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boxxing, gold farming, and spam advertising
heremypet
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 528
If there were measures available to inhibit these activities, do you think they would be harmful or unrealistic?
Boxxing is a growing trend, the average EVE vet has at least 2 or more accounts to themselves. MMO companies can only profit from this, but is it cheating? Supposing a MMO company would want to put a stop to it, how would they proceed?
Limiting access by allowing only a certain number of clients per unique IP address is one way, but is that fair? What about gaming cafes, hotels, etc? There really doesn't appear to be a viable fix for this, but until there is the average number of simultaneous characters for player will continue to increase.
Gold farming is a severe problem in some games, especially when bots are used to automate the process, hogging resources while making the game more difficult and less fun for everyone else. But how could you stop gold farming? Perhaps limiting server access to customers only in the country which it is located, but then that could mean less subscriptions, and would be unfair for legit international players. How could you allow for an in game economy, while at the same time reducing gold farming?
Spam advertising. I'm positive everyone has seen those games where spamming is rampant, they send you tells, they broadcast in chat, they send you messages. You ignore and ignore until you're list is full. What is it about some games that makes spamming so out of control? Perhaps you could prohibit chat on demo accounts, and ban repeat offenders. But the last thing any company wants is a demo that sends the wrong message. Is there a real solution for this? Or should we all just get used to reading between the spam?
What if 10 years down the road normal means you can't really be competitive unless you're boxxing a full raid contingency funded by RMT with chat disabled because you just simply can't ignore fast enough?
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
Comments
I don't see what the problem is with dual boxing as long as you're not doing it to wreck gameplay for anyone. I dual boxed in DAOC. You could have two accounts running on one computer at least on the old client. Having a buffbot was almost a requirement. I never did it for other games though.
If you didn't know, EVE is actually encouraging it.
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/43823
Mr. Bagguns
Company make more money from multiboxing. I failed to see why they want to stop it.
Boxing isn't a growing trend. It was extremely popular in Everquest. I dual boxed myself in EQ (and have done it in WoW also) and I knew at least 3 other people who boxed 5 characters at once (complete with special keyboards so they can control all 5). If anything boxing has grown less popular because newer games make it difficult due to the combat being slightly faster paced (and more PvP oriented games which is harder to multi-box in).
Multi-boxing definitely isn't a trend that needs to go away either. The developers get twice (or more) as much money from a single person and multi-boxing doesn't really hurt the gameplay in anyway. Maybe there is an agrument that it makes macros a bit more prevelant, but the devs are getting some extra revenue from it.
How can you consider multi-boxing cheating? The person is paying for two or more accounts and they can play those accounts however they'd like as long as they aren't exploiting or running third party programs within the game - which they usually aren't. It's like saying someone who bought two lottery tickets is cheating because they have two times as much as a chance to win as someone who didn't.
Gold farming is always going to be a major problem with no decent solution. Blizzard targets gold sellers with legal action quite often though and they've had several measures to reduce the number of spam and botting that occurs. If companies want to try to combat gold farming they should just look at how Blizzard handles it. (This applies to spamming too, because that's where the majority of the spam is coming from)
IMO it ruins gameplay. Sure, companies aren't going to stop it but why have an MMO if you can just group solo everything? I'm fine with grouping and in fact I enjoy it, BUT it should be with other players. That's why it's called a massively multiplayer game :P
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
Look up Sam Deathwalker. He was this crazy dude from EQ who played 5 wizards at once and would brag about the hookers he used.
There will always be players who play on $3500 rigs, on dedicated fiber circuits, with multibox accounts, for 8 hours a day, and buy gold whenever they don't have top gear.
There will also always be players with families, friends, and jobs, who can only spend a certain time and monetary budget on games.
And there will always be people in-between.
Perhaps its true that the second category of people can't hope to beat the first category in a PvP fight or a race to content completion, but that should not be a reason not to enjoy the game.
In WoW's case at least (I'm not sure about Eve) hydra boxers or whatever you'd like to call them (people who box a full group of players) couldn't do nearly all the group content solo. It's significantly harder to manipulate five characters at once than a single player. I don't know of any hydra boxing players who could effectively do heroics for instance and no raid in their right minds is going to take them over players. You can't keep 5 characters out of AoEs on the ground and continue healing and DPSing etc. I don't even know of any hydra players that could tackle the high level non-heroic instances. It's not easy and if they can with the added challenge they deserve to get whatever reward for it.
