Multiboxing Poll

[Fern]

i concur with Tiana, the game should be played, not maniuplated!

Perhaps for some people manipulating is part of the gameplay, there are some games that you play them by programming. If seems that it was also funny for the crowd who watched Ceros' characters dance, it seems that other people enjoyed it. Having fun is the objetive of the game, I think.

Any program assisted fighting is botting.

In WoW, for example, there's LUA scripting implemented in the game (by the own devs!) for allowing the players to create their own programs and extensions to assist them on the fight and making the fighting less painful for the fingers, the brain is the one who has to play and enjoy, that kind of scripting is not brainless, you have to be in control.

I think that the important question is: is the additional load of the server in multiboxing something that can be dealt with? Is it disturbing in some way the other players?

Multiboxing is an unfair advantage, but.. advantage in what sense? getting more EXP points, I think.
I still think that if there's people who battle for the EXP and not for enjoying the game then it means that something needs fixing in the gameplay (this is something very usual in most MMORPG, though). I believe that experience points shouldn't be that important, the important thing is to enjoy.
If it depended on me I would rather raise the EXP rate to make it less valuable, and add some new way for players to interact. If multiboxing was to bring a new way of interaction or fun for the players I would even welcome it. The thing that I would be more worried about is the server load.

[Rakimt]

Every rule should have reason behind it, and people are right to note the similarity of multiboxing to botting — but why is botting wrong?

Botting should essentially be considered not playing the game, but still gaining experience. Most of the time, when people aren't playing the game, they are gaining 0 experience; hence, botting gives the botting player an advantage over other players. Now, if we assume that everyone will use whatever they have to their advantage (for argument's sake), botting becomes the dominant form of gameplay; some of the consequences of this:

• Social interaction drops: most people are afk even when it seems like they aren't
• People who don't know how to bot don't are excluded from using the best strategy
• The game becomes an annoying background process for anyone who wants to do well in the game

Ultimately, botting just makes the game less fun for everyone.

Let's work under the assumption that multiboxing does constitute an advantage. In this case, multiboxing becomes the standard form of play.

• People without knowledge of multiboxing are excluded
• People with less powerful computers are excluded (a fairly large portion of people playing, I would think)
• In fact, the less powerful your computer, the fewer characters you could play at once, so the above rule is generalised
• External tools are required, when the client should be enough to play the game

Now, let's reason about whether or not multiboxing does give one an advantage:

• More enemies are killed; hence, more items are dropped
• Damage is spread between more people, group damage is lessened, enemies are killed faster
• Experience grows when more than one character hits an enemy

My point is that unless it would be just as reasonable for everyone to do or have something, it shouldn't give anyone an advantage. So, I hadn't voted before writing this, but I'll put my vote against legal multiboxing at the moment.

[Anich]

See here for my opinion on multi-boxing in TMW: http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 9&start=15 (somewhere around the bottom)

Generally I think it should be limited to development use only. So my vote is a half yes/no. Too bad there isn't a category for that one though

Edit: this post is unnecessary now that topics have been merged. Please delete.

[Amun]

no... it's botting.

[adamaix]

no... it's botting.

2. No bots (and by botting I mean ANY AFK activity in game).

[Ceros]

I think some of you all are just being a little silly.

I don't see why people think that this is comparable to botting at all. Botting is designed to be set up and run all day while you are at work or school because you don't want to put the time into the game. When you bot, you set up a program to enter keystrokes to the program in a continuous cycle: fire for thirty seconds, walk around in a circle picking up all items, drink a healing potion, repeat. There is no input once the 'bot' is activated.

Multiboxing is the exact opposite. It is all about the need for sending massive amounts of input at once. It requires more attention then playing with just one character, because you have more characters to get into trouble. More characters that need to navigate tight places, more characters to wrangle when one dies and goes back to town. There is nothing "autopilot" or "set it and forget it" about multiboxing. It is NOT botting. Botting is unattended gameplay. When Delasia asked me to respond, I responded almost instantly because I was there, paying attention.

If the whole thing is about sending the same keystrokes to multiple players, is it still unfair if I am using a program to play with both hands? Is it still unfair if one hand uses the NUMPAD to control character 2 and the other is controlled with the WASD keys? What about one character with a mouse and one character with a keyboard. Hey, using the CAPSLOCK key bound to Attack and Target Closest is wrong because it saves keystrokes and requires modification of the game! Having an addon that allows you to change all of yuor clothes at once (from armor to mage gear) is cheating because it allows for you to do it with less inputs!

