Calling all multiboxers

[Tovi]

There's something fishy going on in WoW.

It all started a about 8 months ago. Two people posted in WoW's General Forum that they were banned for MB even though they didn't use third party software. Both of them said they had uninstalled ISBoxer when they were told to. Like any normal WoW player, I automatically thought they were lying and/or not telling the whole story. My husband was MB at the time and he wasn't using third party software, weird macros or a special keyboard and mouse. All he was doing was going window mode on his five accounts and clicking through them. So anyways, that's why I assumed they were lying because my husband was still playing.

Until the day we got 5 emails from Blizz saying his accounts were refunded and banned.

We were floored. My husband is someone that has never been in trouble the 43 years he's been on this planet. Never even had a speeding ticket. He's so by the book when it comes to following the rules that it's sometimes annoying. We assumed that it was a mistake and caused by all the people that harassed him every time he logged on. He knew he was getting reported about 20x a day. We just sat back and waited for the apology for the false positive that was sure to come. It never did. What he got instead was a 6 month suspension.

The CS forum is now getting posts from people saying they were banned for boxing and they claim they're not using third party software either.

I know this topic does not generate sympathy from most of the player base. Some of you think boxers and bots are the same thing (they're not.) Some of you think boxers control the AH (not all the time. Whales do but not all whales are boxers.) This thread really isn't about the moral dilemma of boxing but the shady way Blizzard is handling this. Your first reaction might be the cheer but I hope you can pause for a moment and realize this isn't good for the game.

It seems to me that boxers are being used as a scapegoat. People are reporting and Blizzard is sending them a letter that says something along the lines of "thanks for your report, action has been taken against this account." At first this wasn't true because legit boxers were following the rules and nothing was happening. I bet the people doing the reporting, thinking they were trying to help with the bot problem, were getting angry. I know they were getting angry because of the posts I was reading on the WoW's GD. I bet they were feeling ignored because the person they have been reporting day in and day out was still there with their five Druids picking flowers. I also have a feeling that Blizzard was getting frustrated with boxers because they always found away. They removed /follow in BGs and WM. They banned third party software. They recently banned hardware that streamlined boxing. However, none of this slowed down boxers because they could still have five accounts in windowed mode and click through them with efficiency. So it looks like Blizzard is just banning people with multiple accounts. Not just anyone with more than one account but anyone that has them all on at the same time. Now I know someone is going to say "I have two accounts on at the same time every day!" So do I. There's some magical threshold that Blizzard has set and I have a feeling it's set to five accounts. That's just a theory based on what I've read on WoW's GD and CS forums.

So, why is this dangerous to the game? Why should you stop cheering that Blizzard is cracking down on boxers? Well, there's a few reasons. Let's start with the fact that I bet if most of these people would have stopped doing what they were doing if Blizzard just banned the practice of boxing all together. Why hit them with a ban then suspension when they were following the rules? Why not update the rules? Doing this has not slowed down bots, it's only banned or suspended legitimate players (back to the scapegoat thing). What if your activity is next? What if Blizzard decided that since this worked so well for multi-boxing, they'll start doing it for carries. Even though your team carried someone through a heroic raid for gold, you got banned anyways because Blizzard felt it was done for real money. I'm just using that scenario as an example and I hope you get the point I'm trying to make.

Final thought: I know that a lot of replies to my thread is not going to be about my overall point and instead it's going to be a bunch of "your husband is guilty." All I can tell you is he's not. I know what was on his computer. I'm on his computer all the time. If he was cheating in any way, I would have been the first person to point and laugh in his face for being dumb. I might have even reported him myself for the "lols." I'm requesting that we don't make the thread about my husband's guilt or innocence but as you all know, I can't stop you. But I can ignore you. I would just like to hear from others that this has happened to.

Thank you for reading.

[WinningOne]

As you can see from the lack of responses, few players care about this issue because I think everyone on your side of it has left.

I agree with you it seems like multiboxers were made into scapegoats for the latest "game breaking" outrage. The wording in the policy change from earlier this month seemed to imply it was being made because so many players claimed the very sight of a multiboxer ruined their game play experience. Of course that's a completely ridiculous position for any player to take and Blizzard should have stood up for people like your husband instead of letting them get lumped in with those who are actually causing problems.

