Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
If you want the simplest answer, then yes, multi-boxing does give an advantage.
To what extent it gives an advantage is something that will determine whether it is pay-2-win or not, and this is something that cannot be known until way further along in development of the game. It will also depend heavily on what information Intrepid actually releases as far as any limiting systems put in place towards multi-boxing. Given some of the examples that I have posted, I believe it is entirely possible to heavily limit the vast majority of benefits multi-boxing could give, particularly those that could be deemed more of the pay-2-win variety.
Realistically speaking, you will never be able to eliminate all of the advantages that multiple accounts will provide, even in the event that multi-boxing, specifically, is not allowed. There is no real effective method to stop people from having multiple accounts, particularly not without being unfair to and upsetting the entire playerbase - barring a game that is only available in certain regions of the world. Thus, even if multi-boxing specifically is not allowed, simply having multiple accounts would provide some sort of a pay-2-win advantage. Even if this is as simple as having a second account to mule items, or something of the sort.
People need to stop focusing on a simple "multi-boxing is P2W!" argument, and focus more on how specific advantages can/should be limited by the developers. People complaining just because they find something "unfair" is not useful at all; everything in life inherently has components that are going to be unfair to people. Instead of complaining, and categorically denying something that is effectively impossible to stop, people need provide ideas to the developers to try and mitigate any "unfairness," whether real or perceived.
If you read my reply to his post, I provide examples of how most of the advantages of can be mitigated. In addition, towards the end of my post, I go into more detail how simply having multiple accounts - NOT multi-boxing, just owning multiple accounts - provides many of the same advantages. And owning multiple accounts is not something that can be realistically prevented.
As well, let's turn your question to the side a bit, and ask some other questions:
Is it possible for someone with a better computer to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player? If the answer is "Yes," then having a better computer is P2W and shouldn't be allowed.
The answer to this question is "Yes"; particularly in a game that relies fairly heavily on PvP, higher frame rates and better overall performance can provide significant advantages. Thus, people who have the ability to buy/build a high-end computer shouldn't be allowed to play the game, unless they get a crappier computer.
Is it possible for someone with a really good internet connection to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player? If the answer is "Yes," then having a good internet connection is P2W and shouldn't be allowed.
The answer to this question is "Yes"; latency can be a huge factor in both PvE and PvP performance in an MMO. Not everyone has access to good internet, or can afford the monthly cost associated with better connections. Should people with 1 Gbps internet connections not be allowed to play, because some players will only have access to 5-10 Mbps connections?
And for the last question, let's do a slightly sillier question, but still has as much validity as either of the above:
Is it possible for someone who bought a more expensive Kickstarter package, and will have access to the alpha and/or beta tests to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player? If the answer is "Yes," then purchasing a more expensive Kickstarter package is P2W and shouldn't be allowed.
The answer to this question is, once again, "Yes." Having access to the alpha/beta tests will allow players to get hands-on access and information beyond what normal players will have. Even if much of the information is released via the wiki, or content creators, or other methods, these players will still have first-hand experience with the game, which gives them an advantage. Thus, following the same logic as before, players who purchased more expensive Kickstarter packages shouldn't be allowed to play the game.
Now, yes, I will admit that these examples are all kind of silly. The problem is they follow the exact same logic that many people use again multi-boxing. Simply declaring something is pay-2-win is not helpful, because literally anything can be determined to be pay-2-win in some manner or another.
Being logged in with multiple accounts at the same time however is something every player can decide not to do if it's against the ToS. And if it's against the ToS, other players can then report suspicious behaviour and the GMs can have a look. Sure, it STILL might not be possible to prove multiboxing in all cases but it would for sure make people think twice before risking their accounts.
I can't think of any reason why they shouldn't include something like "Each player is allowed to only be logged in with one account/character at a time" in the ToS. Why would anyone need multiple characters logged in if not for some kind of an advantage?
I would argue that it's exactly the same situation, though. Some people that have worse internet connections don't have them because that's the only connection available in their area, they have a slower connection because of cost. It would be rather dumb to do so, but a game developer likely could place limits in the netcode to make it so that the servers would only transfer data at slow speeds, so that people with better connections wouldn't have an advantage.
I'll give you an anecdote. I live in a mountainous region in the US. Prior to about 6 months ago, the best internet connection in my area had a maximum speed of 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up. There were 4 ISPs in my area: 1 cable, 1 DSL, 2 satellite, and out of those 4 options, that was the absolute best I could get. The cable company finally did some network upgrades, enabling speeds up to 100 Mbps down. The monthly cost for the new max speed was basically double the cost of the original 10 Mbps plan. Could I afford the high speed plan? Yes. Did I find it worthwhile to upgrade? No. I live alone, so 95% of the time, the 10 Mbps plan works fine, since I'm the only one that uses it. But any time there's a hiccup, the speeds drop significantly lower. This often can affect my performance in a game, even a slower MMO like FFXIV (which is the primary one I play right now). This will likely have an affect in AoC when it releases, if I still have the same internet plan.
In my circumstance, the 100 Mbps plan would definitely be "pay-2-win" by the reasoning most people use. But, I would never expect a game developer to limit speeds so that my crappy internet connection has exactly the same experience that someone using a 1 Gbps connection does.
