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Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

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Enko

Posts: 27

Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:58 pm

Post Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:26 pm

Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

As part of ArenaNet’s policy on third-party programs, we are often asked about multi-boxing and the use of macros. Here is our policy:
Macros
Guild Wars 2 players are permitted to use macros as long as the macros are programmed with a 1 key for 1 function protocol.
This means that if you program a macro, it must require one keystroke per action. You may not program a single key to perform multiple functions.
For example, if you Press A and it results in the casting of a single skill, you’re ok. If you Press A and it casts multiple spells, you’re not ok.
You cannot program a macro to perform the same or multiple actions on more than one account at a time.
You cannot program an “auto-clicker” macro that, for instance, opens chests while you play elsewhere.
Dual- or Multi-Boxing
You may use more than one account at the same time.
You may use more than one computer at the same time.
You must be actively playing on each account.
And as stated above, you may not program your keyboard to perform functions on more than one account at a time.
a. For example, if you press W on your keyboard to move forward, a single character on a single account should move forward. The keystroke or mouse click should not perform functions on more than one account.


https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/s ... post354869

Usage of ISBoxer isn't allowed under the updated policy.
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theukmoog

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Posts: 97

Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 9:05 pm

Post Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:22 am

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

That is appalling!

I do hope you guys get some refunds on the (now) wasted boxes!
RIFT - 5-boxing | EVE - 0-boxing... CCP go DIAF!
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lax

User avatar

Site Admin

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Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:32 pm

Post Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:57 am

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

Usage of ISBoxer isn't allowed under the updated policy.

To be fair, I think it is pretty clear from the two posts that "usage of ISBoxer" is okay, however they will not allow you to broadcast the mouse/keyboard to more than one window at a time. So you can use the features of ISBoxer that manage the windows, CPU, etc, and you can even set up Mapped Keys, however those mappings are restricted to managing one window at a time.

And, in fact, you can still move multiple characters together under the revised rules... you just need to be holding one button per Character. To get around "if you press W on your keyboard to move forward, a single character on a single account should move forward", set it up so Q moves one guy forward, W moves another, E moves another, and then you've got 3 buttons for 3 separate individual actions, and holding them doesn't violate the outlined rules. (But equally fair, they probably will have no idea whether you're doing this, or holding one button...) No different than having multiple PCs and holding W on each of them, except you can do it with multiple buttons on one keyboard instead of 3 keyboards...

I'm still not really sure what they're afraid of though, there's almost no GW2 multiboxing to speak of. Perhaps because of the no auto-follow they get a higher incidence of people botting and trying to say they're multiboxing... or maybe they just assumed that without auto-follow nobody would want to multibox it and it would be easier to root out bots. Or maybe there's just a huge botting problem in GW2 and it's easier to find multiboxers and assume they're bots than it is to identify bots.

Thanks for sharing the updated information
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theukmoog

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Post Fri Mar 01, 2013 8:18 am

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

Time to pull out the dowelling rods...

Image
RIFT - 5-boxing | EVE - 0-boxing... CCP go DIAF!
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Prepared

Posts: 160

Joined: Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:34 pm

Post Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:09 pm

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

To add to this, ArenaNet support sent me a personal email letting me know of this updated stance on multiboxing:

Response Via Email (GM Roland) 02/28/2013 04:40 PM
Hello,

Recently, your accounts had been blocked because of the perception that you were using bot programs. It was determined that you were multiboxing and the accounts were released.

Multiboxing can mean different things to different players, so it may be difficult to know where, specifically, the line is actually drawn by Arena Net. I wanted to inform you of a clarification that was posted on Arena Net's view on multi boxing. You can find the post at https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/s ... post354869.

Since this subject has already been discussed with you, I wanted to update your ticket as a courtesy. This is just in case your perception of multiboxing no longer matches the clarified post. Though we would not be able to debate this clarification with you here, we also didn't want your account at risk if you needed to make changes to your game play style.

Regards,
GM Roland
NCsoft Account Admin Team
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Enko

Posts: 27

Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:58 pm

Post Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:25 pm

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

Prepared wrote:To add to this, ArenaNet support sent me a personal email letting me know of this updated stance on multiboxing:

Response Via Email (GM Roland) 02/28/2013 04:40 PM
Hello,

Recently, your accounts had been blocked because of the perception that you were using bot programs. It was determined that you were multiboxing and the accounts were released.

Multiboxing can mean different things to different players, so it may be difficult to know where, specifically, the line is actually drawn by Arena Net. I wanted to inform you of a clarification that was posted on Arena Net's view on multi boxing. You can find the post at https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/s ... post354869.

