CelevinMoongleam said:
@ Kilsin
In your last post you defined what boxing is and is not. What your argument fails to account for is that effectively policing what a user is doing on the client end is no trivial matter. In a previous post you mention solutions developed by Jagex that prevent the use of automated programs. I am completely in favor of implementing something like this, but with a caveat. Don't be fooled into thinking that their solution is some kind of catch all. History shows that every single security measure ever developed by humanity is eventually defeated. The RMTers out there will use every unit of advantage they are given. Go ahead and open that door just a little bit. You may find through experience that a permissive attitude about multi-boxing is exponentially more costly to police than a simple ban. I admit that this hurts some players who would otherwise do no harm to the community.
I am still hoping for some kind of reply to the solution I presented in my first post on this thread. Perhaps it is best if it doesn't come from you. I would hate for the color of you name to lend an air of officialness to your response, even though I strongly suspect that you have personal views that you would like to share on the matter.
I mentioned Jagex because they found a solution for the problem we are discussing (Cheating/Botting), people can still use multiple accounts without getting banned, I do not claim that it is fool proof by any means nor did I state it, they have found a way and it appears to work for them, which shows that it is not impossible as the other poster was suggesting.
We also need to remember that Pantheon isn't going to be a game with a similar player base to games such as World of Warcraft, ArcheAge or Elder Scrolls Online etc. so the chance of RMTers, botters and gold farming over running our game is slim, you may find the odd gold farmer or botter on a much smaller scale and the team will address those issues, we need to keep our examples realistic and within reason.
The colour of my name has nothing to do with my personal opinion mate, which is what I have been expressing in the multiboxing posts along with correcting misconceptions or asking for evidence for some of the claims made.
The official position has already been explained by Brad several times now and that position is multiboxing will be allowed but it will be more difficult than people are used to due to the combat mechanics. I cannot discuss those mechanics any further at this time.
I'm not really that worried about boxing or RMT nearly as much as I am about hacking or botting in general. If gameplay makes boxing complicated and unproductive, thats good enough for me. If someone wants to tag along another character for experience or to throw some heals or auto attack during combat, fine. As far as RMT is concerned, even a community as small as p99 has huge RMT issues (if you consider them issues), and they work hard to combat it. There have been many sites over the years where people sold their P99 items and characters for cash. Its going to happen in a game like EQ, and stopping it is really not even worth the trouble, imo. As long as its not gold farmers spamming players and ruining immersion, it doesn't really affect me.
Regarding hacking or botting, that is the sort of thing you will continually have to fight against and eventually have someone devoted to researching and coding preventative measures. P99 and now live EQ (and many other games) basically use spyware to make sure certain known applications aren't running while the client is in use. There will likely never be any perfect prevention for that sort of thing. Its like anti-virus, something you have to research and update continually.
CelevinMoongleam said:
Hello Raven8Hawk, welcome to the discussion. There is one line in your post highlighting a point of particular interest to this discussion:
"Players/People should be able to play how they want but also show some professional ethics about what they love especially when playing with others."
I agree that they should. The bottom line is that they don't. If everyone who multi-boxed behaved with professional ethics; I doubt that we would even be having this discussion. I applaud multi-boxing as you describe it in your post. You have made it clear how an anti-boxing policy is harmful to you, and that you personally take great strides not to walk all over the experience of other players in your multi-boxing efforts. The problem is that the public at large cannot reasonably be depended upon to uphold the high standards of ethics that you have ascribed to. Because of this lack, player experiences have been repeatedly walked-all-over across the MMO-verse. I am confident that peers in my camp can supply a litany of anecdotal evidence in this regard. "How do we reign in the masses?" then, becomes the question.
This is accomplished by preventing them from accessing the protected server until they voluntarily agree to abide by the rules of its community. At this point each player will have personally assented to the police actions that their peers will subject them too, and cannot make any substantive complaint when the hammer drops on them for violating their agreement.
"Why can't we allow exceptions for those who multi-box responsibly?" you might ask. The answer to this question lies in certain realities surrounding the complexity of definitions. Allowing exceptions for responsible multi-boxers would require a complex delineation of what is, and is not, responsible. The more complex the definition becomes, the more time police and judges have to spend splitting hairs with the masses. The more time that police and judges have to spend splitting hairs with the masses, the more it costs to pay them for their time. A simple ban of multi-boxing is the cheapest way to get to the kind of environment that I will enjoy. I admit that other solutions exist that would be perfectly acceptable to me, but at some point the costs of policing player behavior outweigh the benefit to be had in player experience. The bottom line is that bottom lines matter in the business world, and a simple ban is the cheapest solution to implement. That is, I think, why P99 has gone this route. If I am wrong; please highlight for me the error in this reasoning.