Now, I am 100% for limiting any pay-2-win aspects of a game directly within a game itself. There should never be any pay-2-win options available in a cash shop, for example. I honestly don't care for cash shops in any game that isn't completely free-2-play, but that's another discussion.
Aspects of things being pay-2-win that are outside the game get trickier, but I also agree that they should be limited within reason. Multi-boxing with no restrictions? I will agree that that would fall within the pay-2-win category, sure. Multi-boxing with the restriction of not using any software to automate actions or mimic keystrokes removes the vast, vast majority of any advantages that multi-boxing provides that would negatively affect other players - massive PvP advantages from multiple characters casting at the same time, highly efficient gathering/crafting, etc.
Does that one restriction remove these advantages completely? No, not by itself. That is why I advocate for other back-end restrictions being put in place so that certain game systems can't be exploited. However, a lot of the issues that people seem to have with multi-boxing are not strictly issues with multi-boxing, but issues with having multiple accounts in general. Which, as I have stated before, is not something that can realistically be stopped effectively without negatively affecting nearly everyone playing the game.
You say that players could report "suspicious behavior," and GMs can look at the situation. Let me give you a situation: A husband and wife both play the game, and each have their own account. 95% of the time, these two players only play with each other. But sometimes the husband is at work, and his account has some crafting materials that the wife needs, so she logs into his account to transfer materials. Some other player that is super against multi-boxing has taken note of these two characters, and reports them. The GMs take a look, and see that they are almost always logged in at the same time, they rarely interact with other people, and they often trade between themselves. The GM decides that the report of the two accounts multi-boxing is accurate, and bans them. Would this be fair? Nominally speaking, what is different about this situation compared to someone actually running two accounts by themselves, outside of the 1-2% of the time the wife logged into her husband's account to transfer materials?
If that's a bit too simple, imagine the same scenario, but this husband and wife now also has 3 kids. The kids all have their own accounts, but they are only allowed to play the game when their parents are playing. Now there's 5 characters all running around together. Much easier for someone to spot and report for "suspicious behavior." Should all 5 of these accounts be banned? Why would this situation be different than one person running 5 accounts, at a much, much lower efficiency than this family?
I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm genuinely asking for an answer, something besides "But that's obviously pay-2-win!" If the multi-boxer can't broadcast keystrokes, and has to control each character separately, what difference is there between this example family and a multi-boxer that is SO huge that it shouldn't be allowed?
1. Buy best item
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My argument for this is that it's not practical to start limiting framerates / network packet rates so that everyone gets the same experience. In theory it's the same thing but in practice it's everything but.
Why not include a restriction in the ToS then because that will remove even more potential multiboxers with bad intentions? This is basically all I'm asking
You make some good points and like I said earlier, proving someone is multiboxing is difficult if not impossible. That still doesn't mean it should be "encouraged" by not forbidding it in the ToS in my opinion. Also as a side note, account sharing should not be allowed either
But if you can find someone running around with 10 people on follow mode while only one of them is actually doing anything for a prolonged period of time, you can bet your ass that's not a family of 11 actual people following one character around if they all are connected from the same IP. Should at least be worth an investigation.
The difference is, the person with multiple accounts logged in at the same time DOES have an advantage no matter how small compared to a player with only one account. I don't think the magnitude of the advantage should be a factor here. If allowing something is potentially bad for the game, why allow it at all? It's a simple thing to add to the ToS.
I'm also genuinely looking for an answer to the question "Why SHOULD multiboxing be allowed?". Something besides "Because it can't be monitored/proved anyway".
I think we basically want the same thing which is a good, well-balanced and FAIR game, but we're a bit stuck on technicalities here. I just hope there's as little P2W features as possible because I'm sick and tired of them.
i personally don't want any multiboxing under any circumstance.
It might not be practical, and it wasn't really meant to be "serious" idea. The point is more geared towards people who are saying "ANY form of pay-2-win needs to be eliminated!" If you want ANY form of it gone, then something like this would necessarily have to be dealt with.
From my perspective, all three of these stem from the same issue, in that many of the examples people give for advantages for multi-boxing, are not specific to multi-boxing itself, but are in reality advantages for having multiple accounts in general. The aspect of multi-boxing itself doesn't really add much on top of simply having multiple accounts. Owning multiple accounts, in and of itself, is not something that can realistically be curtailed.
Yes, there are advantages to multi-boxing - I have never stated otherwise - but I have provided numerous examples of how these advantages could be mitigated. Many of these examples (or, at the least, similar ideas) will need to be put in place by Intrepid to mitigate having multiple accounts.
While disallowing multi-boxing completely and adding such to the ToS could work, from my own personal experience multi-boxing in games, it would actually be more difficult to enforce properly, and have a much greater chance of false-positives. You would often have to rely purely on subjective data to enforce bans in more difficult cases.
With their current stance of allowing the practice itself, but disallowing automation and key broadcasting, they have a clear-cut criteria for banning people that break the rules. Checking for something like key broadcasting would be something that could be easily done in an objective manner (relying on hard input data gathered by the server), meaning bans for such things could be done without many false positives.
Would there be some objective data in the first situation? Sure. But in both situations, blatant violations of the rules would be simple cases to deal with. It's the more difficult cases in either situation that you need to think about.
