Is Multiboxing cheating?

[Nefastus]

Its funny, these kind of question is almost as old as WoW itself. From what I remember it was okay but maybe things changed I don't know. Its hardly the same game anymore.

[digichi]

if someone can, on their own, figure out how to control a bunch of characters at once, and bought multiple accounts to do it, then more power to them. lol. I dont see much of them around, and if thats how someone wants to play the game go for it.

i prefer to play with 1 character and only pay for 1 subscription, i feel like thats easier ^^

of course, like others are pointing out, its cool if it's manual and not a bot.

[Mhyroth]

This thread again.
This topic pops up every 6 odd months after someone got 1 shot by a team of 5 DKs.
Entirely not biased lol.

[Thedude-Illidan]

Ahem.

It's not a violation of the ToS/ToU, confirmed by Blizzard themselves: https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...lues-on-Boxing

If you have a problem getting run over by a multiboxer... Perhaps consider not rolling on a pvp server?

[Jyggalag]

Multiboxing fluently using the archetypal group of 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 dps is actually very challenging. I've actually been attempting to learn over the past few weeks.
I have ISBoxer and a group of 5 unique classes, all level 16 now. I can only stand to play for up to 1h at a time because it's so tedious, but the goal is to be able to complete basic 5 man instanced content, gearing 5 of my chars at once.

Learning new keybinds for assisting, mouse-over healing while I'm playing a tank, stop/start follow, interact, loot, etc has been the hardest part so far, but I'm definitely making good progress. Once I reckon I've mastered it, I'll be at an enormous advantage when questing/gearing, there's no secret in that. Effort = Reward. The way it should be.

But, like everything else, people will cry to have it removed because they're not willing to invest the effort and therefore no one else should be allowed the choice.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I always thought so.

[Wallmaker Yahzarah]

I personally dont mind Multiboxing, dont mind dying to a multiboxing ganker. As long as it doesnt start falling into the category of camping, grieving and inconveniencing the general pop, which is against ToS. Otherwise, whatever... these multiboxers are willing to pay Blizz for 5, 10, 20+ accounts. Let them enjoy their Grapefruit San Pellegrino and talk about it as if they are of higher class.

[Deleted]

No in PvP. No in PvE.

fixed that because Blizzard says so.

[SirCowdog]

Blizzard stance is that each action has to be the result of manually pressing of a key. Just because a single keypress is resulting in ONE action from each account doesn't make it any different. You still had to press one button so that each of your characters does something.

I guess that actually makes sense when I think about it more. Since there already exist "Clutch" macros that activate trinkets, cooldowns, and other abilities off the GCD all in one button. That still seems like it's on shaky ground, however, since many bot programs execute actions with a single keypress also. But I'll defer to those with more experience with actually using mutli-box macros or commands.

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Yes, but those are actually cheating and disrupting the game, they're often connected to goldsellers. They're people gaming the game for their own profit.

Multiboxers are a minor annoyance compared to those. They're people playing the game, in a way other players may find slightly unfair or unfun, but they're passionate enough to pay for it.

Since Blizzard does sometimes enforce specific ways to play the game (clever use of game mechanics vs exploits), banning multiboxers wouldn't be too out of character.

But they are a source of income, and not too big of a problem. I don't think anyone has ever left because "there are too many multiboxers", there are not, and encountering one is kind of like being visited by a GM, a fairly rare, somewhat memorable experience.

Botters, while also a source of income, are a much bigger problem and one that can easily drive away as many subscriptions or more than they provide if not controlled. And again, there's the gold market.

The problem I see is that goldsellers often use multi-boxing setups to more efficiently farm gold. I once sat at a flight master in Badlands and watched, LITERALLY, hundreds of duplicate male night elf druids land in groups of 5 and fly off in the same direction over a period of like 20 minutes. It's might not be that multiboxing is inherently against the TOS or EULA, but it does make things easier for the goldsellers.

[Spl4sh3r]

I guess that actually makes sense when I think about it more. Since there already exist "Clutch" macros that activate trinkets, cooldowns, and other abilities off the GCD all in one button. That still seems like it's on shaky ground, however, since many bot programs execute actions with a single keypress also. But I'll defer to those with more experience with actually using mutli-box macros or commands.

As for trinkets and cooldowns that you include before your actual ability, I don't think they'll do anything about that. There is a reason they are off the global cooldown to begin with, so you can do them at the same time you are doing something else.

[Logwyn]

Yes, but those are actually cheating and disrupting the game, they're often connected to goldsellers. They're people gaming the game for their own profit.

Do you mean out of game profit or in game profit?

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As for trinkets and cooldowns that you include before your actual ability, I don't think they'll do anything about that. There is a reason they are off the global cooldown to begin with, so you can do them at the same time you are doing something else.

But is it not one button multiple actions? I thought that was the anti boxer stance?