Since this subject has already been discussed with you, I wanted to update your ticket as a courtesy. This is just in case your perception of multiboxing no longer matches the clarified post. Though we would not be able to debate this clarification with you here, we also didn't want your account at risk if you needed to make changes to your game play style.

Regards,
GM Roland
NCsoft Account Admin Team


That's how I received my notification as well. At least they took the trouble to let us know they changed their policy.
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Ualaa

Grandmaster Guidesmith

Posts: 714

Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:36 pm

Post Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:37 pm

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

You can also use Steps in a mapped key.
Or round-robin, within target group.

And set the mapped key, to execute on Press -or- Release.

So if you have four guys.
And want to press 1, sending 1 to everyone.
In the new system, you spam your one key twice in very rapid succession.
Which sends:
a) 1 > Toon 1 On Press
b) 1 > Toon 2 On Release
c) 1 > Toon 3 On Press
d) 1 > Toon 4 On Release

Four separate events.
Streaming in 720p HD: www.twitch.tv/ualaa
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Prepared

Posts: 160

Joined: Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:34 pm

Post Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:13 pm

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

Ualaa wrote:You can also use Steps in a mapped key.
Or round-robin, within target group.

And set the mapped key, to execute on Press -or- Release.

So if you have four guys.
And want to press 1, sending 1 to everyone.
In the new system, you spam your one key twice in very rapid succession.
Which sends:
a) 1 > Toon 1 On Press
b) 1 > Toon 2 On Release
c) 1 > Toon 3 On Press
d) 1 > Toon 4 On Release

Four separate events.


I think in their view, the press and release is a single keystroke according to their terms. First off, players will report if they see several of the same character in the same area. Even if the characters aren't moving, they will report it. So then in about an hour a GM will be watching and if the GM sees all characters doing the same action at the same time, they will bring the ban hammer. No matter what the multiboxer does to set up keystrokes to press, if the characters do an action at the same time, they will view it as breaking the rules.

However, your first suggestion of round-robin may work...
Just use round-robin for each keystroke for skills and movement. There would need to be another auto-run key for when the character doesn't move. What I mean is, Guild Wars 2 sometimes doesn't move when the auto-run key is pressed. It's rare, but it does happen so a separate keystroke which only goes to the current screen would be needed in those cases to get that specific character moving.

An example of the round-robin approach would be that while fighting with a ranger, you'll want to utilize each skill so they are executed during the battle. So if you have a long bow and you want to execute Rapid Fire on each Ranger, you'd set up the '2' key (or whatever key you have set up to execute Rapid Fire in the game's Control Options) so that each key press goes to a separate client window with ISBoxer (Innerspace). If you're multiboxing five Rangers for example, you'd press '2' five times in rapid succession. This would keep in line with their description of having a single action for each key press. An observing GM should be able to tell the characters are executing in sequence rather than at the same time. All skills, movement, dodge, jump, about face, and the Interact key would need to be set up for round-robin to each client window.

I'm going to give this a try on five of my rangers. The worst that can happen is they ban five of my accounts. But since the announcement on their official stance on multiboxing, I've not been playing any way.

:D


Update: The round-robin approach works for the most part. However, if reported, the GM will think the key is only being pressed once because the keys are pressed so fast. Like when I want all to do the '2' function, I just press '2' rapidly 4 times for 4 characters. In the game, it appears to do the function at the same time. So I'm playing 1 Elementalist, 1 Ranger, 1 Guardian and 1 Necromancer. This gives me combos plus people don't readily see I'm playing them all even though they're all in the same guild. To someone watching, even though the keys appear to be executed at the same time and they are not, just pressed rapidly, it appears there are 4 different people because the names are all different and all different professions and races. I'm usually live streaming on my new twitch channel Multiboxxing

If anyone wants to join me, I play on Stormbluff Isle and my characters are:
Prepared -- Elementalist
Worldwide -- Ranger
Teacher -- Guardian
Temor -- Necromancer
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Ekpyrotic

Posts: 8

Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 4:41 pm

Post Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:24 pm

Re: Anet's Official Stance on Multiboxing Updated

I stopped playing GW2. Other players in the community are to up in you face all the time, policing what your doing and the gm's back that stance. I moved to others games where you can play the way you want, not how some other player expects you to play. Too many assholes wannabe's in GW2.

GW2 is a monotonous game of checking off completion boxes (dailies, monthlies, achievements), no thought involved. You can play it while doing something else on your computer. PVP has no depth, no team strategy, just 1v1 skill smashing. I still like GW1, it's like a card game. If you have the right skill cards(skills) in your hand for the specific event you/team can do miraculous things.

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