For your last point, specifically, the magnitude of the advantage is 100% a factor in this type of discussion. Saying that it isn't is basically going back to the "ANY advantage should be removed" arguments.
If you want another slightly-silly but still valid example of this: I use a Logitech G600 mouse and a G13 gamepad. Both of these require the use of the Logitech Gaming Software to function. This software has the ability to assign multiple actions to buttons. Since this could potentially provide an advantage, and is a third-party software, should anyone using the software get banned? If someone assigns multiple actions to a button, then sure, they're breaking a part of the ToS. How about if they DON'T assign multiple actions to buttons? Technically, they're still breaking the ToS by using third-party software to interact with the game.
Many peripherals use software like this. Should anyone using Logitech, Razer, or any other peripheral that REQUIRES these types of software be banned out of hand, simply because they have the potential to be abused? How about anyone that uses Discord or other voice chat while playing the game? They are using third-party software which can provide a direct benefit in the game.
A slightly more complicated example that I personally will have to deal with, and eventually I might try and get an answer from Steven for: Logitech mice are notorious for developing a double-click issue over time, due to the microswitches being... not the best in the world. For years, I have used an AutoHotkey script to deal with the issue, when the rest of the mouse works perfectly fine. The ONLY thing this script does is detect how fast clicks occur, and if two clicks are detected that are within certain limits (i.e. they are inhumanly fast), the script will only allow a single click event to be sent. This is most definitely a piece of third-party software that I will likely have to use sometime during the time I am actively playing AoC. And AutoHotkey can definitely be used to do many things that would absolutely break the ToS. Should I get banned for using this script, when it does nothing except rectify a hardware issue?
I think my best answer to this was stated above, in that by allowing it with restrictions, the developers would have specific criteria to deal with it objectively, and they would have the ability to build in systems to mitigate many of the advantages that it could have.
Beyond this, my next best answer would probably be that not everyone that multi-boxes does it for any potential advantages in the they. They do it for the challenge it can provide. For example, maybe you like to solo things in MMOs. In most MMOs, though, soloing content like dungeons isn't often feasible with a single character. By multi-boxing, you can effectively solo some dungeons. It won't be as efficient as running those dungeons with other players, and it will usually be significantly more difficult trying to do it while multi-boxing - particularly if you are following Intrepid's rules, controlling each character separately and not using any type of key broadcasting. Sure, you might be able to get all the loot yourself this way, not having to roll for it with other people, but your also likely running the content 2 or 3 times slower - if not more - than a group of normal players. And even within a situation like this, it would be possible for Intrepid to mitigate this "advantage" even further, by lower the amount of loot dropped for known multi-boxers.
@Aeri
Here you state that multiboxing does give an advantage and that's what I would like to see the community determine as a group. However you did point out that that it is unclear how much of an advantage because the game still has a long way to go until it's release. I fully agree with that. In other games the amount of advantages multiboxing gives varies considerably. The reason I am posing this pay to win question is that Steven has long said that this game will NOT be pay to win. If multiboxing is universally agreed as a pay to win mechanic then by Stevens words it should not be allowed in this game at all and the conversation about multiboxing being allowed or not is a dead subject. At that point it is up to Intrepid Studios to back their word and do everything they can to stop multiboxing. I do agree that it will be a monumental task to stamp it out but this is the idea the game was sold on, this is the band wagon that people jumped on. We have enough game companies, roughly 99%, that frequently walk back their claims and change course midstream.
To answer your question that was turned to the side "Is it possible for someone with a better computer to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player? If the answer is "Yes," then having a better computer is P2W and shouldn't be allowed."
The easy and factual answer is no. You may have paid real money to get the best rig possible, on the biggest fastest screen possible to give you all the advantages possible but it is not pay to win because you are not buying those advantages from Intrepid Studios. The ONLY thing you are getting from Intrepid Studious is the game itself. The exact same game that is played by everyone else. However if you are allowed to multibox then you have the same game duplicated many times which means your gains in the game are duplicated and therefor the playing field is no longer even.
This same answer applies to your internet comparison. Internet is not what Intrepid Studios is providing.
You also said "Is it possible for someone who bought a more expensive Kickstarter package, and will have access to the alpha and/or beta tests to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player? If the answer is "Yes," then purchasing a more expensive Kickstarter package is P2W and shouldn't be allowed."
This had occurred to me as I was reading the 600+ posts in this thread but after I considered it for awhile and looked at Intrepid Studious stance on how this information is going to be available I'm not convinced it is pay to win.
1) You gain absolutely no in game advantage as far as gear, housing, etc. Everything in the package is cosmetic only. (To be fair I HATE cosmetic packages. I feel if I am paying for a game I should get the whole game, not just the average stuff while the really good looking stuff is locked behind a pay wall. This is bullsh*t!)
2)They are allowing people to do the testing with no NDAs which means there will be lots of streaming content to watch even if you aren't in the alpha or beta. You will see everything they see, hear everything they hear and learn everything they learn. At that point they have no advantage over anyone.
3)Everything they do in alpha or beta will be wiped. They will not keep anything from it so on day 1 of the actual release they will be starting out fresh just like everyone else.
