Interview subjects needed for article on multiboxing

[jinglehopper]

Hello,

I'm writing an article for the Escapist about multiboxers and their dedication to playing their favorite MMOs in such a remarkable way.

I want to get at the kernel of what makes multiboxers do what they do. Is it the challenge? The pride at overcoming a difficult task which combines hardware configuration, tweaking of software and intimate knowledge of game mechanics? Or is it the lack of adequate groups on the player's server? Or is it something else?

If you'd be interested in answering some questions and possibly being quoted in an article about multiboxing, please send me a PM and we can begin a dialogue.

Feel free to check out some of my pieces that have appeared in the Escapist:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_165/5183-Indorktrination

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_95/531-The-Burnt-out-Crusade

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/76775-Are-You-Evil



I look forward to hearing from you!



Greg Tito

[Kaynin]

PM sent then, would be glad to help out. x)

[Unholy[S]haman]

I just read some of your articles and find them very captivating. Just because of them I will now be checking out escapistmagazine regularly.

I am really struggeling with time on my hands but would be happy to help out.
Easiest for me would be for you to email me a list of questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability. Then you can formulate a dialogue from my answers if needed unless you are just looking for straight forward quotes.

My email is nhance@nhancedgaming.com

[not5150]

Hello Greg,

Good luck with your piece.

It's always refreshing to have a fellow journalist follow the code of ethics.

Kudos for announcing who you are, who you work for and for giving links to previous articles.

[Sajuuk]

Replied.

[Vyndree]

Me gusta. :)

If you don't have enough people for your article, feel free to send me a PM. I'll let some of the other folks have first dibs at e-fame. :D

Fun times.

[Souca]

Me gusta. :)

If you don't have enough people for your article, feel free to send me a PM. I'll let some of the other folks have first dibs at e-fame. :D

Fun times.No, it's all mine! You can't have my e-fame or even my e-nfamy!

I'm ready for my interview, Mister DeMille.

- Souca -

[RobinGBrown]

I wrote an article about my multiboxing experiences here:

http://www.suburbanconspiracy.com/theplot/index.php?page=173

[not5150]

I wrote an article about my multiboxing experiences here:

http://www.suburbanconspiracy.com/theplot/index.php?page=173Good article.. I especially like the line "It’s my party, and I’ll play when I want to."

That sums it up right there.

[Shaitan256]

Please let us know when it's going to be published :) I love interviews about Multiboxers / boxing , without them I wouldn't come here :) (I think it was Xzin and Ellay for a german Roleplay Magazin, I think it was Buffed)

I don't think I could help with that, so only if needed I would help out a bit, but I'm not that "pro" and currently not Boxing ^^

[jinglehopper]

Hey guys,

I've gotten a lot of great responses. Thank you!

I'm currently looking for more people who multiboxed before WOW came along. I want to know about the gritty gamer who multiboxed with Pentiums running Windows 95 through the then-virgin lands of Lord British. Are there any of you there? I'd like to hear about the roots of multiboxing. Send me a PM if you are or know of anyone who could tell me about what it was like to multibox back then.

Greg

[keyclone]

omg... you're summoning the ghost of UO past?

[Souca]

Ummm. I won't talk about UO. I wasn't one of those people that sent Origin $2 to be a beta tester. Nope, that wasn't me. There are lots of MMOs I didn't beta test, so we won't mention the others.

- Souca -

[Ellay]

I've been doing it for a long time before WoW, but I've had enough publicity - someone else deserves some spotlight :) I'm sure there's a bunch in here who played pre-WoW time.

[Shaitan256]

I did some games before, but I was small and didn't know something like Multiboxing exists (I mean that there is a name for it).
I was kinda young and thought just give it a try and it worked quite well.


I just love to do things you need more than one person for.
Like to help people and entertain people. But I'm not the one who is a revolutionist in MB or something.^^ Don't even have a Max lvl team yet (not even 60) just love the Community^^

btw:
Why aren't prepared or sam writing here? off on vacations?!