Those people playing 5 characters at once might be doing so for the added challenge. It's not easy and it certainly makes the MMO more interesting. If you can successfully play 5 characters at once as successfully as 5 live people, then your MMO probably has awfully slow boring content.
In EQ having the extra account helped me tackle some tougher content for sure, but usually whatever I did with my other account I could do with my main albeit with added difficulty. In WoW I mostly dual boxed to powerlevel (after having done the content twice without dual boxing) because I just wanted to get to high level faster.
Ahem:
5 box naxx 10 in WoW.
I remember people multiboxing Kara back in BC.
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
That's pathetic.
Real MultiBoxxers do this.
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That's pathetic.
Real MultiBoxxers do this.
yeah i remember that guy
That's horrible imo. I can't image what that's doing for the PvP on his server if he's still playing.
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
What is the downside, for either players or developers, to players having multiple accounts? Most people use DAoC's buff bots as their example, but the problem there wasn't multiple accounts, it was the imbalance that dedicated buff characters presented.
Team Wizzy in DAoC, Blink Mule and the Eastham Airport in Asheron's Call, Sam Deathwalker in WOW... each MMO seems to have at least one person who is well known (if not famous) for what they do with multiple accounts. For some people it's just a fun way to experience the game.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
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Multi boxing is not cheating but it does take something away from the game.
Especially in EvE its used to circumvent a lot of the mechanics that are supposed to make the game difficult. Second accounts are used as bait ships so you don't have to mess up the killboard efficiency of your main. You can use them to scout your main around at all times. You can use them as a cyno alt if you fly cap ships. If you live in 0.0 you can use a second account to either run missions in high sec or to do logistics for you main. You can leave him in the NPC corp and use him as a neutral remote repper.
In Lineage 2 a lot of people multi boxed so they could have dedicated prophets and warcryers following them around. It got to the point where it was rare to see a person who played a buffer or healer as their main.
Op I don't think things will ever get that bad simply because they're making the games easier and easier. You don't need to multi box if everything easily beaten solo.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Perhaps I'm missing the point, but why do people go to such great lengths to turn MMOs into a single player game? If the game was designed so that class A depends on class B, or a boss takes 2 players to beat, then why is the normal reaction to make 2 accounts rather than group? I wouldnt call it cheating, but it's borderline. Why not go play a game designed for solo instead of ruining group games.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
well, a raid in those mainstream games may take 2h with normal ppl ,doing their normal breaks and such. now its takes 2 MORE hour to find only 2 DAMN HEALERS! because NOBODY want to play it! its boring as hell, any mistake its YOUR FAULT and in top of that after 4h of chuck norris jokes and ANAL <link talent> jokes u still may get NOTHING, so mult boxing may be a less painfull solution for it, so everybody wins, everybody happys... till they realize the game mecanics should be like that and stop playing the game
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Firstly thanks for starting a nice discussion, rather then flaming. Secondly, I'm a dual boxer myself. I see how some people can complain about how it can be perceived as ruining the enjoyment of others. Ignoring the people who do this for the pure challenge, there are basically 2 reasons i see for dual boxing.
1) Hardcore players who want an edge. This group of players play long time periods and want to eliminate the downtime of trying to find a healing partner every 2 hours.
2) Casual players who don't have excess time. This group want to dual box because their play time is limited and they would like to progress content from the moment they enter the game.
Initially I was 1). I dual boxed for the challenge and because it was annoying to try to find a pug to level content that I couldn't solo, but i could partner up to kill. As life grew more complicated (PhD) I've moved into 2. I have a couple hours every night to enjoy my game between work and spending time with the gf, and i find it extremely frustrating waiting even for 30 mins (or more!) for a group. 30 mins on one such night is sometimes more then 25% of my viable playtime.
Calling dual boxing cheating would be a tad excessive, rather consider it simply as extreme soloing. Saying this 'ruins group games" also is painting with a wide brush. In most cases the players who do decide to box often are not ones who would be grouping as (especially in my current situation) their play time just doesn't match others well. In fact i often find a good block of time on the weekend to play so often form groups around my characters, and i have known others whom have do the same.
