Introduction: The concept of multiboxing is nothing new for those from the WoW community. Every so often you would run into 5 characters (usually shaman), all with very similar names, and clearly being controlled simultaneously by a single player. Assuming your encounter occurred in the open world on a pvp server or in a random battleground, it usually meant a trip to the graveyard after being one shot. The strategy was also effective in farming old instances, power leveling characters, and even 5v5 arena where you'd see the occasional 2k+ rated team.
Now comes D3, with all its promise of engrossing game play and the latest innovative feature from Blizzard--the RMAH. Regardless of your opinion on utilizing real currency in a virtual world, the potential will exist for resourceful players to turn their addiction into a cash cow (how big this cow will actually be is the subject of some debate). It is within this context that the multiboxing strategy becomes particularly compelling.
How do I multibox: If you aren't familiar with multiboxing, you might think it requires running the game on multiple computers. In this sense “multibox" really is a misnomer as your basic setup only calls for the use of a single computer. The process is relatively straightforward: you open multiple tabs of the game, log into a separate account in each tab, then use a software program to send your keystrokes across all open tabs at the same time. Here's a link listing some of the multiboxing software available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-boxing It can be a bit tricky setting up these programs initially, but nothing beyond what the average gamer can figure out. There are also guides out there for using these programs with WoW, and I'd expect the same for D3 once it hits shelves.
This sounds like cheating, will Blizzard allow multiboxing in D3: The short answer is mostly likely yes. The long answer is that people have complained many times over the years about multiboxers in WoW. I think its fair to say that Blizzard has consistently downplayed the potential for abuse and has explicitly stated that multiboxing (defined as one person controlling multiple characters at the same time) is not considered botting/modding and therefore is allowed.
How much is multiboxing going to cost me: As noted above, you will need a separate battle.net account for each tab you have open (e.g., if you try to log onto the same battle.net account in two separate tabs you will be connected in one tab and disconnected in the other). You will also need to factor in what your gaming rig is capable of--running four tabs of D3 is going to take a fair amount of GPU/CPU muscle. Finally there's the cost (if any) of the multiboxing software (ranging from free to $20 or so). Assuming D3 costs $60 at release, you're talking a $240 initial outlay ($60 x 4 separate accounts) + the cost of any hardware upgrades. Fortunately this is a one time investment, unlike WoW where multiboxers are paying upwards of $75/month for their subscriptions alone.
How hard is it to control multiple characters at the same time: "Easy to learn but hard to master" comes to mind. In WoW, the basic setup was as follows. You chose one character to be the "leader" and the rest "followers". The W, A,S, and D keys were disabled in the multiboxing software (i.e., NOT broadcast across all open tabs) so that when you pressed them they only worked for the tab that was currently on top (which, as you've guessed, would be the leader's tab). The followers had macros set up to follow the leader and target his target. Set the loot option so anyone in your party can pick up items and bind your skills identically across your characters then you were good to go.
This setup obviously won't work in D3. As far as I am aware, there are no macros, no option to auto-follow other group members, and targeting/movement is accomplished through mouse clicks. The good news is that your multiboxing software should allow you to transmit mouse clicks in addition to keystrokes across all open tabs (the software that I used when multiboxing in WoW had a toggle on/off option for this). With this in mind, I would guess the basic setup for D3 multiboxing would be to stack all your characters as close to on top of each other as you possibly can and make sure your software is broadcasting mouse clicks.
Finally, looting seems like it will tedious for multiboxers. Blizzard has stated that loot is individual to the party member and other members won't even see your drops. This means that you won't be able to set up a lead character to grab all the drops--you'll have to swap between tabs and pick up loot character by character. This is the biggest annoyance I can think of when multiboxing in D3.
Closing thoughts: Clearly multiboxers will make up a small percentage of the D3 player base, but this niche game play could prove very profitable/enjoyable for those willing to accept the initial investment and learning curve. What will you do? Thanks for reading .
In 1 year the market will be devauled extremley. This is absolutley no different than botting. If people do this and are not stupid about it, they will not flood the market with tons of gg items, only to devalue their own gear. If people do this and get away with it, they need the dribble the gear out over time to keep the balance, and keep these items a decent value not to only screw themselves in the end.
