I think the refusal of players to fleet is more of a problem than players rolling a second account for things like scouting. Having said that, I do think EVE would be better if Omega players could have simultaneous access to ONE Alpha account at any time irrespective of how many Omegas they have, so the policy changes from “one alpha/zero omegas or zero alphas/one-or-more omegas” to “at most one alpha + however many omegas” in terms of multiboxing. This would increase the value of an Omega sub - particularly for single-sub players - without giving multisub players a disproportionate advantage since they’d still be restricted to one Alpha at most.
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I loved being in corps back in the olden days, but they are constantly getting scammed and ripped off, or dropped/evicted by spies. The fundamental building blocks from which Eve is made do not support trusting other players. Even if I could manage to find somebody to scout for me, I wouldn’t want to deal with them - they would probably just be working a long-con on me.
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Are you being serious?
Even nowadays?
Full disclosure, I multibox up to 10 accounts.
Fortunately, this will never happen because it would cost CCP a crap ton of money.
Regardless, dual boxing is extremely useful, ubiquitous, and easy to do (both in terms of player skill required and plex/money required). Don’t do it if you don’t want to do it. But don’t cry foul because other people do it.
Multiboxing, on the other hand, is something that might be worth discussing.
The Good:
- More money for CCP (that doesn’t rely on anti-consumer monetization methods)
- Allows solo players and small groups to punch above their weight.
- Helps content creators (i.e. FC’s) to find content and keep the fleet alive and running
- Helps keep some players engaged and invested in the game
- A multiboxer is usually at a severe disadvantage when compared to similarly sized fleets composed of unique pilots.
- Multiboxing Miners help keep ship costs low.
The Bad:
- Multiboxers are not always at a disadvantage, and can exclude fleets of real players from content designed for groups. For example, an incursion multiboxer can intentionally overgrid so that he can’t lose contests, and then snatch up a majority of the good sites, leaving a newbro friendly community like WTM to be stuck running TPPH’s for hours on end. Fortunately, the HQ multiboxers stopped after CCP dropped down to one HS focus, but this does illustrate how a single multiboxer can have an advantage over a fleet of real players. Moreover, losing sites and contests to a boxer most certainly had a much large impact on fleet morale than losing sites and contests to an elite community. Which, I get. It sucks getting beat by a better fleet, but it feels really ■■■■■■ up to get beat by one guy flying 50 rattlesnakes (or however many he had).
- Some players feel like they are being disadvantaged for not having more money to spend on hardware (i.e. extra monitors, 4k TV’s, more ram, beefier video cards, etcetera). Which I can also sympathize with.
- Some players believe that multiboxing is a form a cheating. I fundamentally disagree with this assertion, but feelings of fairness can have a huge impact on player morale. Thus, I would be remiss not to mention it.
- Multiboxers can generate large amounts of isk, which contributes to inflation. Um, how to put this… Some of you may get really alarmed when hear the amount of isk that some multiboxers make, but you have to understand that it isn’t sustainable due to burnout. For example, say you pop 15 bil in plex for 10 accounts. It makes absolutely no sense for you to run just long enough to make 15, 20, or even 30 billion isk -even then, half of your income would go to covering your plex costs. Thus, if you’re going to do it, you might as well go balls to the wall, and make as much money as possible for 30 days. However, doing that massively contributes to burnout. So, it’s not something that players can sustain year round. Thus, boxers might generate a crap ton of money for a month or two, and then stop earning for a while (how long depends on how frugal they are). Thus, if you are alarmed by reports of a boxers monthly income, understand that it is not representative of their yearly income. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still going to be a lot, just not nearly as much as you might think.
- Mutliboxing miners makes hurts the isk efficiency of single character miners.
Oof. Glad I took a break to argue on the forums. All my accounts just now dc’ed.
I think this is the wrong way of looking at it. As far as I’m concerned, you should use scouts when it is appropriate to do so. It’s just that having an alt allows you to be your own scout -you don’t have to wait on anyone, don’t have to bother anyone, and solo players can be self-sufficient.
By the way, there are a lot of people who like playing solo. I don’t solo Eve (I found that I can get lost in the crowd of big corps), but I can certainly sympathize. I’m an introvert, and I have solo’ed other games like Warframe. I have had to go to great lengths to farm stuff that dropped from group content (such as mods from the lua challenges and corrupted mods in the void for those that are familiar with the game). And yet, I would still rather play solo than have to interact with people. Oh, and I wonder just how many solo players there are. They might seem like a small amount, but they also tend to stick to themselves, so it’s hard to get a feel for how many there actually are without looking at metrics.
