Boxing Diablo III

[Bigfish]

Has anyone given any more thought to boxing Diablo III? I know it will probably be complicated as all get out, but I'm wondering if anyone has given any thought to technique?

Right now I'm thinking a group of mages might do pretty well with their arcane beam thing, or witch doctors for walls and minions.

Control is definitely going to be interesting, but I don't think we'll have too many issues if someone comes up with a good set of broadcasting software. Maybe something that only clicks when the mouse is clicked, but the mouse position moves based on the position of the leader so your followers are always moving near the lead.

Given the RMAH, I imagine there is going to be a huge demand for people to try and box as their "profession", even though most of us doing it now have an income that would put gold farming to shame. I wouldn't mind making some cash on the side, I mean 50$ a week is still 50$ a week, especially if it's something you'd be doing anyway.

Anyway, just curious if anyone else has given any thought to it.

[Emo?]

Since the game is 90% mouse dependent (from my exp with D2), no. I might be wrong but feels like a bad idea.

[Kicksome]

Someone needs make this work!

Please let Diablo 3 have follow! (and interact with target, and assist)

I could see possibly making a bunch of AOE classes just having mouse broadcasting all the time, spam some sort of AOE. Just takes some minor trick yet to be discovered to make it work.

[tundra622]

i love the idea of boxing Diablo 3! that would be awsome! hopefully we can get some clever individuals into the Beta!!

[Shodokan]

Someone needs make this work!

Please let Diablo 3 have follow! (and interact with target, and assist)

I could see possibly making a bunch of AOE classes just having mouse broadcasting all the time, spam some sort of AOE. Just takes some minor trick yet to be discovered to make it work.

WON'T HAPPEN lol

[drarkan]

Someone needs make this work!

Please let Diablo 3 have follow! (and interact with target, and assist)

I could see possibly making a bunch of AOE classes just having mouse broadcasting all the time, spam some sort of AOE. Just takes some minor trick yet to be discovered to make it work.

Sure I'll get on the programming team at Blizzard and tell them to make this game multiboxing friendly.... yeah NOT Gonna happen LOL

[Kruschpakx4]

hopefully we can get some clever individuals into the Beta!!

:cool:

[Lyonheart]

I think any game that has group mechanics should have /follow and /assist in them. I mean if i were a game Dev, It would be a non brainer to make a game where some people will want to buy multiple copies for themselves. I mean come on!!! DUH!!

[Shodokan]

I think any game that has group mechanics should have /follow and /assist in them. I mean if i were a game Dev, It would be a non brainer to make a game where some people will want to buy multiple copies for themselves. I mean come on!!! DUH!!

That helps botters too much.

[Crum1515]

I doubt boxing will be possible, perhaps even be frowned upon for diablo3 by blizzard.

From a UI/client standpoint, too many problems would come from there being no lock on targeting, just soft targeting, IMO.

Also, with them saying Absolutely No Addons/Or Mods makes me lean towards they do not want anything running in the background interacting with their games. With the addition of the real money AH they are going to combat botting on a more agressive approach than thier other games, and while the debate of fairness to the multiboxing community, blizzard is probably going to take the approach of no external influence at all. While the option of hardware boxing would be much easier to impelement in that situation, with no mods or addons, you can almost state with a level of certainty that there is no macros or editable commands, at least in the beginning.

tl:dr - It is my personal opinion that boxing will not be possible at all. This of course is subject to change if any information comes out that would show otherwise.

[Bigfish]

I'm thinking I may run a barb or something and have 3 Witch doctors following me around for minions. Let's me focus on killing and then we can pick anything valuable up before moving on. May only be able to farm 2+ times faster, but that's still faster than solo boxing.

[EaTCarbS]

...but that's still faster than solo boxing.

Without follow or assist functions, I highly doubt that would be the case. Imagine trying to box anything without follow or assist.

[Bigfish]

Uh, hence the point of minions. They attack on their own, so really you just have to move the character in range and the minions do most of the work.

