Stop Multiclienting!

Soloeus

Multiclienting is one of the worst things in any MMO. It is illegal in most of them, and I have seen many in zone chat admit to "multi-boxing" where you have 3-4 instances of the game running at the same time on your machine.

Of course, this isn't really even functional. I mean, unless you are using a bot program on the alts, you aren't achieving anything. This only enables and empowers bot farms.

escape1979uk

Its not "Illegal" in any of the main AAA MMO's out today.

If there was a /follow option and a /Attack target of target option, I would fully support and probably engage in multiboxing.

However the lack of these features mean the Multiboxing software is probably doing things that are against the rules.

Incarnatus

I think Zenimax needs to do "whatever" is necessary to force the bots and cheaters out of the game. From the posts I have read (and they are many), concerning bots in ESO, bots are not the only problem. Too many people are ready to jump on anything suggested to deal with the bot plague. If you do not like what is suggested give a viable alternative instead of simply whining how such a measure can't work or how it will hurt the legit players.

Fairydragon3

Multibox is really hard to do for one, there is no follow function, or tab targeting. This makes Multibox botting very inefficient and virtually impossible. so if the people have this capability to control 2 characters by hand, I salute my new game overlords, they got some skills

drkfrontiers

I agree ban the lot of them. I have only been playing a short while and the amount of abuse in this game is shocking. Virtually in every instance I find myself in there is a player running around with 6 - 7 alts tagging along and attacking the same target.

Utter disregard for fellow players.

KerinKor

Soloeus wrote: »

Multiclienting is one of the worst things in any MMO. It is illegal in most of them,

Stop posting blatant lies. No MMO bans 'boxing. Your problem is your ignorance in thinking 'boxing = botting, IT'S NOT!

Fact is 'boxing in this game is harder than most because ZOS deliberately didn't include a /follow command so most 'boxing may well be using bots but if I run two characters at the same time playing both separately that is NOT against any TOS for and MMO in existence.

Soloeus

Boxing is only possible with botting or some external macro program, or macro-like program. Having 5 characters standing still while a 6th one moves isn't viable and isn't what people who Multibox do.

What they do is botting, and using secondary characters for "Follow" and "Autoheal" functions. Things which are small and easy. They can also be told to use "Loot" and other in-game functions.

Is there an official statement anywhere from Zenimax that can be used to support the removal of multiboxing, preferably from their own TOS or EULA?

Shillen

KerinKor wrote: »

Soloeus wrote: »

Multiclienting is one of the worst things in any MMO. It is illegal in most of them,

Stop posting blatant lies. No MMO bans 'boxing. Your problem is your ignorance in thinking 'boxing = botting, IT'S NOT!

Most boxing is botting. Everyone I know that multiboxes uses 3rd party programs to make it easier. Therefore most of the actual game input is not manual but done by a program. It's also a lot more detrimental to the game than someone who is just botting on one character. Yet, it's allowed because it makes the company money.

Fairydragon3

Shillen wrote: »

KerinKor wrote: »

Soloeus wrote: »

Multiclienting is one of the worst things in any MMO. It is illegal in most of them,

Stop posting blatant lies. No MMO bans 'boxing. Your problem is your ignorance in thinking 'boxing = botting, IT'S NOT!

Most boxing is botting. Everyone I know that multiboxes uses 3rd party programs to make it easier. Therefore most of the actual game input is not manual but done by a program.

I would like to know how they do this with no target tabbing and no follow command

SoulForge

I multi boxed with eq and it was great fun. the down side is having to pay for 3 sets of expansions and 3 subscription fees. without an auto follow I cant see the point of it in this game though

Shillen

SoulForge wrote: »

I multi boxed with eq and it was great fun. the down side is having to pay for 3 sets of expansions and 3 subscription fees. without an auto follow I cant see the point of it in this game though

Multi-boxing was a blight on everquest. Hence why there's an extremely popular private server that polices against it. It was cheating, plain and simple. Everquest was a really difficult game that you could not really solo most content in. But boxing allowed you to do what normal players couldn't. It's even worse now that the game is free to play. Everyone is 3- or more boxing. I tried playing again but it's just disgusting.

Arreyanne

Say someone boxing two templars last night and ask myself the same question, without a follow command how they do that

SoulForge

i didn't cheat to do it either. i had two healers on auto follow and had their action bars memorized so i could focus on my tank. just takes a little skill no add ons or cheats necessary

Shillen

SoulForge wrote: »

i didn't cheat to do it either. i had two healers on auto follow and had their action bars memorized so i could focus on my tank. just takes a little skill no add ons or cheats necessary

It's cheating by default. It makes a hard game easy. Whether SoE/Verant wanted to call it cheating or not.

