"Double your pleasure, double your fun?"

The ethics and ramifications of dual-boxing and how it fits into WAR

Allow me to start off by saying I have quite a bit of experience with “dual-boxing” as it’s known. Dual-boxing is the art of signing up for separate accounts to an MMO and simultaneously controlling two or more characters from those accounts. I myself used to be a person who ran two MMO accounts for a single game because it made the experience easier and much more enjoyable, of course that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away (no, not Star Wars Galaxies). Now I am a stern opponent of running two separate accounts for any game, or for purchasing any sort of online ‘gold’ because I realize in the long run that it’s wrong and basically cheating.

Going back to my first experience with dual-boxing, I remember my days of playing EVE Online and how having two characters was a legitimate bonus if you could handle it. Since EVE was fairly slow paced in terms of action, there was much that could be accomplished by two characters doing things simultaneously, as well as two characters learning different skill trees since the game revolved around actual time and not grinding or experience. Back in those days I had two EVE characters and found them quite useful for doing most routine tasks in the game, but the eventual monotony of running two characters for one game overcame me and I left EVE back to the usual gaming addiction of WOW. EVE however was a good example of a game that benefited from dual-boxing and it seems that most of the developers for the game had no problems with characters who did this as their own “leveling” system was built around not letting dual-boxing be used as an exploit.

World of Warcraft is the prime example of why I believe that dual-boxing will be useless for any Warhammer Online player. Since both games have an apparently similar play style in terms of leveling and PvP aspects there is little to no benefit to having several characters running at the same time. In WOW there was so much action going on that require so much attention and player control, it would be impossible to run it with two characters. Since I doubt Warhammer Online will be about hauling goods between the nations, I suspect it will be similar to WoW in the uselessness of having two separate characters running simultaneously. The only expected use I see for other characters will be the usual “alt” requirements, such as different characters for fun or for guild requirements, and the occasional mule for when the bank fills up. Dual-boxing however will not benefit players in this capacity unless WAR has a small character cap per account.

The obvious question of dual-boxing comes in terms of ethics; is it right to dual-box and have two running characters for one person? From a player perspective you are gaining an unfair advantage (in some cases) over other players at an increased monetary cost to yourself. The fact that I can just as easily go out and find someone competent to quest with almost negates the requirement for me to dual-box, but at the same time it can be a benefit if smart people are a rare commodity when/where you play. As a player you can easily find other people to associate with and quest, which will not require the micromanagement required for dual-boxing characters. If you can control two characters effectively at once good for you. If not there’s always regular partying…

From the perspective of the game developers I can see the debate swinging both ways. As a developer it’s always nice to see increased revenue, and a single person with two accounts is certainly a good boost in the sales department, especially if there are several players doing this. On the reverse side of the developer debate, having players dual-box take some of the personality out of their characters and if it does become widespread then there’s possible content issues that would need to be overcome by the development team for any situation. Players should not be able to solo party content while using a melee DPS character, and sitting back with a healer secondary just pressing the “heal button”, but instead be challenged with content that requires a group moving into specific formations and doing different class abilities as required. It’s about WAR, not about standard MMO tanking!

My thoughts on dual-boxing for WAR are pretty straight forward; there’s no point in doing it. Warhammer has always been about group combat and armies going to war against each other, so I can hardly see the point of dual-boxing in such an environment. As the game will likely not have nearly as much solo content as something like WOW, I can see some reasoning to dual-boxing, but at the same time I think Mythic will have the fine sense to require group content to be manageable only by more then one person and not one person controlling multiple characters. If anything Warhammer Online should be about gaining notoriety with your character and making a name for yourself in the online world itself.

If anything WAR should be an excellent example of an MMO where dual-boxing serves no purpose, but that remains to be seen. I am certain that Mythic will ensure that dual-boxing characters receive minimal if any benefits when playing just due to the nature of the game. Even though I have personally done dual-boxing in the past, I say it has no place in this game whatsoever. WAR is about combat, and combat require precise control and constant supervision, and until I start rolling around in toxic sludge hoping to sprout a second set of arms and a new set of eyes, I don’t think I will be able to successfully control two characters for such a game… yet…

-And Ratboy's Spent!

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