[MiRai]

Uh, hence the point of minions. They attack on their own, so really you just have to move the character in range and the minions do most of the work.
You're relying on the unknown factor of being able to perfectly sync up cameras and/or movement without a
follow system. If it's like WoW, where no matter how perfect your cameras are synced up you still can't move
as one unit then, you're going to be stuck flipping between windows and constantly adjusting them manually to
walk straight for 5 steps at a time before they all veer off again. That's going to get old real fast.

[Bigfish]

Hardware boxer here. Simplest thing to move is just going to be grab a mouse, click, move on, repeat twice.

Though if I can get characters to stack since there is no colision detection, that may make things easier. I could also broadcast a mouse cursor to each box and bind left click to a different button and then I don't have to swap my hand to different mice. Maybe set up some key bindings to walk up, left, right or down, or attack in those directions.

I swear, does anyone have anything interesting to add aside from "you can't do it"? I remember a time when this forum was about what we COULD do, not trying to shoot everyone else down. I'm aware it's going to be a pain in the ass.

[Crum1515]

I swear, does anyone have anything interesting to add aside from "you can't do it"? I remember a time when this forum was about what we COULD do, not trying to shoot everyone else down. I'm aware it's going to be a pain in the ass.


Until someone gets lucky and gets into the beta or some other hands on time, there cant be much more than wishful thinking or educated speculation on how/if it can be done. All we can do is list the current limitations and hurdles that we have. 99% of the "we can do it" talk has come after hands on trial and error. That being said, tackling a problem knowing current issues/limitations/bugs/hurdles only prepares people to make a more education analytical approach to accomplishing the goal, so I think it is healthy to have every post why they think it wont be possible or what may cause problems.

[MiRai]

Hardware boxer here.
I don't know what difference that makes.

I swear, does anyone have anything interesting to add aside from "you can't do it"?
Unless someone here is in the beta or someone here knows someone who is in the beta, we all know very little
about this game besides what we've learned on YouTube.

[Bigfish]

I don't know what difference that makes.


Hardware boxing is a bit different than software boxing, especially when you're talking about flipping between windows and making assumptions about any assumptions I may or may not have.

[MiRai]

Hardware boxing is a bit different than software boxing, especially when you're talking about flipping between windows and making assumptions about any assumptions I may or may not have.
The difference I was speaking of was how a hardware boxer would be able to move in sync without a /follow
system more efficiently than someone who uses software since that was really the entire point of my initial post
-- being able to stay in sync. As for "flipping through windows," that was really just a universal term I used. I
guess I could have said, "you're going to be stuck going from window to window and constantly adjusting them
manually."

[Multibocks]

Theres someone streaming Diablo 3 beta on justin.tv

[Starbuck_Jones]

With a real money auction house, someone will do it. The Chinese will be first most likely. One of the talks at DefCon this year was about "hacking/botting" mmo's for profit. The guy who got sued by Blizzard for Glider and some other dude that was full of himself talked about D3 specifically. If the China can write their own WOW client that runs in a command line to remove all of the rendering and display overhead so they can run a 1000 clients on a single box instead of 10, then they are going to make something work for D3.

Unless D3 contains the tools for us to multi-box it (follow, assist, modifiable UI, macros). The best I see happening is a player setting up an ambush and dragging mobs and bosses then spamming an AOE hotkey. And unless they put in group/raid content. There won't be a reason to box it.


Mods can nuke that first paragraph if they deem it inappropriate.

[wakasm]

If there is no /follow... Maybe I'll dual mouse to dual box!

Diablo full screen on one monitor and full screen on the other, train my left hand to be as awesome as my right hand. Then i'll eventually get half my brain to function for each one.

I'll be awesome. Click Click Click.

Sidenote. You can test a lot of theory in Torchlight 2 when it comes out since that is supposed to support multilayer. If you could get it working without assist and follow, you should be able to get it to work for both.

[d0z3rr]

D3 looks very similiar control-wise to D2 - some use of keyboards for actions, major use of mouse for movement.

It's nigh (love that word) impossible to multibox D2. In fact, it is quite frustrating controlling two characters in that game. I play D2 off and on and whenever I have to rush my characters thru levels, it is a PITA constantly mousing over to click and move them somewhere.

I believe D3 will not be possible to multibox. But I will still have two accounts so I can rush characters, and for any other unknown benefits.