The only true advantage I can see the testers having is they will know how to set up their keybindings, adjustments, etc and but I don't think anyone would consider that pay to win. As far as them having first hand experience, I wont disagree with that but when this is streamed and everyone can watch, I fail to see any advantage they can glean that a watcher could not.
As I stated before, there were a lot of people in this post that said they did not like the idea of pay to win and I feel multiboxing is pay to win which is why I asked this question. If the community feels the same then multiboxing should be made against the rules by Intrepid Studios and they should take the necessary steps to stop it as much as possible. Without having extremely intrusive programs I don't see how it could be stamped out 100% but they do have the ability to take realistic actions that would ultimately lower the number of multiboxers are great deal.
The problem is, designating something like multi-boxing as pay-2-win isn't nearly as simple as people try and make it. It's not like adding an item to the cash shop that increases experience gain, or how much you can gather at a time, any number of other examples that blatantly fall into that category. Too many people look at this issue along the lines of "I can't afford a second computer, so no one else should be able to do this!" without actually delving down into specifics. Without looking at specifics, you can't provide any actual arguments for OR against the issue. Simply saying you don't like something, or that it's pay-2-win, without providing any specific details isn't a real argument.
By paying money to get the best rig possible, the biggest, fastest screen possible, and the best internet connection possible, you are "paying to win," if you use the logic of many people advocating against multi-boxing.
I personally do not consider any of those pay-2-win. But they are valid examples of extrapolating the logic used by others.
I get where you're coming from with this, but I will reiterate, I have already provided ideas on how to mitigate these advantages. If the advantages are mitigated, then the argument essentially becomes moot, because then the advantages would be gone, or at least nearly so.
This is another example of extrapolating the extremely simplistic logic other people use against multi-boxing. Hands-on experience in the alpha/beta tests will not be the same as watching a streamer, or YouTube videos, or reading the wiki, so the testers will have an advantage. Since it's an advantage, it should not be allowed.
Like above, I don't myself consider this to be pay-2-win. But if people want to accept such simple logic for their arguments, they necessarily have to accept that same logic being applied to all situations. It's quite silly, but that just shows how silly their original arguments - or lack thereof - really are.
There is one set of words in this paragraph that says things best: If the community feels
Labeling something as pay-2-win based off feelings isn't a winning argument. I realize you may not have said that exact phrase of words in the same meaning, but unfortunately, a large number of posts against multi-boxing are simply that: feelings, with no real, concrete arguments.
I will admit that I haven't read every single post in this thread, but out of everything I have read, I have not seen a single argument against multi-boxing that I have not been able to come up with an idea to mitigate. If someone does, assuming that no one else provides a reasonable suggestion towards mitigating any advantages that argument brings, then I would gladly change my stance.
1) They should be watching for accounts that frequently run together and attack in the same patterns such as this person always does X attack when the other person does Y action. Accounts that make the same movements very close to the same time should be looked into.
This type of monitoring should be able to pick up the 1 healer and 4 dps combo that one shot people.
2) Follow the money and mats. The vast majority of the time, in my experience, people multibox for an advantage in farming, selling and gold production. Watch for large transfers or accumulations of any of those. If accounts are flagged then scrutinize those accounts. If they show they are acquiring a lot from just a few accounts then look deeper.
Doing this will determine if someone if getting far more mats in a specific time frame than they should.
3) Do not allow macros or following. Yes it will be an inconvenience to parents with young kids that have to step away or people that have to afk for long periods at a time but ultimately if you are in a group doing that the bigger inconvenience is to the group.
The other side of that is the existing hardware. You can get hardware right now that will send signals to different computers just like you pushed a key for that computer alone. You wont be able to detect if people are using these units by having background programs look for it. This is where step 1 comes into play.
4) Registration. Not the I.D., passport, SSN# idea. Although the intention was in a good place it isn't reasonable to to execute that. The liability factor alone if Intrepid Studios got hacked is enough to shelf that idea.
I'm talking about all accounts to the same IP have to be stated as what they are. Joint accounts where there are spouses or parents pay for the children or some other example of a joint account that I can't think of at the moment. Those accounts would stay linked permanently but now you know those accounts are linked and you know where the money comes from. Randomly do a screening of those accounts as stated in the second example. If roommates are going to play then they declare they have their own accounts separate from everyone else. They would be at the same IP but separate accounts and would allow these accounts to go their separate ways in the future. Again with this you do random screening of the accounts to look for patterns.
5) Payments. No hidden payments, No paying for other peoples accounts. The person listed as the account holder must be the one paying the account. The account holders name must be the one on the bank account or credit card. There are a myriad of reasons people will come up with to say this is an inconvenience, but really, if you took the time to make your account your own then it isn't a problem to pay for your own account.
6) Active Gms, in game reporting (not the trash crap WoW had), reporting rewards and behind the scenes manpower that is checking everything.
7) Banning. In the military there is a term called "getting smoked". It means you screwed up and you now have to pay the piper. Most of the time, unless you are a special kind of stupid, your squad gets smoked with you. You are a team. You work together, you live together, do good things together and pay the punishments together. If someone is caught breaking the rules then all accounts paid by that person or linked to that IP are held accountable and temporarily froze until investigated.
