General WoW players attitudes to Multiboxing

[Narcoz]

Hi!

As a week old multiboxer (5-boxer) I just wanted to share with you some comments and attitudes I've meet during this first week.
First I'm very surprised over the level of attention a multiboxer gets. I would say that when I'm out in the World running around about 20-30% of the people I meet go "wtf!". If they ask anything I kindly respond that i multibox and thats why it looks like 1 dudes and 4 clones are walking around.

I'd say that if I start talking with somebody >80% of the people are very positive to the concept. I've only met TWO people that started their conversation by going "I'm gonna report you". The first time i just asked the person "Any WHY would you report me if I might ask?". He answered "HACKING!!!" or something like that. So I pointed him to the WoW-forums and asked him to search for multiboxing. Before I left I said to him: "Go ahead and contact a GM about this if you want. I don't mind at all. In fact if I cannot convince you I hope you do. I wouldn't want you to think I'm really doing something bad or illegal!".

The other "I'll report you"-guy like this:
him: "I'll report you".
me: -"what for?"
him: "Botting!"
me: "No that would be multiboxing. That is nothing like botting. It's perfectly legal, bacause I control all these chars manually! I encourage you to check it out on the wow-forums yourself!"
him: - "How do you do that?"
me: "5 wow accounts"
him: "But how do you get them doing stuff at the same time."
me: "So you start the conversation with 'I'll report you!' and now you want my help?"
him: "ye!"
me: "You need to learn some manners ..."

That might been a little harsh of me but the last "ye!" comment (and no indication of 'sorry' or 'oups, I might have been a little hasty here') made me don't wanna talk with this dude no more, at the time ...

However yesterday I met a group of people from holland that where like "Wow!" "Cool!" "Multiboxing FTW!!!" "YAJ!" "Show That 5 x moonfire/Rejuvenation!!!" all the time. We hanged around for 15 mins chatting and having fun in silverpine forest and they all agreed Multiboxing was the coolest thing for a long time in WoW. So I pointed them to this site to red up on it if they wanted to know more about it.

Anybody else has some fun encounters with the single boxing wow community to tell?

[Diamndzngunz]

It will never stop.

Wait until you can talk shit when your a higher lvl..

Him: Reported for botting have a good day.
Me: Hey make sure you tell the gm I was quadboxing and using a program called keyclone. I would hate for you to end up looking stupid.
Me: Also as you can see I am lvl 52 so don't you think I would of been banned yet, Oh yeah that's right you cannot put 2 and 2 together.
Him: I'm not going to report you, just saying watch out.
Me: lol right.

[balrog78]

I was running around with my lvl 14 crew and a lvl 70 made fun of the follow mode. He put on a follow command on my main and went afk for about 20 minutes. I am still waiting for a "i ' ll report you" - guy though :(

[Narcoz]

Ah, that happened to me to. Don't take it as a personal insult. A lvl 70 did it to me to in a city and asked (loudly) "Where to my leader!". It was lots of giggles and laughs, and I though it was pretty funny myself, so I laughed as well.

Besides if it annoyed you that is like no problem at all. The /follow mode is not like the "Einstein" of following and if someone afk following your char it's about 30 secs of work to unhock him by placing him under a stair or behind a tree or obstacle and just move away until he gets "You stop following [your players name]"

[Notes]

My star is rising on my server ... Every time I'm in a city and someone sees me for teh first tiem and says I REPORT U, other players merge in and tell to stfu and continue to idle near the mailbox :thumbsup: People know by now who I am, people follow my progress .... Hell I kicked one shammy out to replace him with a mage and I got tons of whispers about where Zenotes had gone Oo Oo :D hehe

I also use the fact that I'm not some lowbe and if it was illigal what I did I would of been banned long ago. I ninja buff every one I see while questing, wich always helps it seems cos people take a look when I kill some mobs, do a big :D and continue their route with my imba buffs on them.

