A new guideline on multiboxing first caused joy within the WoW community, but after a clarification on the part of Blizzard it caused disappointment.
Update of November 9, 2020: Blizzard began issuing warnings to all World of Warcraft multiboxers who use input broadcasting software to control multiple WoW accounts simultaneously over the weekend.
In the emails sent out, the developer emphasizes that continued use of this software will result in restrictions in the form of temporary suspensions and permanent account closures for the WoW accounts affected.
In addition, “exploratory profits” such as items and currency generated by multiboxing are said to have already been removed.
A screenshot of the complete mail can be found here:
Blizzard started sending out those warnings to a lot of people yesterday, in both Retail and Classic. from wow
Original message from November 4, 2020: In World of Warcraft, there are many players who play the MMORPG on multiple accounts simultaneously. These are not necessarily bots (i.e. computer programs that control the game character fully automatically), which are prohibited within the game.
There are also human players who play on several accounts simultaneously. Blizzard’s latest guideline adaptation, which caused a lot of confusion as well as an emotional roller coaster ride within the WoW community, was about those players who are often labeled “multiboxers”.
Blizzard offers third-party software
What happened? On November 3rd, Blizzard released an update to their policy. From now on, it is no longer allowed to use third-party software to play WoW on multiple accounts simultaneously. In an official statement, developer Blizzard:
“As World of Warcraft continues to evolve, our policies are evolving to support the game, but also the needs of players. We have investigated the use of third-party software that allows players to mirror individual keystrokes across multiple game clients. We see this as an increasingly negative impact on the game because it supports botting and automated gameplay. The use of such a technique (Input Broadcasting Software) will soon be considered a breach of the rules”.
How did the community react? In many commentary columns and on Reddit, the euphoria was great. Many players hope that this step will lead to more bans against bots and a fairer in-game economy for all those who only play WoW on one account.
Multiboxing will not be banned
What was the consequence? Because many players misunderstood the new policy update as a general ban against multiple accounts, Blizzard added another statement about six hours later for clarity:
“Mutiboxing or playing on multiple WoW accounts simultaneously does not violate our policies. Please note, however, that using input broadcasting software does violate our guidelines and account sanctions are to be expected when using it.
As a result, the euphoria turned into disappointment for many players. At first I was enthusiastic, now I’m just sad,” iluizgollo writes on Wowhead, “and many people seem to feel the same way. Reddit user Manbeardo sees the main problem in the fact that Blizzard only prohibits key mirroring via software, but leaves out the hardware input repeaters.
What does this mean for the future? Playing and farming with several WoW accounts at the same time is still allowed as long as no third party software is used that automatically transfers keystrokes to several game clients.
In concrete terms, this means that you are still allowed to play with multiple accounts as long as you switch back and forth between the different game clients and enter the keystrokes manually. While the new rule change is likely to discourage some of the multiple account users, it will not completely stop the unfair farming of gold or materials.