VMs, mimicked keystrokes, cell phone hots spots, running multiple IPs, scripts, etc. The list goes on and on of ways to get around security and game protocols. There are ways to detect a lot of this but it is determined by how much they are willing to bloat the programming to ensure people aren't cheating. For the rest of it, that's where multiple measures take place so things are cross checked to find people trying to do workarounds. I don't believe you can stop multiboxing or cheating but the measures suggested would stop the vast majority from even trying.
Shop doesnt offer any p2w items.
You play only 1 character at a time, you dont have 4 hands or do you?
If you see 10 people following 1 guy, do you really think that there would be 11 people attacking monster or only 1?
Many mmorpgs support multiboxing (software and/or hardware) and i dont see any huge discussion on their forums. Now maybe (yea this is maybe part) because this is new game people doesnt want someone to have 2 accounts on 2 pcs because these people doesnt have 2 pcs? or maybe these people play over 80 hours a week and dont want any competition, or maybe they think multiboxing is cheating because of XY reason.
For me the quality of the game comes from having a very well working economy, and the multiplied acquisition rate from multiboxing (even multi accounting) does harm the economy in a really bad way, in this game in particular. The reason for that is the mastery of professions, besides the obvious increased item acquisition because of multiboxing (left allone botting on multiple accounts...).
The vision of the developer was to limit the accessibility of the rarest and most powerfull goods by not allowing to have more than one mastered profession. To clarify that, in his FAQ he made that clear, it is not my idea, it is the idea of the developer, and I love it.
Now there are hurdles to level alts and master their profession, e.g. it is apparently not possible to store unprocessed goods (correct me if I am wrong about it), so you cannot simply store the unprocessed goods and log on your alt and start crafting, right? You can have a seccond account tho, sitting at the crafting station to wait for your main character to bring him the crafting incredient. That means that at some point (maybe 1 year from launch, maybe 2, maybe just a month in), there will be an overflow of rare goods. And that combined with the multiplied acquisition rate of items due multiboxing (not gonna say the evil b. word) and the decreased actual population because of multiaccounting will have a very harmfull effect on the economy.
And as you can see in this discussion, there is a very high interest in multiboxing, or how do you explain the epic monumental walls of text of some people to explain why it is "OK" to multibox?
Having to use several computers to have multiple accounts does solve nothing by the way, all you need to do is to install a virtual machine, then install a vpn inside of that virtual machine (in case they decide to limit the ammount of accounts you can have on one ip), and you can run as many accounts as your computer can handle.
I am a nolifer, I am a multiboxer, and yet to protect the game that I see the most potential in of em all, I am voting against multiboxing.
I had copy/pasted the wrong line and didn't catch it until you had replied. What you were replying to,
Rhorden wrote: »
To answer your question that was turned to the side "If you want the simplest answer, then yes, multi-boxing does give an advantage."
The easy and factual answer is no. You may have paid real money to get the best rig possible, on the biggest fastest screen possible to give you all the advantages possible but it is not pay to win because you are not buying those advantages from Intrepid Studios. The ONLY thing you are getting from Intrepid Studious is the game itself. The exact same game that is played by everyone else.
...
This same answer applies to your internet comparison. Internet is not what Intrepid Studios is providing.
What it was meant to be,
To answer your question that was turned to the side "Is it possible for someone with a better computer to gain ANY (no matter how small) advantages over a normal player? If the answer is "Yes," then having a better computer is P2W and shouldn't be allowed."
The easy and factual answer is no. You may have paid real money to get the best rig possible, on the biggest fastest screen possible to give you all the advantages possible but it is not pay to win because you are not buying those advantages from Intrepid Studios. The ONLY thing you are getting from Intrepid Studious is the game itself. The exact same game that is played by everyone else. However if you are allowed to multibox then you have the same game duplicated many times which means your gains in the game are duplicated and therefor the playing field is no longer even.
This same answer applies to your internet comparison. Internet is not what Intrepid Studios is providing.
This would already generally be against the ToS using their current stance on multi-boxing. The only way to do something like making 4 characters quickly one-shot people is to use third-party software for key broadcasting or the like. Unless you are some sort of absolute god, manually controlling 4 characters to target and attack one person in PvP, without using third-party software, would not be nearly what people seem to make it out to be.
Doing this one a bit out of order. Unless Intrepid adds a built-in system for macros within the game itself, like above, utilizing macros through third-party software would already break the stated rules.
I would be 100% fine if they didn't have a follow option. That, along with the rules already set forth by their stance on the issue, would basically nullify the vast majority of issues, since pretty much the only ways around this would be to utilize third-party tools.
#4 could produce issues for apartment buildings, or other situations where you might share an IP and have no direct relation to other players.
For the rest of that section, I would be fine with Intrepid somehow linking known multi-boxing accounts together. This was actually included in one of my earlier ideas to allow them limit additional loot and whatnot in game that multi-boxing could provide.
#5 wouldn't work, period. Not everyone has a credit card, or any payment method that they themselves keep. I personally have used my credit card to pay the sub fee for one of my ex's accounts on a game, because she only had a debit card and that wasn't a valid form of payment.
These are all examples of ways to catch or deal with multi-boxers, but aren't really arguments against it in any fashion.
