Follow In Battlegrounds Broken After 5.2

[Oldboxer]

Think of some of the good multiboxers did to the solo WoW battleground player. If you were in a BG with a multiboxer on your side, if you lost, it didn't bruise your self image. The loss was always the multiboxer's fault. If you won, it's was because YOU did good.

I think we brought some spectacle and variety to BG's that otherwise are pretty much the same BG after BG, year after year. I've always enjoyed watching multiboxers, even if they are ripping me up. It's something different, what, once in a 100 games or so? Someone sees a 40 boxer in AV, a heck of a show, and all they can think is "OMG I'm going to loose an AV! No fair!!"? The circus comes to town and they see the elephant dung.

There was a thing in Wow Insider a while back about a group figuring out how to overcome a 40 boxer in AV and win. It sounded like it was the highlight of many of their WoW PvP experiences. What would have been without the boxer? AV race, Alliance wins in 10 minutes.

Does ANYONE believe that the quantity of complaining about battlegrounds is going to decrease without multiboxers in the game? You're a fool if you think so. What people cry about in battlegrounds can be boiled down to this: "I'm not doing as well as I should so something is wrong with something other then me". We were visible, hard to miss, so a handy excuse. But our not being there isn't going to make them better players, so the crying will continue, but without a handy focus.

The point is, we don't need to blame ourselves or feel bad. We played by the rules, which is a lot more then a lot of solo players can say. We played as hard as we could figure out how to do, but what are you supposed to do in a GAME? Hold back because you might make someone cry? That's not the kind of game that I want to play.

[Mickthathick]

I was going to mention something about this earlier in the thread, but I figured I would wait. Now seems like a good time, though.

There has always been an ongoing discussion amongst multiboxers on this forum about how they should conduct themselves when in the presence of the general public (e.g. normal uneducated players). There are those of us who choose to take the high road and will move along quietly while letting the haters hate, and there are those of us who choose to constantly antagonize players to no end through whatever means they can because they will "play the game however they want to" regardless of who it affects.

As multiboxers, we make people angry by simply existing. This can be because they believe that multiboxing is hacking, cheating, botting, an unfair advantage, or some other weak and uneducated reason they can muster up; but whether their reasons are right or not, as per the game publisher's standards or rules, doesn't matter -- They still hate us and want to see us gone.

The hate toward us has continued to build up over the last 8 years and those who "play how they want," and purposely anger as many players as they can, have relied on Blizzard (in this case) to defend them because Blizzard has, since the game's release, said the playstyle is "accepted, but not supported"; but now, when Blizzard makes a change to the way the follow function works, multiboxers act as if they never saw this coming and are angry that their unsupported playstyle has been affected.

I would bet Blizzard is very tired of defending multiboxers in battlegrounds because of the way some of us act (or we're just plain terrible), and while I'm sure a lot of multiboxers play nice with others, if you've been around long enough you'd know that there are many who do not. Multiboxers have very few allies among 'normal' players these days and I would guess that Blizzard felt worse about affecting the small percentage of handicapped people who rely on /follow in BGs/Arena than they did about multiboxers when they made this change.

I agree that the change was abrupt and should have been in the patch notes beforehand, because I can't tell you the last time I ran into a bot that relies on follow in a BG -- Maybe during the WotLK era. I doubt this is going to be a temporary change to the way that /follow functions in battlegrounds, but if it is, do your best not to be a complete douchebag to other players whether you might think they're a windowlicker or not.

I would argue that ever point you raised in your post can easily be applied to every other non-multi box player in WoW and isn't the reason why this occurred.

It's unfortunate that a minority of multi-boxers are douchebags, but to me this breaking of boxing in bgs is Blizzard caving to the scores of butt-hurt entitled players constantly blaming multi-boxers for their own terrible playstyle rather then the players actully researching/studying what they can do to play better and beat multi-boxers.

As someone above posted, the first time they ran into a multi-boxer they didn't cry but instead were intriqued about what they were doing and researched what was going on.

I have always enjoyed browsing the forums here as people respect each other and it's not full of the filth and depravity that exist on the WoW forums, due in part to the common bond of the hobby people here share and fact that these forums are competently moderated.

Unfortuantely, multi-boxers represent only a tiny percentage of players and Blizzard will always act on what the majority think/say/do at the expense of the minority. And as a company with shareholders, they shouldn't do it any other way.

[Chivalrous]

I starting using a soul-trader with IWT and it works, but i sometimes will get dc'd after spamming it a couple times. Is there something i can do to fix that? maybe leave click to move on... BTW has anyone had success using CTM with identically sized window/views?
I'm going to figure this out no matter how many people cuss me out in bgs along the way (my performance isn't as great without /follow but blizz said we can box without it just fine, right? xD)

I kinda feel like the boxers retaliating by being world pvp dicks and doing BG work-arounds are just going to ruin it for the PvE only boxers like Khatover. Goodluck to you guys, but imma stay out of all that. They obviously don't want boxers in BGs right now, and I'm not going to do any griefing to help them decide to just remove /follow all together, which they will more than likely do eventually anyway.

[jebnarf]

Who said anything about griefing? I am just trying to continue functioning... Blizz did said Multiboxers were not the primary target, they were just okay with what happened to it. Another blue said he expected we could continue without /follow, so i'm trying. I don't see how that hurts pve boxers.