You could totally do it with 4 with doctors & runed Grasp of the dead.
All characters start in town in relatively the same spot. So they run to the same exact spots..
You get a beast computer to run 1 medium sized game, 3 smaller windows.. Press Alt & look at windows for gold, green, & orange legendary items. Run around sporadically to blanket areas for gold where mobs have died.
Yeah. This is an issue..
The market will become saturated regardless. Items don't bind, expansions and item updates that introduce new upper-tier items will be pretty much the only working against the inevitable inflation to come.
Diablo isn't built in such a way as to allow multiboxing to be performed easily at almost any level of play. Any kind of crowd control effect will screw up your stack, and once your control is desychronized things will turn sour for you in a hurry anywhere past normal mode. If you want to invest in four accounts and link them so you can farm easy areas a little faster, go nuts. Inferno will require more skilled play, and that's where all the important top-tier drops will be.
I played a trial WOW character to level 20 just to see if I liked (I didn't), and it was very easy in the portion I played to engage monsters one at a time; I seldom had to fight more unless I really wasn't paying attention.
Monster AI in DIII has the critters actively pursue you in mobs, ranged monsters target back row characters, not just the melee guy up front.
I think multi boxing more than two accounts is going to be very difficult in this game. Getting hung on environmental objects like posts, tables, corners, etc will hinder you greatly as well. At least I hope so, or the mutli's will be going hog wild trying to find things to sell.
You could totally do it with 4 with doctors & runed Grasp of the dead.
All characters start in town in relatively the same spot. So they run to the same exact spots..
You get a beast computer to run 1 medium sized game, 3 smaller windows.. Press Alt & look at windows for gold, green, & orange legendary items. Run around sporadically to blanket areas for gold where mobs have died.
Yeah. This is an issue..
Interesting idea. I was tempting to do some theorycrafting as to which class(es) would be best, but having only seen a fraction of the game I figured it would be a bit premature/speculative.
To the other posters, ,multiboxing will certainly present some unique challenges in D3 that aren't present WoW.
Its cheating. Blizzard just doesnt call it cheating because there are people out there with tons of accounts paying $15 a month. I read a story on mmo-champion a couple months ago about one guy who had like thousands(maybe more) of active accounts, and that the opposing faction on his server essentially rarely if ever won WG.
So yah, its cheating, but they aint gonna do anything about it.
You could totally do it with 4 with doctors & runed Grasp of the dead.
All characters start in town in relatively the same spot. So they run to the same exact spots..
You get a beast computer to run 1 medium sized game, 3 smaller windows.. Press Alt & look at windows for gold, green, & orange legendary items. Run around sporadically to blanket areas for gold where mobs have died.
Yeah. This is an issue..
Interesting idea. I was tempting to do some theorycrafting as to which class(es) would be best, but having only seen a fraction of the game I figured it would be a bit premature/speculative.
To the other posters, ,multiboxing will certainly present some unique challenges in D3 that aren't present WoW.
I hate to help you guys, but you do know you can use more than one monitor right?
Just put the other games on another screen. Every now and again, just glance over there. especially after killing a boss or champion.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Good read. I do have to say though, being Blizzard, and being that D3 is vastly different from WoW in the one sense of the RMAH, I can guarantee you they are vastly against this. There are programs that can get around it, but you aren't able to have more than 1 D3 running at a time currently. Because this isn't wow and isn't an open world in the same sense, I can also safely say they will be able to detect the party of 4 moving simultaneously. They've already said in their defense of no offline play, that it's easier to 'monitor gamers'. And I expect nothing short of simply programs reporting when players move in unison, at once. They can also easily have any software be on the lookout for obvious things like the same class in all 4 players, the same or close to the same build, them using the same skills at the same time.
In short I'm not sure if it's technically cheating with other games, but the RMAH poses a lot of new questions. I personally foresee something like this forbidden, and I personally hope it is.
Edit; As I was thinking more about this, I came to realize just how hard it's going to be to do this in inferno. What happens when one of the toons gets frozen / feared / stunned / slowed / put to sleep, ect ect? If anything I predict I'll be able to move much faster through inferno alone, and while only having 1/4th the loot drop, I think speed might actually make up for that. Mobs in inferno will kill a well geared player very, very quickly. I'd like to see someone try, but something as simple as an aoe debuff on one of your toons where you need to run away from the group, taking the whole idea down.
