Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
It's shady and benefits nobody else to run my roommate's character to the dungeon we're going to be doing tonight while she is stuck in traffic?
It's shady and benefits nobody else to use extra accounts to have staff characters in your roleplay-centric tavern?
It's shady and benefits nobody else to run a huge guild and have a squad of enforcers that make life misery for anyone that crosses you?
Oh, right, that last one is shady, and it doesn't require multiboxing at all. I can only imagine someone trying to do that as a multiboxer rather than the much more efficient and effective method of having underlings.
First, here’s why I hate multiboxing:
An MMORPG feels fake as hell when you have see behavior that indicates someone is playing two toons.
The “bot” like feel of the movement.
Worst of all, by allowing multiboxing it gives multi-clienters the perfect excuse. “I’m not multiclienting, I’m multiboxing bro!”
There are plenty of ways to bypass safeguards AoC plans against multiclienting.
The true evil of multiboxing is the CULTURE it breeds of it being “OK” to have multiclienting behavior/movement in game.
So here’s the solution. It’s really simple.
Instead of saying “no multiclienting, but yes multiboxing”, just make a rule that says “no multiclienting/multiboxing behavior”.
This EMPOWERS in game players to be able to report those who people with a trail of alts autofollowing them. It forces a lot of people who would multiclient/multibox to watch their step.
It discourages people from finding ways to gain an advantage in the economy via multiple alts.
The ideal MMORPG is one where it feels like you are living a second life in a fantasy setting.
AOC is incredibly close to obtaining this. Don’t let it be ruined by the tolerance of multiple toons from one person online at the same time.
With the solution of simply creating a policy of “no multiclient/multibox behavior allowed”, people who live in the same house can play together. Since their movements won’t look fake cuz there are actually two people.
SO your gear skill and passive's are on PVE oriented and i just give a suggestion, you PLAY BARD and all yous active passive enchantment skills are for helping and support. Why someone from guild or party of even family can't log this char and go make some minior quests or stuff. I'm not saying to make quest's on both chars, let say you need to kill mobs speak whit NPC's or more other stuff collect q items when you kill it etc...
So you will take only some buffs and passive's from this char behind you, even its ok for me if this support char don't get exp. Same for NODE's---> NODE is open you join and go you'r box can't go, coz lets say box game witch is support atm is like NON ACTIVE ACCOUNT or it will be market as BOX. May be has tittle on it when is log in, the name and above "BOX" or "Non Active Player"
And only whey to make it active is to relog or exit both games and then logg second account as first!!!
Sorry for my bad English, and thank you all for having me, Best Regards to all team of Ashes of Creation cyaa!!!
Ps.... i wont have this problem but some will... https://ibb.co/hXNsFcR
So go after and ban people using those cheats.
Baning every "type" of percieved multiboxing is unfair because most of the time its just a couple/family/friends/students on the same house playing the same game on different accounts and computers.
But at the same time if they specifically allow multiboxing on their rules, it becomes a grey area and an encouragement for cheaters. Even if they ban macros and bots.
I don't know why you're listing other examples of wrong doing, but the last one isn't shady. It is part of the game to attack someone for no reason if you feel like it. Anyway back to multiboxing, where a person is taking advantage of technology to overpower his character. Imagine if you could buy a cheat that made it so pressing the attack button would do the damage of ten other characters, or more if you pay for it. I don't want that in my game.
Secound, should the LEGIT solo player want to fight back against the CHEAT multiboxer, he has to suffer a much higher corruption penalty if he wants to try and kill the CHEATING multiboxer, while the multiboxer will only suffer the corruption penalty of one kill. How is that even remotely fair Intrepid? You need to think about these things before making a system which favours CHEATING multiboxers.
You have the time NOW to make the right decision for the wellbeing of the game, Steve promised no PAY TO WIN, so why is he even asking this question, ofcourse multiboxing of all sorts should be bannable offense.
Just because the rules permit a behavior doesn't mean it isn't shady.
Ashes of Creation is billed as a social game. Anything that is anti-social in nature is therefore a "shady" activity when measured against the spirit of the game. Crime syndicates are anti-social by nature. Running a tavern is pro-social. I don't see how you can think that the latter is shady and the former is laudable. Can you please explain how pro-social elements are "shady" in the context of a social game? And you're not allowed to fall back on "because it is against the rules" because the validity of that proposed rule is what is being debated here.
