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[proposal] ban the use of ISboxer

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Muul Udonii
THORN Syndicate
Northern Coalition.
#101 - 2013-08-28 13:29:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Muul Udonii
I'm torn about this issue.

From the 'No' Corner:

The player in the OPs example is paying for 80 accounts, and using 80 all together. Each account earns only what each account could do if there were 79 other people playing.

You can't ban a player for duplicating commands, as the EULA says he must be creating commands.

Which is the main account, which are the additional accounts? If you accept it's 'wrong' at least one account is NOT breaking the rules, so which are the ones that are?



From the 'Yes' corner:

One player could mine with 1 ship and make X isk per hour
One player could mine with 2 ships and make 2X isk per hour
One player could mine with 10 ships and make 10X isk per hour
One player couldn't really feasibly mine with 80 ships and make 80X isk per hour

Ergo ISBoxer is allowing the account that is hauling and selling the product, to make substantially more isk than he could without the OOG tool.

Assuming each account makes more isk than a PLEX costs, it's not costing the player anything to increase from 10 to 80 accounts, but he's making more money.
Cade Windstalker
#102 - 2013-08-28 21:09:52 UTC
Ace Uoweme wrote:
safrrr wrote:
ive entered a system, and saw 80 accounts all with the same name, and they were mining ice. must i remind CCP that during the early years, they declared war on macro mining, and that everyone even doing it for a second was banned? with the use of isboxer, even if the accounts were paid for, they most probably were still just farming isk and sold it for real life money. how the hell can i take CCP serious if they allowed such things?


Having come from WoW where multiboxing by 40+ isn't as uncommon anymore, to see it has followed into EvE is sad for players. I was hoping with a macro ban multibox software like that wasn't allowed. :(

Isbox and other macro (yes they are macro programs) multibox software are a bane to MMOs as they allow so many players to act in unison with 1 click. No one cares if it's 2 or 3 accounts, it's the 40+ variety that is the problem. I don't have a problem with these programs for a few at a time, it's after seeing them pollute MMOs with their presence, to know 40+ multiboxers are alive and well that is a concern to me. Imagine them running PvP fleets - 1 player behind the wheel. Talking about game imbalance. In WoW such multiboxers literally own PvP battlegrounds, no chance to win. Put them in a FW or null fleet, it's the same results (would take a blob to defeat them because of the concentrated firepower 1 click can offer...a huge blob). Couple players like that could own territory even.

+1 support from multiple MMO experience dealing with that tomfoolery.


So, two points, one, it's not 40+ accounts on one machine, it's one guy running 10-20 computers.

Second these setups aren't going to be as effective as 40 individual players for all but the most mundane of tasks.

Third, these are not macro programs. A "Macro" is:

Quote:
a single instruction that expands automatically into a set of instructions to perform a particular task.


This is a single instruction being distributed to multiple clients, not a single instruction executing several in-game commands.

These command distribution or multi-box programs have been legal in Eve for years.
Ciaphas Cyne
Moira.
#103 - 2013-08-30 19:38:39 UTC
what i think is really all that needs to be said about multi-boxing / alts in every online game ever:

players with many accounts pay CCP more money

players that pay CCP more will always be the preferred customer

sadly this is the end of the discussion. CCP may make space ship games but their primary function (like every business) is to make money. Considering we cant bring our internet space ship dollars to a competing MMO (none really compare) there is no incentive to ever remove alts / boxers from the game.



what alts / boxers do that actually does ruin the game for me:

they remove the social requirements for playing EvE.

i bought into this game with the assumption that social interaction and cooperation was required to reach the highest levels of game play. boxing makes this assumption incorrect. instead of players using each other as resources we simply make a hauling alt, or a scouting alt, or a mining alt. Aside from totally destroying certain career paths, this also just greatly detracts from social interaction.

taking away that social element of the game penalizes players with actual social skills and rewards those who have trouble connecting with real people. last time i checked thats not how an ONLINE game should work! why are we networked together playing an MMO where isolationist behavior is rewarded? why play online at all?