Soloeus

I don't like the idea of PVP being unbalanced by rich kids going around with 5 characters in a stack of auto-command routines fragging everyone, making ESO a battle of who can afford the most subscriptions.

GrimCyclone

I'm more surprised these jokers have the money and desire to do this. I mean... people you see in Best Buy just buy one copy. I'd love to see one of these boxers in the checkout line with like 4 copies.

"Uh, yeah they're totally all for me. I'm going to play all 4 at once on 4 computers."

Me: "Th-That's.. aw-awesome, sir. Have fun with that." *slowly backs away*

Really dude? Really?

zoetaz1616

So someone pays 4-6 times what I do to achieve the same result...Nice.

Anastasia

Fairydragon3 wrote: »

Multibox is really hard to do for one, there is no follow function, or tab targeting. This makes Multibox botting very inefficient and virtually impossible. so if the people have this capability to control 2 characters by hand, I salute my new game overlords, they got some skills

---

As an aside, I have read this comment by players before and don't understand the claim. I routinely re- mem my hotkeys in a game to different ones so I can more comfortably reach the most used ones, ie I use the main row of letters for my main attack/skills rather than the numeral row.

I have my letter Q key as my attack. When I hit it if there are several mobs nearby it shows me a target box/frame on the nearest one, if I use a direction key and move in any direction and rehit it, my target box/frame will move to another 'closest' mob. So while it may be a tiny bit different than preset three or four tab - targeting of mobs, it works pretty much in the same manner for me.

aufischb16_ESO

I agree with the OP. ESO is obviously not meant to be played simultaneously with several characters that are controlled by one player. Otherwise it would have implemented the /follow or /attack feature.
It is therefore safe to assume that anyone out there who keeps a couple of characters in line simultaneously (and recently I have also seen characters with "normal" names, not just the usual gibberish) uses illegal mods/addons. In my opinion, this would qualify for an immediate ban.
We have people having problems with leveling up, even though they do most or all of the quests. Bot raiding parties that easily empty a whole area within minutes are part of this problem, since the legitimate players can't get any XP from killling the enemies in these areas. Additionally they also don't get any loot of them.
These multiboxed bots are plainly ruining the game experience (inclusive immersion) for all the other players!

Soloeus

Just wait until they explode into PVP.

There are probably loner roving bands in Cyrodil right now. Just wait until a guild organizes a mass of accounts and uses this "feature" to always have high population of characters online at the same time.

DanteYoda

Anything that changes the exe and other files should be banned and yes i hate addons too in mmo's generic or gone imo.

Orizuru

Fairydragon3 wrote: »

Shillen wrote: »

KerinKor wrote: »

Soloeus wrote: »

Multiclienting is one of the worst things in any MMO. It is illegal in most of them,

Stop posting blatant lies. No MMO bans 'boxing. Your problem is your ignorance in thinking 'boxing = botting, IT'S NOT!

Most boxing is botting. Everyone I know that multiboxes uses 3rd party programs to make it easier. Therefore most of the actual game input is not manual but done by a program.

I would like to know how they do this with no target tabbing and no follow command

In theory, it probably works like this...

Get multiple clients running on the same PC. You will need a 3rd party application that allows the input commands from the keyboard and mouse that are generated within the client instance that currently has focus to be replicated and sent to all other game client instances as well.

As long as you get all of the characters standing in the exact same place at the exact same time when you enable the 3rd party application, then any commands sent to the primary character are also sent to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ect...

As long as your computer doesn't lag from the number of clients running there shouldn't be enough input lag to break the multi-box controls. It's not considered a bot because the computer program isn't making decisions, it's just splitting the input commands sent to one client in a way that allows all running clients to receive the input commands. Technically, this isn't botting because it is a person making the decisions about where to walk and which ability to activate. It is controversial though, but that isn't what I'm here to discuss. I just wanted to explain how it's possible.

This is probably not the best way to implement this, but in theory it could work. However, I would expect it would be possible for small amounts of input lag to accumulate over time and cause individual characters in the boxxing setup to fall behind, so the longer the run the application, the more you risk one of your multiple characters getting hung up on something in the environment like a rock or tree, which would cause that one character to be out of sync with the others.