In the end this policy change has been a blessing though. Seeing players be allowed to so viciously attack mutliboxers like your husband in game and on the forums opened my eyes to what a truly awful community Blizzard has allowed to develop around WoW. Maybe there's only so much Blizzard can do. I know there are many good players out there but they're a silent group and I can see how it would be hard to notice them just hanging out doing their own thing while there's a mob of crazed poo-flinging chimpanzees screaming in your face about multiboxers. Regardless, it seems clear nuanced policy decisions are difficult to enact and the WoW community at large is perfectly fine sacrificing innocent players like your husband if it provides a perceived decrease in genuine cheaters.

I canceled my account because of what I saw in response to this policy change. It's definitely not a community I want to be a part of.

[Lochton]

There's something fishy going on in WoW.

It all started a about 8 months ago. Two people posted in WoW's General Forum that they were banned for MB even though they didn't use third party software. Both of them said they had uninstalled ISBoxer when they were told to. Like any normal WoW player, I automatically thought they were lying and/or not telling the whole story. My husband was MB at the time and he wasn't using third party software, weird macros or a special keyboard and mouse. All he was doing was going window mode on his five accounts and clicking through them. So anyways, that's why I assumed they were lying because my husband was still playing.

Until the day we got 5 emails from Blizz saying his accounts were refunded and banned.

We were floored. My husband is someone that has never been in trouble the 43 years he's been on this planet. Never even had a speeding ticket. He's so by the book when it comes to following the rules that it's sometimes annoying. We assumed that it was a mistake and caused by all the people that harassed him every time he logged on. He knew he was getting reported about 20x a day. We just sat back and waited for the apology for the false positive that was sure to come. It never did. What he got instead was a 6 month suspension.

The CS forum is now getting posts from people saying they were banned for boxing and they claim they're not using third party software either.

I know this topic does not generate sympathy from most of the player base. Some of you think boxers and bots are the same thing (they're not.) Some of you think boxers control the AH (not all the time. Whales do but not all whales are boxers.) This thread really isn't about the moral dilemma of boxing but the shady way Blizzard is handling this. Your first reaction might be the cheer but I hope you can pause for a moment and realize this isn't good for the game.

It seems to me that boxers are being used as a scapegoat. People are reporting and Blizzard is sending them a letter that says something along the lines of "thanks for your report, action has been taken against this account." At first this wasn't true because legit boxers were following the rules and nothing was happening. I bet the people doing the reporting, thinking they were trying to help with the bot problem, were getting angry. I know they were getting angry because of the posts I was reading on the WoW's GD. I bet they were feeling ignored because the person they have been reporting day in and day out was still there with their five Druids picking flowers. I also have a feeling that Blizzard was getting frustrated with boxers because they always found away. They removed /follow in BGs and WM. They banned third party software. They recently banned hardware that streamlined boxing. However, none of this slowed down boxers because they could still have five accounts in windowed mode and click through them with efficiency. So it looks like Blizzard is just banning people with multiple accounts. Not just anyone with more than one account but anyone that has them all on at the same time. Now I know someone is going to say "I have two accounts on at the same time every day!" So do I. There's some magical threshold that Blizzard has set and I have a feeling it's set to five accounts. That's just a theory based on what I've read on WoW's GD and CS forums.

So, why is this dangerous to the game? Why should you stop cheering that Blizzard is cracking down on boxers? Well, there's a few reasons. Let's start with the fact that I bet if most of these people would have stopped doing what they were doing if Blizzard just banned the practice of boxing all together. Why hit them with a ban then suspension when they were following the rules? Why not update the rules? Doing this has not slowed down bots, it's only banned or suspended legitimate players (back to the scapegoat thing). What if your activity is next? What if Blizzard decided that since this worked so well for multi-boxing, they'll start doing it for carries. Even though your team carried someone through a heroic raid for gold, you got banned anyways because Blizzard felt it was done for real money. I'm just using that scenario as an example and I hope you get the point I'm trying to make.

Final thought: I know that a lot of replies to my thread is not going to be about my overall point and instead it's going to be a bunch of "your husband is guilty." All I can tell you is he's not. I know what was on his computer. I'm on his computer all the time. If he was cheating in any way, I would have been the first person to point and laugh in his face for being dumb. I might have even reported him myself for the "lols." I'm requesting that we don't make the thread about my husband's guilt or innocence but as you all know, I can't stop you. But I can ignore you. I would just like to hear from others that this has happened to.

Thank you for reading.

Sounds like your husband was banned by the action of reports. Players claiming the person was a multi-boxer operating shady actions, such as multiple tasks at the same time. Multi-boxers has been considered destructive for the game community for a long time now, even when they are stripped down to the bone (only tabbing screens and using WoW macros).

