The abuse, the idiots & the multiboxer

[Fleecy]

I spent about 2-3 hours running around SW on Saturday and another few hours on Sunday doing some profession leveling. And ofcause, why not show off the girls in the middle of SW. So my girls are parked near the SW AH or the SW bank and I'm leveling enchanting / alchemy etc... all is going well. But then, I've only been logged in for about 2 minutes at that point, and then it starts...

... the abuse. I don't know if its the server I'm on (Eonar US) or the fact I have a group of Shaman or maybe the solar flares. But the abuse people were hurling at me was astounding! Sure I'm used to the usual comments like "How do you do that?" or "/reported" but this was bad! People were saying things like "/wrist bot farmer" "everyone report this asshat" "diaf a'hole" ... the list goes on and on. It went on for about 30 minutes and the crowd got larger and larger. And the more people swore or /yelled the larger the crowd got and in turn the more people would hurl abuse. It got to the point where I simply logged out the girls and ported my main. After my run in WSG I didn't think the abuse could get worse but I was mistaken. I was wondering if anyone expierenced this behavour in such an extreme manner?

I'm used to comments such as; (the following was after ranting for the last hour oops. I guess I was just getting it off my chest)

Idiot: "what a wast of money"
Reply: "Waste is realtive, if you don't have it then you shouldn't spent it. I'm fortunate enough to have a very good income."


Idiot: "its still a waste of money loser"
Reply: "Do you drink, do you smoke, do you do drugs? How much money do you *waste* on that? Personally I don't so 'wasting' is relative."
Idiot: "loser"
/ignore

Idiot: "get a life" / "you must spend all day playing this stupid game"
Reply: "I work a normal 9-5 job, 5 days a week. I have a GF and a social life"
Reply: "I actually spent LESS time playing than most people probably do. Leveling like this greatly decreases the amount of time I spend in-game"
Idiot: "no it doesn't!"
Reply: "You have leveled like this before, you know from expierence? Whats YOUR /played time?" (its usually much greater than mine)

Idiot: "/report" "bot" "farmer" "haxor!!!11!"
Reply: "This is dual-boxing not botting. Dual-boxing IS an acceptable practice, there are plenty of posts from Blizzard on the forums"
Reply: "Farmer? If you group with your friends and go out questing do I call you a farmer, do I abuse you? You think I'm a farmer because I have 5 accounts?"
Reply: "If I was hacking or doing something wrong then I would have been banned by Blizzard long before now."
Reply: "Go ahead, report me. Its perfectly legal. I get reported dozens of times a day, if I was doing something wrong I wouldn't be here now would I."

Idiot: "What a waste of time, why even bother?"
Reply: "So I can run my own instances and not have to group with biggots like you"
Reply: "This way I don't have to group with people like you."

Idiot: "You can't run an instance by yourself" "5 Shaman can't run an instance"
Reply: "You've simply opened your mouth a spewed forth verbal diorhea havn't you. Have you heard of a new invention called YouTube? Mix it up with www and .com and see what you come up with."
Reply: "I'll be here all week, come back when you have something intelligent to say."
Reply: "So you've tried it yourself then. Sorry it didn't work for you. Though it does take some skill and a bit of intelligence to master it."

Simpleton: "How do you clone yourself?" "I want to do that, I have 1 account with a lvl 70 I want to clone him/her tell me how"
Reply: "Its not 'cloning' I have 4 accounts, they are 4 different characters with 4 different names"
Simpleton: "Oh I didn't see the rest of their name. I thought they were call called Torr"


not so Idiot: "Why do it?" "Whats the point" "what do you get out of it?"
Reply: "So I can run my own instances. So I can progress faster. So I have a group when *I* want a group. Its fun, its entertaining. I get all the loot I want. I DE all the crap and no fights over shards"
not so Idiot: "What about the social interaction?"
Reply: "I'm in a guild, I talk to friends in game. I do actually group with friends. I'm active in my guild. We're talking right now, thats being social"

Nice person: "How do you do that?" "I have # of accounts, I want to try that." "How do I get started?"
Reply: "www.dual-boxing.com ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/'). Send me a PM if you get stuck or need some help. Name is Fleecy"



So... anyway, that rant went on a little longer than I actually expected. I just felt like bleeting.

[opt]

unfortunently its the way it goes until your level 70 and camp out in Shattrath. I found all the lowbies where the anoying ones, and once spending time in shatt everything changed.
If it buggs you that much just stay seperated in the towns, 1 at ah, repair, bank, the tree out the front, it sucks but its the only way to get stuff done without having to justify yourself all the goddamn time

[Fleecy]

When I was running my other girls, 2xMage, Pally, Priest & Warlock/Hunter I only got the occasional comment and most of the time it was positive.

[dizz]

you will experience a lot of this at lower levels. I believe many people probably try multiboxing and quit because of the sheer amount of people QQing around you, calling you names, threatening you, etc. You have to learn to ignore it.

