Battle-of-the-bands.info/blog

First of all I have a confession to make. I multi box.

There I said it; I have five Warcraft accounts at the moment, and play 3 or 5 characters at once. If you do the same then you will know the hassle you get for it.

“Reported – Botting” was the last one (a theme I’ve seen many times) and just plain “cheat” is another. They are wrong of course, but I am willing to try and understand their point of view.

If you are out minding your own business, it seems a little harsh if your farming or XP grinding is suddenly interrupted by either.

Ganking you to kingdom come or;

Seeing the area you are farming stripped of nodes like wheat fields during a locust storm.

If this has happened to you, and you are upset, then you need to understand how Blizzard administers Warcraft. It is done by account. Not by player and certainly not by character – but by account. This means that someone who has 5 accounts has 5 times the influence on the game as someone who has one. It’s only one person – but its 5 accounts, and that’s how the game is set up.

To put this into context, it is quite possible for teams of five separate players to get together and go on “ganking” or farming patrols. It happens. What is more, with 5 people to control them, the will be more efficient at it. Controlling 5 characters on your own is not easy.

We all get ganked from time to time. That’s what makes PvP levelling so different.

So A multi boxer kills you, but Blizzard do not differentiate between them and individual characters. They are both legitimate parts of gameplay. On PvP servers this can be an issue with single players.

Another point that is raised is “Is this botting?” The answer is a clear and obvious “no”. Every action that all five (or however many characters people play) take is instigated and decided upon by the player by key press or other in game interaction.

Botting required that the game play without interaction from the player.

Yes, macros are often used, but anyone can use macros. They are fully supported by Blizzard, who shows you how to make them, and, if you read through Blizzard’s own Macro help, they are mildly surprised that more people don’t use them.

Blizzard has said that they have no problem with multi boxing. They have been asked many times, often by irate players. Apparently, it seems that the eleven million Warcraft accounts are owned by 9.8 million players. Now most people don’t have 5 accounts, 2 or 3 is probably the average.

Multi boxers may make up close to 10% of the population of Warcraft, and the figure is certainly growing.

Personally, the reason I moved to this play style was to increase my in-game challenge. Controlling one player was no longer occupying me and involving me very much. I would be watching a film, listening to music, playing poker, and still finishing my Heroics without breaking a sweat. The game is a lot easier now than it was 5 years ago. If I had to play one character at a time, then I would probably quit and find something more involving to do.

Your best bet to get multiboxing reduced? Ask Blizzard to increase the depth of the game for single player.

Warcraft has become easier to complete. Levels of complexity and challenge have been removed. Can we expect the upcoming expansions to reverse this trend?

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