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
You REALLY need to chill. I said "a server" not all servers. There is nothing preventing you from playing on non restricted servers.
But addiction is a personality disorder and quite frankly I'd rather play with people that make sane decisions in their lives as my own personal opinion is that they will be that much more less toxic.
I don't want to prevent you from playing the way you want to play. But as a player I may have different needs than you, and there would be nothing wrong if the game had different servers with different rule sets and restrictions so that everyone can find a place to play that fits their values.
I still dont advocate for time locks. It sounds like a desperate attempt to make casual play compulsory to stop anyone overtaking the casual players.
Time locked servers are more likely to have people that want to play the game normally as a matter of fact. You're arguing against something that quite frankly is none of your business.
It's obvious this is not the type of server you'd play on. That's perfectly ok, but to the point of preventing their existence ?
Come on. You have nothing to win here. Seek win-win in life.
1 account = Xcharacters = 1 pc Cant be logged in on same account on 2+ pcs
In 2006-7 something like that there was update for Silkroad Online introducing european classes and we wanted to test it, only way to test it was making account for vietnamese version and we saw that whatever you buy ingame wont affect your game time, but game time was 5 hours a day.
You cant expect someone to play 3 hours and catch up with someone who is playing 14 hours a day, in other words you can...in about a year... but you really need to think what are you doing because you are spending so many time ingame just to catch up, so you need to forget about any pvp, bosses, joining good guild etc And if someone ask you, or you even ask yourself, how you enjoy this game what would you say?
And i really dont know what they are trying to achieve with this poll because:
1. Kids/people who have plenty of time to play game are already winning, with or without multibox.
2. Kids/people who have plenty of time to play game are casting their vote against multibox because they dont have second pc.
3. Kids/people who have plenty of time to play game are casting their vote for multibox because they have second pc.
4. And some of them are voting against just because they "know" multibox means cheating -.-
Honestly, what is the point? If there are hundreds of servers by all means do a time locked server.
So far I have to skip early access servers, streamer servers and time locked servers by the looks.
So long as my subscription fee maintains a normal server for me to play on I have no issues.
It is a no brainer that time locked servers will have multi accounters. The reason being they would want to maximise their productivity under such restrictions.
You do have a point. I guess Intrepid would've to find out what kind of restrictions should be put in place.
But from reading what you wrote, it seems that you agree in principles to having servers with dedicated ruleset.
Just based on what you're saying, I can see that a "no streamer allowed" server would fit your values.
So I think the Win-Win thing we can ask @Intrepid is to consider having servers with different rulesets.
And let them figure out what the different types of servers should be. To be fair, I think they'll just take an approach of one server type for all.
It's simpler to develop and to administrate. Anyways, I hope something comes out from all these conversations.
@Neurath : sorry, this was as much your business as it is mine. I just hope we can both get what we want
So just to be clear Multiboxing is when one player has two or more accounts is playing all of them at the same time. So one person controlling multiple accounts at same. That is what multiboxing means in the MMO.
So Intrepid Studioes should of said somehting like they were going to allow multiple accounts on same IP address so people from same households can play together but not multiboxing so really this IS using the wrong terminology and causing confusing.
Wait, what ?
Why would they have to specify this ?
Ashes of Creation is a mmorpg, it was obvious since the start that they would allow siblings/parents to play together.
Ever since multiboxing exist since Everquest 21 years ago, the definition of multiboxing has always been :
One player using multiple accounts, either manually or with the help of macro/bot programs.
Intrepid's current stance on multiboxing is :
-Manual multiboxing is authorized,
-Automated multiboxing is not authorized.
Edit: Realised that the maker of the video already posted the video here, but since i cant remove the post its just gotta sit here
I was going to make a comment about how the poll was phrased but I spent a day and a half reading every single comment, yes, literally every single comment, but when I went back to quote the poll, I believe it has been reworded. If it has then for fairness sake, honesty and a true read of the communities thoughts on this matter it should be retaken. I read a large number of responses where people said they were voting to accept multiboxing only because they thought they wouldn't be able to play with friends and family in the same house otherwise. The voting tally on this poll will now be skewed.
Intrepid Studios is asking the wrong question here. It's not whether multiboxing should or should not be allowed, it's whether or not multiboxing is considered a pay to win feature. Steven has stated many, many times that this game will not be pay to win and wont be pay to convenience either. So that begs the question, what is pay to win?
Pay to Win: paying real money to gain an in game advantage over other players.
Multiboxing: 1 person playing multiple characters on different accounts at the same time.
Do a web search on your own and you will find these definitions to hold true. That said now we have to examine if multiboxing is pay to win.
