[RIFT] /follow removed in BGs/CQ. Multiboxers are sad bunnies.

[russykh]

http://forums.riftgame.com/general-d...-conquest.html

Hey folks,

As some of you may have noticed, we've disabled /follow in both Warfronts and Conquest for the time being. This is a toggle that is now in our remote admin tool that we can turn on and off in real time.

I know that there are a lot of opinions on the subject of multi-boxing and it is a heated subject for some people. Please share your opinions on how this has affected your actual gameplay - but keep it clean folks.

Bill "Daglar" Fisher
Creative Director: RIFT

So mutliboxers have always been a bit of a sticking point in games. Rift has been no exception. The people against will usually argue that 1 person controlling 5+ toons is unfair, and that it grants a level of co-ordination that a pre-made couldnt put together. The defenders will usually reply that in BGs/Warfronts the sides still have the same number of toons, so there is no actual numbers advantage, and that aside from focus fire burst, the co-ordination isnt any greater and should be beaten by a decent, co-ordinated team.

Trion decided to remove /follow, similar to WoW, but unlike WoW did it specifically to target multiboxers. This, as well as the rather sudden nature of it (I cant be sure, but it sounds like it was implemented before being announced) has led to a bit of friction, with what seems like a small number pretty annoyed by it all, but with quite a lot of people happy. Not happy is the_real_seebs, one of the community ambassadors, who boxes in PVE (and is unaffected) but unhappy with the effect its having on some of his friends who do pvp, and the nature of the feedback which he feels has led them to do this, and has quit the game because of it. If you go on the forums, I'm sure you'll know of seebs, as he is by far the most active poster on it.

To be honest, I've never actually (noticeably) come across a multiboxer in Rift, either during levelling or max level, and both open world or instanced play. Maybe I've been lucky, but most of the complaining seems to come from people who solo queue'd a WF and got insta-killed and saw that it was one person boxing 5 toons and decided that it was unfair. Also, a lot of the anti-boxers I've seen twist words or terminology to fit their agenda. That said, I'm not massively pro-boxing either. I dont think it would be unfair if it were limited to certain shards/clusters or whatever, so that if boxing annoyed you that much, you could make sure you never had to deal with it. I can also understand that boxing since FTP could be on the rise (which they'd mentioned), which is one of the big barriers to doing it, aside from having enough hardware to run several clients.

Does anyone here multibox? If so, what are your thoughts?

[Edge-]

Honestly, I don't have any issues with multiboxing for the most part as it never really affects me.

But in PvP, it's a hassle because either you've got a boxer who's amazing and has a huge advantage because he's coordinating 3-5+ characters to simultaneously focus fire people down, or you've got a bad boxer who is being a huge drag on your team.

If you want to box your experts or box open world content, go for it. But when boxing negatively impacts the play experience of others (PvP) then we have issues.

[Zogarth]

I have tried multiboxing, but only for soloing content that is normally not possible when alone. I would never do it with other people around as it could impact them negatively.

[ComputerNerd]

Multi-boxing allows singling out a specific target and being virtually guaranteed a kill in a way that individuals cannot.
I can't say from experience in Rift, but in WoW that has most certainly been the case.
The numbers argument is irrelevant when they can without a reasonable counter take out at least one person.

[Pachycrocuta]

So the_real_seebs ragequit because of this? Great community embassador he/she is.

I have run across about 5 different multiboxers out in the world. I don't pvp so I have never seen them there. Multiboxing in pve... I am neither for nor against it there, but I find it sad. In pvp, I think this is the right choice. It's like all the twinks who said they did it because they wanted a challenge, yet when Blizz added xp gain in BGs, and those who turn off xp being put into a different queue, twinking went away. Because all they really wanted was to steamroll people. And that's how I feel about those who multibox in pvp. They want to feel powerful and steamroll everyone they come across.

[ariakul]

So the_real_seebs ragequit because of this? Great community embassador he/she is.

I have run across about 5 different multiboxers out in the world. I don't pvp so I have never seen them there. Multiboxing in pve... I am neither for nor against it there, but I find it sad. In pvp, I think this is the right choice. It's like all the twinks who said they did it because they wanted a challenge, yet when Blizz added xp gain in BGs, and those who turn off xp being put into a different queue, twinking went away. Because all they really wanted was to steamroll people. And that's how I feel about those who multibox in pvp. They want to feel powerful and steamroll everyone they come across.

Actually, he quit because of how much the "community" became a bunch of d-bags with insulting and derogatory comments in the forums, and in the mail because he supported boxing (even though he didn't box or pvp).

I have no issues with boxing, run as a pre-made in Mumble and you'll kill everyone. Multiboxing only affects the solo pugging bads.

[Recondition]

I have tried multiboxing, but only for soloing content that is normally not possible when alone. I would never do it with other people around as it could impact them negatively.

It looks like you're safe because this was just for warfronts

[Lathais]

It looks like you're safe because this was just for warfronts

Actually everyone is safe, the test is over and /follow is back on in WFs and CQ.