Once you get them synced up initially, I could see this idea working for at least and hour or two of play before they would need to be synced again. And I'm sure the multi-boxxers are using something a bit more elegant than what I describe, but it probably works along the same basic premise, with a few enhancements to address synchronization and input lag perhaps.

robacooperb16_ESO

Honestly without a /follow command or tab targeting these multi-boxers are little better than bots... and I'm sure their population has a number of gold selling/farmer filth in their ranks - ban multi-boxers and then ban'em if they don't stop and clean out the exploiters.

aufischb16_ESO

FENGRUSH wrote: »

[Snip]

So please, enlighten me. How exactly do you successfully multibox a game like ESO, which doesn't have any support for it?

Most of the people are fully aware that multiboxing does not necessarily equal botting in most MMO's. And yes, we also know that one can probably run a throng of bots without multiboxing.
However, we are talking about a game that has absolutely no native support for multiboxing and therefore is useless for a serious legitimate multiboxer who does not use any illegal addons/programs

Why then would/should it bother you that multiboxing would just plainly be dissallowed?

Soloeus

FENGRUSH wrote: »

[Snip]

ONE character logged in per player at a time.

1. Botting is the only way that Multiboxing serves a functional benefit. It is the first door that, if open, makes it really easy for just anyone to bot.

2. Multi-Boxing by itself serves no benefit. While you have one character hunting the rest are just standing still somewhere; which takes up server space as they are logged in doing nothing. The ONLY TIME they are active is when you change active window from A to B; and B does something while A stands still.

3. But this isn't what people do with Multi-Boxing. They control the "Alts" with bot software which is against the rules.

4. This also gives an unfair advantage to players who can afford to buy 5 accounts. This is not a Pay2Win game, and allowing Multi-Box Botting is equal to having a Pay2Win model because functionally speaking, one person can "pay to win."

5. There is no sufficient reason to need more than one account logged in at the same time. I don't care if you have 2 monitors, or 2 computers without multi-boxing the end result is the same. This is a teleological argument, not a deontological one, but you probably don't know the difference. Method doesn't matter, end result does.

FENGRUSH

You could run a templar on a laptop next to you and do nothing but pop heals with it while you farm somewhere. Hes not a bot nor is he doing anything unlegit. Pretty simple example.

Dont paint one thing to be another. The game doesnt need to support multiboxing with /follow commands to allow it. /follow wasnt invented for multiboxing either.

Griffus

I agree multi-boxing is a problem. Not so much that there are not probably some legit multi-boxers. I know ill run my wifes account w/ mine sometimes. However, when you clearly see issues of "mass farming" using 3-100s of accounts all at the same time to force respawns of rss or to farm hides off mobs to refine and sell we got a clear problem. I support you in this post, and ill go ahead and link my similar "botting post"

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/820285#Comment_820285

Soloeus

FENGRUSH wrote: »

You could run a templar on a laptop next to you and do nothing but pop heals with it while you farm somewhere. Hes not a bot nor is he doing anything unlegit. Pretty simple example.

Dont paint one thing to be another. The game doesnt need to support multiboxing with /follow commands to allow it. /follow wasnt invented for multiboxing either.

I already addressed your fallacy.

5. There is no sufficient reason to need more than one account logged in at the same time. I don't care if you have 2 monitors, or 2 computers without multi-boxing the end result is the same. This is a teleological argument, not a deontological one, but you probably don't know the difference. Method doesn't matter, end result does.

Griffus

A big push for, and answer to some of this multi-box farming would simply be "stop making nodes respawn based on farm rate of an area" give them an hour timer till respawn. This would drive the rss market down, and their farming would take 100s of hours more to get the same amount of gold as they are currently getting in under a few hours

Soloeus

That would be a good start, Griffus, however that is also a separate issue.

Multi-Boxing is a terrible thing to allow. If you allow it, then let multiple characters on my account be logged in at the same time and the game will be about using a "War Bot" to control your small army.

Otherwise, it gives an unfair advantage to players who buy multiple accounts. In a chess tournament, you don't get to enter yourself 30 times and play in every round to secure your odds of winning just because you are rich.

In baseball, you aren't allowed to buy 3 extra people standing on third base during the home run.

aufischb16_ESO

FENGRUSH wrote: »

You could run a templar on a laptop next to you and do nothing but pop heals with it while you farm somewhere. Hes not a bot nor is he doing anything unlegit. Pretty simple example.

Dont paint one thing to be another. The game doesnt need to support multiboxing with /follow commands to allow it. /follow wasnt invented for multiboxing either.

Yeah right, and who would pay two instances of the game plus two times the monthly fee just to do that?

And unless that templar has an auto-heal and -evade function (which again would require an illegal script) that would still be rather awkward to do, since whatever would attack your farmer would probably also attack your templar.