What benefits do you get if you multibox vs someone that does not:
1) You can level multiple characters at the same time which means you spend less time leveling in the game. ex: person A plays 1 character and takes 45 days at 6 hours a day to get to max level. Person B plays 3 characters 6 hours a day but takes 75 days to get to max level with all three. In this case person B has a very distinct advantage over person A in the amount of time saved.
2) You can farm more crafting mats in the same amount of time as a single player.
3) Roll multiple times for loot drops
4) Can level up more professions at the same time than the single player. You have extra cool downs to spend on regulated crafting abilities.
5) 1 character sitting in an auction house, 1 character running a dungeon and 1 selling goods from a cart/waiting for a spawn. You can literally be in three different places at the same time doing three different jobs.
6) In pvp the advantages are very obvious. This seemed to be one of the most pointed out and hated advantages of multiboxing.
7) Just the basic amount of gold that can be earned through regular questing rewards, selling items, killing mobs and timed saved and invested elsewhere.
I stuck to generalized advantages of multiboxing that you will find in any game and it's more than obvious that multiboxing does have a very distinct advantage over a single player. That said some notable advantages that pertain specifically to AoC (this is subject to change as this game in nowhere close to the final product) are rigged mayoral elections, node xp contribution, teleportation, caravan escort, buy multiple freeholds/houses, afk accounts taking up player slots on a full server with a queue. The advantages are many and no doubt many more advantages will become apparent when more information comes out.
As I said before we need to know if multiboxing is considered pay to win. If it is then by Stevens words it shouldn't be in the game. To anyone that reads this make sure you post your thoughts on pay to win and multiboxing. They want to hear from us to make a better game, let them know.
I was considering multiboxing for the purpose of
Monitor 1 = Main character
Monitor 2 = Seller / Auction House Mule / Crafter/Artisan
Never really multibox before - but how this game is set up with the node system and trade - I'd like to have a Seller in town making money while I am out adventuring.
I believe the issue is not with what's right or wrong, but what they can enforce. If they could ensure 1 player , 1 character, without false positives, they would.
The rules are based on what they honestly believe they can enforce.
I don't know if it's specifically Intrepid's reasoning for not allowing multi-clienting, but compared to multi-boxing on separate machines, it is much easier to find third-party software to control a second account that is simply being played in a second window.
This could be done easily in ways that would not even break the second clause of their multi-boxing views. For example, using something like AutoHotkey, you could have it set such that the Numpad keys no longer send their keystrokes to anything on the computer except for the second window in the background. This would mean you are not automating anything, you are not mimicing/broadcasting keystrokes, you are not using macros - you are simply telling Windows to not send "Numpad 1" to the foreground window, but to a background window. While this can be done between multiple different computers, there is far less software for it, and it is usually slightly trickier to get working well.
Also, in terms of time spent, while it might not always be a significant amount, it does take longer to move your hands off your primary keyboard/mouse and onto a completely separate set connected to another computer. Over time, this adds up, slightly mitigating at least one of the "pay 2 win" aspects that a lot of people state for multi-boxing.
#1: Agreed, and I applaud you for actually adding additional time for the multi-box situation. Many people seem to think it's a 1:1 ratio of time spent regardless of how many additional accounts you're running.
#2: Similar to #1. Can somewhat depend on how the gathering system is setup. If it is a simple click-to-gather mechanism, then beyond slightly more time spent clicking for each account, your efficiency increases significantly. If it is a more interactive system (for example, the Collectible gathering in FFXIV), then you may not get much benefit at all, besides possibly being able to use the same gathering node multiple times easier.
#3: I know I'm not the same as everyone, and some multi-boxers will take advantage of this, but I personally only roll for loot with one character, if I'm multi-boxing in a group. I would say that it is also at least reasonably easy to specify looting rules if you're playing with someone who multi-boxes.
#4: Mostly true, though like #2, can depend on how interactive the crafting system is. Also, many people forget that while you might be able to level multiple professions at the same time, your material cost will also be multiplied. Considering all gear in AoC is supposed to be subject to some form of wear/durability system, this could actually end up costing more in the long run, potentially.
#5: This is true. Though, just within your example, if you were focusing on the auction house with one character, your attention on your dungeoning character would be split, lowering the efficiency of both. Not always a huge thing, but like other areas of this issue, you can't really expect 1:1 gains.
#6: PvP advantages will likely be significantly lower than most people think, assuming that Intrepid's stance on the matter is enforced. Without key broadcasting and/or macroing, controlling more than one character in PvP situations is hugely inefficient. Barring something like only having a pocket healer, a 1v2 against a multi-boxer that is legitimately following the rules is probably more like a 1v1.5 at best.
