WCRadio - Octale & Hordak vs the World - Antiboxer email

[Gallo]

I didn't imply that YOU said we were cheating... just the other asshats in that thread.

[aetherg]

I don't see the need to respond to that. If we go around flaunting the fact that we can clear heroics, etc. it will just get people pissed off. The reality is that we are not as powerful as 5 people (even though we take up that many slots in a BG/arena/instance), but we are more powerful than a single person, and that will ignite drama.

I'd rather have people pass us off as no-skill weaker-than-one-real-player. If it makes them feel better to think that, good for them.

[Gurblash]

How about $149.99 US for a Hellgate: London Founder's account 8

I purchased and played HG:L upon release and was not impressed at all. Have they cleaned up alot of its bugs and 'statless' items? Might be worth a second glance.

Also a nice big /SALUTE to the host of a great podcast. Thanks for takin the time to stick your head into hostile territory to clear it up . Anticipate your show this weekend.

[The IT Monkey]

but we are more powerful than a single person, and that will ignite drama.

No, no we're not. Our FIVE characters are more powerful than their SINGLE character. Nothing is stopping them from doing the same if they so wish. Don't give me the money argument because they could choose to only ever play the game while in a group of four other characters... just find four other like minded individuals.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

/chops off head
"WANT SOME MORE CAKE, BITCH?"

Joking aside, kudos for attempting to clear things up. Not everyone can conceptualize what we do, why we do it and how it fits into the grand scheme of our lives. We enjoy, suffer, whine, cheer and logoff in frustration just like anyone else. We just have some things we can do better and some things we canNOT do as well as solo or normal group players. Interestingly enough, we're right smack in the middle as far as capabilities. We're positively lethal to 1-3 man groups in PVP in almost all cases depending on surprise, amount of CC, etc. Conversely, we're starting from a healthy disadvantage against full normal groups again depending on surprise, amount of CC, etc. It's a niche hobby within a niche hobby. Which is probably why there are so few of us around.

One other point I might add to your list of things to discuss is the common whiny assertion that blizzard doesn't ban multiboxing because we pay them 5x the monthly fees and so we have some kind of "pull" with them from a monetary standpoint. This is patently absurd as we (we meaning people that multibox 3 or more chars; dragging a priest behind your 70 warrior is not multiboxing) probably constitute less than 1/100th of a percent of WoW's population (1/100th of 1% of 9million = 900; I'd bet there are less than 300 multiboxers worldwide). As such, we are statistically insignificant to Blizzard's WoW revenue. Face it: if the 20%+ of the playerbase that whines about them daily can't get hunters nerfed into oblivion, why would Blizzard kowtow to the few multiboxers that exist? :P

I don't see the need to respond to that. If we go around flaunting the fact that we can clear heroics, etc. it will just get people pissed off. The reality is that we are not as powerful as 5 people (even though we take up that many slots in a BG/arena/instance), but we are more powerful than a single person, and that will ignite drama.

I'd rather have people pass us off as no-skill weaker-than-one-real-player. If it makes them feel better to think that, good for them.

Most people will form an opinion based on their own view through whatever color glasses they wear and stick to that as "fact," despite empirical evidence to the contrary. Since you can't change someone's mind who doesn't want to learn or become enlightened, why worry the slightest about them? Hey, don't get me wrong. I understand your sentiment but I'm just not going to voluntarily give someone else that kind of power over what I choose to enjoy or how much I choose to share that enjoyment with others.

[Basilikos]

Octale, your clarification is welcome and appreciated.

Now, perhaps this is me being petty, but what really got me confused and/or upset was a comment (and I don't remember if it was you or Hordak that said it) about how two enhancement shaman would be easy. First, the bigger issue, is that very few, if any, MBers are doing this for EZMode. This is NOT EZMode - it takes more gold, time, and other in-game resources than solo does. This is for fun. And second, (this might be the petty part), it bugs me that people think we just pick any old character combination that consists of a bunch of quite powerful class / spec combos because it would be, again, EASY. Multiple melee characters are the hardest to play and would generally result in the worst performance since they would need to be constantly moved and otherwise micromanaged. Of course, any combination of characters has those problems in certain situations. I guess what I'm getting at is my frustration at the general lack of understanding about what we do and that it is an IWIN button.

It's not.

Also, I'd be a little more careful with how you express your opinions of multiboxing. I'm from the Denver area (and if I remember properly, you guys are, too). I see plenty of people who makes quite a bit less than I do spend much, much more than I spend on WoW each year spend on a few hours of skiing and no one EVER calls them out for it. I honestly think that people's reaction to the money and other resources that we put into MBing is more or less a reaction to the fact that WoW has just barely gone mainstream and MBing is the new 'no life' target.

And while we're at it, I'm on Icecrown US along with you and apparently a few other WoW Radio hosts. Just thought I'd mention it while you're here.