Edit:
@Ellay
So Much kindness isn't usual for a normal human being you must have some Crazy brain tumor- Dr. House (House MD or something in US/UK) would say - lolz(hope you don't get it wrong)

[not5150]

I multiboxed in UO... and played text MUDs. Compiled TinTin and ran five guys. That's how I learned Linux. Compile, compile dies, grumble grumble, change config, compile again, dies, repeat ad infinitum.

Your slash ANNIHILATES the goblin for 2477 damage.

[heffner]

Out of curiousity,

Is this article for Escapistmagazine.com? Does Escapistmagazine .com have any affiliation with ZAM Network / Affinity Media?

Thanks.

[Kaynin]

No need to be that cautious. :p

Having checked out the site and its contents however I very much doubt they are. They seem to be clean. x)

[Taliesin]

I multiboxed in UO... and played text MUDs. Compiled TinTin and ran five guys. That's how I learned Linux. Compile, compile dies, grumble grumble, change config, compile again, dies, repeat ad infinitum.

Your slash ANNIHILATES the goblin for 2477 damage.

I've only recently started multi-boxing in MMOs (WoW). But I was usually boxing back in the MUD days, as well, before even EQ opened up the world of MUDs with UIs. It was a different experience though, as there was a variety of MUD clients that had built-in windowing to make boxing easy, since everything was text-based: e, e, n, n, n, e, n, kill spider, loot corpse, cast 'heal' self, use 'scroll of recall'

I also spent a great deal of time admin'ing, working on development, and creating content and areas for MUDs. I also boycotted EQ for the longest time because I refused to have to pay for something that I spent so many years playing for free. :)

[keyclone]

Is this article for Escapistmagazine.com? Does Escapistmagazine .com have any affiliation with ZAM Network / Affinity Media?
this is the closest i found (link ('http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/08/21/xfire-debate-virtual-money/') ):
Readers may be interested in a debate / panel discussion on game currency to be held today at 3PM Eastern time, hosted by Xfire. I’m one of the seven panelists. The others include a technology writer, the lead artist for Arden, a professor at USC, ZAM Network’s Content Manager, PR manager at NHN USA, and the CEO of Sparter. The event is hosted by Joe Blancato, Associate Editor at The Escapist magazine, and founder of Waterthread.org. It should be an interesting discussion.i could not find any real connection otherwise (not without getting into tracking all names i came across... and that's too much like real work)

[Gadaí]

I multiboxed in UO... and played text MUDs. Compiled TinTin and ran five guys. That's how I learned Linux. Compile, compile dies, grumble grumble, change config, compile again, dies, repeat ad infinitum.

Your slash ANNIHILATES the goblin for 2477 damage.

I've only recently started multi-boxing in MMOs (WoW). But I was usually boxing back in the MUD days, as well, before even EQ opened up the world of MUDs with UIs. It was a different experience though, as there was a variety of MUD clients that had built-in windowing to make boxing easy, since everything was text-based: e, e, n, n, n, e, n, kill spider, loot corpse, cast 'heal' self, use 'scroll of recall'

I also spent a great deal of time admin'ing, working on development, and creating content and areas for MUDs. I also boycotted EQ for the longest time because I refused to have to pay for something that I spent so many years playing for free. :)

Heh - your comments are eerily familiar. Another multiboxing friend of mine and I were both players back in the day on DS MUD where 5 of the original GMs for UO hired from. At the time we figured it was a crazy idea - why would anyone pay for bad graphics when there were so many great, massive and mature MUDs out there? How wrong were we? :) Also remember the shocking change going from Diku to Merc muds and seeing colours in the damage descriptions!

[asonimie]

I'd be happy to share my knowledge and experience, Send me a PM!