#7: This is true, though again subject to a less-than 1:1 time ratio.
For the rest:
I would argue that rigged mayoral elections would not specifically be affected my multi-boxing, per se. It would just as effective if you simply owned multiple accounts, regardless of whether you actually multi-boxed them or not. Logging in and out of each individual account separately would produce the same effect. Though, I would agree that such a situation is likely less to happen if you aren't actively going to multi-box, unless having multiple accounts in general gives a large advantage.
Node XP contribution from multi-boxers could, realistically, be dealt with quite easily on the back-end of things. Having a flag on the accounts of known multi-boxers, linking them together, could reduce the effective contribution those accounts give to a node. Doesn't need to be set to remove any contributions beyond the first account, but could easily be reduced to lower the effectiveness of trying to game the system. For instance, if Intrepid gathers data to show the leveling time situation in your #1 example, that's effectively taking 1/3 of the time for the second and third accounts to reach the same level as the main. So if your group of 3 completes a quest, rather than 3x the node contribution, you instead provide 1.666x the contribution.
Even if they didn't give specific numbers for such an adjustment, as long as it was made known that this type of adjustment would take place, then no one should have an issue to complain about. Multi-boxers would know that they won't get the full contribution, so would have to decide if it's worthwhile. Non-multi-boxers wouldn't have to worry that multi-boxers will skew things in any great manner. Considering some of the things Steven has said in interviews, I would imagine that systems similar to this are already planned to be put in place to stop people from gaming the system in other situations as well.
Teleportation would still fall within the limits of the Family system, so I don't think this will be any more or less exploitable specifically by multi-boxing, beyond perhaps a player being able to specifically keep their alts in particular locations. Since there is a cooldown between leaving a Family and joining a new one, it's not like a multi-boxer could hop to an alt across the world, then join the Family of guild members, summon all of them, and have free teleporting around the world as they please.
Caravan escorting could be subject to the same reduction systems as the node XP contribution. This would also be subject to PvP being highly inefficient for multi-boxers following the rules - if I'm attacking a caravan, I would much rather that caravan be defended by 1 person multi-boxing 8 characters, than by 8 real people.
Housing is definitely going to be a big one that Intrepid will have to deal with. This could possibly be done using the above account flagging systems. In a previous post, I also gave an idea tied to providing an additional limit on housing based on Family size.
AFK accounts and server limits probably are not going to be heavily affected by multi-boxers specifically. Outside of relatively few circumstances - game launch, big patches, events, expansions, etc. - most games typically do not have regular issues with server queues. I would argue that in these situations, AFKing and additional accounts taking up server slots due specifically to multi-boxers would be minimal in comparison to regular players.
It has already been stated that your situation is not what people are against, and will be 100% acceptable.
The family that raids together stays together
I have played quite a bit of Albion Online, and I can tell you that it is indeed a huge problem for the economy. As soon as a player has a second account, he can basically get as many maxed out mastery trees as he can create alts. That means that every dedicated hardcore (later semi hardcore too) player will have every single profession maxed out, if he choses to put in the effort. First it will be limited to crafting as that takes almost no time at all to level. You simply put your crafter near the crafting station or whatever you need to craft, and deliver the materials with your second account. A little while after release people will start to have enough gold to straight up buy the supply and focus on crafting / refining, if they want to. The entire idea behind the limited ability to max out your profession mastery / skilltree, from what I understand, is to ensure that rare goods / materials stay valuable, even long after launch. And that is simply not going to happen without either
a) prohibiting multiboxing or (and)
b) restrictions to leveling alts (for example only one profession can be mastered per account).
Allowing multiple accounts from several computers is no solution, as you simply use virtual machines to work around it. To be honest, even not allowing to use accounts from the same ip can be worked around by using a vpn inside of the virtual machine. Thats what botters do too.
Best regards
Sam
Edit:
By the way, the damage to the economy is even bigger than in other mmos, as there is a fixed ammount of players on one server. While in other games the X ammount of extra accounts of the multiboxer just add to the ammount of players on the server, in this game it reduces the ammount of players at the same time by the same ammount X. Meaning that every single account that is added via multiboxing reduces the server population by one. And if you have at least a basic understanding of supply and demand you can imagine how devastating multiboxing can be to the market (for the limiting factor: rare goods). But that is only part of the problem, the entire playerdriven world suffers from having fake population, as there are less players to do real interaction like pvp or dungeons. Remember, the servers are going to be very small, with only up to 10000 players (as far as I know). Reduce the already small number by people that only play a couple of hours per week, and you have an empty server. Is that really the vision you had in mind Mr Developer?