Again, thanks for the clarification.

[Bigfish]

Do I think you're a fool for doing it? Yep, and that's not going to change. Do I think there's nobility in being able to solo instances or 2-man Kara on 10 toons by multi-boxing? Nope, not one shread; that's not going to change either. If you choose to do it for the sake of doing it, by all means, do so.

I like the pot shot at calling us fools. Doesn't the same apply to most anyone playing WoW? The people spending 40 hours a week, half of it raiding, on a game? The people who put so much time and effort in to arena? The people who just grind their way to mounds of gold.?

[Tdog]

Wondering if they ever thought about, what if someone doesn't suck at playing his main. I'm talking about all those multiboxers that have main in high end raiding guilds, or reached gladiator on more characters etc...
And they just multibox because it brings out so much more from the game.

Not trying to brag or anything like that but I was in a top 20 US alliance raiding guild prior to multiboxing. Point is that I am fairly decent at this game solo and by no means do I suck at playing only one toon. When I was introduced to this website roughly 6 weeks ago I was inbetween guilds as my former had just disbanded. My orginal intentions was to make a multiboxing team so I could start saving up badges for the new sunwell gear w/o having to rely on Pugs. Very shortly after I started multiboxing and realized the extreme fun and potential that was possible I more or less completely forgot about raiding altogether. I haven't had this much fun since I first started playing the game 3 years ago tbh.

Not to say that I don't ever plan on getting into another raiding guild but this adds a whole new aspect to the game that I hadn't ever experienced. For them to say things like "O Multiboxers suck so bad at playing they have to play 5 toons just to be as effective as 1 toon" is just completely ignorant blind hatred. They have absolutely no clue wtf they are talking about and tbh all of you should really just shrug things like this off. They are venting their frustrations at the w/e is easiest to attack. They have never multiboxed and thus their opinion on multiboxing means absolutely nothing to me.

Now if Ellay or Vyndree or someone who has multiboxed to a great degree all of a sudden started bashing multiboxing, that would be something to get pissed off about.

[Basilikos]

Do I think you're a fool for doing it? Yep, and that's not going to change. Do I think there's nobility in being able to solo instances or 2-man Kara on 10 toons by multi-boxing? Nope, not one shread; that's not going to change either. If you choose to do it for the sake of doing it, by all means, do so.

I like the pot shot at calling us fools. Doesn't the same apply to most anyone playing WoW? The people spending 40 hours a week, half of it raiding, on a game? The people who put so much time and effort in to arena? The people who just grind their way to mounds of gold.?

I was going to try to ignore his "fool" remark, but since someone else brought it up, I'll have a go at it, too.

In my previous post in this thread, I pointed out that he needed to be a little more careful about expressing his "concerns" and I can't state that enough. Attitudes like this are the reason there is so much animosity - the people who understand what we do hate on us for no reason whatsoever which, in due course, gives the ignorant and the other various haters a reason to get on our cases. Even here, now, his statements could give someone else room to mock us. Really, that isn't the issue so much as is the rare (tee hee) occasion on which one of us is truly harassed for MBing.

Those with a bully pulpit should watch what they say when they are wrong and even more when they are right (not that Octale is correct here) since the truth can be put so poorly that it can never be set right.

[Octale]

Do I think you're a fool for doing it? Yep, and that's not going to change. Do I think there's nobility in being able to solo instances or 2-man Kara on 10 toons by multi-boxing? Nope, not one shread; that's not going to change either. If you choose to do it for the sake of doing it, by all means, do so.

I like the pot shot at calling us fools. Doesn't the same apply to most anyone playing WoW? The people spending 40 hours a week, half of it raiding, on a game? The people who put so much time and effort in to arena? The people who just grind their way to mounds of gold.?

See, you're missing the point again. It's *your* money, do with it as you please. I am not going to throw myself at your feet crying "mea culpa" for thinking spending 30-75 dollars a month to play the same game on multimple characters at the same time is foolish. Does it really matter that I think it's foolish? You could just as easily look at any of my expenditures and say I am a fool for alloting financial resources in such a way. That's your choice, same as it is mine for thinking paying to mbox is foolish (or perhaps, "a waste of money" is a better phrase at this point).

So, by all means, pick the one slightly negative thing out of a post where I, again, state in no uncertain terms that it is *your money* and you point that out to everyone; a thing that isn't even really negative in as much as it is my honest opinion of mboxing. Now, I've been about as nice about this as I am going to be by coming here, admitting that I was wrong, and stating to Vyndree (regardless of whether she reads it or not) and this community at large that I am going to take some amount of the scarce resource that is my airtime, and try to, on some level, make things right with this community. It's bad that a month has gone by since this happened, and I wish we'd have received Vyn's email such that we could have dealt with it sooner, but we didn't. So, I'm going to do the best I can.