EVE General Discussion

Paying for 30 accounts at $15 a month. Reaction of most people: "Wait, that's $450 a month! That's almost $6000 a year, **** that!"

Paying for 30 accounts at a PLEX a month. Reaction of most people: "Well, I'm making isk 30 times as fast so it's the same as paying for 1 account really"

Multiboxers tend towards PLEX for obvious reasons. If multiboxing becomes epidemic, the massive demand will cause an extreme rise in PLEX prices.

yet still, there's a link between mineral prices and plex.

not to mention if every one is mining mineral prices go down, so you'll have less isk to pay for plex. people are more likely to drop an account than pay cash if they're making less isk than they need for plex.

it's not the same thing at all.
let's assume it is, i'll humour you.

how is 1 person moving 20 mouse pointers different to 20 people moving 20 mouse pointers? tip: it isn't.

the accounts are being controlled manually. all a multiboxer does is reduce the need to be a many armed freak.
i understand you seem very upset that some one with 20 accounts is getting 20 accounts worth of income for what seems to be no reason what so ever.

Yes, they are mad.

If only that had worked 15 pages back when that quote was first posted

read the above. you must be at the computer give commands with your fingers.... the computer can't run without your fingers... if they do then it's auto program which runs with out you their......

I don't know any human who can press keys on 40 different keyboard within a split second.

The thread was about getting people to realise the power advantage that multiboxing software provides. Just because CCP currently allows multiboxing doesn't mean the situation can't change.

i do.

i know lots of people with the same keyboard as me

This guy is well on his way

WHere there's a will, there a way

Let's put this in a way where the semantics can't get in the way:

botting is power amplification by allowing acquisition of in-game resources beyond the potential of a human player.

duplication is power amplification by allowing in-game performance beyond the potential of a human player. Duplication can be achieved by software or hardware, as ZK has shown.

1 player controlling 20 ships is capable of more decisive combat outcomes than 20 players controlling 1 ship each: it's hard to rep through alpha strike, as opposed to 20 shots arriving over a 3 second period, allowing the logistics pilots to keep the target alive through each salvo.

When ice harvesting, it is quite possible to run a fleet of 40 ships without any form of power amplification. The upper limit for a single human is probably 150 ships, allowing 2 seconds for handling each ship's ice harvester cycle. Of course you could simply run each ship until the hold is full, so you only have to act when the ship needs to warp to station, warp to belt, target ice and start harvester: this lifts the maximum number of ships that a single human can handle to whatever the sol node can handle.

One established limit for Starcraft is about 300 actions per minute: 5 actions per second. Translating to an ice harvesting operation, you'd be hard pressed to make those 5 actions count for anything: there are limits to how quickly the game responds to instructions, and there are limits to how quickly the application can become responsive once you Alt+Tab to the game. But assuming there are no limits, the actions required for running a large fleet are simply Alt+Tab, click+drag. That's 150 mining ships handled per minute, with a cycle time of 3 minutes, giving a hypothetical maximum fleet size of about 450 ships that a human could conceivably control without any form of power amplification beyond a computer capable of running that many clients, or enough computers running that many clients, with keyboard sharing software such as Synergy (without keystroke broadcasting complied in) or Teleport. But I doubt even the keenest Starcraft player would manage to spend three hours harvesting ice at that rate without burning out, getting bored or simply suffering joint strain.

Arguing that action broadcasting doesn't amplify the power of a single player is nonsensical: if ISBoxer didn't make it easier to run 7 clients at once, why would you pay for it? What does this tell you about power amplification? It tells you that the level of power amplification afforded by ISBoxer is worth $50/yr (approximately 4 months worth of subscription). If it wasn't providing an advantage, people wouldn't be paying for it.