[Bigfish]

The big difference between D2 and D3 position wise is that D3 has no colision detection (last I heard), so getting character in one spot and being able to control them all from one mouse may be a bit more feasible. Also, it's point based instead of tile based, so that helps too.

There is some interesting hate going on at the official diablo 3 forums if anyone is interested in the hatorade. People talking about wanting bans, banning software boxing and the like. If anything I find it hilarious since the average normie won't even see a boxer farming anything, and I haven't heard of any boxers thinking of getting in to the pvp aspect of the game.

[-silencer-]

I haven't 5-boxed WoW for a couple years now, and used to be a frequent regular on these forums. I quit 5-boxing because mechanics of the content I wanted to easily run was made more difficult by movement & positional fights.

However, after playing the D3 beta for awhile, I have a feeling that it will be relatively easy to multibox as long as you set it up properly. This means mouse broadcasting and using classes that are ranged. Ranged attacks from the wizard, witch doctor, and demon hunter play pretty well to fire-and-forget style of play that this system will favor.

For mouse broadcasting on one machine, you're going to want 4 equal sized windows. a 2560x1600 screen will make 4x 1280x800 windows - decent sizes. Two 24" screens (what I used to 5-box WoW) will make 4x 1200x860 windows if the screens are rotated vertically. This may be ideal.

Diablo 3 does not have /follow, but there is no player collision either, and the camera angle/view is always static. Basically, you'll want all 4 of your characters stacked at all times, and you'll mouse broadcast at a pixel relative to the top left of the window instead of using /target macros. This is not ideal, but it is possible. The problem really really relies in keeping your characters stacked, which may be difficult if there are a large amount of mobs that cause a knockback effect on an attack.

The goal of 4-boxing D3 is simply for farming. 4x MF wizards being able to cast indirect AoE at locations instead of on targets will do some major damage. 4x MF witch doctors will likely be very easy to play with their summoned creatures. 4x MF multishot demon hunters.. again - indirect AoE.

While the monk and barbarian CAN be multiboxed, it won't be ideal. Since they're melee, they're going to be subject to more knockback effects that will de-sync the stacked group of characters, which means your mouse broadcasting targeting areas won't be the same. It'll be more work to make them get back to the same spot. I'm not saying it can't be done - just that it's not ideal.

As for creating a multiboxing group for farming, it may be better to use 4 different b.net accounts than 4x copies of D3 on one account. Why? The shared stash. It hasn't been confirmed or denied by Blizzard if the stash is shared among all the characters on a D3 account or all characters on a b.net account. I believe it's only the 10 characters on the D3 account, but I haven't found concrete evidence of this yet.

Even if multiboxing doesn't turn out to be worthwhile, there is so little relative investment in 4x copies of D3 compared to WoW subscriptions, I'm definitely putting down the $200-240 for 4x copies to see how well it works.

[Fat Tire]

http://5.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/98/80/0fcc539cb131a84dce8878b99ec1df57.jpg

[tundra622]

Bahahahahahahahaa!!! you made my day man!
oh i had a good chuckle at that

[Aesthier]

Guess I will have to go back to running a toon or two with my feet.

[valle2000]

Did see this in a FAQ so my guess is D3 isn't boxable...

Only one Diablo III license may be attached to a Battle.net account

[Kekkerer]

That one licence per b.net acc thing displays the stance blizzard is taking towards d3, I think that boxing will be very painful because I expect them to hinder it as much as possible.

[MiRai]

Did see this in a FAQ so my guess is D3 isn't boxable...

Only one Diablo III license may be attached to a Battle.net account


That one licence per b.net acc thing displays the stance blizzard is taking towards d3, I think that boxing will be very painful because I expect them to hinder it as much as possible.
It takes a whole 60 seconds to create a new BNet account with a separate e-mail and then confirm it. I
must have 10-12 BNet accounts just lying around... most which are doing absolutely nothing.

[valle2000]

It takes a whole 60 seconds to create a new BNet account with a separate e-mail and then confirm it. I
must have 10-12 BNet accounts just lying around... most which are doing absolutely nothing.
True, you can also create several facebook accounts as well. However with facebook I know there's a rule saying you may only have one per individual. This caused a lot of trouble at my work since you may not have a person@work and a person@home account since that would break their rules, so when visiting work oriented facebook pages everyone must use private accounts (if they already have one).