In basically any MMO I have played, beyond a simple "It is/isn't allowed," the developers have done virtually nothing to actually mitigate the impact that multi-boxing can have. Besides outright banning the worst offenders (if even that, sometimes), they put little-to-no measures in place that would limit the amount of resources a multi-boxer could gain within the game. In my eyes, by doing so, the negative impact that multi-boxers provide to a games' economy is entirely on the developers.
As to Intrepid's view on mastering the professions, unless I am understanding things incorrectly, as it currently stands, you will be able to master all of the professions using 3 characters total. This will, however, take a significant amount of time and resources to accomplish. Multi-boxing could make this faster - how much faster would depend entirely on what the crafting/gathering systems actually end up like, mechanics-wise - but overall it likely won't provide much if any advantage over simply using 2 alt characters to cover the two artisan paths that your main character doesn't take.
Is this intended? Unintended? Are the developers considering this possibility and avenue of abuse?
It is not entirely certain at this time what gameplay advantage a freehold may provide, or what incentives a player might have to acquire multiple freeholds, but if this possibility isn't under consideration by the developers I think that is cause for concern.
Even in the case that the benefits of owning additional freeholds diminish severely when you already have one, one can imagine a player who pays for multiple accounts attempting to claim multiple freehold plots for themselves just to sell the extra plots to other players.
It may be difficult to detect and moderate this kind of abuse of the system, if the developers do indeed consider it a kind of abuse, but does that mean it should simply be accepted and allowed? Should Intrepid not even try to tell players not to abuse the system in these ways?
Regardless of the ultimate decision on multiboxing, if it changes at all, I feel that there should be concrete rules regarding gameplay system abuses related to owning multiple accounts.
Simple,
TIME - Just level up 1 guy and put the others on follow. The xp gains wont be as much but ultimately you will level up 2 or more character faster than I could if I leveled one at a time.
GATHERING - If nodes such as ore or herbs can be picked by multiple people at the same time then my single player will only get X amount while your 2 - 8 characters will get the same amount multiplied by the number of characters you have following you.
STORAGE SPACE - If storage is limited to a number of spaces, take your characters bag space for example, then you would effectively have much more bag space than I would if you are multiboxing. Meaning I have make more trips back to drop off my items and make room.
PVP - If I have 1 character and you have your main plus 4 followers is that a fair fight? Lets say you only decide to fight with one guy. I kill it and now attack your others. You grab your other keyboard and we go at it 1v1 again. Lets say I win again. What are my chances of killing all 5 of your guys before you kill me?
Lets turn the tables around. I had a demonhunter in WoW and my best fight was me vs 5 of equal level. I won that fight by the skin of my teeth. Do you really think you would stand a chance if I was rolling around with my demonhunter and 4 copies in tow?
Now consider the multiboxer wants to kill you but one of his guys is a healer and every couple of seconds he reaches over and pushes 1 healing button on the other keyboard. What are your odds?
LOCATION - I use to run dungeons on one guy and sit the other at an auction house. The dungeons either went fast and I got back to my auction house or we had wipes and I would check the auction house during wipes. Try doing that with a solo account. And yes, I made plenty of transactions during wipes in dungeons and raids.
Mayoral elections, single freehold per account, node xp contribution plus what I have listed above will give you a distinct and very large time and money earning advantage over the person running a single account. Everything I have listed is something you can do just by owning a second account, no extra hardware or software needed. That's how multiboxing is pay to win.
The reason you don't see multiboxing discussions on other game forums is because they allow it and there's nothing to be discussed. This game is new and they want the players to add their opinions on what should be in the game.
One of the ideas I posed in an earlier post was to limit Freehold ownership both by account as well as the Family system. If someone with multiple accounts wanted to have multiple Freeholds, they would have to choose between keeping all of them in a single Family and being able to claim fewer Freeholds, or splitting them up into multiple Families and possibly being able to claim more Freeholds.
If a system is put into place to link the accounts of known multi-boxers together, this system could also limit any linked accounts to a lesser number of Freeholds than the normal 1-per-account limit - even down to limiting those linked accounts to a single Freehold.
There would be definitely ways to solve this problem, assuming Intrepid does consider it a problem. It's entirely possible they might leave it alone to give people more incentive to actively siege areas with Freeholds in order to destroy them and open the spots for other players.
Talking about Multiboxing too
For the people that lack the intelligence to detect sarcasm: at second 39 hes being sarcastic, just in case some of you guys dont get it. HF
Another decent video on multiboxing in Ashes of Creation
Although this wasn't directed at me, still going to provide a rebuttal, since most of these I have answered previously.
Going to make a simple premise, to make things a bit easier: Intrepid designs a system to detect and link known multi-boxer accounts together, this will be SystemX.
Time: SystemX applies a negative multiplier to any XP gained to each of the multi-boxers' characters. This multiplier could be set at whatever Intrepid feels is fair. Want to run with a full 8-character multi-boxed party? Your group now receives 25% of the baseline XP you would normally gain. Will all 8 characters overall level faster than someone leveling 8 separate characters? Sure, but not anywhere close to 8x as fast.