Btw, I get more reactions on having 3 shammy's looking the same then I get reactions about multi boxing .. people just say: sad, 3 looking teh same omg ... Or like hey are you guys gay with eachoter ?
People don't really seem to know you get gear from quests and you get the same quest rewards if you do the same quests .. hard to understand ofc?! ?( :D

Long story short, it's get better by the minute 8)

[dancook]

Someone just said "lame" in passing..

So I whispered saying something like..

"Multi-boxing is a great way to further challenge myself in World of Warcraft, when I finally start Heroics I will of course keep all drops - this will be an efficient use of my time, thus leaving me more time for real life"

He then apologised hehe

[Narcoz]

I have heard "lame" to. I just /w:d "poorly hidden jealousy maybe?"

Yet another thing Ive heard was: "I don't understand why you waste your time on this". And i went: "Well obviously we are both logged in right now and playing a game right? So if I sit here and play 5 druids for 2 hours and you play your warlock 2 hours, who of us two has wasted more time?"

A third miss-conception is that some people seem to think that I level 5 druids to sell them. Usual question is: "What will you do with 4 extra druids when your 70? Ebay?". (which is imho a bit stupid question, because even if that was my intention, which it isn't, did he really think I'd discuss it in ingame chat?). I always reply that the guys are my own hobby and that two of the accounts are old ones (the oldest is > 2 years) so I have no intention whatsoever to jeperdise them by doing anything illegal.

Lastly I've heard "Waste of money" from some people to. I have tried different responses. "If I think it's worth it, maybe not for me?". "Many outsiders think your 12 eur / month is a waste to ...", "Depends on how large budget you have for 'fun' each month" etc. Basically my approach is to try to make them understand that what they stated is an opinion as opposed to fact. And that they are entitled to their opinion as well as I'm entitled to mine.


That said, as I said in the beginning of the thread: Most ppl. are very positive.

I have yet to see a good geared player being negative to multi-boxing. All the good geared players seem to see the 5-boxing as another way of getting challenge out of WoW, and maybe for them 5-boxing means dedication, which is exacly what they have to the game too? (Good geared > welfare epics, cave-jumping group)

[bryanc]

If they ask anything I kindly respond that i multibox and thats why it looks like 1 dudes and 4 clones are walking around.

Someone once asked me how I was doing it, and I said "I have 5 accounts". They replied "LIAR!". 8| So I've starting just saying it's a potion you can buy in Ironforge.

When I was about 12 I ran into some mage that was wearing the same gear as my 4 clothies, and he followed me around, tried to fit into my battle formation and cast his fireballs in sync with mine. It was hilarious.

I did have someone /follow me all the way from Dun Modr to SFK (including the stop by Southshore to get the FP). He said he wanted to see "this silliness in action", and kept following even when I told him I was just going to be walking across 2 zones and then going in an instance. At least it gave me someone to talk to for the long walk ;)

If you have the class makeup for it, you could always just run off a cliff to get rid of unwanted followers :) ( Pally bubble works for fall damage -- something I didn't learn until level 67 with my solo pally :S )

Overall, the reaction I get is positive, or sometimes confused, but only very few negative and I just don't pay any attention to them unless they are insistent then I give the short "search the official forums for blizzards views of multi-boxing, and by all means report anyone you suspect to be violating the rules to a GM" and then stop paying attention to them.

[mlwhitt]

I agree with the Ninja Buffing. I try be extra nice about handing out buffs. I mean who doesn't want BOK? One of the things that helps is trying to keep in instances. Of course unless you are 5 boxing or using a 70 to PL you this isn't a very good option.

I have only had one time that I was really harassed by a couple of fifty-somethings while I was on my lowbie Hunters. Of course multiboxing a trio of hunters is pretty much asking for a /report and WTF comments. Everyone instantly things Hunters are haxx0r anyway.