[moosejaw]

For those that haven't been to the Everquest section, there is an update that might be of interest. The free to play restrictions are being adjusted for EQ and EQ2.

Link

As of mid-next week, we're going to be removing the following free-to-play restrictions in EverQuest and EverQuest II. Free and Silver players will now have access to all of the following options:

We are opening up ALL CLASSES.*
We are opening up ALL RACES. **
All bag slots are unlocked.
All players can now use the shared bank slots.
The quest journal restrictions are lifted entirely. Quest away!
Additionally, EverQuest is allowing all players to send delivery parcels! (This change is for a game-specific change in EQ, so it doesn't happen in EQII.)

Edit: IMO this is in response to the impending exodus of boxers from WoW.

[Chivalrous]

Who said anything about griefing? I am just trying to continue functioning... Blizz did said Multiboxers were not the primary target, they were just okay with what happened to it. Another blue said he expected we could continue without /follow, so i'm trying. I don't see how that hurts pve boxers.

There were some ppl saying they were gonna grief world pvp and stuff, wasn't you.

[SoulSeekerUSA]

Just canceled my 6 accounts, sad day because I loved WOW so much and it has been such a big part of my life for 8 years now. I do feel a bit of relief though, like a weight has been lifted off of me. I debated for days now and did not come to this lightly but after seeing so much hate on the forums and Blizzards coldness to killing a game for so many that were loyal just made it seem pointless to keep playing. I did try I logged in a few times and tried to do some of the new content but I just kept thinking what if they remove /follow in pve. So here I am, been a good run guys and gals. Thank you for all the help when I first started out back in 2007 and I hope the website keeps going no matter what, Team SoulSeekerUSA over and out;-)

[Ualaa]

Essentially... if you want to quit boxing, but kept coming back to Warcraft after a few weeks/months out of the game...
This is a strong incentive to stay out of the game.
So if you want to break out of MMOs, this is Blizzard's gift to you.

If you want to continue, with a PvP focus...
I believe you have battlegrounds in LotRO and RIFT, which are paid games likely similar pricing to Warcraft.

If you're into PvE, you have more choices.
You can continue with Warcraft, which is likely one of the better games in terms of panache and style... but one in which, non-boxer hate of boxers is something the developers are moving towards... so could easily also lose /Follow in LFR or even instances, if the whiners complain that the boxers are stealing their loot rolls etc...
You can move to any of the SOE games (EQ I, EQ II, Vangard), which are Free to Play... with the option of one-time investments (Station Cash, purchased with real cash), for whatever feature is included in the subscription version but not the FtP version.
Or you can move to a non-FtP game, where the company hasn't taken a heavy anti-boxer stance...

[Khatovar]

I was going to mention something about this earlier in the thread, but I figured I would wait. Now seems like a good time, though.

There has always been an ongoing discussion amongst multiboxers on this forum about how they should conduct themselves when in the presence of the general public (e.g. normal uneducated players).

...etc...

I couldn't agree with this more. While I can see Mickthathick's PoV, I've also had that rising tension in between my shoulderblades for the past few years as I see more and more people come in with bigger and bigger teams and attitudes of "I'm so gonna rape faces all over the place /spit /cry /chicken /lol"

Is it any different than your regular BG kiddies? Fundamentally, no. But we already have a terrible reputation as far as a lot of people are concerned simply because they don't like multiboxing. Period. In some cases Bots are viewed in a higher regard than we are because at least they make for cheap crap on the AH. And bots aren't going to fall for troll-bait like we do, which combined with some of those bad attitudes makes for a very loud and public squabble. Especially when some people resort to obviously spiteful, vindictive and disruptive actions to "protest" changes they don't like in "The Name Of Multiboxing!!"

We've always treaded a thin line, our increased and/or enduring presence hasn't made that line any bigger. It's just given a bigger target for people to aim at.

[ebony]

Essentially... if you want to quit boxing, but kept coming back to Warcraft after a few weeks/months out of the game...
This is a strong incentive to stay out of the game.
So if you want to break out of MMOs, this is Blizzard's gift to you.

If you want to continue, with a PvP focus...
I believe you have battlegrounds in LotRO and RIFT, which are paid games likely similar pricing to Warcraft.

If you're into PvE, you have more choices.
You can continue with Warcraft, which is likely one of the better games in terms of panache and style... but one in which, non-boxer hate of boxers is something the developers are moving towards... so could easily also lose /Follow in LFR or even instances, if the whiners complain that the boxers are stealing their loot rolls etc...
You can move to any of the SOE games (EQ I, EQ II, Vangard), which are Free to Play... with the option of one-time investments (Station Cash, purchased with real cash), for whatever feature is included in the subscription version but not the FtP version.
Or you can move to a non-FtP game, where the company hasn't taken a heavy anti-boxer stance...

there's not reason to remove us from pve. Even LFR as the others can easy remove us from the raid. the blue posts have said its to remove ""BOTS"" from BG's to be fair this is not the move they was going to do they was going to and did for one patch on the ptr they removed "Join as group" from the random bg's (this would of been more fair as they banned All group play from randoms) as /follow it does not work in war games as well there stoping the command being used on maps so they can not open it for Rated bg's that's why they said maybe arena. (though no gear makes it hard)

Kinda guessed something was going to happen after the last months off getting banned and all the QQ and blue posts about how they feel the pain, or though the members on the forums saying they see a boxer every game is not true there getting boxers mixed with bots!!!!!!! as they do look the same.