Hydra-boxing though. Hmmm not sure how i feel about that. Probably for the best, I wouldn't want to group with someone so demanding (or socially apathetic) that they have to play every character in a group.
boxxing,
Cant be prevented.
A game would have to be built to prevent it. And follow certain rules I created just now...
1. It has to be twitch based.
A. and by twitch based I mean, every single action, not just combat or movement, but harvesting/crafting or any other activity has to be relied upon instantaneous and imediate player action.
2. It cant be room based or have instances.
Its almost impossible to find a game that obbey those 2 rules I made just now.
Besides those, it also cant be prevented, because...
People always asked me, what would I use my uber pc to... why so much memory, why the graphics card/processor, etc? The reason is that some people buy a pc that can run extremelly overmodded games beyond its requisites or multiple clients of the same games, having ultimatelly many computers in one. Computers build for multiboxxing/multilogging/multiclienting in mind.
Why would one even bother to pay a monthly proxing service that offers them over 25 different worldwide unique IPs for each one of its logged clients?
Why would one be up to par to the latest sandboxing technologies and go to the depths of open source modifications just to make sure its sandboxing needs are fulfilled for every game?
One can always get more accounts, even if that one had to buy more cd keys for that, if he is willing to and there are benefits to it.
Its like a minor problem that noone will care enough to solve, since the price for it would be too high, bringing more negative side effects than the intended benefit.
And... last... people can always have more computers and isps, even though I never met a game that needed such.
Gold Farming.
This is easy to fix with balance. Just a matter of taking into account some factors like: different power (including gear/class/race/levels, everything that accounts for power), activities, rewards, and time spent.
Its just that they dont have the luxury of having a professional team working just for that.
Spam Advertising.
It depends:
1. if Inside the Game:
A: if the game is pay to play: if its such an issue, just make a rule that forbids such advertising in-game, once people break the rule, someone takes a screenshot and reports it, the offender gets punished according to the rules.
Easy to solve if they want to.
B: if the game is free to play: You cant prevent people from making new accounts just for the purpose of advertising. You could make it so people would have to spend a certain ammount of time and effort in the game (like achieving a certain level, after many hours of play = that would be the price the advertiser would have to pay should he choose to risk its account for the advertisement) to get granted the right to communicate in general channels, while still having to rely on anti-advertisement spam rules, and player reports for punishments.
In any way, advertisement would still exist in free to play games. Or you eliminate a general wide chat tool, wich is stupid, or you create a prerequisite for such must have tool to be used and therefore trying to filter the ammount of subjects willing to pay the price for the spam.
2. Outside the Game:
We are on the internet, almost everything is free to use with just a registration and a fake ip, even google, hotmail, yahoo get bend over everyday, what makes people think that any game company could prevent it outside their reach...
[quote]Originally posted by heremypet
[b]If there were measures available to inhibit these activities, do you think they would be harmful or unrealistic?
Gold farming (...) Perhaps limiting server access to customers only in the country which it is located, but then that could mean less subscriptions, and would be unfair for legit international players. How could you allow for an in game economy, while at the same time reducing gold farming?[/quote]
Dofus did that last March, though I don't think it was handled in the best ways.
Instead of giving their players some notice they just implemented the feature, blocking out legitimate players. These had to go through a long process of proving thier identities; and since they were pissed off about losing suscription time, the support had to treat these in an almost-panic, whereas they could have take a little more time and composure had the system been advertised a bit beforehand.
Personnally I had been on one of the french-speaking server for 3 years, 3 years of p(l)aying regularly, but since I was in Spain at the time, I got blocked out... Ok, so my suscription was to end two days after that, I was bound back to Canada a few days after that, and I didn't want to go the added hassle of retrieving the secret answer to my secret question so I could then fill a ticket about my account being blocked... And I was already feeling back for the support guys, who were probably not the ones having implementing the block so suddenly, but were still the one bearing the brunt of it.
So anyway, enough of the ranting.
Apparently, Ankama reported the prices of in-game money on gold-selling sites had lowered after that measure. So it seems to be efficient. ^^
Just came to add that I dont see boxxing as a problem.
I see it more as a play style.