World of Warcraft Multi-Boxing Against EULA?

The Alterac Valley gates slide open and your team of faction brethren spew forth to the battle. The war drums sound, the hoof beats fall, the taste of victory draws ever nearer as the army charges toward glorious combat, until… BAM!

Five simultaneous Pyroblast crits right to the face. The spirit healer has never been so surprised. So what did you do to deserve such a painful and sudden demise? Well, perhaps the opposing team had precise planning and coordination to set up such an attack, but the more likely explanation is that you have been the unfortunate victim of a multi-boxer.

Not a particularly common occurrence in WoW, but becoming more-so by the day, "multi-boxing" is the term that refers to the running and controlling of multiple accounts of WoW by one user at the same time. Usually this is achieved with a combination of macros and special multi-boxing software that allows a user to easily move and cast on all of their character simultaneously. This can be done in multiple windows, but is often achieved with more than a single computer and monitor.


But PvP isn’t the only application of multi-boxing. With the combined power of their accounts, these players are capable of "soloing" even some of higher tier PvE encounters in the game. The elimination of reliance on other players, while perhaps counter-intuitive to the MMO ideal, is one of the things that make this method of play so appealing.

The only cost of this self-given "god mode"? Money. A multi-boxer must buy a new copy of the game and its expansions for each account they wish to add, in addition to the monthly subscription fee. The computer hardware that is often required also comes at a hefty cost. Worth it? Clearly, enough players think so to make multi-boxing a fairly well-known practice in the WoW community. But this phenomenon has not come without its controversy.

If the massive advantage of multi-boxing sounds unfair to you, you’re not alone. Much of the community has questioned the legitimacy of the multi-boxing tactic, but according to Blizzard, there is nothing wrong with it. Multiple statements from Blizzard have stated that while they do not directly support it, multi-boxing is allowed.

However, a more recent quote from a Blizzard community manager has a distinctly more ominous tone, sparking much speculation about the future of multi-boxing.

Could we be seeing Blizzard action against multi-boxing in the future? Only time will tell. For now, all of us who play with a measly one character will just have to learn to deal with the insta-deaths that multi-boxers dole out on a daily basis.