I really dont care about the pvper boxer who kills me with 80 rifters because hes not having fun either, but i can understand why lots of people get upset at that kind of play. especially when that boxer shows up at a fleet fight.

oh and btw that whole "one player with 10 accounts is not as efficient as 10 different players" argument is crap. they are 10,000 times more efficient! a huge part of group PvP is organization and command. with boxing you need 0 communication skills, 0 leadership skills, 0 charisma, 0 loyalty from your group, and 0 friends. how thats not cheating is beyond me...

TL;DR:

CCP presents EvE as a social experience despite allowing boxing. the reason: m.o.n.e.y.

"buff only the stuff I fly and nerf everything else"

  • you
GreenSeed
#104 - 2013-08-31 01:27:01 UTC
if they ban one program, well they could just change the name of it... Lol

what the op is really asking for is to ban software to broadcast hardware events. banning something, means policing its use. how do you pretend to police a hardware event? specially when the original event is indistinguishable from the broadcasted one, and according to the very same OS the software runs in, they are all the same event!

imagine a box. inside the box you have the EVE client, outside the box you have the rest of the OS and the walls of the box, are made of the EULA. the hardware inputs fall into the box, and whether there are other boxes around receiving the same input means nothing, given that they are each individual users, and the EULA restricts them into their memory region as a means of safekeeping its own integrity, they cant legally "know" that the same input fell on a nearby box. unless they want to undermine the very same legal precedent that made modern EULAs possible. which is also the reason all EULAs look alike... what, did you really think they were all alike because the companies are cheap and lazy? please don't be so naive. Blink

i mean, does everyone here know that we are not players? i guess that's the starting point to any discussion on this matter. we are not players, we are users. if you get killed on a gate by 20 people, you got killed by 20 users, if you get killed by one guy controlling 20 ships, you got killed by 20 users. if you cannot understand this, then this discussion and its complexities escape you and you should just avoid joining the conversation.

that said, multiboxing is the biggest cash cow eve has ever seen. the power of any multiboxing fleet is dismal when compared to any real fleet, or even gang. and the drive and interest of the player base on it is so high, that CCP needs to make their own multiboxing software and sell it, now.

if there's future on the eve business model, its there. having players paying 200usd a month only to play as targets for pirates? whats not to like?

the only things that need changing are the mindset of the pirates... stop flying "solo pvp" fits please. webs and point are a waste of midslots. and fly in fleets please... if you refuse to, then don't engage fleets and expect your 1337 space pirate flying skills to save you.

any complaint are just complaints about the way eve works. did you get blapped on a lowsec gate? well. what does multiboxing have to do with it? its a design flaw on the game. did your ship get obliterated by 10 ships? well, welcome to eve. if they dropped on you, you should have kept an eye on dscan, if they didn't, then why did you engage?


and above all, the biggest problem when people discuss multiboxing is this false belief that "CCP allows it", they don't need to allow it. why? well because multiboxing doesn't do anything that would require authorization.

multiboxing software does not read memory regions or modifies them, multiboxing software doesn't monitor cache or disk activity, multiboxing software does not make decisions for the player based on feedback from the game. (for example it wont overload your hardeners if you take damage) and multiboxing software doesn't increase the damage, extraction rate, speed, or any other stat on any particular USER outside of whats allowed by the game rules.

there's nothing to allow, and there's nothing to ban.