[Taliesin]

Heh - your comments are eerily familiar. Another multiboxing friend of mine and I were both players back in the day on DS MUD where 5 of the original GMs for UO hired from. At the time we figured it was a crazy idea - why would anyone pay for bad graphics when there were so many great, massive and mature MUDs out there? How wrong were we? :) Also remember the shocking change going from Diku to Merc muds and seeing colours in the damage descriptions!
OMG, Ansi colors!! Merc codebase rocked.

Sad when colored text was state of the art gaming. I'd have to look up the old free editor that I used to work with, we were starting to incorporate images into the browser (animated GIFs, ftw). But sadly, that's when MMOs started to take over. It was "adapt or die" time.

Sorry all! Don't mean to hijack the thread... but I guess it's all kind of related. I'm new to posting here, but I was interested in the idea of the history of boxing and mention of MUDs brought back memories.

[jinglehopper]

Out of curiousity,

Is this article for Escapistmagazine.com? Does Escapistmagazine .com have any affiliation with ZAM Network / Affinity Media?

Thanks.
The Escapist is part of the Themis Media Group. http://www.themis-group.com/

So no, they don't advocate the buying and selling of WOW gold, nor are they affiliated with IGE, nor do they know who Brock Pierce ('http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/16-12/ff_ige?currentPage=all') is.

Well, maybe they know who he is but they don't really like him. :)

Greg

[heffner]

Thanks for the information. I am just not interested in participating in a marketing survey disguised as something else, so I wanted to do a bit of fact checking first.

[Souca]

Thanks for the information. I am just not interested in participating in a marketing survey disguised as something else, so I wanted to do a bit of fact checking first.While I can't vouch for Greg personally, I can tell you that gmail found his name attached to 10 articles in The Escapist ('http://www.escapistmagazine.com/') dating back to October 2005. It's a gaming ezine of sorts, and while I'm not sure how big a following it draws, it has been around for over 3 years. I've been reading it off and since issue 1 when it was pimped by Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade. In fact, I think they were contributors for the first issue, but I could be wrong.

Greg: I was in drama in highschool. I know what cast parties are like ;)

- Souca -

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Hey guys,

I've gotten a lot of great responses. Thank you!

I'm currently looking for more people who multiboxed before WOW came along. I want to know about the gritty gamer who multiboxed with Pentiums running Windows 95 through the then-virgin lands of Lord British. Are there any of you there? I'd like to hear about the roots of multiboxing. Send me a PM if you are or know of anyone who could tell me about what it was like to multibox back then.

GregJay is your best source for that info (http://www.teamwizzy.com) I think. I sorta-kinda multiboxed DAoC for a couple years before WoW (not really keystroke-replication multiboxing as we know it today, more like just having a train following you around). Be happy to relate some of that experience if you'd like.

Oh, and give my best to Yahtzee. ;)

[badashh]

Great Articles, but if you hear from someone named DeathWalker, beware.

[jinglehopper]

Greg: I was in drama in highschool. I know what cast parties are like ;)

- Souca -heh, yeah. good times...

[BobGnarly]

Great Articles, but if you hear from someone named DeathWalker, beware.Dude, what are you talking about? I think a hyperbole-ridden article containing loincloths, basements, hookers and bad hair would be a great read.

I most anxiously await Greg's interpretation of Sam's attempt to aggrandize himself by explaining that he has more internet epeen than anybody else using some ridiculously defined metrics including all his character's tradeskill levels and decades /played doing nothing but arranging UI.

Greg, please contact Sam Deathwalker and feature him! :D

[Falkor]

In the interest of forum cleanliness can you please confirm when you no longer require any more interview candidates and drop us a link to the article for future reference :)

[Mukade]

Please talk Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw into pugging against a mutiboxer in arena or BGs :evil:

(In fact just seeing what he'd have to say about WoW would be a laugh)

[jinglehopper]

In the interest of forum cleanliness can you please confirm when you no longer require any more interview candidates and drop us a link to the article for future reference :)

I'm still collecting interviews if you want to respond Falkor. Always want to hear a luck dragon's opinions.