People who are arguing the "my computer isn't good enough/I don't have enough know how", I am sorry but I don't think you are well informed on this. I have talked to someone recently who read my initial post and reports that he can run three instances of TMW on his ten year old PC. Ten years old. (Tech specs: Pentium 4 2.53ghz processor 512kb cache, 768MB ram, 82845 G/GL/GE integrated graphics). Obviously he had to turn settings down a lot, but this is just illustrating a point. His computer is way worse then a $300 Walmart computer and he can still do it. As far as not having the 'technical knowhow' to multibox, I am going to have to call ignorance on that one too. Before I setup my multiboxing run, I had ZERO experience doing any sort of multiboxing. I used google and tried some programs out. The one I settled on running requires you to install a program, open up two copies of TMW, click on their windows, and THAT IS IT. If you can't do that, then you cannot play TMW to begin with. It is harder to install some clothes switching mods for TMW then it is to multibox.

And the system specs required for TMW mean that if you have trouble playing TMW on your computer, you probably have trouble surfing the internet. I don't have a $10,000 computer rig. I had no problem multiboxing on my $600 laptop. But if you're really that worried about Enrique the Multimedia Multiboxer of Doom, then suggest reasonable limits on how many characters a character can run at once. The main reason I was concerned with people's opinion on multiboxing at all was server load, if it ever became popular. I think you all are thinking about someone playing 20 characters all at once making you guys look bad because you don't have your own army of 20 people. All with rare hets. While the picture Uber_Kalimero posted is a nice (World of Warcraft) picture, I'm not talking about someone running twenty clients. What's wrong with two?

I think a lot of the people who have never tried multiboxing should at least try it out once before they give it the no vote. It is nothing at all like botting (as explained above) and presents its own unique set of challenges and rewards. I think a lot of this is fear of the unknown. (especially if you are comparing this to botting... I mean, really.)

If the EXP bonuses are so much of an issue, perhaps you all should abstain from joining a party. Or working together with someone else. After all, some people are too socially awkward to be able to get together with a group, or lack the know how of setting up a party to EXP share properly (we have threads in the forum, helping them out, just like there could be threads in this forum or all over the internet helping to set up Multiboxing). Hey, utilizing EXP Sharing is wrong and exploitative - if I see you doing it, I will report joo!

For all the people who are arguing that it provides an unfair advantage, due to increased drop rates, etc. I'll remind you that instead of having to equip one character you've got to equip two: two Warlord Plates, two jean chaps, two Setzers or Forrest bows, etc. Never mind healing items and arrows.

I will simply tell you that you can join any party and get the exact same benefits as a multiboxer, no special skills or hardware required. And if you tell me that you can't always join a party when you would like to, then I would state that you should be arguing in favor of multiboxing.

Remember, if playing one character is fun, playing two characters is twice the fun!

Edited to combine this post with the one below it, sorry if it seems a little helter kelter.

[Ceros]

Removed and edited into the above post to reduce clutter and repetition.

[Jumpy]

i voted no as i agree with Tiana on most points she stands as the game is designed now

BUT

it depends imho on this:

this game is developped to be

1. one player going his way alone throught the quests and the community and interact in a world of comunity
2. one player has a team he can use with a limited number of char (like in many games you deal with a team to invae or save people or so on)

so devs what is the game direction for tmw?

if 1. so imho (again) no multibox
if 2. so everyone one should do it or have the oportunity to win the posibility to engage mercenaries to follow him and even change of char that go with him as in a famoous game i played during a long time

debate stands here in what direction the game will go?

i prefer from a far distance to play with one player and interact than with various char in the way it is describe in multiboxing

i liked another point stands from the previous posts i read:

in the same direction of question to be asked: is the game designed to be a great quest, aventure?

if yes so there is an end to the game if no it will go on and on as the game will be growing and growing in maps mobs items quests and so on

word is yours devs and teams


Regards

[Turmfalke]

(21:44:23) Freeyorp: On the topic, what's the official word on FK bots?
(21:44:36) b_lindeijer: What are FK bots?
(21:44:42) Kage_Jittai: Front of Keyboard
(21:44:49) Kage_Jittai: People who watch them self bot
(21:44:50) Freeyorp: Someone is using a script, but is still present
(21:45:11) b_lindeijer: Uhm, the official word there is that it's allowed.
(21:45:14) Freeyorp: paying attention, even though it isn't them 'pushing the buttons'
(21:45:45) b_lindeijer: It's not forbidden to automate the boring tasks in the game.
(21:45:54) b_lindeijer: It's just forbidden to be active in the game while not being there.

