Policy Update for Input Broadcasting - May 2021

[Ragedaug]

Looks like I will be unsubscribing my 6 accounts. Sucks but it is what it is, all I enjoyed doing was questing and dungeon content solo. Atleast Biden bucks paid for the 3 computers

I would be OK with it being left for solo instanced content, though I don't know that they have any way to distinguish what you are doing at the time you multibox. For folks who weren't interfering with anyone else this change sucks, but overall I'm glad they did this as there are definitely boxers out there who disrupt gameplay for a lot of other folks around them.

[Ihavewaffles]

i love this, darn multiboxers r stealing our profits at the AH

[Stardrift]

Ironically, wow is the least efficient game to multi-box in and the amount of bitching on the battlenet and mmochamp forums for such an incredibly niche problem was hilarious.

Doesn't affect me, but sad to see it go. Bitchers finally won lol.

??

It's ruined the gold economy, made it difficult to farm mats, and ruins PvP matches.

Not to mention the real reason behind why people multi-box: to sell the characters for real money, which is against TOS. This is why character boosting was put in. Now, they just farm old raids for rate mounts so that they may sell accounts with said rare mounts.

[jk1895]

What idiots! MB was fun! RIP
Fuck all whiners!

[Sithalos]

Good. The harder Blizzard fucks over multiboxers the better. Keep it coming.

[gaymer77]

There goes another 29% of players. Joking aside this is a good change though I do think there are some non-harmful multi-account players that will get caught up in the change. I still wonder if they are trying to target mass controlled bots or warden detection if they even still use warden.

If these non-harmful multi-accounts have a player behind the keyboard who is controlling each of the characters individually then they won't be affected. This is only for those who use programs that make all the logged in characters perform an action. If by "non-harmful" you are talking about multiple characters logged in who are skinning, herbing, mining, and fishing then contrary to what you feel, those are harmful use of multiboxing as it alters the economy.

- - - Updated - - -

Not really, there's still a few people out there who just alt tab multibox farm.

I could never do it personally, but it still would be a massive amount of gold income.

The difference between that and the mirror programs used is a person has to manually make each of the logged in characters perform an action not just all of them do the same thing with the stroke of 1 key. Personally I don't care if people do the alt-tab multiboxing as they're actually controlling each of the characters logged in while these mirror programs are essentially controlling 1 character and the others are automated actions. That's where the problem of multiboxing comes into play.

- - - Updated - - -

As long as my pleb ass can have 2 accounts on at the same time and use a macro for /follow in old raid content, I'm good.

Not for farming gold mind you, just personal transmog... Although now I remember that shit was killed off with the level squish, so meh.

What you want to do can still be done and that's what Blizzard is intending for their allowance of multiboxing. As long as you aren't using something that has all the logged in characters perform an action when a person presses 1 button then they are allowing it. This just means that if you farm old raids for transmog you'll have to have each of them perform 1 attack or 1 heal on a character who's in combat in order to get loot. Considering how easy old raids are, that shouldn't be an issue. Just have everyone auto attack once and kill the boss on one and they all get loot. Hell even if all but the main character dies they'll still get loot as long as they've all hit the boss at least once lol

[starstationprofm]

Bold strategy. Let's see if it pays off.

[Easo]

So it is dead (kinda) then. I still think the issue has been way overblown.

[Osmeric]

Determined people will still get around it.

I don't see how. After all, Blizzard should be able to detect a cluster of characters that are receiving nearly identical input sequences.

[Onikaroshi]

I don't see how. After all, Blizzard should be able to detect a cluster of characters that are receiving nearly identical input sequences.

Randomized delay on input, doesn't even have to be much.

You can manually click 6 windows in like 4 seconds or less.

[Skandulous]

This just means they finally make more money off micro transactions then they do subs so they can afford to lose the ppl now

[Grimbolt]

I dont understand why they didnt have this in 2004 lol. Multiboxers had been an issue in previous MMOs for a long time before WoW launched and they have always been vague in what they would allow in this title.

If I had been multi boxing for 15 years I would be pretty pissed today .

[SinR]

Looks like I will be unsubscribing my 6 accounts. Sucks but it is what it is, all I enjoyed doing was questing and dungeon content solo. Atleast Biden bucks paid for the 3 computers

Bye! Don't forget to write!

[Igzorn]

finaly .. i hope now it will be much rarer to be 1 shoot by a 10 multibox shaman group.

- - - Updated - - -

Looks like I will be unsubscribing my 6 accounts. Sucks but it is what it is, all I enjoyed doing was questing and dungeon content solo. Atleast Biden bucks paid for the 3 computers

well you can still multibox in eve online (as long its not automated) it might be your thing . i often play a 5 man mining fleet with 5 clients open (must be subed aka omega account) and klicking away manualy.

[DaFuzZ7]

Hopefully my USB foot pedals i have plugged into my 2nd PC for my alt account wont throw off any false flags.