Article is due out in a month but I should come back with a link when it is up.


Greg

[jinglehopper]

Greg, please contact Sam Deathwalker and feature him! :D
Who is this Deathwalker you speak of and why should I feature him?

Greg

[badashh]

Greg, please contact Sam Deathwalker and feature him! :D
Who is this Deathwalker you speak of and why should I feature him?

Greg

He is the person whose e-peen would probably grow the most by having an article written about him. He has 26 or so accounts and has got to level 30 ish in about 6 months or so, another boxer Prepared has 30 or so that is past 70 in about the same amount of time. He wants to be the "best" but refuses to listen to most of the advice we give him. I'm sure he'll give you his resume about boxing EQ, you just have to ask. But as far as WOW boxing goes he has little to nothing to offer.

[Kaynin]

Greg, please contact Sam Deathwalker and feature him! :D
Who is this Deathwalker you speak of and why should I feature him?

Greg

He is the person whose e-peen would probably grow the most by having an article written about him. He has 26 or so accounts and has got to level 30 ish in about 6 months or so, another boxer Prepared has 30 or so that is past 70 in about the same amount of time. He wants to be the "best" but refuses to listen to most of the advice we give him. I'm sure he'll give you his resume about boxing EQ, you just have to ask. But as far as WOW boxing goes he has little to nothing to offer.

It's still amusing to have him around though. But he's quite unique indeed. :p

[Farleito]

If I may share some thoughts...

To help narrow down your candidate(s), you may want to clarify what you mean by pre-WoW multi-boxing. I think you will wind up getting a lot of responses from people who multi-boxed because they saw somebody else doing it, tried it and fell in love with it. I'm not saying that those people did not become very good or efficient at it...I'm only suggesting that they were presented with the idea rather than forming it for themselves. I don't want to flood this thread with arguments saying "Well...I came up with multi-boxing on my own...", because I know there are lots of you that probably did. There's just more people that didn't (myself included).

I think it boils down to personality traits. Individualists. A person that strives to be self-sufficient. Someone who subconsciencly seeks out the "best of both worlds". Cross that with the type of person that you would see playing several hands of black-jack at a casino, or multiple games of on-line poker. It's not necessarily to increase personal wealth or gain, but more of a compulsion to keep themselves entertained at all times.

I don't fit this personality trait. I starting multi-boxing after seeing other people succeed at doing it. I did it to gain an advantage over a single player. I would certainly agree that I would not make a good interview subject but I did a college research project similar to this topic.

[Osiris]

I was playing WOW pre Xpacs on Magtheridon on the Alliance side. Our guild was preparing to do BWL, we were in the hallway when everyone started shouting about "OMG the Zins." I looked up and saw this Arcane Explosion running down the tunnel like a traveling nuclear explosion...and Xzin WIPED MY GUILD. That's all the motivation I needed to sign up.

As for personal factors of multi-boxing, I have a decent job, so I consider the money spent like any other hobby. $60 a month in fees was the equivalent of a tank of gas not too long ago. I am in the IT field, so I already had multiple computers set aside for work.

Also, since I do work a lot, I can never tell really when I'm going to want to play. So I play at odd hours. Before I 5-boxed, I wanted to get a toon keyed for Kara, and I was LFG for Auchindoun and part of pick up groups for over 6 hours...and at the time I was in a pretty big guild...and I had a hard time finding help.

The biggest reason I wanted to do it though was to PvP. Going into the BG's have been my favorite. With one toon, you can't always influence the outcome of a BG. But with 5 you almost always can make a huge difference.

Props to Ellay and Xzin.

[Trammel]

Multiboxing wasn't really done in the UO hayday at all.

There were several reasons for this.

