The Daily Grind: Should multiple accounts be policed?

I personally think it's unfair in a sense that your basically giving people who are more wealthy in real life a bonus over those who aren't - Simple as.

On the other hand I try and see it as a challenge to beat people multiboxing, and theres ways to exploit their weaknesses.

I guess it just depends on the game and how much of an impact it has in the long run

the only game i ever did this in was daoc back in the day, pretty much everyone did this. buffbots were/are out of control. but in any other game, i just dont get it. its more sad than anything. why would you want 5 wow accounts?! so much money. i guess you could farm instances on your own but thats sooo much work and $75 a month (assuming you have 5 accounts, like in the picture). i dunno, just seems way ridiculous to me.

If they are paid accounts, I think companies should think twice before biting the hand that feeds them and ripping the fingers off.

The multiple "accounts" thing is a consequence about lack of features in the game (like that games with an enormous numbers of items to be stored and not enough space at all on bags or banks ecc or to level up a character faster with your previous max level one because it's boring like hell to level up) cause if it's only to try a different gameplay you should be able to create another character in the same account. Obviously many games are developed keeping in mind this thing and in some cases you end up to pay another account to try different things (someone said adam?). We don't have to talk about how fair is to have multiple accounts, we have to talk if it's ok to pay multiple accounts for a single game.

It's hard for me to imagine caring about any game enough to do this, frankly. : /

I think the issue with Potbs is that the pvp is a 24vs24 thing and someone with 2 accounts having an alt on the opposing side get in the battle and then playing it to the point of just looking inexperienced but not enough to look intentional thereby 1 less spot for someone who would actually be playing for their side to be in that spot thus putting them at a serious disadvantage.

It's different for every game.

Some games having alt accoutns could break them completely, others it doesn't effect anything.

It's a case by case for me.

Yeah but WoW it's not the only one, take a look at Eve Online, where you can't develop more than one character per time and takes months (real time months not playing 2-3 hour per day but 24/7) to have a good character to "start" doing things seriously.

I'd say it depends on the game and the activity. In some cases it does give unfair advantages, but in other it's just a way for people to be more asocial.

For instance, in WoW, some people think that it should be a bannable offence to use it in PvP. If the multi-boxer is all on the same side, it can be an advantage in some cases, but it generally means you have 2+ characters running around together and if you manage to get the right one or split them up in some way, they're easy pickings. It does require people who want to beat multiboxers to work together, but in some of the smaller battlegrounds it means that sometimes half the team can be easily taken out. But it does require coordination to get it done, and the advantages that multi-boxing in that case gives can also be had by working together with other people on your team. The issue in WoW battlegrounds though, from past experience, is that people generally don't work together.

I'd ask why the system is vulnerable to malicious manipulation in the first place, including why it's so desirable for people to pay extra money for an account subscription to do so. If it allows free-to-play accounts to manipulate the match, then it's even more sad that this wasn't anticipated.

That said, the actual event referenced just seems to be an official policy change. Something for the GMs to point to later and said, look, we warned you, it's now banhammer time since you're not listening.

Fair enough, match fixing isn't cool, and it's good that an option to ban exists. Guild Wars makes a habit of announcing their periodic bans on match fixing accounts. I've seen way too much kill-trading in WAR and Aion to like it either.

ALL accounts should be policed.

As for my stance on multiple accounts, if the guy wants to own 5 or 48 copies of a game and pay for all the monthly subs, it's his own business and his money to spend how he likes.

I used to think it the realm of the quite insane, but I actually gave it a shot in one or two games and found it both fun and tempting, if expensive. There's a lot of either hardware to buy or software to set up and write macros for, it's a different sort of challenge, a new metagame for an MMO that may have gotten boring. Some multiple-boxers are a joy to watch in efficiency or sheer raw killing power too.

It may get frustrating if he's (all 3-5 of him) is in a PvP match versus myself and some other randoms, but eh, I'd get pubstomped by a hardcore guild group of RL friends sitting together in the same room just the same. Both spent effort and money, just different kinds of effort. Best to simply avoid games where losing to another player has middle to long-term painful consequences and not mind either loss.

To me, practically all PvP is unfair and asymmetric in some form anyway, one of any opposing side will have either less numbers, ability, strategic plan, reaction, reflexes, what-have-you (otherwise, how would you determine a winner/loser by the end of it?)

Most games I'd never consider it, but I recently took advantage of EVE's special offer on a second account (about half price per month for six months). It's strictly a money-making alt, which to me is more fun than simply buying three PLEXes and selling them for a cash influx. I've met many people in EVE with multiple concurrent accounts. One of my corpmates has, I think, four (I lose track of how many he actually has). A guy we were mission-running with yesterday was running three concurrently.

I can't see myself doing that with other games, and in fact, I don't even know if I'll continue doing it in EVE once my six months are up.

My personal opinion: If you're willing to spend $125 a month to play a massively MULTIPLAYER online game solo, more power to ya. I'll be on the corner, begging for a pug.

The only real thing I have against Multiboxing personally, is when players will say "Oh I soloed X or Y" when in reality its more like "Me, Myself and my three other alts (see full group) were able to take down X or Y"....

While it is somewhat of a feat being able to manage two to four characters it is far from actually soloing.

However when its not being used in an exploitative manner there really is no issue. However when it is being exploited there should be some repercussions. Most games these days lay out Multiclient/Multiboxing policies and anyone considering doing so can easily look them up before attempting it.

No I don't count "I Soloed X|Y" as an exploit, just a personal quibble with their semantics.

So should it be policed? yes, to a reasonable point, when its deemed exploitative or denied by established rules.