Good read. I do have to say though, being Blizzard, and being that D3 is vastly different from WoW in the one sense of the RMAH, I can guarantee you they are vastly against this. There are programs that can get around it, but you aren't able to have more than 1 D3 running at a time currently. Because this isn't wow and isn't an open world in the same sense, I can also safely say they will be able to detect the party of 4 moving simultaneously. They've already said in their defense of no offline play, that it's easier to 'monitor gamers'. And I expect nothing short of simply programs reporting when players move in unison, at once. They can also easily have any software be on the lookout for obvious things like the same class in all 4 players, the same or close to the same build, them using the same skills at the same time.
In short I'm not sure if it's technically cheating with other games, but the RMAH poses a lot of new questions. I personally foresee something like this forbidden, and I personally hope it is.
There is an easy way around that....but I just hate multi-boxing so much.that I wont tell.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
As a past WoW player, I hate multiboxers. Nothing is more annoying than being approached by five Draenai shaman when you're a horde character, and getting instantaneously pwnd. I honestly don't see the difference between that and botting. If you're not physically moving each character, then it's automated, and that should be against the rules. I have no facts for this, but I can't imagine that the majority of people multiboxing are doing it just for the gold or arena points. They're most likely doing it to sell their characters/accounts, which is against the rules. But anyways, back onto the topic of Diablo.
I sure hope Blizz makes it against the rules, and actively monitors against it. Yes, the only way this will immediately affect players is if they play open games and a multiboxer of 2 or 3 characters joins, and I know there's a big difference, but botting/multiboxing will most likely flood the RMAH/gold market, just like the duping did back in D2. Sure, it will be near-impossible, if not impossible, to multibox in Inferno, but they could easily just farm gold in Normal or Nightmare, and have inflation occur there.
TL;DR: I hope multiboxing is blocked/monitored against by Blizz.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When I grow up, I want to be a frill-necked lizard.
Now comes D3, with all its promise of engrossing game play and the latest innovative feature from Blizzard--the RMAH. Regardless of your opinion on utilizing real currency in a virtual world, the potential will exist for resourceful players to turn their addiction into a cash cow (how big this cow will actually be is the subject of some debate). It is within this context that the multiboxing strategy becomes particularly compelling.
How do I multibox: If you aren't familiar with multiboxing, you might think it requires running the game on multiple computers. In this sense “multibox" really is a misnomer as your basic setup only calls for the use of a single computer. The process is relatively straightforward: you open multiple tabs of the game, log into a separate account in each tab, then use a software program to send your keystrokes across all open tabs at the same time. Here's a link listing some of the multiboxing software available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-boxing It can be a bit tricky setting up these programs initially, but nothing beyond what the average gamer can figure out. There are also guides out there for using these programs with WoW, and I'd expect the same for D3 once it hits shelves.
This sounds like cheating, will Blizzard allow multiboxing in D3: The short answer is mostly likely yes. The long answer is that people have complained many times over the years about multiboxers in WoW. I think its fair to say that Blizzard has consistently downplayed the potential for abuse and has explicitly stated that multiboxing (defined as one person controlling multiple characters at the same time) is not considered botting/modding and therefore is allowed.
How much is multiboxing going to cost me: As noted above, you will need a separate battle.net account for each tab you have open (e.g., if you try to log onto the same battle.net account in two separate tabs you will be connected in one tab and disconnected in the other). You will also need to factor in what your gaming rig is capable of--running four tabs of D3 is going to take a fair amount of GPU/CPU muscle. Finally there's the cost (if any) of the multiboxing software (ranging from free to $20 or so). Assuming D3 costs $60 at release, you're talking a $240 initial outlay ($60 x 4 separate accounts) + the cost of any hardware upgrades. Fortunately this is a one time investment, unlike WoW where multiboxers are paying upwards of $75/month for their subscriptions alone.