If VRI has or does come down on the multi-boxer's side of this discussion, I would not regard it as a personal loss. Since my desire to participate in the community as a player would be completely squashed, it might open up an opportunity for me as one of the many policemen that will be needed to implement a more complex set of rules surrounding multi-boxing.
*edit adjusted formatting and spelling for clarity
First, I appreciate your comments for welcoming me even though i am the one that started the thread.
Second, if there are those that can not stand people who multi-box and want to take on the role as policemen then maybe you can write
to your VRI congressman and ask him to push opening up a server that requires a higher subscription rate for an extreme ruleset.
Ex. Issues that require and extensive voting process during a beta like multi-boxing, mounts, soloing, character naming etc etc and anyone who
joins has to be associated with a guild and those guilds have rules that are enforced. No one is allowed to break the laws of the server and if
caught they will be kicked/banned or reported by guild and goes under investigation or something of the sort. The Higher subscription rate is for
the ruleset and policing. (They can even have a 3 strikes your off the server policy) Also the higher subscription rate might deter those unwanted
on the server in the first place. I believe there are things that can be done for those who require and extreme set of rules to live by on a server.
There are people who like to live and play by an extreme set of rules, there are those that like to have some slack in thier ruleset, then there are
those who want Burger King open sandbox anything goes. To me there should be playgrounds for these types of play. There are servers for PVP,
there are role playing servers, PVE, etc. Why cant they open servers for a certain type of ruleset playstyle. I am against FTP but that is my opinion.
I believe subs somewhat keeps things solid.
Thanks Raven8Hawk
CelevinMoongleam said:
I feel as though my post was not read, or not understood by both Anasyn and Kilsin. So far, there has not been one comment in either of their posts to approve or disdain my proposed solution. I will use a different analogy to describe my solution. Think of the segregated environments I described above as different states with different laws, but with travel allowed freely between them (by the players, not their characters). If you don't like the laws in the the state in which you live; you are free to travel (presumable) to another state where the laws are more to your liking. This solutions offers something for everyone does it not? Please respond directly to my question. If you think there is something wrong with it; let's talk about it. Please don't ignore it. It makes it seem like you have some hidden motives that you don't really want the community to examine.
Also let's nix this, "I can't find anyone to group with," argument. Populations on P99 as of late have been plenty sufficient, even during off hours. If you are playing a group friendly class; groups are available no matter where you live. I'll go so far as to offer that off hours are preferable because there is less competition in the contested environment. Let's not shift the onus of responsibility onto the community when we should be bearing it ourselves.
There are obvious problems with trying to police multi-boxing. I'll be the first to admit that advanced AIs may render any such effort utterly fruitless down the road. What I propose is that the EULA on the protected server require users to, in effect, take an oath that they will not multi-box on that server. Include clear language that, in order for such a policy to mean anything, the player-base must necessarily participate in the policing itself. Such a solution is not perfect. Larrikin's hypothetical would fall through the cracks. I think it a reasonable compromise to say that it, and other cases like it, should fall through the cracks. The negative impact of such instances would be negligible relative to the effort required to police them.
There are many in this community who have, by their language, demonstrated that they understand a key components of the initial success of EQ: Its environment demanded that players depend on another to accomplish their goals. Multi-boxing fights directly against this paradigm and is incompatible with it. If this players interdependency is what I value in a product; I am justified in walking away from Pantheon if it fails to provide it. Allowing Mufti-boxers a free hand in a solitary environment probably erodes my expectations enough that I will take my attention elsewhere. Boiled down, this is just the marketplace of ideas at work. If VRI insists that multi-boxers be welcomed with open arms in a solitary environment; I will not be unhappy to stick with p99 indefinitely. VRI is well within it right to do so. I wish them every success (especially considering my sunk costs.)
Characterizing myself, and others who think as I do, as oppressors amounts to nothing more than ad homenim. All we are really doing is voting with our feet. I will grant that our preferred solution is not compatible your values. In a way I feel like Dirty Harry asking his quarry "You have to ask yourself just one question... Do I feel lucky." The marketplace is not a forgiving master. If VRI makes the wrong call on this very important design decision; it may cause the entire endeavor to fail.
I have no crystal ball. I cannot see the future. I may be entirely wrong. If I am wrong; it is my genuine, earnest desire to be enlightened. The arguments as they have been presented so far by the opposing camp in this thread leave me uninspired. Please set aside the ad homenims and the red herrings. If you have a counter proposal; let's hear it. If not; please respond to the solution that I proposed. Demanding that our camp must drop our values because they don't suit your preference is petty, selfish, and a non-starter in this discussion.
*edit changed all instances of lets to let's
Well then^^, do not use their argument for multi-boxing, use mine...