The first is that movement was primarily (entirely if you wanted any control) used by right clicking and holding your mouse in the direction you wished to run. This would require mouse emulation, which even today within this community isn't commonly done. The idea of playing with multiple mice on multiple computers just isn't feasible. The next is that all of the targeting in this game was also done by mouse clicking (and you guessed it, the way you got up a useful health bar was by clicking and dragging it off the character). There were no such commands as /assist or /follow. Furthermore, in the games prime there were essentially no "safe" non-pvp areas (and when you were killed you lost ALL of the items/money/ect. you were carrying). This kind of risk:reward ratio simply didn't allow for such activities.

The closest thing to multiboxing that really went on was using software/mouse scripting programs to "macro" skills on multiple characters simultaneously, though even this was rare and only really became popular much later.

So to the absolute best of my knowledge, multiboxing as it exists now wasn't even remotely possible during the days when UO was king.

It was really the advent of everquest, with it's PVE rulesets and scriptabilty/commands that allowed for the earliest multiboxing.

There was a group of I believe professional programmers at the time that had some rather interesting bots (or so the story goes) in a game called Asheron's Call. How they did it (before bots were publicly available) and what kind of set-ups they used (ie: ran multiple instances/clones/bots or what have you or really how or what they did at all) on the same computer they used wasn't really ever known. You could try asking around the AC-DT community or possibly on some of the other shards to hear of anything interesting happening in that regard or if somebody could point you in the right direction. The allegiance was called The Borgs or The Borg or something of that nature. There also came to be some "multibotting" in this game but still not really in the sense you would imagine.

Basically, the communities were very small and there was very limited networking that existed at that time so I'm pretty sure that anybody who was successful at anything of the sort would have been very well known very quickly.

[Khatovar]

There was a group of I believe professional programmers at the time that had some rather interesting bots (or so the story goes) in a game called Asheron's Call. How they did it (before bots were publicly available) and what kind of set-ups they used (ie: ran multiple instances/clones/bots or what have you or really how or what they did at all) on the same computer they used wasn't really ever known. You could try asking around the AC-DT community or possibly on some of the other shards to hear of anything interesting happening in that regard or if somebody could point you in the right direction. The allegiance was called The Borgs or The Borg or something of that nature. There also came to be some "multibotting" in this game but still not really in the sense you would imagine.
.

From what I recall from my years in AC on LC, there weren't really boxers. There were people who ran with bots. From what I recall, people just created their bot, set it to do X, Y or Z and hung out in one small area within range of their bot. Almost every town had a buff bot and a portal bot. Every monarchy had a buff bot. Marketplace and sub {or HUB for you Frostfell peoples :p } had several. Combat bots were generally vuln bots but I suppose they did other stuff too. I never went further than buff bots. But they responded to various chat commands like "You tell Guildbot, Mage" "Guildbot tells you, Thank you for using my buffs! I have 159 tapers and 12 scarabs left. Buffing you with Mage buffs now, please wait!"

Perhaps someone else knows more though. That's just what I recall, but AC was my first game, and my knowledge beyond "push the button, make it die" did't extend very far back in the day.

[Powerwar]

Well, I don't know if I come late for your article, but here it goes...

Most people think that multiboxers are losers with no life. In my case since I'm multiboxing it's exactly the opposite.
I have a company and usually I'm a very busy person, being the boss isn't easy. Add family, travels, work, etc... and there is practically no time for playing games.
WoW is a very time consuming game, after all this is what Blizzard wants you to do, spend time in the game and pay the monthly subscription. Having to wait for a group and handle guild dramma is just a waste of time from my point of view.
When I want to play I just start my 5 accounts and do what I want to do in the game. The most important thing is that I can logout in the middle of instance run without having to worry about other players asking me to stay online. There is no more "Honey, just another boss"... now it's more like "Where do you want to go for dinner?"

When you are a single player (not multiboxing) and you are not in a raiding or fun making guild then you will spend about 20 - 50% of your play time in WoW searching for suitable group, fighting over loot ("OMG hunter weapon!!!!"), or wasting your time in some other way.
Since I started multiboxing the raid time is not when the guild leader says... It's when I say it's time to raid, regardless the hour it is. No one leaves the group until I say they can leave. No one steals my loot nor there is discussion about who should take the loot or not take it.