When you're 70, you will automatically get less of it. People see you're 70, they know you've been around for a while. But you'll still get QQers. Things that help:

Be cool and patient to the ignorant people. Explain things even though it can be utterly redundant. Make macros that don't sound robotic but help you answer things easier. Just creating a good name and showing patience among people will help you in the future. I've had people that originally call me botter now cheer at me when they see me, just because I stopped and was friendly to them.

Be patient with battlegrounds. You'll get all kinds of pm's in there. Macro explanations really help. Eventually if you do it enough and if you're at least trying hard, you'll get people cheering you and saying cool things like "SWEET i'm in AV with [your name here]!"

You have to let it roll off.. you can't let it get to ya. If you feel you're starting to burn out a little, just PVE for a while in instances or roll a secondary team for PVE. You'll keep busy.

[keyclone]

you could report them for harassment. (and where is the screen shot? what's with the typed text?)

and don't forget to set up a new macro:

/point [target=focustarget]
/wave
/lol
/say Ni Hao


... take satisfaction in the fact that the nicer you are to them.... the more you piss them off :D

[Yamio]

This is exactly the reason I don't hang out in Orgimmar or Shat.

I go straight to wherever I need to go, do it, and get the hell out, just like when I go shopping IRL. I have a bank alt that does all my AH stuff and the little bastid also hoards the money, so my crew doesn't have to hang out in town where I have to hear a bunch of idiots complain about how I choose to play WoW.

People can get really vile and spew all kinds of hateful things that would cause you to slowly wrench the crap out of their necks if they did it IRL, so I don't even give them a chance. It's kind of like going to bad neighborhood; if you don't want to subject yourself to a situation that could possibly go bad, why go?

I can bear the questions but I don't like the rudeness.

[Nifter]

Wow. I didn't think that it would be that bad. Sounds pretty insane. Although I would agree that low level players might be people on trial accounts, friends accounts, and/or just trying out the game with their 1st month. So it might not be as bad in shat, but I guess you wont know for a while. If it weren't for your main character I'd tell you to reroll horde to stick it to 'em. In a month they'd get their face melted by your tauren stomping army in AV.

As for macro-ed responses, I was actually contemplating playing into their little game and pretending to be a bot. Have things like "Response #521: 'Appreciation for the living turns money into flowers.'" and leave it at that. Too bad the # of macros you can have is so limited, otherwise I would create hundreds of responses like that to mess with people. I might get even more angry report messages though, which definitely wont put me into the good book with GMs. I wouldn't really want to make enemies of people, but I doubt that anyone sending me angry report tells is really worth adding to my friends list anyway.

Other ideas I had were creating macros to constantly have conversations with my toons. One says hello, other says good evening, we start talking about the auction house prices while simultaneously walking to our destination.

I would be a little reluctant to join my 5 to my current raiding guild as soon as they're born. I don't want to have them dealing with the hate mail, they're 100% not prepared for it.

[OzPhoenix]

So far I've had generally positive reactions on my server (Caelestracz) to my 5 Shaman team. That said, I've also had a few negative reactions and have gone so far as to reporting one person for their continued harrassment.

I'd also echo what other people are saying here - most of the negatives are ignorant new people calling out "botter!". Most 70's seem to understand immediately or with only a brief explanation what it is I'm doing and most of those have been quite positive about it.

[Simulacra]

So far I've had generally positive reactions on my server (Caelestracz) to my 5 Shaman team. That said, I've also had a few negative reactions and have gone so far as to reporting one person for their continued harrassment.

I'd also echo what other people are saying here - most of the negatives are ignorant new people calling out "botter!". Most 70's seem to understand immediately or with only a brief explanation what it is I'm doing and most of those have been quite positive about it.Hi Oz

woo hoo! I'm on your realm too - horde of course - 1xpally,3xmage,1xpriest they are currently at 60,59,59,57,59. The main toon is named Aztrid.
I've only had one person hassle me since I transferred a week or so ago and that wasn't because I was boxing, it was because I refused to help him with something in WPL because he was rude lol - he got the 5x/ignored salute

Are there other boxers on Caelestracz that you know of?

Cya round

[Skrimshaw]

I have only had this a couple times on my guys so far. First time I really got bugged about it was in my first AB. People calling my botter, or bitching cause they were gonna suck having 12 vs 15 (15v15) but thought I only equalled one. Then of course they were curious enough to follow me to BS, and after watching the ally's drop they called me OP. I hardly see this in the areas I'm questing though. I have already gotten a pretty good name for myself and get a lot of requests to group up ( I run 4 shaman), or help on elites or group quests. I'm even starting to get requests to help kill campers, which is always fun :) So been a good experience for me so far. Only had one 70 call me cheap, but I'm guessing I will see a lot of that at 70 in BGs and Arena, or atleast I hope I do :P

[Xzin]

Nobody ever got ANYWHERE in life by never being curious about the world. If they can't share your vision of how YOU want to play YOUR game then leave them be to exist in their own little world. Ignore the haters, there will ALWAYS be people who disagree with you. If it bothers you THAT MUCH, turn off general chat, explain to them how it works or leave the area. Public opinion is changing, for the better, but it takes time for the seeds of change to grow and mature.