You also seem confused on what multiboxing is. There is no technology involved, well, no different than what every player has. It is running multiple accounts at once, and manually inputting commands into each of them. No bots, no scripting, no automation of any kind, just a really high APM.
Edit: posting before caffeine is bad.
The only way to detect multi-boxing is by combining IP detection with manually checking how they play and assign loot. A Multi-boxer will almost always play the same characters together and they will never split except for maybe one to sell stuff. They will also assign loot to the utmost perfection with no actual in game chat.
The biggest reason I oppose it is because it is just better to play with multi-boxing than to not. It gives advantages to people who do over a solo player. These advantages are not fair in nature though as opposed to other advantages you can get in game. There is a problem though because sometimes multiple people playing in the same room can give the illusion of multi-boxing.
It depends how accurate you guys are at detecting it as opposed to people just playing together. I just don't want instances where people get free defenses on caravans and such because a multi-boxer was involved.
U.S. East
And while I do not think they can really prevent it, there is a massive differenct between saying "we allow it" and ""officialy it is not allowed and should we find out you do it it will have consequences. but we will not restrict Ips or prevent multiple people in one houshold playing the game".
Multiboxing leaves me with multiple concerns:
The family system that allows teleportation - with multiple accounts the player could use characters of his other accounts to teleport around -> leading to a 15$ per month fast travel. Expensive buth definitly do able and 100% pay to win.
open world PvP protection. Beeing in a group will deteer other people from attacking you in the open world so someone with multiple characters in a group will have an advantage against someone who still needs to meet up with his friends or for whatever reason enters the wilderness on his own.
Buffs and other boni. Even if you do not sinultaneusly use every character you multibox on you automaticaly have a higher variety of buffs than other players.
In addition whenver your main class migth not be a good fit to fight a mob or another player you can switch out to one of your stand by characters.
If there is any way to manage multiple characters going the same way without breaking tos or beeing slower than a single character player. This involves multi character mounts, follow commands, simple pushing WASD for two characters at once,.....
a) caravan system: a mule has the capacity of 10 players and a caravan has the capacity of 10 mules (100 players) but the moment you multibox you have two or more characters. this leads to a multiboxer having the capacity of 2/100 of a caravan or 20/100 of a caravan with mules. No one, including me, knows yet how important or necessary the caravan system is but everything points in the direction of it beeing something that is extremely necessary. dumping down the need for caravans by half (5 round trips instead of ten instea of one with a caravan) is nothing short of again pay to win.
b)Harvesting resources especially veins. In the last livestream it was said that there will be large ressource veins that a single player cannot exhaust. That means if a one character player finds a vein of a material he deems valuable can then proceed to harvest one character/mule worth of resources and needs to return back to a node where he can deposit the materials, then he needs to travel back to the vein hopping that not to many players have found it by now. A multiboxer can harvest multiple times the amount of mats before needing to return.
I'm pretty sure that one could find even more reasons why multiboxing is pay to win, but every single point above alone is already a good reason to give the question a "no it is not ok" answer.
*EDIT:
Other things I have just read/thought of that speak against multiboxing and add to it beeing pay to win:
-Node development (grows with player activity, more players, even multiboxed ones = more growth)
-Voting for major
-freeholds that are restricted to one per account
-exchanging materials between your gatherer, refiner and crafter (IS said that they want this to be a social interaction between players filling these rolls)
Was saying that determining the difference between them might be a problem. Not that they are the same thing. I'm personally for multiple people playing together in the same room.
U.S. East
Absolutely, I often played with friends in the same room and getting kicked from a game because we had the same IP was absolutely idiotic.
And I surely will not hold IS accountable if they say they won't allow multiboxing and then some people still do it.
But you cannot say we have no pay to win and then turn around and allow multiple accounts for 15$ per month per account.
The only thing I don't like about multiboxing is seeing a group of characters where one is being controlled and the others are autofollowing the primary character. They are easy to spot because the follower characters usually have nonsensical names, which is even more annoying. Aside from that, multiboxing using separate physical computers is okay as long as NO third party software, KVM switches, virtualization hardware/software, or advanced scripts/macros are in use. Otherwise it allows one player play solo and do group content without ever needing to cooperate with others and form social bonds.