And my guess is bnet may use the same rule. And if they do it complicate things since we (multiboxers) in WoW always can say we do NOT break or bend any rules.

[Ualaa]

Unless D3 is very different from D2, unlike Warcraft you might not interact with other players nearly as often.

If you have a party of four characters, in D2 you would join a game and that was about it.
Other players in other games wouldn't even be aware of you.

With a shared auction house, it depends on how it is set up.
If its an interface you deal with on your end only, both to search/purchase or to list...
Then no one is going to see who you are, and that you have extra toons with you.

If you physically have (well electronically) a point where multiple players hang out online, the equivalent to Stormwind or Orgrimmar...
Then others will see that you have four toons with similar names and sync'd actions.

If Blizzard wants to make it illegal to box in their world, they could restrict the game to one game per IP address or something similar.
There are probably workarounds, but if they really don't want boxing then it probably isn't worth boxing the game.

If they don't care one way or the other...
They get their game purchases or commitment to subscriptions in Warcraft.
And you'll purchase the expansions when they come out.
And the AH thing, is other players buying/selling and not Blizzard...
Boxing might be difficult or doable, and it might be worthwhile.

[valle2000]

Don't think restricting to IP address can be done, cause several persons can sit in the same network behind a router sharing the same external IP. So blizzards only option to restrict this is if they have a rule allowing one bnet-account per person (but have no idea if such a rule exists).

[Kekkerer]

Well the issue with multiple b.net accounts is that it will break wow, for me at least, since I can't share boa items between my characters. I made a ticket a week ago saying that I would like to take advantage of the annual sub if they offered 5 Diablo 3 licences for me however they said that there is nothing that can be done apart from splitting up my wow accounts again.

[Ualaa]

I've got five wow accounts, each on their own B.Net email.
I did that for the single authenticator being able to get all the accounts in, on the single code.

If the authenticator ever went, and the batteries are not infinite life, I'd try to merge them into a single B.Net.
The BoA is nice.

[remanz]

I am not much of a Diablo player.

all I know is there will be a lot of loots.

question here is can I obtain the best gear without having to play the hardest difficulty. inferno i believe.

maybe hardest difficulties have higher chance of droping better loot. But you can still farm normal=> hard to get the same loot. Is that how it works ? or best gear only comes from the hardest dungeons.

and if we don't use camera zone/pan, broadcasting mouse clicks can work somewhat. After all, you click at the same spot relative to your screen resolution anyway. So your character will be in sync for movements.

Then I just use 5 sorcers to AOE farm all day for AH profit.

[ghonosyph]

uhh the BEST loot will come from the hardest difficulty... dont get me wrong you can still get good loot from hell difficulty and such, but the very best stuff will come from inferno... but if you box it, provided you can somehow manage it, things will be much better for you. as far as loot and the real money ah are concerned anyway :D

i plan to at least try and get two copies... hopefully i can muster a way to box it, even if i have to have two computers and play with two nostromos or something lol

[remanz]

if best loot ONLY comes from inferno, then i guess we have to figure out a way to box that.

then again, a couple sorcerers spam frost arrow full screen attack. How hard can that be ~~~~

[Ualaa]

In Diablo II, difficulty scaled based on the number of toons in the game.
If you ran one character, mobs had a lot less health than if you ran two characters in the same game.

If your party cooperated, having more toons made the game easier than fewer characters.
But they needed to work as a team; having half the party go one way and the other half another way didn't usually end up going that well.

With more toons in the game, there was better loot on whatever difficulty, because the mobs had more health and hit harder than say the single player version of the same difficulty.

As a boxer, it would be rather likely that our toons would cooperate and focus on the same objective.
I'm just not sure how effectively a party can be run together.
It would be rather cool if the boxing approach worked.
Aside from the real money auction house (which would be a fun bonus to the game), the Diablo universe has always been amazing, as has boxing.

[lightstriker]

However, after playing the D3 beta for awhile, I have a feeling that it will be relatively easy to multibox as long as you set it up properly. This means mouse broadcasting and using classes that are ranged. Ranged attacks from the wizard, witch doctor, and demon hunter play pretty well to fire-and-forget style of play that this system will favor.