[Crush]

I merge this poll and the first multiboxing thread into one because there were actually the same discussion in two different threads including a lot of "read my opinion in the other thread" postings. Unfortunately the votes were lost in the process. So everyone has to revote. My apologies for the Inconvenience.

[AnonDuck]

I consider manipulation of the game part of the gameplay. Honestly, TMW would be pretty boring without it. I think there are many that agree.

It's my opinion that a rule against utilizing more than one client concurrently in battle would be mostly unenforceable. There is no easy solution to prevent it. Any technical solutions can be easily worked around, even human monitoring is easily fooled.

This is an open-source game. This means that the client can be rewritten (or even a custom client from scratch) to do just about anything. Though some third-party multiboxing tools are very advanced, nothing comes close to the flexibility in automation that an open-source game allows.

So.. I don't think a rule against this would work. Legislation is not the answer.

The solution lies elsewhere: If multiboxing/automation becomes a serious problem(It isn't at the moment), change the gameplay mechanics to make it harder and not worthwhile. The group bonus could be adjusted, the way monsters target could be made more intelligent, etc.

[Hello=)]

As for me, multiboxing not seems to be a completely fair practice and could look annoying enough in some uses (yes, as for me, it's a bit annoying to see 4 characters doing something synchronously and I do not want to see such stacks instead of single characters walking synchronously everywhere). However I'm not sure this is a valid reason to completely forbid such practice. As for me, only certain unfair, abusive or annoying uses should be prohibited.

Furthermore, 100% exact tracking of multiboxing is going to fail. Due to NAT it is a completely valid if several players have same IP address - there could be several real persons behind same IP playing and that's ok on it's own. And by adding delays into synchronization (or just by eliminating it and controlling characters by bare hands) it is possible to avoid detection. But while not being botting on it's own, this looks a bit like botting in some uses and some uses could be abusive. Let's say, what about farming 25 chars at a time to sell/exchange them? As far as I can understand that while it will not allow to level-up them to level N faster than single char will do, benefit is that at the end of day you have 25 chars leveled to level N instead of one. Because they're not single character, this could encourage accounts trading and farming at some point. There should be something to discourage such uses.

That's a bit like IRC - you usually can use 2-4 machines hanging on same IRC channel on your behalf, run 1-2 bots and usually nothing wrong here and nobody haves anything against it on it's own, even if you're looking as 2 different users and running bots. But if you're going to bring 20 machines at the same time to same channel and force them to do synchronous abusive actions (spam, join flood, etc) which will annoy others, you can expect servers administrators to make efforts to get rid of your "bots". Even if "bots" are controlled by alive humans rather than being fully-automated, server admins will usually consider ban anyway, regardless of this fact. I suspect that similar policy could be in use - things are not forbidden if they're not abused and this does not annoys other players too much. Well, caveat is that this "sometimes" requires a dynamic decisions which are not exactly covered by rules but still in their spirit instead. Because there is no rules for each and every case in our life anyway.

In short, if I was a server admin, the approximate policy could be something like this:
- Mass-join of 20 cloned chars and flood/annoyance caused by their synchronous actions = ban 'em all ASAP, just as IRCops are going to G:Line 20 flood bots. Otherwise, massive attacks resembling IRC flood bots will be a completely legal (yikes!).
- Farming N chars at once on regular basis (where N > 2) = ban extra clones, especially if players complaining too much.
- Careful using just 2-4 clones for testing, debugging, playing from multiple places and other irregular purposes or one-time fun in non-abusive manner = no ban (as long as it does not causes massive complaints).
- Everything between have to be handled "in situ", judging on annoyance levels caused and questionable decisions could be challenged in "court house". Btw, first attempts to resolve excessive complaints could be done in "soft" manner by politely asking people to cause less annoyance to others.

I also see no reasons why bots should be totally disabled. In IRC "good" bots are usually allowed. Good are those who serves for people entertainment and extra features and this does not causes massive complaints. This can add more fun (just as it happens in IRC wth eggdrop-based bots, if used properly). Can someone tell why it should be illegal to set up character which can grant gifts on certain conditions, etc? (but such bot should not kill any monsters at all I guess, so no unfair advantages will occur).