As you can see from the lack of responses, few players care about this issue because I think everyone on your side of it has left.

I agree with you it seems like multiboxers were made into scapegoats for the latest "game breaking" outrage. The wording in the policy change from earlier this month seemed to imply it was being made because so many players claimed the very sight of a multiboxer ruined their game play experience. Of course that's a completely ridiculous position for any player to take and Blizzard should have stood up for people like your husband instead of letting them get lumped in with those who are actually causing problems.

In the end this policy change has been a blessing though. Seeing players be allowed to so viciously attack mutliboxers like your husband in game and on the forums opened my eyes to what a truly awful community Blizzard has allowed to develop around WoW. Maybe there's only so much Blizzard can do. I know there are many good players out there but they're a silent group and I can see how it would be hard to notice them just hanging out doing their own thing while there's a mob of crazed poo-flinging chimpanzees screaming in your face about multiboxers. Regardless, it seems clear nuanced policy decisions are difficult to enact and the WoW community at large is perfectly fine sacrificing innocent players like your husband if it provides a perceived decrease in genuine cheaters.

I canceled my account because of what I saw in response to this policy change. It's definitely not a community I want to be a part of.

Curious. What further policy chance has there been this month? The banning of3rd party software use for multiboxing were a little further back.

[XDurionX]

Is it time for the 16 o'clock i-dindu-nuffin-and-got-banned-thread already?

[Deferionus]

Sounds like your husband was banned by the action of reports. Players claiming the person was a multi-boxer operating shady actions, such as multiple tasks at the same time. Multi-boxers has been considered destructive for the game community for a long time now, even when they are stripped down to the bone (only tabbing screens and using WoW macros).



Curious. What further policy chance has there been this month? The banning of3rd party software use for multiboxing were a little further back.

They banned hardware multiboxing earlier this month which effectively kills any form of multiboxing outside of /follow and tab. It's a shame because I started to multibox in BFA and it actually made the game enjoyable again. I enjoyed doing 5 man dungeons and finding out ways to overcome mechanics with my multibox set up and thought about scaling it up to do some 10 man raids. It basically opened an entirely new avenue to playing the game.

[Lochton]

They banned hardware multiboxing earlier this month which effectively kills any form of multiboxing outside of /follow and tab. It's a shame because I started to multibox in BFA and it actually made the game enjoyable again. I enjoyed doing 5 man dungeons and finding out ways to overcome mechanics with my multibox set up and thought about scaling it up to do some 10 man raids. It basically opened an entirely new avenue to playing the game.

Ah, yeah, forgot about the Hardware ban. Nah, was a good choice of them to do. The game is not built for multi-boxing.

I was a multi-boxer during Wrath. Three accounts only, but in 3v3 arena with three paladins or running dungeons, not really that fair.

[Aradur]

Is it time for the 16 o'clock i-dindu-nuffin-and-got-banned-thread already?

This.

Also: Good. Ban all multiboxers and everyone that has ever multiboxed. You are literaly paying Money to get advantages in the Game. You are on Par with boters and cheaters - the worst type of „Player“ and i wish you nothing less then losing everything you got from doing it.

Don’t ask for sympathy here, you won‘t get any.

[Thirtyrock]

Snip

If your husband was not cheating/using banned tools, he should be able to get his accounts reinstated. I've seen people banned/suspended falsely before and I've seen them successfully appeal.

From what I understand Blizzard does not tell reporting parties if action was taken against a specific account but I did recently receive a response to a series of reports against a bot that was more generic "one of your reports led to actions against an account." Since i had only reported one account, I knew what they were talking about. (did not report a multiboxer, looked to be an AH bot).

I'm completely uninterested in discussing the value or benefit or harm of multiboxing, so I'm not going to answer your questions about how it harms the game. I will say your "what if YOUR activity..." speculation is...well it's just fearmongering/conspiracy theory talk. Blizzard said exactly what they were going to do and then did it. If they've accidentally caught some people in the crossfire, well, that's why they allow appeals.

[ceall]

I didn't read too much into all of the multiboxing stuff.

However, I have seen them on multiple occasions. Sometimes it was 20+ dks, sometimes it was shamans, but mostly a horde of druids farming all day.

The first multiboxer i saw was when I was new to the game in like bc or wrath. I instantly thought "this can't be allowed". It trivialized the game for that individual, as everything is one-shot for them.

When the multiboxing issue became bigger, and experienced it first hand, I learned to hate it, because even though the boxers were actively playing one character, they basically "botted" on another 1-19 other characters due to button press automations either with 3rd party programs or special hardware.

