Multiboxing is OVER

[LomBotom]

better late than never.. i guess

[Karlz0rz]

Nice little video for every clown who is celebrating "the end of multiboxing":



Why is it necessary for all of you to be so clueless? Couldn't you make a basic effort to do some research and have an informed opinion rather than spewing inaccurate drivel?

This entire thread is basically 22 pages of 95% uninformed garbage. Be smarter. Do your homework. Stop spreading ignorance to other people.

I'd wager and say that a lot of people are actually fairly "ok" with that kind of multiboxing, where you need to put in the work by playing all of the characters to some extent.
Less so about the use of software making you need to only click one button for all 5 :P.

[shoegazing]

I'd wager and say that a lot of people are actually fairly "ok" with that kind of multiboxing, where you need to put in the work by playing all of the characters to some extent.
Less so about the use of software making you need to only click one button for all 5 :P.

It's really not much more work than key broadcasting.

Windows has an accessibility feature which focuses any window that your mouse is hovering over, without requiring you to click on that window to bring it into focus.

So now instead of spamming 22222 which you already did because different clients might not be ready to start casting exactly at the same time due to various factors (casting different spells previously, latency in broadcasting, etc) now you spam 22222 while dragging your mouse across all the game windows.

This is just one method, there are others as well. As already explained in this thread there is hardware KM multicasting hardware which mirrors input to multiple PCs or programs without requiring any software that can be detected by Warden (it's also not against the ToS, which only forbids broadcasting software). There is also broadcasting from a hypervisor to virtual machines, which is also completely undetectable by Warden since Warden can't scan anything that is outside the operating system. And there is software which automates the swapping of game windows without even requiring you to mouseover the active window.

Another point that I can't emphasize enough: the for-profit multiboxers who are making millions of gold per day are the ones most incentivized to pursue these approaches, and they also have the simplest setups that don't require a lot of complicated input, which is the easiest to transition to a new approach.

[agentsi]

When did it become cool to make pointless threads that no one cares about, and have clickbaity titles...

[Angrie]

It's really not much more work than key broadcasting.

Windows has an accessibility feature which focuses any window that your mouse is hovering over, without requiring you to click on that window to bring it into focus.

So now instead of spamming 22222 which you already did because different clients might not be ready to start casting exactly at the same time due to various factors (casting different spells previously, latency in broadcasting, etc) now you spam 22222 while dragging your mouse across all the game windows.

This is just one method, there are others as well. As already explained in this thread there is hardware KM multicasting hardware which mirrors input to multiple PCs or programs without requiring any software that can be detected by Warden (it's also not against the ToS, which only forbids broadcasting software). There is also broadcasting from a hypervisor to virtual machines, which is also completely undetectable by Warden since Warden can't scan anything that is outside the operating system. And there is software which automates the swapping of game windows without even requiring you to mouseover the active window.

Another point that I can't emphasize enough: the for-profit multiboxers who are making millions of gold per day are the ones most incentivized to pursue these approaches, and they also have the simplest setups that don't require a lot of complicated input, which is the easiest to transition to a new approach.

Can you be clear, are you for or against multiboxing? It's a long thread.
Your 2nd prior post seems like you're for it, this posts tone seems like you're saying your against it(?)/ it's not strict enough.

...OR is it neither and you're just teaching people the new way to multibox (There's no evidence that Blizzard won't ban you for the "new" way too; it's their game they can ban you for anything they want [unsolicited advice (telling someone how to gear in chat) being bannable])

[Synical123]

It's really not much more work than key broadcasting.

Windows has an accessibility feature which focuses any window that your mouse is hovering over, without requiring you to click on that window to bring it into focus.

So now instead of spamming 22222 which you already did because different clients might not be ready to start casting exactly at the same time due to various factors (casting different spells previously, latency in broadcasting, etc) now you spam 22222 while dragging your mouse across all the game windows.

This is just one method, there are others as well. As already explained in this thread there is hardware KM multicasting hardware which mirrors input to multiple PCs or programs without requiring any software that can be detected by Warden (it's also not against the ToS, which only forbids broadcasting software). There is also broadcasting from a hypervisor to virtual machines, which is also completely undetectable by Warden since Warden can't scan anything that is outside the operating system. And there is software which automates the swapping of game windows without even requiring you to mouseover the active window.

Another point that I can't emphasize enough: the for-profit multiboxers who are making millions of gold per day are the ones most incentivized to pursue these approaches, and they also have the simplest setups that don't require a lot of complicated input, which is the easiest to transition to a new approach.

