This week we'd like to know how, if you were working on this game, would you handle multi-boxing players and how do you feel about people doing it in general?

Thanks!

I would probably disallow it somehow. Bots and multiboxing players can become a major problem for mmos.

Having played some pretty big MMOs over the years it seems pretty hard to actually stop multi-boxing. Most people talk about limiting the number of accounts via IP address (is this even possible?), but this poses its own set of issues such as limiting genuine accounts or families from playing together.

If we're assuming that they can't be stopped, it seems you have a couple of options to limit the negative effect they can have on other players' gameplay. Ban them retrospectively, encouraging players to report the multi-boxers and acting quickly, thus discouraging multi-boxing. Or allow players to pay for, or play on separate/private servers, this would encourage players who want to multi-box to do so in a way that doesn't negatively impact the other 99% of the players.

As you might have guessed, i'm not a fan of multi-boxers, I do think they are somewhat limited in PvE content however, a large scale boss fight for example is likely to require multiple classes fulfilling multiple roles, which I imagine is hard to programme for a multi-boxer. Even if they can clear end-game content it ultimately it doesn't affect anyone unless there are leaderboards for cleared content, or there are limited rewards that can hoovered up by these single players.

PvP is another story, in this setting multi-boxers are completely toxic, they limit any form of non-premade PvP, generally crushing any disorganised team and creating unenjoyable gameplay situations.

I have not heard much about multiboxing in DCUO; maybe real time action combat is the (or one to make it less inviting) key.

Or another angle could be to add a subscription (one for every account after the first if FTP?). While that ain't a direct mechanism against it it increases the effort and you can make a few bucks on top of it. Just don't build it as a important source of income, or you would see yourself starting to encourage that at some point in the future.

Or make the non-combat & stay on a single character play so fun that ppl don't even think about building one-man-grind parties.

Or (my favorite) all of the above

I wasn't aware this was really an issue. When I thought of multi-boxing back in CoH, it was a player that was paying for two accounts and I didn't see any real advantage for them that couldn't be done with teaming with someone else. More money for the company the better. I'm assuming you are more concerned with gold spammers so either buy to play or a subscription would help alleviate that to some degree along with some robust reporting tools. If you are planning on some type of economy or auction house and are afraid they may make it difficult for more casual players to enjoy, I could see that as a concern but don't have much to add beyond liking an alternative way to buy what you need such as tickets in CoH's architect system. When I saw certain components get extremely crazy, it was not a big deal to get some tickets and get what you needed.

tldr: all MMOs have issues, multi-boxing is fine if the company benefits

The multiboxing problem is strongly tied to your decision to make this game free to play. The cost to multibox therefore is zero and that will lead to a lot of people actually doing it. That's my main gripe about VO, FTP-MMOs typically devolve in that way. A few players multiboxing is not really a problem, but when you see everybody else doing it there is a strong incentive to do it yourself. This leads to faster leveling while having a lot less fun, ultimately burning out your gaming fun a lot faster.

Solutions to keep people from multiboxing that i know involve people actively checking for it. This is costly and i can't imagine that you would do it, at least not in a thorough way.

So my solution would simply be: make the game have a monthly cost if you want to exceed level x (where x maybe 10 or so).

That would lead to the game being blatantly pay to win which would garner it bad reviews. they've already decided it will be free to play.

ZeeHero wrote:
That term has been so muddied over the years it is practically meaningless. Final Fantasy, Ultima Online, Star Wars Old Republic, World of Warcraft and essentially any MMO dead or alive in the past 20 years has essentially been pay to win because they were subscription based. Ridiculous. How about pay for goods or pay for services? When did developers owe us something for OUR entertainment? If they stick with F2P, personally I don't care for that monetary system but if their research shows that is where the money is, then there is no other argument. F2P won't stop me from playing this game.

However, I would like to leave some anecdotal experience from another game, Marvel Heroes, where I pumped nearly about $400 into the game. This or less has been the price of some lifetime subs such as Lord of the Rings yet is a pittance compared to what some people spent on the game, some spending over $2000 if they are to be believed(let's not forget F2P depends on 'whales'). I mention this because The Dink, one of their artists let slip they would have been out of a job if not for the console release. That is a serious chink in the F2P armor if MH was unable to survive on the PC on its own. And let's not forget, F2P did not save City of Heroes.

It doesn't matter. if the game CLAIMS it's free to play yet does not actually allow you to even reach the level cap without paying, that's not free to play thats subscription based like WoW. you know you can play WoW without paying? you just can never reach the cap. you're locked at 20.

Since they're claiming free to play, disallowing levels based on subscription would be a very very poor idea indeed.

ZeeHero wrote:
Disregarding my disdain for F2P then, CoH had many families that played together. I would also play in the same household as my nephew so i'm all for multi-boxing. nuff said.

How does multi boxing mean families playing together? don't you need more than one computer in the first place for 2 people to play?

How does paying a monthly fee that everybody has to pay is pay to win in ANY way? The FTP model typically leads to PTW-items because face it, such items sell best in such an environment. I understand that the VO developers do not want to do such a thing and maybe they really wont, but the temptation is big in a FTP environment.

in games which force a monthly fee to even reach the level cap (like WOW) or play at all past trial capacity, those are not free to play games at all. therefore the expectation is that people will be paying to play.

This is completely OK for those games and often leads to a higher quality game.

I just don't know if the Valiance devs are at a point right now where they can be convinced to change their plan for the game, which they've already announced as Free to play.

All we can do at this point I think is hope they have a good free to play model which doesn't rely too heavily on cash shop so it's not seen as pay to win.

ZeeHero wrote:
Yes, that is exactly how we played. I have multiple desktops at my house and we both have laptops.

ZeeHero wrote:
If you are free to play you do rely heavily on a cash shop. Are you confusing buy to play with free to play because I see very little revenue for the company given what you are proposing?

Oh what I thought they meant by multiboxing is running more than one client on a single machine.

SavageFist wrote:
by relying on cash shop I meant making the cash shop contain items which are required for gameplay.

Many successful free to play games make a significant profit selling other things in the cash shop like desireable cosmetic items and per character cosmetic unlocks.

ZeeHero wrote:
Maybe they did. /shrug They didn't give us much to go off of and maybe that was intentional to see where the discussion led. It is definitely more possible now with a decent computer but it was not my first thought of multiboxing as I have known over the years.

ZeeHero wrote:
So you wouldn't want to buy a new powerset like CoH used to sell? Also, Marvel Heroes it is not just cosmetic, you do buy heroes.

I think checking the IP adresses of players who form teams in game is a way but it´s pretty effortful and I don´t know if it is legal regarding the data security of the users.

Otherwise I don´t see a problem with a Pay to play model. We all want VO to be a long-term and evolving game so this is the best way to keep a mmo alive imo. It´s also important to stay indipendent and a P2P model will secure Silverhelms indipendence and the ongoing content for the players.

If VO will be F2P the multiboxers will get the most/best loot.

So what do you want? Pay to win or Multibox to win? I think both is not fair but for me pay 2 win sounds better than facing multibox farmers on every hot spot.