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I've come to the conclusion that this rule is ridiculous. The language of the rule is ambiguous, and it is nearly impossible to enforce. We all know the reason this rule was made was to stop the rampant automated stacks in the Graveyard and Terranite cave. If the language of the rule was changed, it would disallow these automated stacks while not infringing upon other freedoms.

There are so many ways to get around the rule in it's current state, and I'm not going to get into them, because everyone and their "brother" seems to already know how. Needless to say, the rule isn't stopping the rule breakers from multiboxing, and the honest players are at a disadvantage because of it.

I am hereby proposing that the rule be changed to "You may not have more than one character at battle per map." This eliminates the automated stacking, while not creating huge headaches for the GMs with an unenforceable rule.

Great idea mistakes

I agree! at the very least they should look into it. your idea would definitely cut down on headaches for the gm's. Only question is how do you propose they enforce your version of the rule. It would also help for people who have family members who like to play they couldn't use there exception to there advantage of it. but bottom line it needs to be looked into at the very least.

MrDemonWolf wrote:I agree! at the very least they should look into it. your idea would definitely cut down on headaches for the gm's. Only question is how do you propose they enforce your version of the rule. It would also help for people who have family members who like to play they couldn't use there exception to there advantage of it. but bottom line it needs to be looked into at the very least.

well, if the rewritten version somehow was approved and got in, gms would basically just have to ipcheck stacks, or suspected violators, since like i said: automated stacks were the reason for the rule in the first place.

I would not be opposed to reviewing this rule and perhaps rewording it. There are many things to be considered however, so don't expect any sudden changes if there are any changes at all.

The bottom line is this, the rule on afk botting and this one were made in the spirit of being fair. They were made so that no one player had that much of an advantage over any other player. The related question is this: is that being met?

I'd like to add also that, even when sometimes it is clear that it is the same person playing, another ones it isn't; i want to show here the fact that there is a grade of GM subjectivity when you punish multiboxing: if they tell you they are brother and sister playing from the same IP, can you ban them for multiboxing? Is that also 'fair'? How are we supposed to determinate if they are brother and sister or not?

And as yourmistakes said, the main problem was the heavy automated stacks FK botting. I don't see any problem if the player is able to play switching windows, and has the ability to do so; in fact i see it as a right of the player in question.

Again my opinion on the matter, I vote for a rewriting of the rule.

Regards.

The advantage of IP checking is that GMs can see characters from the same IP address but that doesn't stop a persistent player from claiming their relative/friend at the same IP address is a separate person and not the same one. I have noticed fewer players who try to all stack and fight now which shows this rule works or is enough to scare relatives/friends/same person from fighting together in a stack.

A slight side note: How does a GM reinforce/persistently check every char is not the same person? Their lack of playtime? Frequency of simply following their same ip family/friend/person around? How does a person prove to a GM that they're not the same person's char?

Back on topic, there are areas that I think a rewording would definitely make it clearer what is allowed/not.

"7. Do not use more than one character at the same time during battle"

Some examples:
1 person/char fighting, another person/char healing. Is this 2nd person/char violating the rule?
1 person/char fighting by follow&stack a different person, whilst at the same time same ip person/char fighting by follow+stack on a different map. Is this allowed?
How long is "during battle" for? Can a healer sit at a spawn point (or neighbouring map) and only heal same ip char/person?
Can a person/char just step away from an attacking monster and be healed, same map?
Can a person/char step away from an attacking monster and tag team with a same ip person/char?

To some degree each of these methods is playing in an "unfair way". Just like laws in real life, if you want them reinforced precision in words is essential. Since we don't have lawyers in this game it seems it's up to a GM's discretion or the persistency of individuals.

on the family side of things you could take a part of yourmistakes idea which stated no multiboxing of the same ip person/char on the same map but it could be alright if they were both fighting on two different maps by themselves and if tow people are from the same ip and on the same map then i leave it up to you guys to determine that.

"Do not use more than one character at the same time during battle" may be hard to enforce, but changing it to "You may not have more than one character at battle per map" just means that the hard-to-enforce part of it has been made legal.

also means that it can serve the purpose it was intended for, and only the purpose it was intended for.

Besides @ipcheck, you have other ways to check if the suspects are the same person. For example, ask them to stop attacking and walk to different sides at the same time.

alastrim wrote:Besides @ipcheck, you have other ways to check if the suspects are the same person. For example, ask them to stop attacking and walk to different sides at the same time.

thats true
and some people can be on a cyber cafe and a cyber cafe all the computers have the same IP so will they be banned for play in different computers with the same IP ?

alastrim wrote:Besides @ipcheck, you have other ways to check if the suspects are the same person. For example, ask them to stop attacking and walk to different sides at the same time.

This can easily be scripted or programmed to work. Though this is a option.

We really need to verity of tools. IP checking can be one. Walking different ways could be another.

In truth there is no 100% way to determine if someone is actually multiboxing. I feel that many people on the development team (including me) have had the idea "If we can't stop it 100% then we can't stop it at all." But I think this attitude needs to be changed.

We should not look into absolutes, even though some things can not be prevented 100%, we can make a attempt at it, and block a good portion if not a majority of these activities.

Obviously... anyone who objects should be stricken with real-life moggun face.

If the GMs use their heads and judgement, which they were specifically selected for by the community and GHP, there shouldn't be any problems with false positives in enforcement. Being creative human beings I'm sure they can easily come up with simple methods of distinguishing internet-cafe, family, etc users from actual multiboxers. Asking people to walk in different directions at once is one simple example.

False negatives are simply a matter of completing the code(anti-proxy, obfuscated IP next to name, etc) to help the GMs do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. Progress on this has been relatively slow as client-side support is needed.

It's been a while and the major client branches have caught up. I've just enabled the server patch to show obfuscated IPs next to the character name so the GMs can see who is coming from what location at a glance while doing their normal rounds. They no longer have to @ipcheck everyone, they just see the encoded IP addresses right there on their screen. Please note that privacy is a concern - real IP addresses are *not* shown by default unless the server administrator decides to enable this, which AFAIK TMW will not.

As Kage said, there is no 100% way to stop this, but I'm fairly certain that with solid technological measures in place and the GMs using their heads we can easily eliminate most of the issues.

Mistakes never really described the issue(s) in detail when creating this thread so I am very curious as to what they are.. and I see no reason not to bring issues out into public for rational discussion. *hint hint poke poke hey 'stakes, speak up*