Can you fire off screen? That's what I did in D2 w/ a Amazon. Killed bosses with out looking.

[Sinister00]

I have 3 diablo 3 accounts but how can i broadcast the mouse? Any software or hardware options? Or do i have to wait until someone designs boxing software that work with diablo 3?

[Kekkerer]

I've just read that magic and gold find of the party is added together and divided by the number of people in the game. This means that people who are motivated on profit making on the auction house can just have 3 characters with high magic find afk in town and be ported in for the boss where a hammerdin equivalent character can solo it with ease.

I see absolutely no justification for the 1 licence per account rule, it's actually making me angry.

[Sinister00]

I'm multiboxing D3 right now, i have 2 of the class running through the game, on 2 computers, all controlled by 1 mouse and keyboard. Gonna add a 3rd as soon as my 3rd pc finishes installing D3, and yes, i have a 3rd account to use.

[drevil]

I'm multiboxing D3 right now, i have 2 of the class running through the game, on 2 computers, all controlled by 1 mouse and keyboard. Gonna add a 3rd as soon as my 3rd pc finishes installing D3, and yes, i have a 3rd account to use.

sounds nice, do you use isboxer for mouse click broadcast?

[lans83]

I'm multiboxing D3 right now, i have 2 of the class running through the game, on 2 computers, all controlled by 1 mouse and keyboard. Gonna add a 3rd as soon as my 3rd pc finishes installing D3, and yes, i have a 3rd account to use.

If it can be boxed, even with AoE based classes, I'd like to know how to get it set up and runnin on one pc if possible/allowed. I'd love to run atleast 2 on my rig while working to make some extra money on the AH.

[sethlan]

so multiboxing d3 is legal? I really wanna control 4 toons :)

[MiRai]

so multiboxing d3 is legal? I really wanna control 4 toons :)
http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=2220

[Ualaa]

so multiboxing d3 is legal? I really wanna control 4 toons :)

Zero chances of going to jail, as a result of boxing this game.

Plus, as MiRai's link shows, Blizzard is as fine with it as they are with boxing in Warcraft.

[Shodokan]

Well, looks like my interest in the game just changed back from none to some.

[MadMilitia]

I don't know why you'd want to box D3.

I boxed D2, albeit without the additional luxuries of IS/IB.

It's like smash TV in that sense where controlling a single character should prove to be interesting enough.

Mind, I haven't played D3 so not entirely sure.

[Ualaa]

I don't know why you'd want to box D3.

I'm guessing some want to box, just because boxing is more fun/challenging than playing a solo character.
Others want to box, because they'll be stronger and able to take on more difficult content for higher rewards.

Not to mention the Real Money auction house.
If you could play a video game, and make a living doing so... that has a certain appeal to it.

[wakasm]

I finally got into the beta. For anyone who might be boxing (or thinking to) this currently: Question!

Since loot is customized per character (you don't see the loot of other characters), how do you handle picking up loot on your other toons?

In wow, when you multibox, you often play with smaller viewports on your other toons but can at least see everything you need to on the ground and use interact with target to adjust. In diablo, you won't even know unique loot dropped unless you are keeping an eye out for it.

Thoughts?

[Lax]

The answer is probably just to get used to being observant in each window when you're killing important things. You might miss some random drops you're not expecting to look for. This is a very different style of game from World of Warcraft, and therefore it requires a different style of multiboxing as well. That's about all there is to it IMO ;)

ISBoxer works great for Diablo 3 though.

[Bigfish]

The way I see it, you either ignore regular drops on your other characters, or you set up some sort of pixel scanner to pop up a message whenever a certain color of item drops.

Otherwise, just do a quick look when you drop an elite or a named or a boss. You still get most of the gold from quests and running over it, so in reality, maybe you're looking at only getting maybe 2-3 times the loot and 3-4 times the gold of 4 individuals, but that's still not bad for one person.

[dancook]

I saw a video showing rare runs, playing with a friend taking it in turns for drops bringing in a level 1 character/deleting etc.. could be done on own with 2 accounts. It was so you could keep playing the same waypoint over again and going straight to a boss.