Multiboxing officially allowed in EVE Online

[lax]

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.as ... age=10#274
4/23/2010

Hello there,

To make a long story short, automation of gameplay is not permitted; players must be manually issuing the commands to control their character(s) at all times.

Our stance on programs such as Synergy and hardware/software combination such as the G15 keyboard is that they can be legitimately used as long as gameplay isn't automated. Synergy allows you to move your mouse cursor to multiple different monitors which are hooked up to different computers and we do not have any qualms with players using the program for this purpose. If Synergy was used in some way to control your accounts for you without a need for you to be at your keyboard, then that would not be allowed, but I am not aware of such a functionality with this program. If Synergy is used in conjunction with some other program to automate gameplay, it would not be permitted. G15 "macros" which allow you to group different commands into one keypress are allowed. For example, setting your G1 key to press F1, F2, F3 and so on for you with one key press is allowed (although this specific command is not as useful as it was before now that we have weapon grouping).

An exceedingly complex G15 macro which would effectively automate gameplay, such as mining, without a need for the player to be present at his keyboard would be against the EULA, regardless of whether the player utilizing said macro is sitting at his keyboard at the time!

Lastly, multiboxing is allowed, and programs designed for multiboxing in mind which allow a player to manually issue the same command to multiple game clients at the same time are allowed. In the same vein as what has been stated above, the player must be manually sending the commands; if a program is automating those commands for you, then it would be considered a breach of our EULA.

I hope this clears up this matter.

Best regards,
Senior GM Lelouch
EVE Online Customer Support

It seems that at THIS current fanfest's security round table today CCP might be changing their stance. CCP employees that spoke stated how they are more aggressively going after botters and botting applications. They described any applications found to have hooks in to the eve application, other then those white listed, to be considered bots or hacks. CCP gave the for instance application FRAPS the green light to be used and said it would be white listed. When someone asked about a common multi boxing software (not gonna mention it here) that mirror mouse movements across clients and computers they told him to refer to the TOS and EULA. Their plan is to strictly follow the TOS and EULA on all matters with exception to apps with out a clear intent to bot/hack the client.

With some of the apps available that sit on top of or hook in to Lavasoft and ISBoxer and are expressly used for botting... is their going to be an attempt to clean up the application so it may get white listed or approved?

[lax]

Lavasoft makes Adaware.

As far as "hooks into the EVE application", I don't know what their definition of that is but Inner Space and ISBoxer aren't "hooking into" any EVE code. Inner Space works by "hooking into" Windows, in much the same way as Microsoft's Application Compatibility layer, many types of Firewall software, and so on. It alters the behavior of Windows, not the game -- the game is completely unaltered.

And unless something changes with their EULA, nothing ISBoxer does (or other common multiboxing software for that matter) is prohibited by it. I don't know what you mean by "clean it up", but there's nothing about ISBoxer that relates to botting. They can block and ban for bots without blocking and banning for ISBoxer, and Inner Space won't stand in their way.

WoW just recently banned a bunch of botters too. Not multiboxers. Let's not confuse the two...

They are not "out to get you" just because you use an application that might somehow be construed as "hooking" into the client. The "Is ISBoxer allowed?" page sums it up and it really is that simple. They just want to weed out "the bad people". Just because you're doing something new and innovative doesn't mean they want to ban you. Actually, I think this is best responded to with this post from an EverQuest 2 GM, which I think applies pretty well here: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=25&topic_id=465301#5186049

the policy is not NEW. There hasn't been a change to policy or the EULA.

That clause has always been there. That is what allows us to nuke the farmers and plat sellers that we all loathe so much.

If you're not doing something you shouldn't be doing, multi-boxing is fine.

Those who wish to look for loopholes to allow them to do it in shady ways always will. There is nothing in there that says you cannot multi-box. It just says you can't use a program to automate it.

People are over-reacting and troll-feeding. And really... holiday weight gain or no, the trolls don't need the extra calories.

Please stop trying to read into it anything that says we're going to start nuking our legitimate players for playing more than one account at a time...