Gathering: Two ways to deal with this. First is that SystemX limits what linked accounts could gather. Rather than being able to gather the same node 8 times, you can now only gather it 3 times. Bit of an advantage? Sure, though getting each individual character into position and clicking will take more time than doing it on a single character.
Second way would be to make the gathering system interactive. For reference, something similar the Collectible Gathering in FF14. You have to actively use skills for this, so beyond any time saved by having multiple characters in the same area, you get no real advantage. This would also not be mutually exclusive with the SystemX method above.
Storage Space: This could potentially be an issue, but it depends on exactly how easy or difficult it is to actually fill your bags up. The longer you can stay out in the world, on average, before filling your inventory will determine what kind of advantage this could give. If it takes 3-4 hours to fill your bags, but normal questing or whatnot tends to get you back into a town every hour, then there's no real effective benefit.
Depending on how limited things like warehouse storage are (assuming they are limited at all), beyond simply logging onto a second account to mule items, this could also be of very limited benefit compared to simply owning multiple accounts.
Due to some items dropping on death, this could potentially end up as a negative in some ways due to below.
PvP: PvPing while legitimately multi-boxing according to Intrepid's rules will be hugely inefficient. Targeting and attacking someone using multiple characters, without the aid of third-party software, is extremely difficult, especially when you consider that a big portion of this game will use action targeting.
According to your own example, you 1v5'd a group in WoW. I assume that was 5 separate players, but even if it was a multi-boxer, WoW's rules towards multiboxing are pretty lax. Yet you were still able to kill multiple other players of the same level by yourself. That basically defeats your argument. Someone running around with a pocket healer in PvP could be troublesome, yes. But it would still be significantly less effective than if it was two normal players, if one was a healer.
If a group of multi-boxed characters runs up on you and effectively one-shots you by casting all at the same time? Report them. They are likely breaking the rules as laid out by Intrepid's stance on multi-boxing, and could be banned.
To add to the last part of the Storage Space section, when you kill someone in PvP, a portion of their items drop. Legitimate multi-boxing is far less efficient than only focusing on a single character. If you decide to attack a multi-boxed group of characters, you could potentially walk away with a significant amount of loot. Even if you weren't able to kill all of their characters and ended up dying in the end, if you were able to pickup what their characters dropped, you could easily come out ahead. Alternatively, gather a group of friends and have a very easy fight against a multi-boxer, and reap the rewards.
Location: This could perhaps be a concern. But I would argue that it would be little different than a family all playing the game separately. Dad could be running a dungeon, and he uses his last potion. He then yells for his kid that's in a city crafting to check the auction house and buy him another stack.
Either way, since you can't mail items to other characters, you'd still have to have the character in the dungeon actively come back to town to retrieve any items, or have the character in town trek out to the dungeon to deliver them.
Advantage? A bit, yes, but very minor. Splitting your attention is never going to be as effective as focusing on one or the other.
Mayoral elections: Multi-boxing on its own provides no additional benefits for this beyond what simply having multiple accounts would. According to the wiki, the election process will have a duration of one week, so you would have plenty of time to log on and off each account and vote.
Freeholds: SystemX limits linked accounts to owning only a single Freehold.
Node XP Contribution: SystemX limits the amount of XP linked accounts can provide for node contribution.
By your own admission, everything you listed is available simply by owning a second account. Even though that isn't quite true (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here), at the very least, legitimately multi-boxing in AoC quite possibly will require extra hardware - namely, a second computer - depending on whether or not Intrepid gives anything concrete in regards to VMs.
I would also argue that most other games do not actually specifically prohibit multi-boxing within their ToS. They prohibit the use of any third-party software from interaction with the game. This, effectively, provides the same effect from a legal standpoint in their ToS. Trying to get wording in the ToS to disallow multi-boxing in all its forms would be extremely tricky and likely also cause a large number of legitimate players to break the ToS.
They might make their stance on the issue via things like official forums and whatnot that multi-boxing is not allowed, however. Once they do, the topic is generally closed and not talked about as much.
It's not exactly difficult to disallow individual players from, say, intentionally accessing more than one copy of the game client at the same time. Or alternatively, intentionally owning multiple active accounts simultaneously.
Enforcement is a different question, but simply declaring such rules if they are deemed necessary isn't all that complicated. Plenty of online services out there have similar policies.
This is exactly right. It should be expressly stated in the rules that an individual can not play on more than one account at the same time, period. The matter of enforcement difficulty, or lack thereof, is not the issue here. It's about the principle of Intrepid taking the appropriate stance regardless of their ability to stop people from doing it. As a community, we should not allow people who multibox to influence our game in a negative way, of which there are many, many more negatives than positives. They won't be able to stop all people who bot or participate in RMT/RWT, so should we be discussing exactly how it should be allowed? No, I don't think so.
You are right that it is possible to stop a second game client from opening on a computer. That is already something that is not allowed by Intrepid.
Legally speaking, "intentionally owning multiple active accounts simultaneously" is much more difficult. And this is something where the enforcement actually IS an issue. If there is something that is expressly forbidden by the rules, you need to be able to enforce said rules. If you cannot enforce those rules, then the contract (in this case the ToS) is invalid. Or more likely in this particular case, that specific portion of the contract would be invalid. As has already been stated many times in this thread, there is not real way to stop people from owning multiple accounts without incredibly invasive measures, or without being extremely unfair in any situation where multiple people share the same IP.
