Age of Conan – banned (temporarily) for boxing?

Have any one else had problems with Age of Conan and ISBoxer?

The question mark in the subject is because no specific reason was given, other than:

Your account, xxxxxxx, has been TEMPORARILY suspended for violating the Rules of Conduct and End User License Agreement (EULA).
Your actions include but are not limited to:


The EULA may be viewed by simply starting up the game client.

As this is your 1st violation, your account will be suspended for 7 DAYS. If you have any questions feel free to reply back to this ticket without changing the subject matter.

Thank you and have a nice day.

I have been a subscriber with Age of Conan since paying for early access to the beta, but I've been playing one character at at time.
The five year anniversary was fun, but without new challenges it would get less exciting again.
40 days ago I tried ISBoxer and it took the game in new directions immediately.

I play on PVE servers with five premium (paid) accounts, all with several paid expansions.
I don't farm gold, nor abuse or grief other players (knowingly).
I just play the normal PVE content leveling and progressing characters in different combinations – with the added complexities and possibilities of multiboxing.

ISBoxer has been challenging but really rewarding, I've gotten to see group content I haven't earlier.
Also the nerd in me enjoy micromanaging and optimising different settings and abilities.
What if I lose this feat that is essential for a single player, and take another "crap" feat that stacks?

I tried to get answers from support and will continue to do so about multiboxing in Age of Conan.

Just needed to went a bit...

Slight update: A chat with a customer representative (GM) got these specific wordings:

What I can tell you is that you were observed as using third-party programs to automate actions without user input, resulting in a suspension for unattended gameplay.

I will not be discussing the terms of your suspension; only that you were observed and suspended for a violation of unattended gameplay.

You will need to await a reply to your e-mail for further discussion on the terms of your suspension. I appreciate your attention and patience.

Everything was going fine for circa 40 days.
That is until I tried using "round robin" key for making my characters heal each other at different intervals.
First key press, char A activated their HOT. Second key press, char B activated their HOT. And so on.

Before this specific test everyone used to execute all reactions to key presses at the same time.
That is the thing I remember from this weekend that is different from the other days of gameplay.

I control main char, the three-four other /follow until I ALT-TAB to their window to do something specific (pick up loot, interact with NPC etc).

A few topics in this forum with "Unattended" in them: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=634&p=2439&hilit=unattended#p2439

And finally the Rules of Conduct say

11. You will not attempt to interfere with, hack into, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running EverQuest II.
.
.
.
You may not use any software or hardware to alter game play in any way, or to gain benefits from unattended game play.

(ISBoxer cannot do either of these).

viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3485&p=14881&hilit=unattended#p14881

After further review, we have decided to unblock all of the accounts in question. You are correct that multiboxing is not a violation of our current policy. Automation software that allows for unattended game play is a violation. Your observed behavior in the game may have been confused for the latter.

It's always possible that our stance on multiboxing by routing commands to multiple instances of the client could change, so I'd keep your eyes on our forums just in case. Also, keep in mind that what you do is rather striking and alarming to most players (and even most GMs) when they see it. It might be in your best interest to tone it down a bit, but that's not an order. That's just a practical suggestion to avoid future reports and investigations.

Thank you again for your understanding. The accounts will be reinstated momentarily.

Landry
Guild Wars Support Team

Any advice on what features of ISBoxer I should avoid in the future?

[lax]

What I can tell you is that you were observed as using third-party programs to automate actions without user input, resulting in a suspension for unattended gameplay.

ISBoxer does not provide any feature that can initiate actions without user input.

Any advice on what features of ISBoxer I should avoid in the future?

... and therefore I have no advice on what features of ISBoxer you should avoid in the future regarding unattended gameplay, as ISBoxer does not make this possible. At all.

I will not be discussing the terms of your suspension; only that you were observed and suspended for a violation of unattended gameplay.

They didn't really provide any details as to what they observed you doing, just that they observed you and interpreted what they saw as "unattended gameplay". They might interpret it as unattended regardless of how you control the background windows. I have no idea what to suggest you do differently. For all we know they could have interpreted it as unattended simply for the fact that the same thing didn't happen at the same time in the main window...

What I can tell you is that you were observed as using third-party programs to automate actions without user input, resulting in a suspension for unattended gameplay.

ISBoxer does not provide any feature that can initiate actions without user input.

Any advice on what features of ISBoxer I should avoid in the future?

... and therefore I have no advice on what features of ISBoxer you should avoid in the future regarding unattended gameplay, as ISBoxer does not make this possible. At all.

I will not be discussing the terms of your suspension; only that you were observed and suspended for a violation of unattended gameplay.

They didn't really provide any details as to what they observed you doing, just that they observed you and interpreted what they saw as "unattended gameplay". They might interpret it as unattended regardless of how you control the background windows. I have no idea what to suggest you do differently.

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I wonder if they might have misunderstood something. When people ask me about the actions via a /tell or the like I stop to talk to them about the setup. But if I stopped questing every time players followed me just observing I would get little done. Most seem fascinated and drop what they are doing for a while.

Should probably prepare some /emotes so that I can give a little show without too much effort.

I probably will change my guild name to "Multiboxingnotcheating" so that people are less likely to report me

I found something in the thread "Bioware posts clarifications on macros" that perhaps pertains to my question about round robin actions: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4265&p=18800&hilit=+round+robin+#p18800

This actually doesn't specifically address multiboxing. The "one action" is with respect to one instance of the game, not 4, so if you have 4 windows open and you press "1", they're not saying that you can't send 1 to all 4 copies, they are saying that for each individual copy, they don't want you to send "1+2+3+4" at the same time, just "1" (or 1 other button).