Edit2:
The only way to ensure that your game has a working economy, a meaningfull progression system and a healthy playerbase with real population is to add an ID to every single account. I know, for many players this is a big oof, but yes taht is the only way to solve all the problems like botting goldselling mutliboxing and fake population / empty servers. I would be happy to provide my ID to the developer to finaly have a good game that I can play for a decade or more. Lost Ark will go the same route btw, and they are right to do so.
(Would solve the entire debate about a family playing from one IP as well.)
Short answer, no. Samtrump's comment has a few good points on that.
Long answer, not without a major invasion of privacy. I'm sure some people would ask that every player who buys an account be required to send in a blood DNA sample for testing by Intrepid for absolute certainty that no one is multiboxing. I'm also fairly certain no one at Intrepid wants to get that close and personal to their customers.
Someone mentioned that using multiple computers as mules is bad game design and I would incline to agree. Whales absolutely can purchase another account for additional bag space, but that wasn't my intention. I'm sure I will no doubt enjoy the luxury of additional bag and warehouse storage, though. I would also say that limiting people to a single artisan tree in order to force player interaction is bad game design. Perhaps multiple characters within the same purchased account are permitted to practice different artisan trees, but it still feels very forced and cumbersome. There'd be much less incentive for me personally to buy less accounts if these core gameplay elements were changed but I feel doing that that would upset a lot of the community looking forwards to Ashes. Can't please everybody!
Multi-boxing (even on one computer) allowed me to stop LFG forever, grind out AAs, and enjoy my increasingly limited time to play. I used to raid bleeding edge high end content and after 5+ years of that, I got worn out. Sometimes I'd even use my toons to help folks get groups going until they could fill the roles and as they found players, I'd drop a toon until I was on my current main. I mained a Mage from like 2000/1 - 2005 or 2006. Around 2003 or 2004 I started raising my Rogue and it became my main until I quit for good in like 2012. During EQ 2's early days, I played when I got fed up with EQ 1's buggy end content.
I get why some folks may not like multi-boxing, however, if we are paying whatever fees need to be paid, playing without scripts, minding our own business and, leaving you alone, why do you care? I am not touching high level or loot content (most likely) with my boxes, so what is the big deal? I can say that if I had to grind on a single toon for most of my playing career, I would have quit not long after PoP came out, maybe even GoD.
That said, I have not gamed seriously since either Forsaken World, Rift, or Tera (I forget which was my last game I played). This was around 2012 or 2013 because what I noticed is that playing the way I typically did was difficult with the way the attack/casting system worked. I could not hit attack and then tab to the spell slinger because my Rogue had way too many interactive skills that required active participation. Now that I have way too much time on my hands, I hope to return to gaming again, and, hopefully, we can multi-box on the same machine.
I suppose I just find it difficult to accept all the multi-boxing hate because it is so generalized with relation to the cons/negatives, and does not take into account the players who aside from leveling more than one character at a time (say 2-3) in nearly the same time it takes to level 1 because they do not have a lot of time to play like everyone else. It has been my experience that if you did not have a guild or a really extensive friends list, finding groups with limited time to play meant you leveled much slower. I did not join a guild in EQ 1 until I hit level 65 and then in EQ 2 the only reason I was in a guild at launch was because it was a bunch of RL friends that I played EQ 1 with. In Forsaken World, I did not have the time to dedicate to the guilds that would recruit me, because they would raid hours that I simply could not make, and then the idea of PVP was (and remains) unappealing to me. I prefer PVE.
Maybe it's pay to win, but then pretty much all mmorpgs that exist are p2w, or am I wrong?
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have it locked to 1 per person, because 99.99% of players will only have 1, and it is a slight advantage.
That being said, I've never seen it brought up really in other mmorpgs
This should be the only required post on this thread. It explains everything so well.
If someone still thinks multiboxing is not P2W after reading the quoted post, then I don't know what to say. You can literally come up with a dozen different advantages (even without automating/botting anything) you get if you multibox vs. a player who doesn't as Rhorden listed above. And there are many, many more ways.
Ask yourselves this:
Is it possible for a multiboxer to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player?
If the answer is "Yes", which it should be considering the examples provided by Rhorden, then multiboxing is P2W and shouldn't be allowed by Intrepid.
Yes yes, it can be difficult if not impossible to prove if someone is multiboxing or not, but they should still forbid in the ToS. This would deter many players from even trying and it would give Intrepid a reason to ban them IF they can somehow prove it.