they wish to run multiple accounts at the same time.
3) Another MAIN reason that a large amount of these multiboxers won’t exist in AoC is because Ashes does not have something similar to a WoW token. The WoW token is an item that gives you subscription time in exchange for a large amount of in-game gold. This is the main reason why multiboxers with multiple accounts are able to sustain themselves. They are able to farm gold efficiently and pay for subscription time with in-game gold. This results in them not having to pay subscription fees for their accounts, reducing their costs significantly.
4) Multiboxers won’t be able to ruin player experience in AoC, unlike in WoW, as Steven has said that default player appearances and other features will be used to help with rendering and reduce server lag, when a certain no. of player clients come in radius of each other. These features don’t exist for open world PvP in WoW, and is the main reason for the server lag and fps drops caused by multiboxers.
5) Because distance matters in this game, unlike in WoW, this also limits multiboxers to an extent. According to the wiki, we will have one time resources (resources that can be collected only once and respawn randomly on the map after a cd), moving resources (like herd of sheep, that move constantly on the map) and finally, resource clusters (large mines with a particular type of ore in it). Multiboxers won’t benefit from the first two due to the huge distance between spawn locations. What they will benefit from however, are the large vein resources. However, there is an easy fix for this that I will mention in the solutions below.
So these are the main reasons why AoC will not suffer from AS MANY multiboxers as in WoW.
Now let us talk about possible ways to deal with the HANDFUL of multiboxers that DO manage to escape detection. How do we combat these people?
I came up with two solutions after reading through a few rage-filled blizzard forums.
1) Limit the no. of IDENTICAL classes per IP address. If a family were to be playing an MMO together, it is extremely unlikely that all of them will pick the same exact class. Only multiboxers do so, because they want to be able to master-control them.
2) There is an easy fix to prevent multiboxers from farming large-vein resources. Simply make large vein resource locations into PvP zones, so that players don’t gain corruption from killing other players that come to contest the resource. Because multiboxers are controlling multiple characters at once, they will not be efficient at large scale PvP. Since combat in AoC is skill dependent, this will result in an organized group of around 20 to 30 players, being able to take out 40-man multiboxers fairly easily. This will make it extremely difficult for them to consistently farm resources. If you wish to make large-vein resources less contested, you could also give players personal mines for these resources that give them a certain fixed amount of ores, on a regular basis.
I also came across 2 other solutions that players suggested:
3) Herbs, Minerals, as well as other collectibles should be made so that they can only be looted once per node by a player, per Intrepid account and per IP Address.
4) Another suggestion was to make the resource nodes, that were available to be collected in a particular region, being different for each character. So if there are x no. of nodes in a particular region, that is available for collection, it will appear in different locations for every character.
Not sure how effective 3) and 4) are at stopping multiboxing, but I put them up just in case.
So to conclude, I don’t think multiboxing will be a significant issue in AoC. Those that do manage to get through will be few and far between and won't have much of an impact on the playerbase.
4
Comments
No. It isn't. They will be extremely few and far between, so their impact on the game won't be felt in AoC, unlike in WoW.
Did you even read my entire post? I explained everything about why Multiboxing is not going to be profitable in AoC. Even if handful of them do manage to escape, i gave a few solutions that would almost completely stop all multiboxers.
You don't have to stop 100% of the population of Multiboxers, that's impossible, but you can stop 99% of them.
I have yet to see an example of how multiboxing is pay to win.
I understand that some people think this, but I have yet to see an example of it.
Also you can dodge the risk of being ganked a bit when farming monster certificates, people may summon their main character to the NPC that buys the certs.
And i think that scratches only the surface of possibilities to abuse those 2 problems of family summons and playing on multiple accounts parallel.
I agree with the other points you made though almost entirely
Excellent point. But this can easily be fixed by balancing the family system, which I'm sure Steven will as he did comment on the family summoning post. Also we will have active GMs, so players can report these afk characters as well.