In other words, this is okay:
1 -> all

While this is apparently not (as part of a single Step of a Mapped Key, i.e. from a single press of the key):
1 -> self
2 -> self
3 -> self

This applies whether you're using ISBoxer or a programmable keyboard, or placing a popsicle stick over the 1 2 and 3 buttons and pressing on the stick (because it's the same thing).

So this means that you can't put your auto-assist on the same key as your DPS, to make it auto-assist + broadcast. ISBoxer doesn't do this by default for SWTOR, you have to use a manual Assist key. The default 1 through = broadcasting for SWTOR is A-OK according to their statement. You can also use all of ISBoxer's other standard broadcasts, as long as you do not chain multiple keystrokes into the same Step, to the same Target.

So this is okay as part of a single Step:
1 -> is1
2 -> is2
3 -> is3

But this is not okay as part of a single Step:
1 -> self
2 -> self
3 -> self

As per the quote.

So here's the feedback from the GM:

Your 4 accounts were suspended for unattended gameplay. Your characters were observed following one character while only casting AoE spells to farm.

Your characters were noted to be casting the same spell not in succession but at the same time, with the same pet set up, to trivialize encounters.

I can't interpret this other that that playing with a traditional multi boxing setup won't be allowed in Age of Conan?

So here's the feedback from the GM:

And here's my response (edited):

The actions were not meant to farm, if you mean farm as in http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=farm

to camp in and area in a video game with the aim of collecting large amounts of gold or items

I didn't even pick up items unless it is absolutely necessary (for quests). I was levelling up the following characters to level 80 as I – and most others – were led to believe that those were the only ones that would get 40 extra AA points on July 19th.
Taking the quests that was "kill x of these", and avoiding "gather x of those". Just speed levelling. Having levelled about 20 chars to 80 I've seen most everything of the normal game.

Yes, normal content gets to be trivial, but that's not what I'm after.

The thought behind a self controlled group setup is that with a diverse group of chars I could try content that was previously to hard/unaccessible.
For instance, with this setup I was for the first time in five years able to get up to the Bat Demon boss in the starting area of the game.
Something I never previously was able to access by myself, I always got swarmed getting up the first few stairs.

With four assistant chars and different setup in spells between them then perhaps group dungeons and areas of the game I couldn't venture would be possible.

People looking for groups do want group AA-geared chars for specific roles, feated for grouping, having teamspeak software running with microphone, and experience doing dungeons.
I have avoided doing this as a lone character. I cannot change my personality, so normal grouping is not something I am willing or able to try.
When playing I just want to chill out for a few hours, not having to deal with additional people and their expectations.
Even joining a guild feels most like a chore.


After trying it, tinkering with controlling multiple characters at once was the single most exciting thing to happen to this game for me.
If it is the specific rule that Age of Conan disallows multi boxing [when software controls the following chars], then I'll probably look for another game.


From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-boxi ... Game_Rules

Most game developers allow multiboxing in their games. To date, Age of Conan[citation needed] ... and World of Warcraft all allow multiboxing.

I have been multiboxing Age of conan for awhile now and have moved onto TSW where i'm multiboxing 5 accounts. I asked Funcom Support if multiboxing with isboxer was okay, i cant remember exactly what i asked but it was along the lines of, i will be using isboxer to broadcast my actions across to all my accounts with isboxer and that i planned to use 6 accounts and eventually move onto the secret world.

I don't multibox age of conan anymore but i did make a team from 1-80, and now that im in TSW this is a little bit worrying, this is a copy of the email i received on the 25th of march 2013.

Greetings,
Thank you for contacting Funcom Customer Support.

Welcome back, friend!

There is no problem with what you describe, so long as all actions performed by your characters are purely from user-input and not automated. This is likely similar to other policies you've encountered in the online gaming world. Naturally, please use caution when using these processes to control multiple characters, as any observed incidents of unattended gameplay can, and will, be considered a violation of our Terms of Service and End-User License Agreement.

I hope that is helpful! If you have any further questions, concerns, or requests regarding your account, please don't hesitate to reply directly to this e-mail. It would be our pleasure to assist you.

Regards,

GM Odonoptera
Customer Service Representative

Funcom Customer Service

My latest response got a reply from another GM than the one that handled my issue, and it was more informative/less verbose, so to speak:

Greetings.

Thank you for contacting Funcom customer support. First of all, I apologize for the initial confusion caused by the error in the suspension notice that you received, and thank you for the explanation you provided regarding your play style; it's always interesting to hear what aspects of our games appeal to specific players.

Multi-boxing, in which you are controlling all characters involved and simply mirror your inputs to all characters or use a round-robin style control as you have described, is permitted in Age of Conan. Automation of game actions, however, is considered unattended gameplay (aka "botting") and is not permitted. Your account was suspended because it appeared that the actions of your characters were being automated, particularly when you did not respond to the /tell messages our GMs sent to determine whether you were active and monitoring your characters.

In the future, you are welcome to continue to multi-box, but please be aware that your characters may be investigated again if they are reported for unattended gameplay, so if you receive a message from a GM, please respond to it as soon as possible so that we can confirm you are simply multi-boxing. I hope this helps clarify our policies regarding multi-boxing and how to avoid similar confusion in the future.

I apologize for any temporary inconvenience or confusion caused by this issue. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please have a nice day and let me know if you have any additional questions about this issue.

Multi-boxing is permitted. I've must have missed a GM /tell in game. So, I'll wait out the temporary ban and then try again.

[lax]

Good to know, thank you for sharing all the details guys!