That's what an MMOG is supposed to be about anyway. If I wanted to play solo 100% of the time then I have an ocean of other game titles for that experience.
I would like multiboxing to be "part of the game". If there's going to be macroing and such, I would like the client to do these things to be created by Intrepid.
This would allow Intrepid to set a "time limit" on multiboxing. Maybe something like 15 hours a week.
There should also be a notion of "main player".
And only the main account should be allowed to purchase player housing and participate in node politics.
Either way, I am FOR multiboxing, but I feel that some restraints would work best for all.
Even if we can multibox from multiple PCs, nothing could be automated in any way...I'm confused by your post.
Most are against multiboxing but see that prohibiting it and enforcing it will mostly hurt players that do not multibox.
What I am really angry about are the people that just see one side of the equation or are too chicken to admit the downside.
I have not seen anyone of those who posted here and are categorically against multiboxing admitting that they accept their stance will prevent many people from playing legally or at all when multiboxing is prohibited and enforced.
Lets say I have 1.5 hours to play every night, and most content requires me to have a group, there is no group finders, I could end up spending 1.5 hours in general chat waiting to find a group.
This is not a great playing experience.
Being able to come at the game creatively in terms of how I play, and coordinating multiple characters leading to a more intense gameplay experience might be what I need.
@Neurath It was in the poll options.
U.S. East
I do not think it would be wise to allow Scripts, Expansive Macros and Automation, even for Single Accounts.
A bit tough, but it may just be needed these days!
Social Security number is (as far as I know) an USA thing and would make it impossible for people of other countries to play the game. You would need one methode for every single country if you wanted to go that way.
I do not think they should actually prevent it. Simply saying that they are against it and doing it will have consequenzes should the person be caugth is all that is necessary and all one can realistically expect.
Anything actually preventing multiboxing would either be extremely complicated (for the players), extremely intrusive (like having to give up social security numbers or allowing some insight into your pc) or extremely restrictive (stoping different people from the same houshold from playing the game).
Still, if those benefits are earned on each account, separately, without violating the currently stated restrictions then i think the benefit should be considered earned. Assuming cheating is enforced well permissible multi-boxing it's not exactly pay to win, it's pay to no life the game. No lifers will always have the advantage because they are wiling to put in more effort than most other players. If multi boxers get attacked, it would be very hard to control multiple characters simultaneous. Leaving them exposed to death and loss of raw materials, not to mention the hassle of repositioning multiple characters. Also requiring multiple computers makes this type of play a huge financial barrier for most players.
- A client side system to capture input metadata as well as metadata correlating current player input with nearby client inputs
- A server side reporting system to parse this metadata as well as other game server data to flag potential multi-boxing happening outside the allowed mechanism
- A game master toolset that allows game master to "test for multiboxing" on a specific player
- In game processes to penalize players who do unauthorized multiboxing.
This is all possible. We may not be able to tell who is multiboxing from their IPs alone ( especially since there could be multiple connections or VPNs involved ). Rather we should determine if multiboxing is happening based on the unique ways these characters are controlled.
@Intrepid : Hire me, I'll build it.
Seeing the amount of comment saying " will i be able to play with my family ? " "will i be able to play in LAN ? ". This clearly shows that those people don't understand the situation.
Multiboxing is the same person using multiple account. It's impossible that you wouln't be able to play with your family !
I think people though that was the case and voted for multiboxing and that's why the pole is skewed.
I do not understand really why lets say a guild cannot make 4 man group go pvp and be just as devasting as a multiboxer. Guessing has to do with being hit for a full bar of health at exactly the same time with no time to react. So multiboxing means one shoting. Same thing could happen with four people playing together but there is lag and it is hard to land attacks at exact time with real people.
Here is a question? Can you have multi boxing without one shoting?? Now professional teams which represent a small percentage of popualtion coordinate abilities so they hit very close to same time and are devasting. But with multiboxing it happens at exactly the same time which is a huge advantage or in a nutshell one shotting people. Think most video game companies allow this for financial reasons.
Do see how a game desinger would allow one shoting in PvP and call it balanced.