EVE General Discussion

Automation is not the same as duplication.
Most use of ISBoxer is duplication, and that is what CCP allows. CCP does not allow automation.

I always thought multi-boxing referred to sex with 2 women at once...

I too have run multiple accounts without ISBoxer and wish I'd been using it a long time ago. When I ran multiple accounts without isboxer it generally consisted of me using fixed windows, setting up every window identically and then rapidly alt+tabing through the clients as I clicked the same spot on the screen over and over across the clients. It was needlessly mundane and tedious compared to just broadcasting the commands to all the clients at once, and it is enough to severely limit the number of accounts you can run at one time. IMO one of the main benefits of using isboxer is allowing you to actually see all your clients at one time, even tho they all might be in small windows it helps tremendously, and that has nothing to do with broadcasting. You could do the same basic thing if you wanted to spend thousands of dollars on monitors and spare computers to display all the clients on them, but isn't that a bit silly when isboxer does this pretty well on just one or two monitors?

I think the fundamental question is whether or not CCP actually wants people to multibox. If they do then obviously they should allow multi-client software like isboxer which makes it easier to run the clients. I think the benefits of the increased revenue from the extra clients far outweighs any negatives...then again, I really can't think of any negatives. Can you think of a single instance where someone running many clients just really messed up the game for you? The most extreme example I know of is that guy who runs dozens and dozens of mining barges, and I just don't see how him mining the crap out of ice really hurts the game. There was another guy who ran all those drakes, and again, I'm not sure how running the hell out of a mission or pvping with them would really damage the game. Sure his drakeswarm might kill you but then again you and your friends might kill a small fleet of drakes(pvping with isboxer is pretty rough btw, I've tried it with just 3 dps chars and while it does work, any minor mistake you make is multiplied across all of the clients...it's not nearly as awesome as you might think).

The rules are quite clear: if you use some mechanism to advance in the game faster than "normal game play", you are guilty of automation. To me it is clear that using automation to press 40 keys instantly (instead of pressing those 40 keys individually) is a violation of those rules. That is what keystroke broadcasting does: whether it's hardware (e.g.: skewers taped to the buttons of a dozen mice) or software (e.g.: ISBoxer) is irrelevant.

Being able to harvest ice with 40 mackinaws in the same number of keystrokes that it takes any person playing the game normally to harvest ice with one is clearly using a third party tool to gain advantage over normal game play.

The brute force advantage of being able to fly 15 Caracals against the enemy fleet of two caracals is quite clear: using the one stone you've killed the two birds of superior numbers and coordinated fire. The answer to nano ships wasn't to make everyone fly nano ships, the answer was to nerf nano ships. The answer to 15 ship solo player fleets is not to have everyone buy more accounts and learn to use ISBoxer: then you're no longer playing EVE Online, you are playing "competitive ISBoxer subscription".

If you want to multibox, learn to cope with the need to send each client individual actions. The short version is that if you can't manage your collection of clients without software assistance, you are using software assistance to automate your gameplay. I would draw the line at keyboard/mouse sharing tools such as Synergy (without the keystroke broadcasting support) which allow you to use the one keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers (effectively turning extra computers into multiple screens).

With apologies to people like Zhek Kromtor, while the technical input into multiboxing ranges from interesting to amazing (monofilament supports for multiple screens to reduce visual clutter of the room? very impressive), what keystroke-broadcasting multiboxers are doing provides a competitive advantage over normal game play and should be stopped. There will no doubt be mass unsubscriptions as those 1% of players unsubscribe their 10-30 accounts which they cannot hope to control without the aid of a software tool.

So why would doing it with hardware be worse than with software? That is a point that Zhek made when he rigged those mice and keyboards together. Multiboxing does give a competitive advantage, with or without broadcasting, so again, the real question is whether or not multiboxing is desirable. IMO it certainly is.

Some of you guys could just stop occupying one of your hands with non-EVE related activities, then you wouldn't need these extra tools.

Wow .. What is this, the 50th thread on this in the past month?? People really need to get a life and stop botting.

isBoxer is not going to get you banned and I would fully expect CCP to give everyone a big heads-up before they took that action.

Any one remember this thread from last year?? isBoxer has been around a long time now.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=847111#post847111
- that's my specific response. There are a few other good posts in there with official GM responses as well.

Read the _whole_ thing with all the references and get your panties out of a bunch.

I'm unfamiliar with ISBoxer, does it send the same player inputs to every instance of the game running or does it allow you to run each instance separately?

Locking this thread for rumor mongering. Our policy on this has not changed since yesterday.