Ever wonder if the game Devs Multibox?

[JamieW]

Recently one of the Developers for Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online started a daily blog ('http://my.lotro.com/orion/2009/07/23/day-1-a-tale-of-a-design/') whilst he redesigns Garth Agarwen, one of the lower-level instances available in LOTRO. On the Day 3 entry ('http://my.lotro.com/orion/2009/07/27/day-3-a-tale-of-a-design/') , he answered some questions that the players/readers had asked regarding the design process, etc.

I found the second question, or more specifically Orion's response, to be quite interesting:


Harperelle says: How are you testing these fights?
For my initial purpose - functionality - I test them with multiple clients running at the same time to ensure that the skill plays are happening the way that they should. If they do, I move on. QA handles the testing once I hand it off to them after verifying the initial functionality.
(emphasis added by me)

[moosejaw]

In this case (since it is internal testing) he is most likely using a scripting engine to test the encounter with multiple clients and not actually playing them. Such scripting is only used for Dev's. But it does make you wonder about those mysterious back doors that curious folks occasionally find in online games.

[Pyro-San]

When I made a GM ticket (WOW) about me multiboxing the GM I talked to said he dualboxes sometimes, he also said he knows a few other GM's that multibox. Dev's I'm not too sure about but I'm sure at least one of them would :). I would not even be supprised if there were DEV's/GM's lurking and maybe even posting on this site :)



OH, BTW sorry I didn't get a screenshot.

[Tdog]

Jeff Kaplan, lead WoW designer, openly admitted to multiboxing EQ back in the day in an interview not too long ago. I'd be very surprised if he hadn't at least messed around with boxing WoW.

[HPAVC]

I have some screen shots of a gm talking my ear off about 3boxing strat for undead mounts in bc when I opened a ticket over Ramstein being glitched. In it he tells me during an orientation some Blizz people mentioned multiboxing.