I mean, what are the reasons for multiboxing? There's those that farm mats all day long. There's the pvp server griefers (pre-wod), and most importantly, account selling is still a thing. I don't know the prices right now, but accounts with at least one max level character can go for multiple hundred bucks depending on ilvl.

When blizz first changed the ToS last year to forbidding 3rd party software, i cheered, a lot!

And now, we're coming to OP. AFAIK with the new change to the ToS last month or so, multiboxing of ANY kind is now forbidden (didn't read about this in detail). This is when I cheered even harder.
Now, I don't know you or your partner, I cant know if anything you said is true. But as I said before, you could still be in the account selling department and for that I cheer at blizzard to intervene. Definitely the right move on their side.

[Thirtyrock]

This.

Also: Good. Ban all multiboxers and everyone that has ever multiboxed. You are literaly paying Money to get advantages in the Game. You are on Par with boters and cheaters - the worst type of „Player“ and i wish you nothing less then losing everything you got from doing it.

Don’t ask for sympathy here, you won‘t get any.

Hey, hey, hey! I used to multibox to quickly level characters through dungeons. It was fun to have a full 5 man team and think how to do it all so I could automate it from one screen.

I used autohotkey as my automation tool.

I don't do it anymore and I never did it to manipulate the economy/farm/etc. I would NOT do it again since the change in the rules, but when I DID do it, it was completely allowed. No need to retroactively punish people (not that I think Blizzard would do that) who are currently complying.

- - - Updated - - -

And now, we're coming to OP. AFAIK with the new change to the ToS last month or so, multiboxing of ANY kind is now forbidden (didn't read about this in detail). This is when I cheered even harder.
Now, I don't know you or your partner, I cant know if anything you said is true. But as I said before, you could still be in the account selling department and for that I cheer at blizzard to intervene. Definitely the right move on their side.

They were very specific that they only banned automation of key presses between accounts. You cannot use hardware OR software to broadcast your keystrokes; if you want each account to cast a spell and you have 5 accounts, you need to press the key 5 times, once per account.
They did NOT ban other forms of multiboxing.

[Spazzix]

The new policy basically means "we can ban you if you are causing problems for us" because the "streamline" clause can be applied to anything. Do you use a modern mouse/keyboard? That software can be used to streamline multiboxing by remapping (no, not even talking about broadcasting, not mirroring, not macros... simply remapping) keys in a way that facilitates different controls on different characters. Did you actually use it to do that? Doesn't matter, it can be used for that and you are running it.
Same for tons of productivity software that people may use for work. Things that control or alter cursor usage, window layout, scripting software that you aren't actively using for gaming but you use for work—all of them have the potential to streamline multiboxing, so all are bannable. Super fun point: windows accessibility options allow the "focus window on hover" mode (basically you don't have to alt tab or click to switch focus, you just move your mouse to the window. That clearly can *and has* streamlined multibox play...so...Windows OS default features bannable?

The real issue I have though is that Blizzard doesn't just say "multiboxing is no longer allowed. Period. Full stop. No exceptions." I think it's okay to have a direction for a game and to make policies that help that direction. But this deal where blizzard kinda sorta bans parts of multiboxing, but not really, but allows multiboxers to go on just long enough to BUY their shadowlands copy and play it beyond a reasonable return date...Then they decide to actually ban it for real...but actually not really because you can still have more than one account running...

If you want to sell more copies and subs via multiboxing, you have to allow it in a reasonable and well defined capacity (as it was in the days of 1 human input = 1 action per account = good and 1 human input = >1 action per account = violation). If you want to support a community decision to remove multiboxing from WoW because it's detrimental to player experience, then BAN MULTIBOXING.

And this is coming from a multiboxer. I enjoyed it. I continued to do it within Blizzards terms after the 2020 policy change. I enjoyed single box wow at a relatively high level as well. I would have continued to enjoy single box wow if Blizzard said

"Unfortunately, even after making efforts to find a balance of terms for multiboxers with our 2020 policy change, we have concluded that for the direction of WoW and health of the community, we must change our policy to ban all forms of multiboxing. This means that a player may only be responsible for one instance of WoW running at any given time."

But they didn't. They said "Multiboxing is a headache for us, so we might ban you. We might not though! So, it would be great if you could keep paying us $15 extra a month for multiple accounts."

That leaves a really really bad taste in my mouth and for the first time makes me look forward not to a new MMO, but to a new company.

[Spikeychris]

Until the day we got 5 emails from Blizz saying his accounts were refunded and banned.