[Gurg]

Yup the prices went up as expected when they did this because people who don’t farm thought it would lower prices but they don’t know how money works. Also this thread still had the geniuses who still think bots are multiboxers. Well after reading all the negativity I’m so glad blizzard upset me back in nov to quit. Shadowlands hasn’t been kind to players

I'm not sure on which Region are you playing. Ill speak for several EU servers that i used to play on Emerald Dream, Tarren Mill and Draenor.
While there is still some management to EU servers, you can really feel to some extend ingame and on forums impact of lack of staff after they shut down EU office.
All 3 servers after 1-2am EU side were farming bot heaven in multiple zones. Either fresh 60 balance druids or retri/frost DKs in Shredders.
While good portion of multiboxers were playing legitimately, no denying that, large number of them were bot multiboxers, not all multiboxers aren't bots.

I was one of multiboxer bots back in Pandaria. Even back then Honorbuddy resource farming scripts had randomized patterns to avoid Warden detection. Mostly druids were used for bots since they had a "trigger" in their scripts to enter stealth when they are targeted for random number of seconds but less than 5s or if other players were detected in their vicinity again randomized. You could literally emulate keyboard presses back then too and set replies if you are being /w or your name used in chat or /global just to reduce detection chance. It was crazy even back then, can imagine how much farming bots developed since 2013/14. I used to earn 3x average monthly salary just by leaving my PC on while i was out, sleeping or studying, liquifying farmed maths to gold, then selling it to gold traders.
I literally earned enough money from bot farming to pay fully for my studies, which was, tbh my main goal and reason why i went that route.

And i guess Asmond's bot hunt crusade and all people that jumped on that train just pushed this to be faster/easier decision.
Im not saying that Asmond did anything bad, but when you are publicly showing sheer number of bots to amount of people that hes usually streaming plus having a lot more people jump to the same train - it makes Blizz looks bad. Or at least lest competent.
Every action has reaction, i guess that this is Blizzards way to handle in one swoop since Warden probably has trouble to differentiate real multibox from bots.
And i guess that this is blizzards way to increase value of base crafting materials so people will have to spend their gold that was hoarded trough last few expansions.

I'm not saying its a good decision or bad. After 15years of ALMOST constantly active sub SL was finally expansion that pushed me to part ways with game. At least till i see something personally interesting in it again.
Its just one of those things "huuh. they went balls deep with it. This will be interesting, lets see how will play out."

[ketsui]

I'm not sure on which Region are you playing. Ill speak for several EU servers that i used to play on Emerald Dream, Tarren Mill and Draenor.
While there is still some management to EU servers, you can really feel to some extend ingame and on forums impact of lack of staff after they shut down EU office.
All 3 servers after 1-2am EU side were farming bot heaven in multiple zones. Either fresh 60 balance druids or retri/frost DKs in Shredders.
While good portion of multiboxers were playing legitimately, no denying that, large number of them were bot multiboxers, not all multiboxers aren't bots.

I was one of multiboxer bots back in Pandaria. Even back then Honorbuddy resource farming scripts had randomized patterns to avoid Warden detection. Mostly druids were used for bots since they had a "trigger" in their scripts to enter stealth when they are targeted for random number of seconds but less than 5s or if other players were detected in their vicinity again randomized. You could literally emulate keyboard presses back then too and set replies if you are being /w or your name used in chat or /global just to reduce detection chance. It was crazy even back then, can imagine how much farming bots developed since 2013/14. I used to earn 3x average monthly salary just by leaving my PC on while i was out, sleeping or studying, liquifying farmed maths to gold, then selling it to gold traders.
I literally earned enough money from bot farming to pay fully for my studies, which was, tbh my main goal and reason why i went that route.

And i guess Asmond's bot hunt crusade and all people that jumped on that train just pushed this to be faster/easier decision.
Im not saying that Asmond did anything bad, but when you are publicly showing sheer number of bots to amount of people that hes usually streaming plus having a lot more people jump to the same train - it makes Blizz looks bad. Or at least lest competent.
Every action has reaction, i guess that this is Blizzards way to handle in one swoop since Warden probably has trouble to differentiate real multibox from bots.
And i guess that this is blizzards way to increase value of base crafting materials so people will have to spend their gold that was hoarded trough last few expansions.

I'm not saying its a good decision or bad. After 15years of ALMOST constantly active sub SL was finally expansion that pushed me to part ways with game. At least till i see something personally interesting in it again.
Its just one of those things "huuh. they went balls deep with it. This will be interesting, lets see how will play out."

it sounds like you know the tech, bot multiboxers aren't multiboxers, they're just bots running simultaneously, you know this, why would u have bots interact with each other or even grouped? when ungrouped they dont collide due to not being in a party

[loras]

Not really, there's still a few people out there who just alt tab multibox farm.

I could never do it personally, but it still would be a massive amount of gold income.

They would still be bannable under these new rules though.
I mean sure, no rule or law is 100% effective, but the days of seeing one druid split into 5 and being zapped down without being able to do much about it are done.

[Puupi]

Just pretty words until it's actually enforced. I have my doubts.

[wombinator04]

Report anyone who's obviously boxing. Like the guy above me said, just pretty words but if we report maybe something will get done.