Risk For Ban @ Expansion Launch For Gathering?

[Leonetienne]

I am already saving up gold to buy shadowlands for all my boxes. I am just thinking... Blizzard can ban anyone for no reason whatsoever. Which is why the "good citizen rule" exists. Be a nice multiboxer, and you're fine. Oneshot players that just want to quest and you'll likely get banned for use of third party software sooner or later.

I was just thinking that... could i p!ss blizzard off if i would use like ten times the bandwidth than a regular player when their servers are already down? (Like at the start of a new expansion.)
That i consume the whole herb/ore by maxing out the tag limit when there are lots of people trying to farm?

I mean, there would be so much gold to make.

What do you think?
Would you multibox-farm herbs and ores at the very launch of an expansion? Would you go as far as maxing out the tag limits?

[Lyonheart]

I am already saving up gold to buy shadowlands for all my boxes. I am just thinking... Blizzard can ban anyone for no reason whatsoever. Which is why the "good citizen rule" exists. Be a nice multiboxer, and you're fine. Oneshot players that just want to quest and you'll likely get banned for use of third party software sooner or later.

I was just thinking that... could i p!ss blizzard off if i would use like ten times the bandwidth than a regular player when their servers are already down? (Like at the start of a new expansion.)
That i consume the whole herb/ore by maxing out the tag limit when there are lots of people trying to farm?

I mean, there would be so much gold to make.

What do you think?
Would you multibox-farm herbs and ores at the very launch of an expansion? Would you go as far as maxing out the tag limits?

Yes?

[Leonetienne]

Yes?

Yes to "higher chance for getting banned" or to "would you multibox-farm at the launch of an expansion"?

[Purpleflavor]

Yes to "higher chance for getting banned" or to "would you multibox-farm at the launch of an expansion"?

i dont believe there's a higher chance of getting banned. I think most people getting banned are just dishonest, and their stories of how they got banned are dishonest. My experience with blizzard is that they do investigate before pulling the trigger and since i dont cheat i generally have a quick conversation with them and then go back to my business. And i'm very sure the reports over the years have greatly increased based on public reactions in game, yet the GM encounters have drastically decreased to the point of maybe twice since WoD.

So to answer the question, no. And yes i will farm nodes at the start of shadowlands just like most of us did at the start of BFA.

[Wubsie]

Well, let's try to break this down a bit. Why would you end up being banned? What are the circumstances where you fear that might happen?

Because you have 10 clients using up bandwith similar to 10 people playing a single client? Seems irrelevant to me. The amount is miniscule really and since Blizzard has no problem with boxers there is no reason for them to be annoyed by this. They've literally taken your sub money in order to sell you that exact service.

Because you use up all the tags on the node? Again, nothing against the rules about that. You're allowed to do so and it's literally just a mechanic of the game. If this was to get you banned, then tagging mobs would be just as likely to do so as well. I see neither being the case, outside of excessive cases where you would be making it impossible for others to do so as well.

In both cases you've presented the only reason you'd end up banned would more or less be a case of a false positive for botting or a GM going rogue and making up rules and violations. The first could in theory happen if you spend excessive amounts of time farming, but considering a lot of people farmed herbs for ages in BFA it's unlikely. The latter is such a hypothetical and could happen in essentially any circumstance so I would not spend my time worrying about it.

TL;DR: Are you increasing the risk? In a way, sure since you're increasing your exposure to the general player base and are bound to be reported more. Is it a substantial risk if you're not doing anything shady or spending every waking hour farming? Doubt it.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm with Wubsie on this one. Just follow the "Don't Be A Dick" rule and you should be fine. Corrolary: if you're doing something that Blizzard has repeatedly hotfixed as "exploitative" in the past (i.e. stand-still farming) then yes, you are at greater risk of being banned.

[Leonetienne]

Well, let's try to break this down a bit. Why would you end up being banned? What are the circumstances where you fear that might happen?

Because you have 10 clients using up bandwith similar to 10 people playing a single client? Seems irrelevant to me. The amount is miniscule really and since Blizzard has no problem with boxers there is no reason for them to be annoyed by this. They've literally taken your sub money in order to sell you that exact service.

Because you use up all the tags on the node? Again, nothing against the rules about that. You're allowed to do so and it's literally just a mechanic of the game. If this was to get you banned, then tagging mobs would be just as likely to do so as well. I see neither being the case, outside of excessive cases where you would be making it impossible for others to do so as well.