How hard is it to control multiple characters at the same time: "Easy to learn but hard to master" comes to mind. In WoW, the basic setup was as follows. You chose one character to be the "leader" and the rest "followers". The W, A,S, and D keys were disabled in the multiboxing software (i.e., NOT broadcast across all open tabs) so that when you pressed them they only worked for the tab that was currently on top (which, as you've guessed, would be the leader's tab). The followers had macros set up to follow the leader and target his target. Set the loot option so anyone in your party can pick up items and bind your skills identically across your characters then you were good to go.
This setup obviously won't work in D3. As far as I am aware, there are no macros, no option to auto-follow other group members, and targeting/movement is accomplished through mouse clicks. The good news is that your multiboxing software should allow you to transmit mouse clicks in addition to keystrokes across all open tabs (the software that I used when multiboxing in WoW had a toggle on/off option for this). With this in mind, I would guess the basic setup for D3 multiboxing would be to stack all your characters as close to on top of each other as you possibly can and make sure your software is broadcasting mouse clicks.
Finally, looting seems like it will tedious for multiboxers. Blizzard has stated that loot is individual to the party member and other members won't even see your drops. This means that you won't be able to set up a lead character to grab all the drops--you'll have to swap between tabs and pick up loot character by character. This is the biggest annoyance I can think of when multiboxing in D3.
Closing thoughts: Clearly multiboxers will make up a small percentage of the D3 player base, but this niche game play could prove very profitable/enjoyable for those willing to accept the initial investment and learning curve. What will you do? Thanks for reading .
All characters start in town in relatively the same spot. So they run to the same exact spots..
You get a beast computer to run 1 medium sized game, 3 smaller windows.. Press Alt & look at windows for gold, green, & orange legendary items. Run around sporadically to blanket areas for gold where mobs have died.
Yeah. This is an issue..
Yeah, & you're really bright.
Diablo isn't built in such a way as to allow multiboxing to be performed easily at almost any level of play. Any kind of crowd control effect will screw up your stack, and once your control is desychronized things will turn sour for you in a hurry anywhere past normal mode. If you want to invest in four accounts and link them so you can farm easy areas a little faster, go nuts. Inferno will require more skilled play, and that's where all the important top-tier drops will be.
Monster AI in DIII has the critters actively pursue you in mobs, ranged monsters target back row characters, not just the melee guy up front.
I think multi boxing more than two accounts is going to be very difficult in this game. Getting hung on environmental objects like posts, tables, corners, etc will hinder you greatly as well. At least I hope so, or the mutli's will be going hog wild trying to find things to sell.
Interesting idea. I was tempting to do some theorycrafting as to which class(es) would be best, but having only seen a fraction of the game I figured it would be a bit premature/speculative.
To the other posters, ,multiboxing will certainly present some unique challenges in D3 that aren't present WoW.
So yah, its cheating, but they aint gonna do anything about it.
I hate to help you guys, but you do know you can use more than one monitor right?
Just put the other games on another screen. Every now and again, just glance over there. especially after killing a boss or champion.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Yah I already loved that idea, and now that it makes multiboxing far less effective, well I love it even more.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
In short I'm not sure if it's technically cheating with other games, but the RMAH poses a lot of new questions. I personally foresee something like this forbidden, and I personally hope it is.
Edit; As I was thinking more about this, I came to realize just how hard it's going to be to do this in inferno. What happens when one of the toons gets frozen / feared / stunned / slowed / put to sleep, ect ect? If anything I predict I'll be able to move much faster through inferno alone, and while only having 1/4th the loot drop, I think speed might actually make up for that. Mobs in inferno will kill a well geared player very, very quickly. I'd like to see someone try, but something as simple as an aoe debuff on one of your toons where you need to run away from the group, taking the whole idea down.
There is an easy way around that....but I just hate multi-boxing so much.that I wont tell.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
I sure hope Blizz makes it against the rules, and actively monitors against it. Yes, the only way this will immediately affect players is if they play open games and a multiboxer of 2 or 3 characters joins, and I know there's a big difference, but botting/multiboxing will most likely flood the RMAH/gold market, just like the duping did back in D2. Sure, it will be near-impossible, if not impossible, to multibox in Inferno, but they could easily just farm gold in Normal or Nightmare, and have inflation occur there.
TL;DR: I hope multiboxing is blocked/monitored against by Blizz.
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!