CSM 17-19 September 2014 Minutes and Multiboxing

This post will be about the ISBoxer discussion during the September CSM minutes, what was said, what was redacted, and what has been happening in EVE.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, nor am I CSM. I am a multiboxer, and have used ISBoxer to gank multiple people in the past, however, I wouldn't mind if CCP drew the line in ISBoxer for PVP because at least a line will be made visible to the player instead of the current murky mist that envelops the issue.

We will start off by looking at this killmail of Skyrider Deathknight's Vindicator gank, and it's subsequent replacement of his Vindicator and of the chat logs where he claimed CCP does not endorse PVP using ISBoxer. Now, we cannot comment on CCP's ISBoxer PVP policy, mainly since there seems to be no policy. There are hundreds of instances documented by people who used ISBoxer or another program to orchestrate or participate in a gank that was reimbursed by a GM simply because there were two accounts being controlled by ISBoxer. Indeed, there seems to be a plethora of people who have spoken up about the issue. I'm not here to debate whether or not it should be allowed 100%, allowed for PVE activities, or banned outright. I'm of the opinion that it should be allowed 100% but I would be willing to settle for PVE activities only, and I have yet to see a decent argument why it should be banned 100% outside of "muh lossmail" or "it's killing EVE". I will leave that to the forum warriors of General Discussion to battle it out. I merely will present my opinion.


We next move to this killmail. The Mittani wrote a nice article summarizing what happened, so I won't cover that. What I will cover is the Mordus Angels bomber boxer Replicator posting in alliance chat things such as "...too bad it'll get reimbursed..." and "...[GMs] have a thing against ISBoxer pvp..." and the worrying response by CCP Bugartist in response to Xander's question on the CSM. First, let's look at the basics of why multiboxing PVP should not be banned or losses reimbursable:

• You're paying for another account, much like a wormhole resident would for a scout, or a Marmite would for a backup logi alt, or a nullsec super/titan pilot would for a holding toon. 
• You're introducing complexity into your end of the "PVP equation" (basically, as amount of toons you're multitasking between goes up, your end productivity compared to multiple humans goes down drastically).
• If you mess up, your risk is much greater than single pilots in a fleet.
• If one gets jammed, damped, or destroyed, you will most likely lose his ship and pod due to focus and attempting to either win the battle or escape. 
• Any loss incurred by an ISBox fleet will have had, 9 times out of 10, been killed by a fleet of actual people behind the keyboard. 

Arguments against it range from the inane ("he's just gonna bring a falcon") to the semi-reasonable (it turns EVE into pay-to-win!"), however the former argument can be true if you tap a buddy to fly with you, and the latter becomes illogical when you look at the character bazaar and the fact that running two accounts does not equal in any way running 10+. 

I have personally invited CCP Seagull to chat with a group of 10-12 multiboxers about the ganking issue, and she refused to reply. Take that as you will. I would've wished to have had her reply and decline than to continue to ignore her userbase.

CCP Falcon's post claiming that the policy hasn't changed must be taken with a titan-sized grain of salt, especially when we look back to the Atlanta scandal, the current "fiasco" regarding wormholes (can read about that here and here), the covert ops cloak change that has since been reversed after, according to some including a CSM, the multiboxing bomber mains posted in the thread to tell CCP why they were wrong, as well as the supposed war against highsec (I personally think that's a load of bull, but I'm including it here because people are starting to not trust CCP).

It was either CCP Fozzie of CCP Falcon who made a very flimsy argument about why you shouldn't draw a line in the sand which was very easily dealt with by James 315 of CODE. Generally, if you aren't the Gestapo or North Korea, having a line in the sand and saying "you can't cross this line" that is visible to all helps the community because it provides very clear options for the pilot. CCP has gone the route of the invisible shifting line which will harm the community no matter what part you're from, as seen by the banwave involving Fighter Jets (no I forget his full name). 

CCP needs to either come out and tell the multiboxing community what the reimbursement policy regarding ISBoxer and other boxing software, or they will lose subscribers. Numbers are vague on ISBoxer numbers, but CCP will lose human subscribers as well, since the current "meta" for petitioning losses due to ganks is "claim you were ganked by an ISBoxer" and you will get reimbursed.