Multiboxing in World of Warcraft is largely a thing of the past. Many players are happy about it – are you too?
Although Blizzard has faced a lot of criticism for a while, most recently due to high prices in Burning Crusade Classic, there has also been good news for many players. A few days ago, Blizzard once again addressed the issue of multiboxing in World of Warcraft. The rules have been tightened and more forms of multiboxing are now banned.
Multiboxing refers to the simultaneous playing of multiple accounts and characters in games like World of Warcraft. This is usually supported by hardware and/or software, allowing multiple characters to perform the same action. For instance, a player could run around with 10 mages simultaneously and almost instantly kill other players in PvP. There are also many advantages in other areas of the game by having multiple characters active at the same time.
What has changed? Already last year, Blizzard took stricter measures and banned a large part of the software used for multiboxing. However, there were still many workarounds that relied on hardware. Now, this has also been clearly prohibited in the terms of service and can lead to penalties such as temporary or permanent bans. The lucrative forms of multiboxing are probably a thing of the past.
Positive sentiment among players: Looking at the official forums, the subreddit, or comments on wowhead, the predominant opinion of players is positive and quite satisfied.
Feronar writes in the WoW subreddit:
In other words, you are no longer allowed to use your Lego, K’nex, or 3D printer constructions to operate multiple keyboards simultaneously.
AdmThrawn says on wowhead:
I am surprised, excited, and happy. All at the same time and that because of Blizzard. Wow …
Syravi sees it a bit more doubtfully:
I’m glad they made this decision, but I fear it will have less effect than many of us hope. By the time it takes to enforce actions against such violations, multiboxers and botters often have made enough money selling gold to profit and afford new accounts. Maybe it will at least limit their efforts, but I don’t believe it will eliminate these players.
While some complain that this rule change comes too late, the overall sentiment remains rather positive.
Not everything is banned: However, some players seem to misunderstand the change. Because Blizzard did not ban all multiboxing with the change, but only that which leads to commands being sent to multiple clients through software or mechanical input aids. Players who actually play their accounts in parallel are not affected.
An example: A player with 5 druids, who has 4 of them on follow with his main character and rides from flower to flower to manually gather the flower 5 times, is still allowed.
The same applies to cases where players have a secondary account for auction house transactions with which they monitor transactions while simultaneously playing other content on the main account.
This is still allowed and complies with the terms of service rules.
Are you satisfied with the new rules? Or should there be even stricter regulations that each player can only use a single account at a time? Feel free to leave your answer in the comments and discuss it vigorously!