[unbound]

Multiboxing is not cheating by itself. However, most multiboxers are absolutely cheating (and always have).

You can buy multiple accounts and bounce from window to window to manually control your toons. There is no cheating in that.

However, as the OP pointed out, when you see the characters all doing the same action at the same time, that is cheating. This means that there is automation / scripting / programming that allows a single person to issue one command that is replicated across the multiple accounts. And that is the most common scenario of how multiboxing is actually handled...hence, most multiboxing involves cheating.

Blizz purposefully chooses to turn a blind eye to this reality as long as the multiboxers don't go too overboard about it. Similar to other forms of cheating, if people go too far, and only then, Blizz will finally do something.

[Eazy]

However, as the OP pointed out, when you see the characters all doing the same action at the same time, that is cheating. This means that there is automation / scripting / programming that allows a single person to issue one command that is replicated across the multiple accounts. And that is the most common scenario of how multiboxing is actually handled...hence, most multiboxing involves cheating.

Why it's cheating? It's like an addon.

[Orby]

I haven't heard anything from multiboxing since TBC or WotLK... that stuff still going? :P

I remember years ago doing Eye of the Storm and there being like 4 Elemental shamans on a team just wrecking house, feels like a lifetime ago now. Just reading the title of this thread brought back memories of that moment lol

[Archonite]

Since a lot of people seem confused about blizzards actual stance, here's a compilation of a lot of blizzard quotes: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/8156016099

Cheating is against the rules, multiboxing is allowed and thus by definition isnt cheating. Even when using 3rd party software to broadcast keystrokes to each instance of the game. I assume that everyone not arguing semantics here is discussing instead whether multiboxing should be considered cheating or not. But the logic a lot of people use for that is flawed. To start with, if youre cheating while multiboxing, the cheating is the problem, not the multiboxing.

Next, a multiboxer controls multiple characters and should be considered as such. You arent duelling a multiboxer 1v1, you are fighting while outnumbered. If you ran into a group of friends of the opposing faction on a PvP server you also wouldnt stand a chance. If you fight the entire enemy team in a battleground you are supposed to lose, whether its controlled by one or many people.

As mentioned in the link above, your rated battleground team can macro all abilities to go to the raidleaders target while being on follow, and you would also synchronize all your damage on the same target. This would also severely limit your options, but anyone who thinks its a great strategy can easily try it out.

[chubbybunny]

I remember seeing someone clearing kara with 10 chars that was controlled by 1 player, he had 2 healers, 2 tanks and 6 dps he controlled from 1 keyboard...

At the time, i didn't think it was cheating, all i could think about was how good that player much be to cast different spells, and actions from the different chars without getting confused.

[WskyDK]

Do you mean out of game profit or in game profit?

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But is it not one button multiple actions? I thought that was the anti boxer stance?

If macro-ing trinkets with abilities is cheating, then a substantial portion of raiders are finna get banned.

It’s one keystroke per action; if that action is activating a macro, it’s fine.

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Multiboxing is not cheating by itself. However, most multiboxers are absolutely cheating (and always have).

You can buy multiple accounts and bounce from window to window to manually control your toons. There is no cheating in that.

However, as the OP pointed out, when you see the characters all doing the same action at the same time, that is cheating. This means that there is automation / scripting / programming that allows a single person to issue one command that is replicated across the multiple accounts. And that is the most common scenario of how multiboxing is actually handled...hence, most multiboxing involves cheating.

Blizz purposefully chooses to turn a blind eye to this reality as long as the multiboxers don't go too overboard about it. Similar to other forms of cheating, if people go too far, and only then, Blizz will finally do something.

One action, per keystroke, per account.
Every time these threads come up it’s the same anti-boxer arguments that mean jack shit since blizzard doesn’t do anything about people multiboxing as long as it follows 1per1per1

[Soulwind]

Do you mean out of game profit or in game profit?

Both.

Out of game profit is clearly the worst one, which would be goldselling. Not every botter is a goldseller, but goldsellers often use bots.

Ingame profit is less dangerous, but it'll still disrupt the ingame economy.

Multiboxers aren't miners, they just stand in a place and nuke people down.

It sucks for a few people, for a few minutes, but it has no lasting effect or region-wide repercussions.

[glowpipe]

if i remember correctly, blizz stated that they are fine with multiboxers as long as they are controled by a player and dont use any bot programs, i personaly have no issues with them, except they can be annoying in world pvp but i see them very rarely there

Ofcourse they are fine with it, 1 player paying for more than one account. Which business in the world would not be fine with that ?

[Fritters154]

But is it not one button multiple actions? I thought that was the anti boxer stance?

That's the stance but it isn't actually true. It ends up being one keystroke per action and the macro takes care of any automation. The parts that can be called automation are actually using the WoW Macro system, which obviously isn't against ToS as it is something that Blizz freely provides to all their players.