Please provide screen shots of these emails (with personal info hidden obviously) because generally speaking when someone gets banned they get banned. They don't get refunded anything they just get banned. Also include the specific reason he was banned given in the email.

People are reporting and Blizzard is sending them a letter that says something along the lines of "thanks for your report, action has been taken against this account."

This isn't a thing. I have reported many many many people over the years for a multitude of reasons and I have never once had anything from blizzard saying action has been taken on the account.

So, why is this dangerous to the game?

It's not dangerous to the game... maybe just don't multibox?

What if Blizzard decided that since this worked so well for multi-boxing, they'll start doing it for carries. Even though your team carried someone through a heroic raid for gold, you got banned anyways because Blizzard felt it was done for real money. I'm just using that scenario as an example and I hope you get the point I'm trying to make.

Yes your point is a slippery slope argument (and one that has bugger all to do with multiboxing).

[Therougetitan]

Blizzard customer service is garbage now. Lots of other people have received random bans now. It's just an automated hit and innocent people get hit up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...om_suspension/

[ketsui]

Blizzard customer service is garbage now. Lots of other people have received random bans now. It's just an automated hit and innocent people get hit up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...om_suspension/

So glad this was my reason for perma quitting bliz games back in nov. the community scapegoating multiboxers and even still after they don’t exist mistakenly accusing bots as multiboxers is why I’ll never return. Really hope these kinds of players stay in wow after riot mmo comes out

[GnomeEU]

If lots of players report you and you're multiboxing, no matter if its manual multiboxing or not, you'll get a ban.
Then if you appeal they might lift it or not, but blizzard doesn't really care.
Banning systems in wow are mostly automated.

[Therougetitan]

The recurring theme of the reddit thread seems to be people using a consoleport addon that Blizzard hit while hitting other API for bans. RIP. Gotta be careful when using addons on curse it looks like.

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/console-port

[Qnubi]

Good riddance. Just because something is technically allowed it doesn't mean that it is good. Will he also drive while under the effects of drugs just because it is allowed to do so, hypothetical? He should start thinking for himself about whats right or wrong, you even told him before that it annoys you. Use this incident to convert him away from a sheep and to a better person. One account per person should be the norm, not 2, not 3 nor 5. ONE! Why does your husband need 5 accounts? To have an advantage, why does he need an advantage? Because he has a weak character in this regard. You can tell that to him, perfect time to redeem him from his wrong doings. He might be the greatest human to you, but as we can see, he can still improve immensely.

[Thirtyrock]

This isn't a thing. I have reported many many many people over the years for a multitude of reasons and I have never once had anything from blizzard saying action has been taken on the account.

I didn't think this was a thing either but I reported someone for AH botting and I got a reply. It said (paraphrased) "Thank you for reporting recent incidents. Action has been taken against one of the accounts you reported. Please continue reporting similar incidents..."
I should have screenshot it, but did not.

I had only reported one account, so I knew who they were talking about, even though the in game mail did not specify the account.
I was SUPER surprised to receive the email because it seemed like a change in policy from what I've seen in the past. I had previously friended the account in question, so I could see when they logged on to post their auctions. Since the email that account has not logged back on, though another with a similar name (tons of special characters, level 5 warlock in shrine of two moons) has popped up with the same behavior.

[Deferionus]

Ah, yeah, forgot about the Hardware ban. Nah, was a good choice of them to do. The game is not built for multi-boxing.

I was a multi-boxer during Wrath. Three accounts only, but in 3v3 arena with three paladins or running dungeons, not really that fair.

For the long term health of the game yes, it was the right decision. They do need to not cave to pressure and harm people following their TOS like in the OP though.

[Azerate]

Probably should have stopped multiboxing a couple months ago when they introduced the first rule changes. While technically not completely banning multiboxing, that was the signal to just back off and stop.

In general everyone should be limited to 1 account only, that would be the fairest, however it's also a money loss for blizzard which is why they aren't doing it probably. There's no good reason people should be allowed to simultaneously log into the game on more than 1 character. Maybe they could make that bannable and leave the possibility of owning multiple accounts legal?

So glad this was my reason for perma quitting bliz games back in nov. the community scapegoating multiboxers and even still after they don’t exist mistakenly accusing bots as multiboxers is why I’ll never return. Really hope these kinds of players stay in wow after riot mmo comes out

Wow was the only high profile mmorpg that openly allowed multiboxing until very recently. The chances that a new mmorpg releases and allows that kind of thing are close to zero.