and the bottom line is always this: do you NOT like "it"? can you NOT do something about "it"? is this not a SANDBOX? then go out there and shoot them, stop being risk adverse.
Elysia Hunter
War Tid3
#105 - 2013-09-09 06:05:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Elysia Hunter
1. CCP is not making money off of ISBOxers[i][b] that's blissfully ignorant. ISBoxers run ganks on multibillion isk ships that only ISBs can then sell the scrap of the kills for plex. Begin end begincycle. Not to mention the mining ops.
Plex are only worth money when bought with money. CCP isn't making **** off this.
2. It is detracting from player interaction, IF these puppeteers were to have to organize real players to do this; we'd have more people in corps and alliances rather than 3 4 and 500 long list of NPC corporations every day. In short, why train new players, when I can Plex 15 account and do what I want and not have to ever use my mic.
More players doing more and with other players.. This is still an MMO right, not Home world 3 yet. I don't care WHAT they do, gankers pirates whatever. I care that other players are losing out on learning, friendship, interaction. That's the spirit of the game right, thousands of players in one shard/sandbox all interacting. Not 5 guys with 2000 accounts each going head to head.
3.CCP loses new players who cannot keep up with the Joneses here again, CCP makes nada and instead is losing paying new accounts. If I start a game, as a rookie and not long ago I did, and I realize that players are BUYING 30 gunships accounts with 8 guns each to field, I can never hope to keep up, there’s no challenge there, that just repetitious lemming-ism.
3. It’s not EULA cheating, agreed. But don't paint it as the savior of the game either; it’s shady as hell at best. And If you've been on the end of it and realize that you just got ganked because some dude has a piece of software installed, not that he's a leader, organized, with a trained crew or good and skilled at what he does with experience, but can instead run an app for that.
Lets not paint all of us as so lazy as that, I run 2 accounts in two completely different sides of the galaxy.
4. ISBoxers must be, and this is an observation, the most friendless, lonely, antisocial people in the world. This game has a built in system to allow people to invite anyone to come play with them for 2 months FREE basically. They can't find people to invite? Talk about missing the new players/account boat! Holy crap? Oh yeah CCP raking it in I’m certain.

That's the easy button, that for so long this game has tried to avoid isn't it? 1 player with 240 Blaster cannons at the click of one button.
Can CCP stop it, no, or at least not unless they start doing what the NSA does... No comment. They SHOULD have stopped it at as soon as it started. They didn’t, so now we all get a delicious goat poo pie to choak down while they figure it out.
Should they endeavor to discover a way to prevent it, you bet.

I think if CCP was making such cream off this cow, they'd be pushing to find a way to directly integrate the function and sell it to people with multiple accounts. Monetize Monetize MONETIZE!!

Or we'll have someone shooting the statue in Jita saying the same things we did before. No transactions that allow people to buy win. No 3rd party apps that allow people to buy win either.
Didn't Darius Johnson show a goon console and everyone laughed at his presentation in 09. Like it was a joke, and then someone took it seriously, and made it work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9BjwNmdn6U time 2:22 Listen ...the standard director computer setup :)

Some Magic Box... ISBox

Good Hunting
Kyon Rheyne
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#106 - 2013-09-12 22:22:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Kyon Rheyne
Elysia Hunter wrote:

3. It’s not EULA cheating, agreed. But don't paint it as the savior of the game either; it’s shady as hell at best. And If you've been on the end of it and realize that you just got ganked because some dude has a piece of software installed, not that he's a leader, organized, with a trained crew or good and skilled at what he does with experience, but can instead run an app for that.
Lets not paint all of us as so lazy as that, I run 2 accounts in two completely different sides of the galaxy.
No transactions that allow people to buy win. No 3rd party apps that allow people to buy win either.


Well, finally there is an opinion I totally agree with. This used to be a place where social relations meant something. Where one's success heavily depended on the integrity of and cooperation within some ingame community he associated himself with. The isboxer shurely makes circumventing social relations part of the game too easy. It makes some tasks, which otherwise would have required many hours of training and teambuilding (like suicide ganking or even doing incursions - yes, there are isboxer gangs succeffully doing even high end pve stuff) too easy to achieve for just one man, who was smart enough to install some software and follow its configuration guide (which means effectively anyone who was able to complete game's tutorial in the first place, even not so smart high schooler can do this). Yes, similar funcionality could be achived with some hardware tools, or by running 2-3 alts in parallel sessions (still can be done by one man simply alt-tabing through different windows) but this doesn't mean nothing should be done. You know, security people tend to say "Skillfull burglar can pick almost any lock, but this doesn't mean we have to stop locking the door when going out". You can't achieve total security, but you shurely can reduce the number of those who successfully bypass restrictions by making things much more challenging for them (and punish them more severe). And keeping this number as low as possible is what this all about.