Yeah i also have a druid herber/alchemist. I actually just report those players myself for toxicity.
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Multiboxing with the use of software emulating clicks and sending it to separate game windows IS BOTTING!
In fact, in some programming languages, the code library allowing the click replication/emulation is straight-up called a “Robot”
Here is a code sample of one of them:
public static void click(int x, int y) throws AWTException{
Robot bot = new Robot();
bot.mouseMove(x, y);
bot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_DOWN_MASK);
bot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_DOWN_MASK);
}
A simple solution would be for the game to reject all emulated clicks. In addition, any software that gets a handle to the game client should cause wow to exit and an automated warning/penalty being issued on the account.
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This is what bothers me, multiboxing wouldn’t be possible without 3rd party software running in the background. Sounds a lot like cheating to me.
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Whether you like it or not multiboxing with software is permitted. It doesn’t matter how you try to dress it up as botting it will never be classed as that by Blizzard.
Botting is no one in control, the programme does everything. Multiboxing is a person controlling the various accounts by actions being duplicated. It does not matter if you agree with it or not but that is the distinction.
I don’t like multiboxing either and I would love to see them break the mass farming. But arguing semantics is not going to do anything. Multiboxing is multiboxing.
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@Luminestrasz: This is actually not entirely correct. It is possible to run multiple WoWs on one computer without any extra software… and there are even people, who would still be able to multibox even if Blizzard required the use of separate computers for each WoW account.
@All: It is very important to distinguish between multiboxers and multibotters. I have no access to Blizzard figures, but what I have been able to determine seems to suggest that legit multiboxers are extremely rare (in comparison) and almost all detrimental issues are caused by multibotters. In other words, sufficiently powerful removal of bots would fix almost all related problems.
The said “3rd party software” is a BOT! As said before it emulates extra clicks.
My day job is a software engineer and I know exactly what I am talking about and every other software engineer will tell you the same.
The fact that Blizzard wants to disguise the multi-boxing bot as “3rd party software” doesn’t change the truth that is it a actually a bot.
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It’s not a bot, in terms of World of Warcraft a bot is a programme that performs all actions for you without a controlling account. If you are duplicating then it’s not botting.
The onus is on Multiboxers to stay within the rules with what software they use as it’s not a directly supported gameplay style. It’s just not against the rules.
It’s a fact that multiboxing is permitted and is not classed as botting.
I really don’t think these kinds of discussions are even remotely helpful. Blizz aren’t likely to remove a gameplay style they accept so we need to suggest ways to alleviate the problems they cause other players.
For example people have suggested nodes being character specific so that multi box farming isn’t viable.
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This is the only argument i ever see that defends multiboxing, it all sounds so convenient when typed out like that. Reminds me of corrupt politicians bending the law for their own gain. Nudge nudge wink wink.
One player can only ever play one character at any given time realistically. Sure there may be a person behind the keyboard playing the first character, but who plays the other X characters? Botting software.
To me this software is exactly like aimbots, wallhacks ect and the only difference here is that Blizzard themselves are getting paid and not some shady developer on some website.
But you are right, banging our heads against a brick wall will get us nowhere for as long as Blizzard make money from this.
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I have not defended multiboxing. I have explained what the rules are.
My personal feelings on multiboxing are wholly irrelevant.
Well it is botting if they manage to make attacking fully automatic.
No one would sit for hours or days on the pc spamming the same damn skill.
And this is also not only about harvesting or mining. No. It’s also about repeated pulling of Monsters in certain places.
I reported two such spots earlier in Legion when I was trying to quest with my DH and had to see two multibox-bot-groups right next to my quests.
The first one was even in [away]. Just how greedy can you be.
My Server is a small one too, can’t even image how horrible it must be in the popular ones.
Blizz want people to report bots, keep up the good work
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Multiboxers will talk to you, they love showing off - BOTS won’t …
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Software engineer here.
Usually when you press a button, it only goes to the active window. You can write software that still listens to the keyboard input and have it do stuff. The exception here is if the active window runs with elevated permissions.
Now the input is sent to all active wow windows through the multibox program. There’s no automation (botting) here. It’s like opening multiple text editors and typing the same text in all windows at the same time.
Not always. I recently had a problem with alt-f1 not working in far manager, and it turned out that the GeForce Experience was stealing the input.
Before Multiboxing Software was a thing People wired a Keyboard to multiple Computers with a Hub/Splitter to multibox.
That Multiboxing Software is a thing is because modern CPUs can easly handle multiple Clients on a single Machine.
Would you call wiring a Keyboard to 2 or 40 Computers via a Splitter without any Software also Bot?
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I would definitely call it cheating. Not botting.
That does not negate what I said 
You can write software that still listens to the keyboard input and have it do stuff. The exception here is if the active window runs with elevated permissions.
You’re 100% correct in what you said. The thing is that I’m not talking about that. If Geforce Experience is not running as administrator while your application is, windows will not let Geforce listen to key presses afaik.
Multiboxers have always been and always will be a plague to the game. Gaining unfair advantage by playing several characters at once, giving them option to loot one node more times, giving them option to be stronger in wpvp and to farm things a single person couldn’t farm. It’s an open p2w.
They butcher the market prices for any other trying to farm herbs/ores, because how can one person compete with 2 stacks an hour, if a multiboxer with 10 chars can loot 20 stacks an hour.
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Galiwick boosting just got banned with a reported 40 billion gold over BFA, let that sink in. ONE! Boosting service.
Why is that important? Because the majority of you guy’s crying about pay to win are paying to win, fact!
You cry about not being able to farm because the nodes are camped by multiboxers? Your welcome to the cheap mats on the Auction house, though I suspect you are seeing BOT farms not multiboxers.
What do you need gold for exactly?
Purchasing in game BOE Epics? Pay to win?
Purchasing in game boost services for gold? Pay to win?
Purchasing mat’s to craft? You’re welcome to the cheaper mats thank the Bots!
Purchasing consumables? Again nice and cheap, thank the boit farms!
And the funny thing is, Im gonna bet the majority of these multibox farms you see? Are bot farms not multibox farms.
It’s time you guys woke up and faced reality, the majority of players complaining Pay to win themself, and dont understand the difference between a bot and a box, the multiboxing community is very small, almost as small as the average I.Q. complaining about Multiboxer’s.
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Nope, it will actually make it worse. That would create an infinite supply of herbs, which will destroy their value and basically make professions useless. Nodes that can be tapped only once will fix the problem because it won’t matter if someone is multiboxing or not. We will all be equal and the hunt for herbs will be fair.
Engaging in player trading with the gold you earned is not pay2win, though. Multiboxers are literally spending $150 a month for objective increase in performance. Can a BOE increase my gathering tenfold? Can a boost increase my gold generation tenfold? Cuz I really don’t think so.
Multiboxing wasn’t a problem when you could run 3-4-5 accounts and your PC would run out of RAM. No you can easily run 20-30 accounts on a fairly affordable PC and you’d still have plenty of RAM left. There’s no excuse to multibox and at this point I have less respect for multiboxers than I do for bots. Because botters at least don’t try and pretend like what they do is dignified.
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