It’s much much much more work than key broadcasting for areas that I personally thought needed purged from the game. I’m talking the people with 40+ accounts sitting in world pvp all casting moon fire on you at once. Unkillable raids of one guy completely decimating an area. Attempting this with 10+ accounts will basically become useless. I don’t think anyone cares if a guy can multibox through a brd by himself

[xuros]

I'd wager and say that a lot of people are actually fairly "ok" with that kind of multiboxing, where you need to put in the work by playing all of the characters to some extent.
Less so about the use of software making you need to only click one button for all 5 :P.

haha I'd wager against it! When i'm out farming with my 2 hunters I get tons of "boxers all need to die" tells since the whole input software ban topic has come up. People who don't know how to comprehend what they read will remain how they are.

[callipygoustp]

Still multi-boxing. Still no email from Blizzard.
(Note: I only run two accounts, one is usually passive, and I don't use any 3rd party software.)

[shoegazing]

Can you be clear, are you for or against multiboxing? It's a long thread.
Your 2nd prior post seems like you're for it, this posts tone seems like you're saying your against it(?)/ it's not strict enough.

...OR is it neither and you're just teaching people the new way to multibox (There's no evidence that Blizzard won't ban you for the "new" way too; it's their game they can ban you for anything they want [unsolicited advice (telling someone how to gear in chat) being bannable])

It's complicated. If you want to know my thoughts, I'll have to go into some detail:

Personally I multibox in classic because I enjoy the (significant) challenge of clearing dungeons while playing 5 different classes at the same time and having only myself to blame when I wipe. It's also nice that I can park my party at a safe location between pulls if I need to step away to handle an emergency at work or assist my wife with something, without inconveniencing 4 other people.

I think the guys who are playing 40 characters in order to grief in PvP are low skill scum. Running around with 40 of the same class isn't something you do for the added challenge (which is none) it's something you do to gain an advantage over other players. I love PvP in WoW, I don't need extra characters to succeed in PvP, and I have a strict rule that I never PvP as a multiboxer unless I am out in the world and somebody attacks me first.

I think the guys who are playing 10 druids in retail and flying around mining/herbing also aren't in it for any kind of extra challenge, they are simply gaining an advantage and abusing a bad change to the game mechanics. When Blizzard announced that nodes would become tappable by up to 10 characters, I knew right away this was a horrible change that would cause more problems that it solved, and of course I've been proven right about that.

I think essentially the same thing about hyperspawn farming. Blizzard made ill-conceived changes to loot rules (the mob can be looted by all in the group) and mob spawn rates that quickly led to this sort of abuse. This is another attempt by the game designers to make things slightly nicer for players without fully considering all the ways it would make the game substantially worse.

So if Blizzard's goal in announcing the new ToS was to stop multiboxing, as an engineer I think they did a horrible job of it and once again failed to understand how the real results would be different than the intention. If their goal was to remove the insane farming potential for multiboxing, then better changes would be to address multi-tappable nodes and hyperspawn farming in the game itself. The benefits of those changes are very, very minor, while the potential for abuse is very, very large. Making those simple changes to the game itself would instantly remove the majority of the negative experiences players have with multiboxers (the guys PvP griefing on 40 accounts are very, very rare... and there is an in game solution to that which is form a raid of players to go streamroll him.... 1 guy with 40 accounts should always lose to 40 players with 40 accounts, every time).

Of course I don't think this was actually Blizzard's goal (if it was, they could just make multiboxing against the ToS instead of going out of their way to clarify that it isn't, only certain software is). The real reason for the change is clear if you do a careful reading of the announcement: bots were using similar software as multiboxers, with additional automation layers on top of it, in order to send commands to the game in a way that Warden can't distinguish from "legitimate" multiboxing. Basically, this change allows Blizzard to start banning the botters who were hiding in the crowd of multiboxers. Now, this still won't be effective because botters don't care too much about being banned... they just consider it the cost of doing business and as long as the banwaves are infrequent enough that they can break even and make a profit before they lose their accounts, they won't stop. If the banwaves are frequent enough that it no longer becomes profitable (don't hold your breath) they will simply move to other methods that are still undetectable by Warden.

[LichLigth]

(Note: I only run two accounts, one is usually passive, and I don't use any 3rd party software.)

[iamthedevil]

or is there?

Well, no one told Goro he couldn't fight in Mortal Combat because he had to many arms, right?

[LichLigth]

business and as long as the banwaves are infrequent enough that they can break even and make a profit before they lose their accounts, they won't stop. If the banwaves are frequent enough that it no longer becomes profitable (don't hold your breath) they will simply move to other methods that are still undetectable by Warden.

[Kagthul]

I think it would be silly to assume they're only going to use Warden for this. If I had to guess, they'll also be adding analytics to the events they're already capturing server-side, and they'd just be looking for indicators of multi-boxing. For example, 4+ accounts logged in at once from the same IP, in the same location, issuing nigh-identical or identical commands at the same or similar time. I'd assume they'll build an analytics package that gives each account a value based on how likely it is to be a multi-boxer based on their analytics, and then any accounts over a certain value will be assessed by a tech to determine if they are multi-boxing or not.

