@Dyver_Phycad Do you mean to suggest that the game was designed to be played in multibox or is that a false assumption on my part?
It was designed to be played together with other players. However, since players are humans and like to find optimal ways to do things, certain behavioral patterns emerged over time. Multiboxing is one of those that optimizes the gameplay for the players to achieve the best possible results in certain circumstances.
The game was not designed to played with your alts instead of other players, but in many situations it’s simply the better, faster, easier, less troublesome, more straightforward way to do things. This is how the players solve the game for themselves, not how the developers design things. Moreover, many attempts at removing the multiboxing approach of players has only resulted in a far worse experience for all players. No local made it harder for those that don’t use alts:
Killing of Rorqual mining made it harder for those without many alts (although Rorquals are a whole other issue) to earn income with mining.
Not having alts makes it harder to use capital ships.
Anoms, missions are less rewarding with other people than with alts.
Industry is best done with alts instead of other players because the organization of the myriad of different inputs, requirements, material amounts etc. is far easier with alts than with other players involved. It requires a lot more work and effort for the same or worse gains.
No one prevents you from doing all this with other players. For instance, with Industry you can setup buy orders for materials or delegate component builds to certain players. But you need to be prepared to invest a lot more effort into organization all the bits and pieces to make the activities work efficiently.
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In effect making it possible for one player to become three, six or ten “players”.
Not unlike using cheats in a single-player game. Cheats are also meant to remove/minimize the tedious and grindy parts of a game.
Would you say that multiboxing then goes against the way EVE was “meant to be played” by the original devs, and if so, does that mean, with so many multiboxers, that the game has lost its character?
In any case, thank you for taking the time to explain.
o7
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In any case I’m puzzled as to why someone a mere 10 days into Eve even cares so much about multiboxing. I’d never even heard of it at that stage…and even if I had I was too busy skilling up and learning stuff to care.
Most genuine 10 day old noobs are struggling to cope with flying a Venture…not concerning themselves with who’s got how many accounts or whether a game they have supposedly only just joined has ‘lost its character’ in the 10 days they’ve been playing.
Please feel free to be the first person in the entire thread to state why you even care about it. No-one else has.
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No. EVE was designed as a sandbox where you can do whatever you want however you want. It’s entirely within the acceptable and condoned gameplay parameters to use several characters. If CCP didn’t want that to happen, they would have taken steps against it many years ago and would have actually started to develop more activities that are harder to do with alts and reward bringing actual players. Incursions are one of the very few activities where it’s possible to bring lots of players, to some extend even need lots of players, and all players get rewarded appropriately. Most other things and even most newer activities are not like this.
If you look at it from a single-player game or a game that doesn’t allow the use of multiple characters, it may appear like a cheat. But since EVE doesn’t prohibit the use of multiple characters, it’s not really a cheat. You cannot spawn infinite money or gear or materials without putting in effort. The necessary effort is smaller, easier to manage, better optimizable, but it’s still effort that you need to invest to get money, materials and gear.
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So then… why are there threads and players complaining about multiboxing if that’s just one alternative to play the game?
Wouldn’t it be like complaining about the free ore one gets during the tutorial or career agents missions?
Why would they make it sound like multiboxing is a problem while it is perfectly fine to do?
There is no issue then. Case closed.
It should be added that one doesn’t just get 2nd, 3rd, etc accounts handed out like manna from heaven. One has to pay for them in some way…either grind or wallet. And one has to skill them up, pay for ships for them…etc, etc. Multiple accounts mean multiple cost…which in turn raises the question of it being ‘worth it’. I’ve spent several months mulling over whether to get a 3rd Omega…still undecided.
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What ? Why ?
You do not want to what ?
No ?
The game is not advertised as a “stay in asteroid belt H24” game.
CCP should NOT sacrifice anything for this gameplay.
That’s entitlement.
“more so more” is a stupid argument. You need to explain how the money invested in HS will provide more viability for the game, in the long run, than money invested in other places.
So far ti’s the opposite : since many people are already in HS there is no need to invest in it. HS seem to be already good as it is 
{citation required}
They don’t. No more than the other.
No, that would be the median value, not the average. The median value is usually lower than the average.
Yet you fail at doing maths for idiots, what does it tell of you ?
It’s a race between botters and CCP.
They can’t invest too much in that race, so they are losing it.
That’s because at this age they seem at an unachievable position.
Just gonna leave this here…
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Meh…here’s me playing on just one account a few weeks back. The enemy Minokawa survived despite thousands of DPS fired at it. Exciting stuff. For many, this is the real Eve.
I can still remember being a noob. At 10 days in it was still ’ hey everyone, look at me…I’m flying a Venture !’ mode. I had no idea that 2.5 years later I still wouldn’t be flying a Paladin. I was excited just to get a Condor to 100 DPS. At 10 days in I’d never heard of ganking, multiboxing, even corporations were a mystery…but the Paladin in the advert seemed just 6 weeks away. I don’t think at that stage anything really seemed unachievable. In fact, the biggest frustration is when one has been in Eve a while and one sets up a new account and one then knows how long stuff actually takes.
