Merin is just stubbornly wrong, as usual. The ‘multiplayer’ in MMO evolved from the ‘multi-user’ in MUD, and simply means that more than one player is interacting with the same game environment at the same time. MMO’s are not “entirely designed around the concept” of player cooperation to achieve goals. That’s laughable.
MMO gameplay has always been more solo than cooperative, with your personal actions being what you do most of the time, and the option to team up with or compete against other players being something you do when you want to. In fact, most games that have tried to ‘force’ multi-player interaction over solo play have fallen flat on their faces in the attempt.
The actual problem is the poor game design, that requires endless hours of boring, simplistic, repetitive gameplay in order to achieve certain goals in a timely fashion. CCP made some early game decisions in order to open up opportunities both for PvP and for selling more subs. Those decisions, and simple bad design, are what led to an environment where “getting ahead” in EVE meant multibox/AFK/botting was the frequent solution for achieving player goals rather than engaging and interesting gameplay.
Fix the bad game design, and you will find that multi-boxing, AFK play, and botting are significantly reduced.
To be fair now, a lot of these activities are boring, simplistic, and repetitive in real life. You know, like mining rocks. People tend to form up large teams of experts capable of easing the workload (the good answer, an Eve Corp), and also automate the bejeezus out of it.
I don’t know how it can be made a realistic sandbox while at the same time prevent people doing realistic, practical things to lighten the workload.
Personally I don’t consider multiboxing to be a huge problem for EVE. A problem, yes, worthy of some attention, but not a major one (by itself). Similar to ganking, it’s more important because of its’ perceived effects than its’ real ones.
Most MMO’s have boring, repetitive elements. Very few of them have such simplistic, low-engagement systems that require so many hours that it becomes worthwhile for a significant percentage of players to adopt multi-box/AFK/botfarm tactics. (Although being honest, there’s no shortage of bots doing certain tasks in other games - just usually to a lesser extent than EVE.)
While there is the occasional example, I know of very few games (in decades of online gaming across many genres), that have the 10, 20, 40, even 70 multiboxers doing tasks like mining. Or the guys running 8 ratting carriers in null. Or the examples of people running their own 20-man gank squads.
This is an area where various design flaws of EVE come together to make the ‘perfect storm’ of multi-box/AFK/bot opportunity. Yes, people will take reasonable or even extreme actions to get ahead, to earn faster, to gain an edge. But designing the game as heavily for P2W and multi-subs as EVE has gone takes a problem that is typically present in most games, and turns it into a major design flaw.
(Note: again, in my view, it’s not multiboxing alone that is the flaw, it’s the way it combines with P2W, ‘more subs = more power’, and grinding semi-AFK/AFK/botting activities that creates the problem.)
You really should open your eyes more.
A quick google reveals a lot of bot threads about other games as well, as well as multiboxing.
EVE is hardly unique in this issue.
I did, in case you couldn’t understand, I am disagreeing with your assertion that it is done to a lesser degree.
For 1, I think you overstate the occurrence in EVE, and 2, you understate how much it happens in other games, remember most other games are instanced so players are hidden from view.
Or it was good game design to get players to pay for multiple accounts. As it is what it is now I think just doing something about botters should be the focus.
No botters will bring a few less multiboxers, maybe. Or at least get rid of the automated part of multiboxing keeping players engaged to some degree. Less afk and more interaction even from solo players.
Sorry, but that is just plain wrong. The origins of the name way back in ancient history are irrelevant, that was a completely different era of gaming and the mere fact that it is possible to play in the same game environment as other players is no longer a selling point. The reality of the situation is that the ONLY reason to develop or play an MMO is playing with other people. The solo experience in an MMO will always be vastly inferior to a well designed single-player game, so why waste time on an inferior game if you’re going to avoid the areas where it has any advantages?
You’ll notice that this is true even of PvE focused games. Look at WoW, the market leader: solo play technically exists and maybe you do it to level up a new character, but the heart of the game and the thing that keeps people playing is the cooperative PvE. Take that away and WoW is a dead game.
I don’t really see the issue here. Resources and time are finite. Multiboxing just lets ppl spend less time doing boring crap like mining, hauling or grinding out isk and more time blowing crap up. Why waste the time grinding skills on a character that are the total opposite of what you want to be doing like mining on a combat char when you can just grind it on another one and kill two birds with one stone.
Don’t give me any crap about just making all the skills silly easy to get either. No offense to anyone but ive been there an done that in games past and its surprising how quick things can get boring when there is nothing to strive for. I don’t really consider the grind in this game to be all that punishing. I like the fact that people have to use a little cunning in how they do things.
Lets just say CCP were able to detect that a player is running more than one character at a time… and stops it. SO essentially multiboxing is stopped.
Do people think this will benefit the game or do you think this would harm the game?
If you ask me (you didnt, but whatever), I believe there are so many players who multibox Omega accounts who would quit if it came to this. Many more accounts lost than new people joining the game.
Put it this way, it would instantly result in the loss of many paid accounts, and it would gain virtually no new accounts for months if not years. So drops in player numbers, drops in CCP income, no positive result until some time after the change resulted in the shutdown of EVE.
I’ve played EVE on and off for over 12 years. I’ve rarely encountered anyone multi-boxing (although TBH the things I do in-game wouldn’t expose me to the most common multiboxer situations). New players entering the game don’t even know people multibox unless they run into someone else complaining about it (I rarely even see complaints about it, maybe once every couple months).
Some miners, some gankers, a few fleeters, and some ISK grinders (ratting, anoms etc.) multibox. A few active players do it for their second account as a scout, or hauler, or to do some boring activity (trade, mine, Project Discovery etc.) while they do something else on their main. And of course, most bots do.
You can’t prevent it, no matter what. People will run VMs, spoof their IP address, use VPNs. The most CCP could do what be to ‘stop building it right into the launcher’ to make it a bit more difficult.
It would add nothing and remove quite a bit from the current game.
The people who would be pleased to see it go are generally people who aren’t contributing that much to the game anyway (otherwise they wouldn’t be bothered by multiboxers).
As previously said, change game mechanics to be more interesting, active, and less bottable, and multiboxing stops being a problem even without removing it.
If someone wants to use a few accounts to mine and earn some isk, whilst using his main account to pvp, there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all. The player gets to have sustainable fun which makes him more likely to keep playing EVE.
In addition, it’s an extremely fortunate situation for CCP because the more accounts a player has, the more subscriptions and money CCP will have. And that helps to keep game development going and the server running.
Win win for everyone.
Anyone asking for this to no longer be possible has absolutely no idea of what they are talking about.
As it is what it is now I think just doing something about botters should be the focus.