Glimmer of light - Hardware boxing, and it still has the power!

[Teslah]

Major bias now. Was on this morning with 2 hunters on follow. People are now reporting like mad, saying multiboxing is banned. You try and tell them it's not. They don't care now that Blizz banned software. Going to be a real pain and makes it way less fun playing being concerned every person is going to harass and report you.

I've always tried to be off the radar, but even traveling now people are attacking you. Demotivating for sure. I'm doing 100% manual at the moment. No multiplexer. 5 windows open, mouse over, click the person to loot, attack, follow. We'll see how long that lasts.

I get the above setup is hardware, but it is still one press and sending that to all computers at once correct? Hardware or software, isn't that setup doing exactly what they don't want? I'm sure they follow and read this site. If they see that, they could just ban it all together.

Be great if they would just give us a server or two.

[nodoze]

Major bias now. Was on this morning with 2 hunters on follow. People are now reporting like mad, saying multiboxing is banned. You try and tell them it's not. They don't care now that Blizz banned software. Going to be a real pain and makes it way less fun playing being concerned every person is going to harass and report you.

I've always tried to be off the radar, but even traveling now people are attacking you. Demotivating for sure. I'm doing 100% manual at the moment. No multiplexer. 5 windows open, mouse over, click the person to loot, attack, follow. We'll see how long that lasts.

I get the above setup is hardware, but it is still one press and sending that to all computers at once correct? Hardware or software, isn't that setup doing exactly what they don't want? I'm sure they follow and read this site. If they see that, they could just ban it all together.

Be great if they would just give us a server or two.

Yeah the torches and pitchforks are out and if they could they would burn us at the stake.

My recommendation is to just focus on instanced activity like Dungeons where the public can't mess with you (and vice versa for those of us who can't help but attack and/or grief others they see).

For Classic we have to actually run across the landscape to get to the dungeons (or summon ourselves via Warlocks) and some folk are just doing that 1 character at time... If you have a favorite dungeon you can even just log out in there or at the entrance to avoid the hassle.

The above approach (whether done via 5 physical PCs or 1 PC running VMs or MultiSeat Desktop Virtualization) is indeed running a hardware based Keyboard Mouse (KM) synchronizer to send the same keystrokes simultaneously to the 4 followers at least (if I understand correctly). For healing you could have a few keys that send a keybind that only the healer has bound and thus the 3DPS would ignore them (avoiding multiple clients doing something from 1 input)... Similarly he could also have a DPS key that sends inputs that the healer ignores but the 3 DPS do not. Since it is hardware based that may be in keeping with the current literal "Letter of the Law" but not likely in keeping with the "Spirit of the Law" as multiple Blizzard reps have been communicating.

The 3 DPS can indeed also be configured to each have their own keybinds where you setup 3 buttons in a row to cast the same thing (such that each DPS has their own button) which would be significantly better... For example if you want to have 3 different mages to each shoot FrostBolts, you could configure them as follows and use 1 keyboard to control all 3 and not abuse Hardware Multicasting even when using a synchronizer:

-Mage 1: Keybind 1 to FrostBolt and unbind keys 2 & 3;
-Mage 2: Keybind 2 to FrostBolt and unbind keys 1 & 3;
-Mage 3: Keybind 3 to FrostBolt and unbind keys 1 & 2;

In the end I think it best that we set the example and start doing our configs to be in keeping with both the Letter and the Spirit of the Law and can be done by simply making sure that we follow the "1-1-1 rule":

"1 human input causes only 1 action in only 1 client"

If we do that we have the best chance of Blizzard not dropping further nukes on us. Pretty easy to do and there are plenty of keys available on something like this:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B076LRJ528

With the above the keyboard and proper setups for a 4Mage+Priest team, you could do something compliant like the following:

• 1st row of 4 black keys: cast Frost Bolt on Mages 1,2,3,4 (each with a different key);
• 2nd row of 4 black keys: cast Arcane Explosion on Mages 1,2,3,4 (each with a different key);
• 3rd row of 4 black keys: cast Arcane Explosion on Mages 1,2,3,4 (each with a different key);
• 1st row white keys right above the black keys could be for your Tank (4 different abilities);
• 2nd row white keys right above the black keys could be for your Healer (4 different abilities);
• Movement of tank could be by mouse or you could use the top white row or the other side of the keypad and bind a "follow me" and "stop following me keys...

If you are running a Tank+Healer+3DPS team you could turn the keypad 6 across and do 3 keys per DPS ability (one for each character)...

All of that could be done without changing the keycaps... Can always get fancy and replace them with more color coding and/or textures and/or print custom labels or even custom keycaps.

[Tin]

I get the above setup is hardware, but it is still one press and sending that to all computers at once correct? Hardware or software, isn't that setup doing exactly what they don't want? I'm sure they follow and read this site. If they see that, they could just ban it all together.

We are getting some mix info from GM`s - but most have said that the ban is software - so some are going hardware.

The use of input broadcasting software that mirrors keystrokes to multiple WoW game clients will soon be considered an actionable offense

We also know some was multiboxing 100+ toons at the same time - that going to be hard/expensive with hardware.

[Tdog]

Major bias now. Was on this morning with 2 hunters on follow. People are now reporting like mad, saying multiboxing is banned. You try and tell them it's not. They don't care now that Blizz banned software. Going to be a real pain and makes it way less fun playing being concerned every person is going to harass and report you.

I've always tried to be off the radar, but even traveling now people are attacking you. Demotivating for sure. I'm doing 100% manual at the moment. No multiplexer. 5 windows open, mouse over, click the person to loot, attack, follow. We'll see how long that lasts.

I get the above setup is hardware, but it is still one press and sending that to all computers at once correct? Hardware or software, isn't that setup doing exactly what they don't want? I'm sure they follow and read this site. If they see that, they could just ban it all together.

Be great if they would just give us a server or two.

HAHAHA.... Now you will feel the pain we experience in vanilla! >

It will eventually blow over, but yes the plebs jump to conclusions instantly, ignore every attempt at logic, and it will be probably most of Shadow Lands before they finally stfu...

Just be prepared to completely ignore people when you are running around on your toons. And when they threaten you with being reported, just tell them to "Have fun with that!". And if they are persistent just put them on ignore. Actually now that I think about it I made a macro to respond back that said something like, "Dear random noob, Thank you so much for your intense concern about how some random person you don't know chooses to spend their time. Your opinion is greatly valued! Unfortunately I don't have the ability to care right now, but please share your thoughts and concerns with Blizzard Entertainment. Have a great day!"

[Teslah]

I was there : ) Been hardware boxing since almost the beginning. I think I still have posts here from way early on.

It's different now. Never had multiple people call me out like the other day. Blizzard just emboldened people to unleash on multiboxers.

I'm using a warlock alt to summon to instances for the time being. It's too hot right now to be running around with 4 / 9 people on follow. So far so good with no more rage lol.