I always have a Crafter character and I have an Adventurer character ..! But not on one account, but two. And not played together, but simultaneously.
I am also role player.
I hate botters and actively pursue their banning and grief them myself....
"Vigilance" is what your arguments over, not play style. And on to that point, I think Visionary Realms will have a full GM & Guide program in-play before Pantheon goes live. Botters will be short lived. Leave multi-boxers alone.
I always keep an open mind, my ideas are permeable in a sense. I believe that 2 boxing is no big deal, I think if you 3 box, chances are you're sucking at it, or you're using automation. Anything beyond that is breaking my immersion, competing against my groups in an unsocial manner and should not be allowed. I don't have a problem seeing a guy 2 box a shaman monk and exp by himself, he's usually not interfering with groups because he doesn't have the power to camp things a full group would want to camp (in the ideal world where that is truth), and it definitely doesn't break my immersion seeing 1 guy play 2 characters.
The problem is when you see entire groups being run by 1 person, and anyone who states that it's possible to run an entire group by yourself manually without automation programs, I'm sorry you're full of ****. Nobody is Jason Bourne here...
I'm mostly against rules on the subject though, because I feel any rules that are made won't be followed, and in my experience players definitely don't police themselves. You're not gonna turn a guy in that's in your guild, and you're not going to box 4 characters in front of people so they can turn you in.
I don't know, persuade me to change my mind with a rule that makes sense and could actually be enforced.
I addressed boxing in another thread (see link below), but I'll summarize my feelings here as well. Ultimately, boxing is essentially a subscription based (non-cash shop)/group-centric game's version of paying to win as a soloer (yes I realize there are many who do group as well that also box). Instead of paying micro-transactions for exp potions etc., you are paying an additional $15 dollars a month to obtain an advantage over a non-boxer by being able to "group" (or complete other tasks) as one player and handle content that was not designed for 1 player to be able to handle, but a group of players. Whether it is good, bad, wrong, should be bannable, etc. is all subjective, but no argument can be made that it doesn't provide advantages and cannot potentially be a detriment to a group-centric game.
*Edit: Added thread link:
https://www.pantheonrotf.com/forums/topic/1921/lockjaw-opens-today/view/page/2
Just an update to this conversation thought yall might find interesting. so i started out by saying i am multiboxing 3 accounts on the progression
server. well guess what i ran all over the place looking for places to hang out and level up for good exp. well almost all places that i went to
blackburrow, runnyeye, permafrost etc etc you almost can not solo in these places. they have to be outdoor like the karanas. that means you have to
run all over the place hunting down mobs to level up . Its a chore somewhat. So i started grouping with my Main account mage and leveled up nicely in
unrest with guild so it looks like i will be grouping now more that soloing even though i have 3 accounts its an off an on thing for me. 10-15
then i am grouping. that is the nice thing about eq1 classic it almost stomps a huge portion of it out. you can solo but it will be slow going because if the
many blues and slight yellows you come across then you have to dodge the reds that roam buy that will drop your a$$!!! So even though its possible
its not exactly easy. I will have some classes like a Paly, cleric and enchanter that i will run and try to solo with a little bit better but for the most
i see them breaking off and grouping more than anything but it wont be until mercs come out if they do that it becomes an easier task. it was easier
on the live servers.
Seems to me you have more of a problem with not knowing where to exp to have a steady source of the correct level mobs than wanting to group. If you're 3 boxing I guarantee you will level those 3 characters faster (if it's a proper 3) by yourself in a good location than by grouping intermittently.
on boxing i have no problems with this, as long as botters are banned, permanently with account deletions. and that there is a reliable, Definate, proof positive way to make sure that they are not botting. if VRI cannot do this i would suggest that boxing not be allowed.
one method i have been thinking on is the need for more than one PC to box. maybe the client detects the PC and doesnt allow another account to be activated from that PC at the same time. an additional benefit to this system is that you could lock your Account to that PC (or those PCs) to make hacking accounts near impossible.
Gawd said:
on boxing i have no problems with this, as long as botters are banned, permanently with account deletions. and that there is a reliable, Definate, proof positive way to make sure that they are not botting. if VRI cannot do this i would suggest that boxing not be allowed.
one method i have been thinking on is the need for more than one PC to box. maybe the client detects the PC and doesnt allow another account to be activated from that PC at the same time. an additional benefit to this system is that you could lock your Account to that PC (or those PCs) to make hacking accounts near impossible.
While the latter is great in theory, there are programs out there that simulate a 2nd pc while using just 1, and they are commonly used to avoid this method. While it would deter the average player from doing it on 1 PC, it would not deter the hardcore, which are the people you want to target with something like this anyways.