In my case, time is the most important factor. The 5 accounts subscription pays by itself. My family is more happy, I am more happy and there is no more "Oh, I have to choice between raiding at 7 PM or having some fun and beers with my friends tonight". Now I can do both things because I can raid at 10 AM if I want to... or not raid at all because no one will boot me from the guild due to lack of raid attendance or bad gear :)

From a businessman point of view multiboxing is like running a small company. My main is the boss and the rest of the group (slave toons) are just hired workers that help the boss to have fun and profit and not waste his time doing trivial stuff (like healing, DPS, tanking or whatever else).
I could hire 4 guys to play with me and be always online when I am, but paying only 4 more accounts is cheaper and more fun.

[jinglehopper]

Thanks for all of your responses guys. FYI, the article was turned in last week and should be published in the next month. I'll make sure to drop by with a link when it does.

This community has been a great resource for me. I'm even considering joing the ranks of multiboxers, mostly due to your willingness to discuss your chosen sub- hobby.

Thanks again!

Greg

[Hor]

Awesome, I think I speak for all of us here when I say we're very anxious to read the article.

[jinglehopper]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_191/5813-Multiboxing-to-Level-80-Nirvana

The article went up today. Feel free to comment at the escapist.

Greg

[Owltoid]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_191/5813-Multiboxing-to-Level-80-Nirvana

The article went up today. Feel free to comment at the escapist.

Greg

Pretty interesting article, though I would have liked to see more in-depth coverage instead of a broad overview of multiboxing. Perhaps there will be follow-up articles if there is enough interest?

[blast3r]

I like the article. I like how it shows the difficulty and challenges of boxing. I really like the amount of coverage mr keyclone got. He deserves it! Unbelievable support from him. btw, I'm famous!! David from Philly. lol. j/k not famous for this.

[Vmpwraith]

Thankx for a fair and ballanced article and for doing the research into the subject. I liked it a lot. I hope you enjoy boxing as much as we do.

[Prepared]

Hey guys,

I've gotten a lot of great responses. Thank you!

I'm currently looking for more people who multiboxed before WOW came along. I want to know about the gritty gamer who multiboxed with Pentiums running Windows 95 through the then-virgin lands of Lord British. Are there any of you there? I'd like to hear about the roots of multiboxing. Send me a PM if you are or know of anyone who could tell me about what it was like to multibox back then.

Greg

Although Diablo 1 was released in January 1997 and wasn't a full MMORPG, it was the first game I multiboxed prior to UO and Everquest. The reason I did it was primarily to store gear on a second character in the bank. After a shore while, Diablo 1 became the game known for all kinds of hacks/cheats because you could change in memory what others had in their game online. I even created a trainer for it that became the most widely used trainer. There wasn't a need for a second computer or copy of the game because you could store any item on your disk and load them during the multiplayer games. Played UO for a while with some friends but really didn't like it that much and my real multiboxing experience came with Everquest 1 and EQW which allowed the game to run in windows. Had a good long run with Everquest 1 and multiboxing where nothing but mulitple windows and fast hands on the keyboard led to the gaming experience with raids, etc.

It's interesting here on dual-boxing.com where it appears there is a belief that if you don't know about this website or not heard of by anyone that you don't exist. In other words, when I found out about this website and read some of the write-ups some did, I was shocked to learn that boxing was defined by most as using some sort of keyboard replication hardware or software to achieve. I'd done multiboxing without any keyboard software or hardware to send keys or mouse to mulitple windows or computers for years. So when I found out most were using keyboard/mouse broadcasting software or hardware, it made the multiboxing experience so much easier to manage. In fact, I decided to take it to a higher level and go to 36 WoW accounts. Once that worked, I went to 42 but found that big battles cause disconnects and backed it out to 36 again where I'm at now.

[glo]

I like the article, definitely should do a follow up with some more in depth information!