In both cases you've presented the only reason you'd end up banned would more or less be a case of a false positive for botting or a GM going rogue and making up rules and violations. The first could in theory happen if you spend excessive amounts of time farming, but considering a lot of people farmed herbs for ages in BFA it's unlikely. The latter is such a hypothetical and could happen in essentially any circumstance so I would not spend my time worrying about it.

TL;DR: Are you increasing the risk? In a way, sure since you're increasing your exposure to the general player base and are bound to be reported more. Is it a substantial risk if you're not doing anything shady or spending every waking hour farming? Doubt it.

You are right in every way. I am mostly afraid of gms mistaking me for a bot. I hate those "bot checks". Especially beause you can't be sure if it actually was one. I am experiencing my toons sometimes running away (instead of stopping behind my master) while on follow, some of my clients get kicked from the game a few minutes after logging in almost every time, sometimes a character just gets teleported to the nearest taxi or it's heartstone point. Then i am not sure whether my cursor broadcast accidently clicked on the hearthstone or if it was a gm...
Just two days ago all clients but one toon got kicked with a delay of maybe 15 seconds inbetween each kick.
I mean, wtf, just GM-Whisper me and we'll have a quick talk.

Every time something like this happens i make sure to type something in /say about it to show that i am not a bot.
It is even going as far as me recording my multiboxing (main screen + toon screen + keyboard cam + minimap zoom for time and date)

Beyond that i am always making sure to "be a good citizen". Eg only engaging in pvp if i get attacked first, not forcing the whole spawning area to myself while RNG farming, helping other players out if they are about to get killed by a mob and sh!t like that..

But it is not uncommmon for me to just multibox farm for 6+ hours. But i make sure to have small deviances in my route now and then. And sometimes, unlike a bot, i go afk to get a coffee or something.

After reading all your replies i feel confident enough though to make full use of the shadowlands release in about a year and fill my boxing guild bank haha.
If multiboxing is still going to be a thing then.. they could kill it by making ores just harvestable by one character again.. or botching with the /follow command haha. I do not think they would commit such changes because that would drive a lot of boxers away that were paying a lot of money. What do you think?

[Ellay]

I don't think there is much to worry about. The only time boxing seems to have really upset a GM is if your causing disruptive behavior. IE near a quest turn in and sitting there for hours on hour taking out random players.
For collecting nodes there isn't anything wrong with farming to your hearts content as long as they don't think your botting it, and it's really easy to see a bot vs a real player interacting. Some of our characters will miss a node, and we'll have to reclick that char, while a botting group literally perfects it every time and they usually run on their own and not in follow from what I have seen in the wild.

I've had my fair share of upsetting other players in the pvp context and I'm sure others have as well and there is no harm in it. Just move on and don't camp. Even if you skirmish with someone twice or three times that's still within normal range. I'd say 10+ or so it's excessive.

[MiRai]

If multiboxing is still going to be a thing then.. they could kill it by making ores just harvestable by one character again.. or botching with the /follow command haha. I do not think they would commit such changes because that would drive a lot of boxers away that were paying a lot of money. What do you think?

I think that the majority of multiboxers wouldn't care if nodes became single-tap, since it's probably not the reason that they got into the playstyle to begin with, and only recently has there been this increased attraction to it for the purpose of attempting to make gold.

Multiboxing, due to many reasons, is an unpopular playstyle, and because of that it makes up less than a drop in the bucket when it comes to Blizzard's subscription-based monthly income for World of Warcraft. So, if they wanted us gone, they'd simply snap their fingers and eliminate the playstyle from the game, but the minuscule financial gain that we bring isn't what's holding them back.

Do they make a little bit more from those who pay for multiple subscriptions for the purpose of multiboxing? Yes, but contrary to the drivel that spews from the mouths of some who dislike the playstyle, it's not because Blizzard is making dump trucks worth of money from us.

[Jabberie]

I am mostly afraid of gms mistaking me for a bot. I hate those "bot checks". Especially beause you can't be sure if it actually was one.

If you're playing and paying attention, there is nothing to fear. If you're scare you won't notice it, you're probably not engaged in the game enough and that could be seen as botting.

They don't whisper you because of multiple reasons, for example that it's easy to get a bot to reply. if you're failing bot checks, that slot is botting since you don't have any awareness of it.