As for being ganked WHILE farming monster certificates, this isn't really something that is going to be a playstyle, as this involves getting corrupted. So it doesn't matter AS MUCH if they can teleport to an npc with an alternate account because people won't be ganked that often anyways.
Its more profitable to transfer certificates through caravans, so if they do do so, then they can be ganked and obliterated.
Thankyou for the support.
Oh boy. It is definitely somewhat pay 2 win in WoW. I can't imagine what it must feel like to see 40 character boxers running around farming all your herbs, lagging your server, and oneshotting you in PvP.
That is not multiboxing, that is botting.
They are different things.
Multiboxing can be done without botting, and botting can be done without multiboxing.
These two things need to not be confused or interchanged if any discussion on this topic is to take place.
It isn't botting to Blizzard. As long as YOU'RE controlling those accounts, it is considered to be multiboxing. A player running around with 40+ characters doing everything I mentioned above, using macros/scripts, is completely OK to Blizzard.
The only reason players can report these multiboxers for, is for affecting their in game experience due to server lag. Lmao.
Did you even read my post? A large amount of these multiboxers, something like 90%, will be restricted by the nature of the game.
What I proposed are POSSIBLE solutions to handle the remaining 10%. Again, if you're going to be running multiple copies of VPNs for multiple individual PCs, then that's additional costs that they have to cover. If they don't make the money back in game, it won't be profitable to them. So yes, what you said does indirectly stop multiboxing in and of itself.
Lmao. I don't even play WoW. I just did my research. Glad to see that I managed to convince you.
If the convenience of having multiple accounts can be limited, then buying new accounts won't matter as much.
Also, I answered EVERY single one of your "exploits". Check your post.
I first started multiboxing March 2006.
The reason for it was very simple. The guild that I was in at the time took a 3 month break to play Oblivion, as did more than 50% of the games population at the time.
This drop in population hit tanks and healers the most. Literally every tank and healer in my guild didn't log on for at least 2 months, and the server in general had almost none of either left.
This meant that almost over night, groups and raids on the server (and in the game in general) basically stopped happening.
I had a healer alt that was almost - though not quite - at the level cap at the time, and a friend of mine that played a tank had left the game for personal reasons a week or two earlier. I told him about the situation, and he gave me the login infor for his account, as he knew he wouldn't ever be able to get back to the game.
So, I logged in as both a tank and a healer, and finished leveling up the healer to the cap - a time which doubled as learning how to play games on two computers at the same time (my desktop and a laptop, at the time).
By the time I had finished leveling the healer, I was more than competent in tanking and healing any group content in the game at the time, which meant we were actually able to keep running content - a point that we would have needed to spend around 6 weeks to get to if we had to level a tank and healer from the start.
While boxing to help my guild continue running content (and thus, essentially keeping the guild in existance during that period), I came to find that it was far more of a challenge to both tank and heal in a group setting than it is to just tank, or just heal, or just DPS - and I am always up for a challenge.
WIth that in mind, even once the rest of the guild came back, I kept multiboxing for the challenge of it. In that game specifically, I ended up with three accounts, though rarely actually controlled all three at once, and never multiboxed anything other than a tank and healer with other people in the group (though I did occasionally multibox DPS and healer in raids - when required).
The key thing is that there was never a time I would multibox over running a group with guild mates, as while multiboxing will always be more of a challenge (and it is, and always will be), running content with people you enjoy spending time with will always be more enjoyable over all.
While I am sure that this wasn't the answer you expected, it is the answer, none the less.
People will always find ways to circumvent the game's rules. Completely removing any notion of P2W multiboxing will likely never be possible, so it does matter that we reduce it as much as we can.
What the OP brought up is very relevant to the concerns you had in your own post and calling anyone who disagrees with you clowns is not going to result in people suddenly agreeing with you.
Exactly. He is constantly comparing AoC to Archeage. Even though Archeage and AoC share systems, they are NOT the same game fundamentally, and they are NOT being developed by the same KIND of people.