Of course, all that being said, I once saw a corp ad that banned alts. I asked her about it, and she said that not having alts encouraged cooperation and interaction between corp members. Thus, it’s possible that not being able to multibox will encourage a hell of a lot more player interaction. But, this would also make many solo players feel like their play style was under attack. Moreover, some would sooner quit than play with others.
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I can never be sure.
Probably I am just morose right now because I still haven’t come to terms with Pochven.
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There are a lot of these notions kicking around the forums, I don’t really know where people get them. They all basically stem from the idea that “players choose to play the game wrong, apparently from sheer contrariness”. They krab too much, don’t PvP enough, don’t corp enough, don’t whatever.
Here’s a free tip for CCP: Players engage in the behaviors that are rewarding and interesting to them, and they don’t engage in behaviors where the time, risk, or clumsy interface and poor coding of EVE make the payoff per effort undesirable.
Players don’t “refuse” to fleet… players don’t bother with fleeting because it’s intrinsically less rewarding for them to do so as opposed to simply doing their own thing.
CCP has this weird notion that they have players who engage in behaviors A, B, and C. But the players who engage in C pay more money per capita than A and B players. Therefore if they shut down the gameplay of A and B groups then everyone will be forced to play style C and CCP will make more money!
The stupidity of this position should be self-evident.
Back on-topic, CCP financially relies on the dedicated players who pay more money for more subs to keep more alts active than any other game I’ve ever played. (That’s part of playstyle C.) It would be impossible for them to “crack down” on multi-boxing without crippling their income. It is more likely that CCP would implement game measure that require multi-boxing than measures that limit it. (Except in the case of multi-boxing Alpha accounts.)
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Well, don’t let a relatively small number of players who are willing to betray their friends and community keep you from giving others your trust. Now, I’m not telling you start lending out AT ships without collateral, or allow some rando to provide a cyno for your titan or anything, but it makes me sad to think that you believe that everyone you know has a real chance of betraying you.
I mean, I’d rather trust my friends and possibly get betrayed by one, than keep them all at arms length so that I could never be betrayed by any of them. And I still say that after being betrayed by a real life friend and con-artist, and a in-game corp thief who I thought I was making friends with.
I am old enough that I have a hard time, in general, understanding online social interactions. How would I know if the nice guy offering to haul ice to my wormhole citadel is a cool cat or a vile betrayer?
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If you need a friend to play with …
… you can just ask?
Sure, not everyone’s willing to just ask people in local …
… but you can ask me for a start and work yourself up. 
Others can do it too.
What are they doing differently?
Given my experiences in Eve, I am pretty sure that nobody has figured out how to avoid getting betrayed.
I am getting pulled onto a tangent. My main point wasn’t that I wanted to fly with friends - I was just trying to point out one of the reasons people like using alts.
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To it seems the other way round where people use multiple accounts and still call it “solo” PvP.
Not once did that happen to me.
You’re doing it wrong.
That’s … actually not about you, though. Apparently people have no idea how to make proper friends in real life,
because if they knew how to make proper friends in real life, they wouldn’t have this trouble.
- I have no friends.
- I don’t want to make friends.
- I don’t know how to make friends.
- I can do this all by myself.
- I can do this all by myself and better, too.
- Sharing works is sharing profit.
- Everyone’s going to screw me over anyway.
As for why people don’t like to use alts:
- it provides a richer, deeper experience.
- we can trust our friends and associates.
- we don’t need them.
- we don’t need them, because we can just ask a stranger.
- we don’t need them, because we can make friends, or have friends.
- we don’t need them, because they’re easy-mode.
- we don’t want them, because they’re easy-mode.
I can’t give you any percentages.
That’s all I’ve got.
I will not argue that alts are better. Your way seems superior to using alts.
I didn’t respond because I thought you might, or even wanted to.
I just wanted to give all the input I could offer.
@tutucox_Khamsi Hey old man, the three of us should form an altless corp. 
great idea
but you know what i dislike even more than alts?
corps 
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We will need ESI checks and mandatory voice comms.
If someone called Billy McCandless asks to join, block and pod, he’s definately some loser’s alt.
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