[Xar]

I too was kinda surprised at the negativity I received when multi-boxing at first until I read Vyndree's, Zin's and others comments about also getting some grief so I figured it must be fairly normal. I always respond for them to "please do" report me if they feel I'm doing something inappropriate and also mention that I'm multiboxing, not botting then leave it at that. If they whisper me back and have any curiosity about it I point them to the dual-boxing address for more info on how we do it (I never say it into general or /say so that it does not get into the advertising websites issues). If they have specific questions about multi-boxing I try to answer them.

[twobztwop]

I got a lot of attention from level 1-20, especially in the barrens -- maybe 50/50 positive comments vs. omg Hax, reported, waste of money etc. After that it was pretty quiet, I kept a low profile by doing most of my leveling in instances and didn't spend much time in capital cities.

Hellfire peninsula is like the barrens all over again; but I get mostly positive comments this time around though. So far the only problem is Alliance like to show their disapproval of my boxing by dropping lvl 70's out of the sky and killing off my team. Hellfire was rough at 58 on my PVP server. I had a rogue follow me around 1 shotting a character at a time then vanishing before I knew wtf happened.

I think if your characters are all named something similar or if all of your characters are wearing the exact same gear (which mine weren't until outlands) you draw a bit more attention to yourself. If that matters at all.

[Eteocles]

1-20 or so I had the same thing, people going wtf etc but post-30 people either knew about multiboxing thanks to Zin/oath/etc(since I am on Mag after all and most of the higher lvls have suffered his wrath lol) or just didn't care; my first day in hellfire yesterday some people kinda looked at me for a sec while I quested but overall they didn't pay me any mind; I ninja buffed most of 'em and they thanked me, and I talked in general with others regarding the towers & the 2 70s I warred with outside HH

Time spent dancing/spamming in IF/Shatt tends to go similarly, I draw a crowd, other druids join in my dancing, I /yell "RAVE BREAK" on all 3 chars and then cast triple hurricanes lol; only had a couple of naysayers who run up, make a smart-ass uninformed(lol loser paying $45 a month/lol u nd a life d00d) remarks) then running away, coming back to spam loser a sec later then run away again, everyone else lol's at them with me. Had a few people say "ABOUT FUCKING TIME WE GOT AN ALLIANCE MULTIBOXER, too damn many horde ones" and I agree ;p lol

[Blokus]

I dual and triple-boxed for a couple of years until finally going 5 late in '07. One thing I really like about 5 boxing is no longer having to reject people when they want to party with me. Well, I still reject them, but point out that I already have 5 in the group.

This eliminated the awkwardness of trying to explain what I'm doing and why it isn't a good idea to group. Some understood, but some didn't and basically would start in on the insults, threats, etc. Sometimes I would just say its a guild thing or that I'm grouping with friends only.

Running 5 sure makes it easier, though some people can't count and still ask to group. LOL.

I remember this time when I just didn't want to be bothered by someone asking to group, so I lied and said I was grouping with my kids and that they didn't want to group with others. Well this started about a 10 minute conversation about how great it was that I was spending time with my kids and how the world would be a better place if other people cared as much, blah, blah, blah. Sheesh, I don't even have kids.

[The IT Monkey]

I was running around with my lvl 14 crew and a lvl 70 made fun of the follow mode. He put on a follow command on my main and went afk for about 20 minutes. I am still waiting for a "i ' ll report you" - guy though :(Had this happen to me early on... funny thing is... even a level 70 is not immune to drowning. Used the Water Breathing buff on all my toons... jumped into the canals of Stormwind and sat there and watched him drown.

Ah... good times... good times.

Hey, I did ask him nicely to not /follow me as I am dragging enough toons as it was.

[bodefeld]

Or like hey are you guys gay with eachoter ?

Lol, I sometimes do this:

/dance and

Char1: "Y"
Char2: "M"
Char3: "C"
Char4: "A"
Char5: /lol

[Eteocles]

I lol'd hard, IT monkey...I should do the same with Aquatic Form if anyone ever follows me in an ass-like manner