Since they didn't ban Multiboxing, just the key replication software.. why would they bother?

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It’s much much much more work than key broadcasting for areas that I personally thought needed purged from the game. I’m talking the people with 40+ accounts sitting in world pvp all casting moon fire on you at once. Unkillable raids of one guy completely decimating an area. Attempting this with 10+ accounts will basically become useless. I don’t think anyone cares if a guy can multibox through a brd by himself

Except you can still do that via VMs and a hypervisor and/or hardware multiplexer (and then assign each "device" to one VM).

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Of course I don't think this was actually Blizzard's goal (if it was, they could just make multiboxing against the ToS instead of going out of their way to clarify that it isn't, only certain software is).

This right here.

[Synical123]

Since they didn't ban Multiboxing, just the key replication software.. why would they bother?

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Except you can still do that via VMs and a hypervisor and/or hardware multiplexer (and then assign each "device" to one VM).

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This right here.

The context I’m speaking under is manually multiboxing with different windows. Try to understand context before commenting thanks

[Stickiler]

Since they didn't ban Multiboxing, just the key replication software.. why would they bother?

Because there's ways of multi-boxing which are fine(running multiple copies of the game, putting the other characters on follow and just controlling one character directly), anything which replicates the old behavior of replicating key presses will clearly fall under the same guidelines as key replication software.

[kaminaris]

Because there's ways of multi-boxing which are fine(running multiple copies of the game, putting the other characters on follow and just controlling one character directly), anything which replicates the old behavior of replicating key presses will clearly fall under the same guidelines as key replication software.

Again it's not their intention. Read this post: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post52798728

Key replication is fine but software that does it is not.

[Kagthul]

Because there's ways of multi-boxing which are fine(running multiple copies of the game, putting the other characters on follow and just controlling one character directly), anything which replicates the old behavior of replicating key presses will clearly fall under the same guidelines as key replication software.

except they specifically said it was just the software. Keep trying though

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The context I’m speaking under is manually multiboxing with different windows. Try to understand context before commenting thanks

I understood just fine. You simply had no relevant point.

If you're not using the software, you're 100% ok.

Blizzard themselves clarified that is just the software. So all of that stuff you're insisting they'd code for... Is pointless. Because they don't care if you multibox. At all. This wasnt even done to prevent multiboxing, it was done to make botting harder, by disallowing the windows API that was being used by both.

It was never about multiboxing.

Try to keep up, kiddo

And if you were talking about this:

https://streamable.com/4nbuab

That's 100% OK and always will be

[ketsui]

except they specifically said it was just the software. Keep trying though

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I understood just fine. You simply had no relevant point.

If you're not using the software, you're 100% ok.

Blizzard themselves clarified that is just the software. So all of that stuff you're insisting they'd code for... Is pointless. Because they don't care if you multibox. At all. This wasnt even done to prevent multiboxing, it was done to make botting harder, by disallowing the windows API that was being used by both.

It was never about multiboxing.

Try to keep up, kiddo

And if you were talking about this:

https://streamable.com/4nbuab

That's 100% OK and always will be

Taking away the software effectively kills multiboxing.
No one is gonna go through that much headache, except the people who were incapable of operating simple software. They really did kill this game for me which sucks because there is no alternative yet. Will be waiting for something better to come out but won’t play a game where blizzard caters to ignorant people as a pr stunt

[Kagthul]

Taking away the software effectively kills multiboxing.

Did you watch the above video? No? Maybe do that. That's effective 5 man multiboxing with NO extra software.

No one is gonna go through that much headache,

What headache? 10 minutes to set up a VM? Lolwut?
10 seconds to order a hardware multiplexer for 25$? Wut?

except the people who were incapable of operating simple software. They really did kill this game for me which sucks because there is no alternative yet. Will be waiting for something better to come out but won’t play a game where blizzard caters to ignorant people as a pr stunt

So because you're too lazy to adapt, its "killed multiboxing"? Trust me, the people who already paid out for a 12-16 core rig to multibox aren't just going to give up because they might have to order a multiplexer or setup a VM (which is not remotely difficult).

[Mosha]

Did you watch the above video? No? Maybe do that. That's effective 5 man multiboxing with NO extra software.



What headache? 10 minutes to set up a VM? Lolwut?
10 seconds to order a hardware multiplexer for 25$? Wut?



So because you're too lazy to adapt, its "killed multiboxing"? Trust me, the people who already paid out for a 12-16 core rig to multibox aren't just going to give up because they might have to order a multiplexer or setup a VM (which is not remotely difficult).

Not saying there won’t be people who do it, but there are a lot of well known 20+ account multiboxers who are doing exactly what you’re saying they won’t do, quit.