RIP DAOC Multiboxing 2002-2010

[JamieW]

The game that Team Wizzy popularized and demonized Multi-boxing in, where he used it to great effect, especially in RVR, has officially taken an anti-multiboxer stance.

According to Todd Grupp, Senior Manager of Customer Service for Mythic Entertainment on the Camelot Herald:

This behavior has always been a violation of DAoC’s Rules of Conduct. Specifically, this breaks rules 13, 14, and 16, which I’ve included below. I’ve been playing DAoC since launch, and I’ve been a part of CS here for six and a half years. We’ve been aware of multi-box teams since their inception and have received player feedback regarding the issue since that time. Where the change in our stance as a studio has come into play:

• Clustering has increased the contact rate of players in the game world.
• We now have technology to determine whether a set of characters that appear to be played by one person is being controlled by multi-box means.

CS does not warn, suspend or terminate an account for the use of a 3rd party program or hardware without being able to detect it on our side, no matter how sure we are of what we visually verify. When asked by players what exactly a violation of these rules would be, our CSR’s are instructed to advise the following:

• “One keystroke should only perform one action, on one character, on one account. Anything which is used to circumvent this would be a violation.”

It's certainly the game where I got started dual-boxing. I find it pretty disheartening that as more MMORPGs are released and accept (if not embrace) the multi-boxing concept, Mythic has chosen to specifically deny it and ban for it.

[Mystic]

They have such a minuscule player base these days, they probably figure they would lose more customers by allowing boxing than losing the customers who are boxers, and with the small revenue stream they have every penny counts now to them.

I used to box DOAC, which was especially fun in RVR.

But, then Mythic came along with Trials of Atlantis expansion, tailored the game for high power guilds and raids, shafted the casual player base, and killed the game. There was a mass exodus with that expansion, and the game has been dying a slow death ever since.

It's a real shame because they got the whole battleground and world PVP thing right with RVR. Nothing I've seen from any other MMORPG even comes close.

[Dorffo]

RvR was fantastic back in the day. I started dual-boxing in EQ, but that was just with a pocket cleric. I didn't really start actively playing multiple toons until DAoC.

[Freddie]

I got started multiboxing in DAOC.

HotkeyNet started there too.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

It's a shame, really. They could allow it outside of PVP if that's where they're complaining but, as is their wont, they tend to paint with broad brushes instead of targeted responses. No wonder the game is fading. Too bad, too. It was my first MMO and I still remember some of those times fondly.

[Fursphere]

“One keystroke should only perform one action, on one character, on one account. Anything which is used to circumvent this would be a violation.”

A round robin system would play with this rule. Funny that the CS rep is too fucking stupid to understand how easy it is to abide by this rule and still multibox.

Round robin key

Keypress 1 Toon 1 attacks
Keypress 2 Toon 2 attacks
etc....

all pressing the same button.

What a tool.

[Freddie]

There were two types of complaints. The main one was that multiboxers (including Chinese commercial farmers) werre monopolizing certain encounters and preventing other players from doing them.

The other complaint was that multiboxers had an unfair advantage in RvR due especially to simultaneous casting.

The first problem could have been fixed by (1) making loot available in other ways or making it bind-on-contact and (2) giving mobs abilities that are difficult for multiboxers to handle.

Ironically, Mythic made both types of changes, but they didn't give them a chance to succeed. The second type of changes were only published on the test server today and nobody's even tested them yet.

The RvR problem could have been fixed by code changes.

The vast majority of DAOC multiboxers were using HotkeyNet which means Mythic could have mostly solved the problem by disabling HotkeyNet. I wrote to two different Mythic employees offering to help. They didn't take me up on it.

I could have put a switch in HotkeyNet for them that they could call from the client to disable HotkeyNet in selected encounters or RvR or wherever they wanted.

[Ellay]

That sucks DAoC was good in it's time.

[Mokoi]

Fur beat me to it, but yeah

“One keystroke should only perform one action, on one character, on one account. Anything which is used to circumvent this would be a violation.”

roundrobin = win again. no problem boxing and DAOC is again available =)

[Freddie]

Fur beat me to it, but yeah



roundrobin = win again. no problem boxing and DAOC is again available =)

Unfortunately that written "rule" doesn't really summarize what Mythic is enforcing.

Mythic has that "rule" mixed together in some muddled way with other rules that prohibit software that does "macroing" or "scripting."

Even if their written rules were clear, which they are not, it might not matter because they are using a new program to catch offenders. I think that program is probably the real rule. Whatever that program looks for exactly, however it happens to be written, that's the real rule.

Edit: By the way, they aren't calling that new rule a "rule." They are pretending that they haven't changed their rules, and that they are only enforcing the same rules that have existed for years. They are claiming that the new rule, quoted above, is only an explanation that CSRs have been instructed to give.

If this all sounds confusing and absurd, it is. Compared to Blizzard's customer service department, Mythic's is a bunch of clowns. It's really unbelievable.