I started with career agents, and when done I did the epic soe.
once that done, I was chatting with people around in HS, and one guy told me to mine. Then he came with a suspect cerberus and shot fireworks at me. I back at him, allowing him to point me and grind me to hull. I told the other miner to leave as I was about to explode, and he laughed telling me this was his alt. Gave me like 10M to enjoy the game. He also told me that ganking me would be easier with a cheap ship, like catalyst.
I’m not a genius, yet I doubt it took me more than 4 days to do career agents + epic soe.
At the same time, there was people in the help channel “advising” newbros to go in LS do their mission, and join his fleet to let him “help” them, with his alts. So yes, at this time at least, most newbros who went by the help channel learnt what alts and ganking is.
Curious if you are saying it can or cannot be ran on a potato. I posited that it can be run on one so that upgrading to the latest and greatest means that you can run many accounts without problems hence we can have more multiboxing as a result of the low reqs. Whereas many other AAA titles overload anything but the best systems Eve has very low reqs for entry and so the best systems, or even medium builds can run many accounts with ease. So just curious which side youre arguing for or against. 
Id like to add my pov on this if I may.
The game itself has a learning curve like no other in terms of steepness and therefore retention of new players. To call it hard when one starts out without older player supports, research about teh game before starting or previous knowledge from playing before is definitely a thing for new players. So I would consider Eve difficult to navigate and get the hang of yet after a while, be that months or years, the game does become significantly easier. There are a few routes you can take to get this way; having good people and players around you helping you, good personal research, having good intuitive skills necessary to figuring things out for yourself and perseverance.
Because eventually you will “solve” activities and playstyles for yourself you will ultimately either move on to other games or activities in game or you will look for ways to maximize effort/rewards. One of these ways is to multibox accounts for those activities where you can do so for the effort/reward ratio. Things like skilling up more miners, or manufacturing alts, or trading alts are often quick and easy whereas something like Incursion alts, ratting alts, are more skill intensive and require more control and time investments to get where they are worth the while so to speak.
This need for a new challenge and desire for more income scaling has driven multiboxing. Add in the lower computer requirements for Eve versus other titles and the disposable income of gamers has led to a burst in this. There are also programs one can use as well, though those arent practical or legal for Eve, it did help people manage more accounts in many games not just in Eve.
So its not just tediousness or boring in some respects that drives most of it but scaling current gaming time with cost/benefit analysis of income vs expenses of accounts as well as challenges inherent with multiboxing Eve. Then theres some who have gotten bored of the game and want to recapture that and so do it because they can, to see IF they can do it. May people need more stimulation to attain the same “highs” that Eve gives them and so will go that route as well. So imo theres multiple pathways to why people will multibox and this isnt an exhaustive list either Im sure others have more reasons.
Think of it like a Rubix cube. Solving it is beyond most peoples talent but once you solve it once some leave it at that and others will try to solve it faster, better, by juggling them, etc.
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“missions are less rewarding with other people than with alts.”
Why not run multiple missions? Each person in a mission fleet picks up a mission. Then they do the missions. Turn them in and repeat. That is how some players in a HS corp did it when I first joined Eve.
I never gotten the concept of “Mission corps” because missions can be soloed lol…
ngl I feel we are at the end of what can be discussed. Beat this topic to death.
TLDR
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Multiboxing has pros/cons for an overall gaming community like EVE.
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Some point to the real tangible benefits of it (getting more stuff done)
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Others (me) point to the social hidden impacts of multiboxing. (Less comradery, no emotional attachment to stuff, etc.)
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People multibox accounts because it’s encouraged by CCP and is necessary to remain competitive in the game. It’s a race to the top. Who can manage the most accounts the best? Who can uber farm with their marauder fleet the most? Etc. It’s a poison CCP accepted long ago.
I obviously don’t hate multiboxers. You do you if you want to manage a fleet of 10+ accounts… Ill just stay out of your path 
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Well, rumors says they have “speedrunning” concepts to quickly push new members to the required standings at lucrative corporations or doing burners together so you can do them in a group of cheap T1 frigs instead of highly specialized and sometimes expensive T2/faction ships.
I doubt it is more effective (ISK-wise) than blitzing solo, but I can imagine it creates the feeling of comradery and teamwork, a common goal and a path of personal development - and it allows newbros to be part of the team right from the getgo, much more quickly than having them wait for the skills required to do L4 efficienctly solo. If you like the PvE part of the game, I think it makes sense if it is well-organized and ran by an experienced bunch.
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But has Aiko ever hurt you?
/ I must find a new villain to chase through!
To me the answer is simple. It’s by design, the game funnels players into these decisions because NOT multiboxing under diminishing returns means you’re no longer experiencing growth after X amount of time. That is why diminishing returns exist in the first place. You don’t need to be a psychologist to reason that multiboxing is the end state of expected progression, immersion be damned, because ultimately it’s another paid account. It’s also people’s addiction to efficiency that precludes any slowing down on their part, in order to make it a multiplayer experience again. The game is designed to isolate you from those playing “efficiently” and nudge you into the same behaviors.
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