To that, I say: keep planting. Maybe even a few seeds of corruption here and there :)

[Lyonheart]

Someone called me an idiot today. I was running my team through SW and out of the blue someone whispers me /whisper idiot. It was the first time i reported anyone. I normally just ignore any negative comments. I have never reported anyone for anything until today. I just did it because I had a long FP to my next stop so i had time. The GM got right back to me though. But it never bothers me. I try and look at it from their pov. I'm sure at first glance we seem like cheaters/PLrs or something. I really don't care what they think. I have had 3 times the "good" conversations though 8)

[Simulacra]

Lyonheart, what did the GM do? I've been called idiot, retard, also been asked to bend over and take it (I have female toons). Just wondering whether it was worth the effort ot report

[Lyonheart]

He just asked for details and then said he would look into it. I have not received an email yet though. its been 5+hours

[Eteocles]

They'll never tell you if anyone was banned for the reports so as not to give people ammo/flame bait to copy and paste everywhere lol; they'll get 'em though if there's reason

[Effex]

as far as reporting for verbal harrasment goes, I figure my shaman team have probably wasted enough of the poor GM's time, damn id love to know how many tickets they've had with my name on, so i let um go lol, /ignore is easy enough.

[BobGnarly]

It's easy to let it get you rilled up, but it really isn't worth it.

If somebody approaches me in a civil way, asking questions and what-not, I'll be happy to discuss it with them - even the part where they think I'm cheating.

If they start off with some sort of insult, they aren't worth my time and I rarely even respond. Let them think what they want. I really don't understand the point of stopping your fun to try to convince some sour apple that you doing what you want is somehow valid, but I guess that's just me. :)

[Los]

At first I avoided big cities like the plague. After a while I thought, what the hell, and now im just parking my alts in IF bank, or in SW AH, or where ever so I dont have to care about if they stop /follow. Even if somebody goes to badmouth, or whatever there are now people telling them wrong its multiboxing its ok, blabla (Y). Maybe my server is special but rarely encounter idiots.

If I run into idiots its usually on bg's, av tends to swarm with little kiddies. Most of the time though, its just the /w [altname] OMG WTF, and I just dont respond to that anymore. Unless im in a bad mood then i'd take on the discussion and i can go on and on doing that :P. Go EU, go PVP, go Al'Akir (alliance, otherwise easy target! :P).

[Tonuss]

Crowds of people will feed off of each other. If a person or group starts to hassle you for being a "botter" or "farmer" or "no life hacker" then other people who wander by will automatically join in. The larger the group the easier it is for people to join in with them.

At the same time, others will watch silently and might be pretty intrigued at the fact that despite the abuse and reports, you're still around. They may find out more about you and/or multiboxing and develop a much different opinion than that of the average ignoramus.

So hang in there, the people who will learn to understand your side of it and support you are the sort of people that it is worthwhile to impress. No one wants to impress some mindless idiot who jumps in with the crowd and tries to argue that the fact that you have more money is something to be ashamed of.

As for me, I do as others have said- I avoid being seen as much as I can, I'm not interested in being noticed. I just want to level my toons and see how far I can get with them. I typically ignore the idiots and will reply to people who are supportive or genuinely curious. That way I avoid the stress of wanting to club some moron to death with his own arm.

[Mak]

That's rough. I have yet to experience any rejects but then again, my team is only level 8. I have had a few people ask what I'm doing and a few who were interested and want to do it too. Of course, I sent them here. I did have one person who knew exactly what multiboxing was and actually mimicked my toons. I haven't been in the major cities much but I'm expecting the worst so hopefully it won't be that bad.

But I agree with so many above me, it isn't worth your time to have to explain yourself to those who choose to not understand what we do. It's their loss. While they're sitting in Shat or wherever spamming the trade channel for a group, you'll be running it and getting all the loot. Those people are why I multibox.

[Crucial]

Mob mentality at it's finest. I only started getting harassed by people once I started doing BG's at 70 - before that not a word. I think as a whole for the community its our responsiblity to remain cool calm and collected with these types of people. For the most part it seemes to step from either jealousy or ignorance. Yesterday I lead a raid with my 5 shammies on Halaa with about 15-20 ppl total against the horde and we owned them bad (140 tokens just from that one session). Needless to say I got a few whipsers on alliance alts of theirs, about how they were all talking over vent/ts and reporting me. I had the brother of one guy thank me for killing his horde brother which was pretty entertaining... lol.