[Rakimt]

I also see no reasons why bots should be totally disabled. In IRC "good" bots are usually allowed.

They're not. I don't think this is really arguing for a senseless blanket ban on multiboxing.

I consider manipulation of the game part of the gameplay. Honestly, TMW would be pretty boring without it. I think there are many that agree

An interesting point; I also like to play around with things, and wouldn't want to have a completely restrictive game. However, I wouldn't want to force everyone else who doesn't want to play in a certain way to fall behind. People shouldn't have to be programmers to play the game. Honestly, I wouldn't be against multiboxing if it was simply "another way to play" (that'd be an interesting game...), but it does give an advantage.

There is no input once the 'bot' is activated [... Multiboxing] is all about the need for sending massive amounts of input at once

What you're saying is botting = using a program that turns 0 keystrokes into > 0 keystrokes; multiboxing = using a program that turns n keystrokes into > n keystrokes. I don't quite understand how they're exact opposites. It's not about how challenging it makes the game, it's about using a program to augment the player's abilities.

I'm going to leave this here because I have other stuff that I need to be doing, sorry. I'm going to agree with the legislature is not the answer though, but there's really no or very few multiboxers in The Mana World, so it's hardly a massive issue. Hell, the way GMs test for bots is anything but ideal, but it's a "good enough" solution.

[Ceros]

I consider manipulation of the game part of the gameplay. Honestly, TMW would be pretty boring without it. I think there are many that agree

An interesting point; I also like to play around with things, and wouldn't want to have a completely restrictive game. However, I wouldn't want to force everyone else who doesn't want to play in a certain way to fall behind. People shouldn't have to be programmers to play the game. Honestly, I wouldn't be against multiboxing if it was simply "another way to play" (that'd be an interesting game...), but it does give an advantage./quote]

I need to emphasize again, that there is no 'programming' involved. I am not a programmer, I suck at writing code, hell I can't even hack it using linux. This IS just another way to play the game. It is nothing more then installing a program, clicking one button and then clicking two windows. That's it. No editing configuration files, no viewing source code or compiling or any of that garbage. Install a program, click your two copies of TMW and play. "So easy a caveman could do it." I am going to make a Youtube video later to illustrate how easy this is.

It doesn't force people to fall behind. Anyone can gain the benefits of multiboxing by JOINING A PARTY. All the benefits of multiboxing are gained by simply joining a party. And your party members are probably smarter then your retarded clones that only respond to your movements in mass. (Well, OK, there are some pretty retarded TMW players, but you get the idea.) There are PENALTIES to multiboxing. Like having to cover equipment for every additional character. When you join a normal party, you're not worried about trying to provide Warlord Plate and Setzers for everyone in the party. With multiboxing, you are. You're using extra arrows, extra healing potions, etc. Multiboxing gives you NO advantage over the party system.

What you're saying is botting = using a program that turns 0 keystrokes into > 0 keystrokes; multiboxing = using a program that turns n keystrokes into > n keystrokes. I don't quite understand how they're exact opposites. It's not about how challenging it makes the game, it's about using a program to augment the player's abilities.

I am not a math guy, but any number (in this case) is more then 0.

N =/= 0

I am not parking my guys some where, leaving things idle while they autoattack, and going to work. I don't come back and find them still attacking. If I get up and go piss, they will still be sitting there. They require input or else they just sit there. It is like saying a player is the exact opposite of a bot. It IS saying that. I am just playing multiple characters.

If people are complaining about using a program to augment playing then they need to drop support for every unofficial patch or mod for this game. All the fast clothes switching mods and fast sit mods and everything because they all augment a players abilities. This is an open source game, for Duck sake. It is design to be augmented. People compile their own clients and change the Chocolate Cupcake out of things.

Dropping the program aspect that allows me to send keystrokes to all programs I allow, I could still open four instances of TMW, all windowed and I could still control all of them by clicking from one window to the other. I could still do combat and still have everyone attack and move them one by one. I would still be multiboxing to an extent, with nothing but the default client. It just wouldn't be efficent.

Hell, instead of using this program, I'm sure someone could use AutoIT or AutoHotke and make a script that switches between windows andpasses key strokes and doesn't do it simultaneously.

[Ceros]

The last time I asked anyone about this, I heard it was in deliberations. Has any decision on this been reached?