The thing is, your solution is more likely to hinder "legitimate" players in households than multiboxers, most of which will use a VPN as standard. Also, as you said, your solution is only targeted at 10% of what is already a relatively small portion of the playerbase. I'd be willing to bet you will never come across a multiboxer while playing Ashes, as the chances of it are so small.
Fortunately, Blizzard isn't developing or producing Ashes of Creation.
Almost every game developer/producer that I have asked questions of in relation to multiboxing has given me back the same reply. That reply is a verion of - This is the guideline I have always gone by, and even in games that are less strict than this, it is the guide I stick to.
Basically, if I press a button, one character that I am in control of should perform one action. No other characters should perform an action from that one button press.
It would be foolish to think that Intrepid would ever adopt a policy other than this in regards to multiboxing - just as it would be foolish to think that Blizzard would ever care to adopt any kind of policy about anything.
It should go without saying, if a player sticks to such limitations, almost all of the complaints that people have about multiboxing dry up.
Yea, exactly. I don't play wow, but I can't believe that you are ALLOWED to use software to master-control multiple accounts. Its so crazy to me, as there are so many posts on a regular bases talking about their negative experiences with multiboxing.
Thank god Blizzard isn't the one developing Ashes.
If you have the skill to play two DIFF characters simultaneously, then by all means go ahead and multibox. I doubt many people will be able to emulate that level of skill, without a lot of effort.
To me, my character getting an item on a raid is no different to someone else in my guild of a similar class getting that same item. In both cases, the raid has improved just the same.
I look at things the same with multiboxing. It isn't *mine*, it is equipment that is used to assist the people I run groups with in being able to run those groups better.
I have to say, with what I have seen of your posts on this topic with the general idea being that you think multiboxers are greedy or only in it for the money, the point of view of *my loot* that you seem to have here seems to paint you as the greedy one.
I'm sure that is not how you mean to come across, but that is the vibe I am getting.
Loot is not the point of multiboxing - and indeed it slows the acquisition of worthwhile loot down when you get closer to the end game.
It takes skill to be able to control two characters to a degree where players that don't know you are multiboxing can't tell, and think that is simply two players that always happen to play together.
Most players can't even manage to get the movement aspect of that right, let alone the combat. And once you have combat sorted, chat is the real challenge. Being able to participate in a discussion in group chat - or even world chat - as two different characters with two different points of view, both typing fast enough that people wouldn't think you are a single person... and doing that all while not getting the characters mixed up - that takes actual skill.
And an additional $15 a month.
But damn it, it is fun!
Edit; So is access to the game in general.
By your logic, is that not pay to win?
I mean, it is locked away behind a monthly subscription, which seems to be included in what pay to win actually means to you.
Actually, add another zero on the end of that.
I'm in the process of building a computer with a 3990X, 2 Quadro RTX5000's (actually still considering getting up to RTX8000's) and 256gb of ram, as well as at least 4 T2 M.2 NVMe drives - and a few other components that I need for other projects.
Edit to add - to be fair, the reason for the cost is that I am building a duel system, with a 3950 as the second system (and probably a 3080 when they are released in that system). This second system will be my actual gaming system, with the Threadripper being for some virtualisation projects I am working on - though I opted for Quadro GPU's in order to be able to multibox, should I find myself playing a game where I want to do that.
I understand what you're trying to say. You're saying that people who pay more will be able to dual control two characters and thereby have convenience in game.
But this convenience is extremely limited, due to the open world pvp nature of the game. A lot of players will be grouped up, so whilst you may have the advantage in the 1v2, it's not the case in a 2v2, as 2 different players, controlling a single character each, will almost always be more efficient than a single player controlling 2. And it only gets worse for the multiboxer, as the scale of pvp keeps increasing.
Think of a person that is duo boxing as someone who is playing with a friend. Its very likely that you will encounter groups of players in the world. It is only when the no. of characters a multiboxer is playing, is higher than the average no. of players in a group in the world, that it becomes a big problem.
But this larger scale multiboxing won't be possible simply because of Active GMs, not being able to use scripts, limiting/removing family travel etc. etc. all of which i mentioned in my post.