A big step into the future with the integration of multibox mode into the game client

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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We all know the sense of injustice caused by the existence of multibox players in our beloved EVE Universe.
Their capabilities are many times greater than those of single pilots. It is almost impossible to compete with such players. Here are some aspects of anti-multiboxing:

Unfair advantage / economic imbalance. A single player fielding several accounts gets what normally requires a whole group of real people — a solo player simply can’t compete with a “fleet” run by one person. In EVE specifically, this shows up as multiboxers clear-cutting an entire asteroid belt with a dozen ships in one pass, and as an outsized share of ISK generation and PLEX-buying that pushes market prices up for everyone else.

Erosion of the genre’s social core. MMOs are built around depending on other players, and multiboxing lets someone route around that dependency. Less demand for real teammates means it gets harder for non-boxers to find a group at all. As one forum poster put it, it “forces players to either build a tight-knit real-life group or start boxing themselves.”

The line between multiboxing and botting. This is the sharper technical objection: developers can’t reliably tell sophisticated, macro-assisted multiboxing apart from a bot, which makes banning one while allowing the other hard to defend. In EVE’s case, CCP resolved this by banning input-broadcasting software (like ISBoxer) specifically, while leaving manual multiboxing legal.

Monopolizing content. A multiboxer can camp a valuable spawn or resource node with several characters at once, locking out anyone who only brought one. EVE’s version of this is players sending suicide-gank alts after anyone who dares mine “their” claimed rocks.

“If it can be multiboxed, the content is too easy.” A design critique rather than a player-behavior one: if one unaided person can clear content solo just by running several characters, the content probably wasn’t demanding enough of individual attention to begin with.

Advantage bought with money, not earned. Running multiple clients well takes extra subscriptions, extra hardware (or genuinely expensive multi-monitor/multi-PC rigs), and often specialized software — so the edge multiboxing confers is gated by real-world spending power rather than skill or time invested, effectively a pay-to-win dynamic dressed up as a playstyle choice.

Perhaps it’s time to civilize this content? What can be done:

  • Integrate the functionality of third‑party software for multiboxing into the game client itself. Modify the interface for convenient switching between windows.
  • Three characters are available for each account. They should become the foundation of the player‑fleet mechanic. It is assumed that three pilots can log in simultaneously from one account to pilot and administer them in the game at the same time. Modify the interface to enable convenient management of each pilot and the entire fleet at once in the fleetcom window or in any window of each of the three characters.
  • At the same time, to avoid provoking the wrath of the multiboxing community and not to reduce the Company’s financial revenue, preserve the multiboxing capability in the form it currently has.
  • To compensate for the Company’s possible financial losses from multiboxing subscriptions, which may decrease with the introduction of the player‑fleet mechanic, introduce the corresponding licenses for this mechanic and sell them for PLEX. Undoubtedly, with this approach, sales of licenses for parallel training will increase manyfold.
  • With proper technical implementation of the multi‑box client, the hardware requirements will be significantly reduced. The graphical and technical cores of the client will run in a single instance, and when switching between pilots in the player-fleet, the add‑ons with data for each pilot and their interface will change, just like in a revolver.

The ideas outlined above are just rough outlines of a revolutionary change in approaches to playing EVE. This expansion will make it possible to introduce completely new PvE content with different mechanics, and will also significantly diversify PvP. This will help mitigate the community’s protest against multiboxing and will undoubtedly increase the company’s real financial revenues.

I invite all interested pilots to participate in the discussion.

Sincerely, Lilo Chu
Fly safe.

1 Like
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UP^^^

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How about we make mechanics that are anti-multi boxer instead… This coming from a MBxr

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I’m fine with multiboxing the way it is. You know how much content I lose to multiboxers? Almost zero (and some might argue that mining isn’t a “real” activity anyway). For most players running more than a handful of accounts isn’t very practical or easy to manage anyway.

I’d also put forward the argument that GPUs and memory are kind of cost-prohibitive at this point in time anyway.

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That’s exactly the problem. I do know exactly what you were losing to multi boxers. The problem is that you and the rest of the community do not.

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It’s either that or you’re one of the guys profiting directly from it and know the advantages you’re taking. The difference between us being that I won’t lie about it. I won’t give any details. I’m not going to lose any money and neither will others.

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Seems like ages ago, I played a Chinese MMORPG titled Jade Dynasty. I didn’t need to play it for very long, it allowed botting – not by 3rd party software – the botting was built into the game. The Esper system allowed you to set up automated combat and skilling. There was an AFK feature called “meditation” where your character did nothing and gained experience. I got bored and quit playing.

Suggesting to remove multi-boxing from this game is pointless. Fenris makes their income from omega accounts. What better way to sell multiple omega accounts, than to allow multi-boxing. You probably stand a better chance to convince them to sell a built in botting system to players or maybe God Mode. As long as Fenris can make revenues from that system.

My point is when there is no challenge, there is no game.

Have fun!

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Have you at least tried to read what I’m suggesting?

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I personally would agree with a 3-pilot-per-client built-in multibox mechanic (given that each of the pilots has an active MCT running. But I’d like to have the client limited to one instance (with max 3 running chars) at the same time per physical machine. Any attempt to circumvent the limitation results in a ban of all user-related accounts. Deal?

1 Like
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If it were up to me! :ok_hand: But do we need to take Fenris’s interests into account?

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Sure, it’s just dreams. Won’t happen, I know that.

That being said, I don’t think anything bad would happen if the game allows all 3 pilots be used at the same time, as long as you have “paid” for that with MCTs. Many people would still chose to make additional accounts to get the additional chars. So I believe MCTs would have to be considerably cheaper than full Omega to be worth the costs.

2 Likes
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My math tells me that tens of thousands of players paying for MCT and an additional player‑fleet license will generate significantly more revenue than a few multiboxers.
And if we take into account that multiboxing in its current form will continue to exist, I see only clear advantages.

MB under the community pressure?

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I’m the same however I’d be at a remiss if I didn’t warn against complacency. Just because it doesn’t affect us right now does not mean it won’t in the future.

It’s something to keep an eye on at least for now :slight_smile:

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UP^^^

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I’d appreciate the prompt that generated this, so I can see what the point is without reading the slop ^^;

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How do you know this is the slop without reading? Poor boy.