Ok so I am a multiboxer. Please don’t hate on me, I don’t streamline och cheat or collect abnormal amount of resources, or do pvp. I just love to create my own groups, and run dungeons. I would never do this in a pug or something like that, of course.
Other that that, I do questing, collecting, professions with one character at a time, just like everyone else. When I box, I have the screens next to each other and click them manually with mouse. No mouseover or other “not allowed” things. Running dungeons this way is fun, but a little limited in what I can do.
I’m really thinking about this One-button assistant. This could make a world of difference in how well I can do with my characters in dungeons. (Not while playing with others of course, only when it’s just me).
But if I have that set up on each character, and click that “one button” manually on each screen, in a dungeon. I mean, I’m not even choosing what abilities my characters will be using? Is that right? That would definitely feel like streamlining to me. Do you think it would still be counted as bannable streamlining, to use the “one button” on more than one account?
Same rules as today will apply: if you manually press that key on each game instance running, it will not be bannable. If you use any software or hardware to automate the key presses on secondary instances of the game so that you press it on only one account and the rest copy it, that’s bannable.
At family events when we play Cluedo I constantly tell everyone for no reason what cards I have and don’t have and also lie about it. It is not against the rules to do that.
One of my sisters who is the biggest hater of it and also the only one who reads and knows all the rules got baited, lost and was furious at herself as she knew I am like that.
I don’t consider multiboxing to be cheating, but I do not consider it outright as “properly” playing the game. If multiboxing did not give any of the 2,3,4,etc accounts an advantage over one-instance playing, I would consider it fair. But the case is that multiboxing does give great boons over playing a single account, most prominently when farming materials.
I’ll try to bring another example: Think of the Contra game for the NES (yes, nearly 40 years ago), or any other similar game. You can play alone, or you can play with a friend as 2-player co-op, or you can again play 2 characters alone. Playing alone is fine. Playing with a friend is again fine. But if you have enabled both characters then we have 2 cases:
You are playing 1 character at a time, so only one character moves or shoots at any point. So to move the other character you have to put Controller #1 down and use Controller #2. This is fine in my book.
You are using some sort of clever rubberbanding so that your presses on Controller #1 are mimicced (mimicked?) on Controller #2. Essentially, you get nearly double fire power while playing alone. This is not fine in my book.
I know how multiboxing works and it is cheating. You have to use external programs that copy the button press on other characters. It is cheating and it’s scum behaviour that ruins the game for other people.
Copying the button presses is forbidden and has been since a while. Having multiple accounts run at the same time and pressing the button in each window yourself that isnt copied over isnt.
“Multiboxing, or playing multiple World of Warcraft accounts at once, is not a violation of our End User License Agreement. Please note, however, that use of all software or hardware mechanisms used to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multiboxing in any way may result in account penalties.”
It’s not at all necessary to use any program to multibox. And I would never do that, since it’s not allowed. I keep the game windows next to each other, and click manually on each one. It’s actually mostly a disadvantage to play that way, if anything. It’s pretty difficult to do the best thing on each character, that way. I can understand if people assume that som form of copying is done. But it’s not, in my case.
I still love it, because I love to think about and put together fun groups, and try them out in dungeons. Playing with two or more characters is just so much more fun to me, than playing with one. It adds a wonderful complexity. I don’t ever want to do anything to annoy others. But I understand the differing opinions.
Just to add - What if you had a Main Tank. And you could use that to tank dungeons for your alts, and play your own groups. Wouldn’t that be fun? That’s what I do. Or try to do