The reason that plenty of games continue to have those types of clauses in their ToS is because it is extremely prohibitive against the customer to try and fight it most of the time. Most of the people that end up getting banned uses those clauses as a reason are likely actually breaking the rules, yes. But there are definitely false positives. I myself have gotten temporarily suspended from a game for using AutoHotkey to fix a mouse issue. While I was eventually able to get my account reinstated, it was a massive chore.
Let's run a scenario: I'm playing game X. X doesn't allow you to own multiple accounts. I get my girlfriend to buy an account. My girlfriend, however, isn't really interested in the game; 95% of the time, she sits at the computer ignoring the game, playing mobile games on her phone. But if I need her to check the auction house, or if I need her to come play pocket healer for a bit, she'll come do it. Some other player finds our behavior "suspicious" and reports us. A GM looks at our accounts, sees her account is only online when mine is, never interacts with anyone else, etc. and decides that we're only a single person, and bans both accounts.
Is this fair? Is this, realistically, any different than me owning both accounts myself? I argue the answer to both questions is no.
Now, if I wanted to try and fight this, I could perhaps appeal the ban, and maybe I'll get lucky and get the accounts back. But if the GMs decide the ban was correct? My only other option would be to spend thousands of dollars to take a rich game development company to court to fight the ToS. Unless I was also incredibly rich and was just trying to make a point over the issue, that is entirely unfeasible.
Given all my prior examples, and since you haven't given a single specific, I argue that the rules already stated by Intrepid remove the vast majority of the negative aspects related to multi-boxing, and any positive advantages multi-boxers might have can be mitigated or removed entirely.
Also, please DO NOT conflate botting and RMT to multi-boxing. They are completely different issues. The second statement of Intrepid's stance on multi-boxing also specifically disallows any sort of automation in regards to multi-boxing.
Botting and RMT are already disallowed, and have been stated as such. No one in this thread (to my knowledge) that is arguing for multi-boxing is arguing to allow botting and RMT.
Well said!
We must keep hammering that multiboxing is not botting as people keep getting mixed up. Intrepid is totally against botting.
If you see multiple characters running around the exact same way, firing the same spells at exactly the same time, that is botting. Please report them. I cannot think of any person who could simultaneously control more than 1.5 accounts at the same time (moving you might conceivably do, but not combat - especially action combat).
My point here isn't related to whatever you were talking about higher up in the chain, just that your original assertion that a rule is difficult to enforce and therefore can't or shouldn't exist is ridiculous and not based in fact.
I would contend that the fact that there are false positives in the detection of the breaking of non-questionable rules is in and of itself an argument against your assertion that because a rule is difficult to enforce perfectly and there is the possibility for false positives the rule isn't valid.
Your hypothetical scenario here makes a whole lot of unstated assumptions about the enforcement of the rule, the standard of evidence required, the actual punishment scale for violating the rule, the appeal process for false positives. It seems pretty disingenuous for your argument to be predicated on a set of assumptions which by design present your argument as already being correct in the first place.
The only thing I really need to say in response is no, the rule against owning multiple accounts or against actively using multiple accounts at the same time doesn't have to work like that.
You say this but we have yet to see if this is really true. Account-limited mechanics like the ability to own a freehold plot may very well provide a significant gameplay advantage to someone who spends the money to have multiple accounts. In an in-game market where freeholds are a potential resource hard-limited by space in the game world, it merely being possible to claim more than one at a time can provide a significant economic advantage. Any kind of multi-account freehold claiming restriction or similar attempt at a solution will face similar enforcement issues to flat out banning the use of multiple accounts fundamentally, but while retaining the possibility for unrestricted access to any other potential avenue of abuse related to owning multiple accounts. We have yet to hear any word on how the developers feel about the abuse of systems in this way, and we have yet to see what many of the gameplay systems will look like when fully fleshed out. In absence of a rule against system abuses enabled by multiple account ownership, there is a definite disconnect between what is said about being anti-P2W and what is actually done.
There are plenty of ways someone intending to abuse the system could make it difficult to conclusively prove they were engaging in an RMT transaction with no false positives or long appeal processes. How can you prove that there is or isn't real life money being exchanged outside of the game when, for example, one high level player simply "gifts" another high level player his weapon or his resources or any item of value?
There are legitimate reasons for this kind of behavior, but there are equally many potentially illegitimate reasons for it. Does that mean that, because it's difficult to differentiate, there should be no attempt at differentiation between acceptable player activities and intentional exploitation of game systems by the rules laid out by the developers? Are the only options 'it's all okay' or 'none of it is okay' with no room for nuance? No standard of evidence beyond one-sided value exchanges in game?
Why is it you think that simply disallowing botting and RMT from a policy standpoint is fine despite being incredibly difficult to enforce considering the eventuality of bad faith actors seeking to exploit the system and evade detection, but it's totally unacceptable to disallow people intentionally attempting to gain a questionable gameplay advantage through using multiple accounts?
In the same way that you can make informed, community driven decisions about clear abuses of policy with regards to RMT, you can similarly make informed, community driven decisions about clear abuses of policy with regards to using multiple accounts to gain an unfair gameplay advantage.