Just an idea - Playing with 2 characters at the same time

Hey everyone!

I've been thinking about this idea (maybe I'm not the only one) for some days and I wanted to share it with you and know your opinions.

I imagined the possibility to play with 2 of our characters at the same time (in PvE), swapping between them just like we do with weapons and pets. I also figured that maybe one of the characters would have to be "less dominant", more like a guest, to be able to play in the first ("dominant") character's map and everything related to that character. And it would be nice if items that are typically soulbound to a character could be shared when 2 characters played together (in that case they would be like "team bound" items).

I tried to think of advantages to do this, and the very first that comes to my mind is the fun, to see 2 of our creations right next to each other as a team. The second is that we could combine different abilities from those 2 characters, depending on the situation (which is also fun to do). The third would be (supposing) the possibility to share that soulbound thing and make it "team bound".

What do you think? Am I just daydreaming or could this be made real?

Definitely daydreaming.

@Shirlias.8104 said:Definitely daydreaming.

Yeah, that's what I thought... x)

Try MxM if you like the swap.It's fun.

Every online mmo game I know that allows this requires a separate account for each char you are boxing.As to the other point, GW1 sold mercenary packs where you could use a character as a template for a hero.My full hero groups in GW1 are composed of my own characters. Yes, teamed with 7 of my chars is pretty awesome.

He's talking about swap, not multi box ( which is illegale here )

I would love this! =)

@Shirlias.8104 said:He's talking about swap, not multi box ( which is illegale here )

Multiboxing is not illegal, as long as you control each character individually.Transmitting one set of inputs to more than one account/character is illegal.

Unless the 2 are comparable in levels it would have consequences for world exploration. For example my level 80s could carry a low level around as a swap partner and take it to vistas, waypoints, Hearts etc. The high level could clear out the local mobs, swap, let the low level get the map feature, swap back and forth to clear out mobs the low level can’t handle, and go to the next spot as the level 80 when done.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Shirlias.8104 said:He's talking about swap, not multi box ( which is illegale here )

Then it is not multiboxing.It's having an altab client, which is different.

@Teofa Tsavo.9863 said:Every online mmo game I know that allows this requires a separate account for each char you are boxing.As to the other point, GW1 sold mercenary packs where you could use a character as a template for a hero.My full hero groups in GW1 are composed of my own characters. Yes, teamed with 7 of my chars is pretty awesome.

sighI wish we could do that here too.How lovely would it be to run around with all of my characters...all the possibilities to dress them up! Making stories up with them...they don't need to be useful, but having my other characters running around with my main? Awww, I really really want that!

Maybe someday in GW3? I think it would be fun to try "the hero and the sidekick" scenario.

@Shirlias.8104 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Shirlias.8104 said:He's talking about swap, not multi box ( which is illegale here )

Multiboxing originally refered to people using 2 (or more) PCs ("boxes") to run 2 (or more) clients of the game. While there are hardware solutions that indeed take your mouse/keyboard input and send them to multiple PCs, this is something only freaks use or have access to. No normal player has such hardware, and "multiboxing" is not limited to multiple boxes which are connected to such hardware. While wikipedia is not the holy grail of information, it usually is very accurate when it comes to commonly used terms. It says "Multiboxing refers to playing as multiple separate characters concurrently in an MMORPGs. This can either be achieved by using multiple separate machines to run the game or by running multiple separate instances of the game." So while running two clients on the same PC technically is not multiboxing anymore (because there is only one box), it has become common a long time ago to call this multiboxing too.

I do agree with the term itself, but currently that is also the way people refer while talking about multibox. It has been used also for games like wow since years.

Ofc Depends the game you are playing you could need 1 or more machines. And still you do send imputs to different clients.

Ps:it was also multiboxing to craft with 5 gw2 account at once, Since you had an advantage over other players by playing more clients at once due to the crafting queue.

A tricky exploit maybe, Since you are actually not playing any cause of the queue feature, and also you give commands 1 per time instead of moving x accounts at once.

Sorry I don't understand what you are actually trying to say. Running two or more clients at once is allowed for GW2. Having input (be it mouse or keyboard or both) sent to more than one client at once is forbidden. What do you even mean by "And still you do send imputs to different clients."? If I run two GW2 clients on 2 PCs which each of course have a seperate mouse and keyboard (like all normal PCs do), of course I am sending inputs "to different clients" but it is not the same input. The input on client 1 comes from mouse and keyboard of PC1 and the input of client 2 comes from mouse and keyboard of PC2.

The thing that is forbidden is to send ONE INPUT to different clients, not to control different clients independently by each using their own individual input.

As to your PS: I also do not understand that. There is no problem with me having two or more accounts which are crafting as long as I am controlling the crafting individually and not use a single mouse/keyboard to have all my input distributed to multiple crafting clients in order to multiply the amount of things crafted by the number of clients used. If I wanted to, I could use 5 PCs in my home at the same time. And yes they all do have their own monitors, mouses and keyboards and I do in fact have 5 all here in this room. There would be no problem whatsoever if I start a GW2 client on all 5 of them and then go from one PC to the next and craft on all of them at the same time, because I am controlling each client individually. If I had 5 accounts I would have no problem with doing that and putting a video of it online so that even Arenanet could see it, because I would not be acting against the rules.

Maybe you tried to say something completely different, but as you stated "you agree with the term itself" I am kind of confused about what it could be that you are trying to say.

I am just saying that multiaccount is legit only if you play or gain something with 1 character per time.

And that things like crafts which once you hit the key doesn't require you to play in order to Gain something, count as an exploit too, Since you are gaining something without playing.

You can have x client on different or the same machine, this is not relevant.

Here's the link.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/352/policy-third-party-programs-multi-boxing-macros

I am refering to the part actively playing, situation which can't exist unless you play with shared keys.

Or if you are saying that you, or they, consider that 1 click to craft 20k items on every account counts as playing actively, well we do simply have a different opinioni about the term ( if it's considered playing actively just clicking 1 time every 30 mins on x different accounts ).

That's why the only way to play actively x account would be a shared macro.

My point was this.

I would love something like the GW1 heroes. Make them ai controlled and have them follow us around. Of course the heroes would have to despawn when too many players are around (like minipets), but it would make exploring the wide plains of core Tyria less lonely.

@Shikigami.4013 said:Sorry I don't understand what you are actually trying to say. Running two or more clients at once is allowed for GW2. Having input (be it mouse or keyboard or both) sent to more than one client at once is forbidden. What do you even mean by "And still you do send imputs to different clients."? If I run two GW2 clients on 2 PCs which each of course have a seperate mouse and keyboard (like all normal PCs do), of course I am sending inputs "to different clients" but it is not the same input. The input on client 1 comes from mouse and keyboard of PC1 and the input of client 2 comes from mouse and keyboard of PC2.

The thing that is forbidden is to send ONE INPUT to different clients, not to control different clients independently by each using their own individual input.

As to your PS: I also do not understand that. There is no problem with me having two or more accounts which are crafting as long as I am controlling the crafting individually and not use a single mouse/keyboard to have all my input distributed to multiple crafting clients in order to multiply the amount of things crafted by the number of clients used. If I wanted to, I could use 5 PCs in my home at the same time. And yes they all do have their own monitors, mouses and keyboards and I do in fact have 5 all here in this room. There would be no problem whatsoever if I start a GW2 client on all 5 of them and then go from one PC to the next and craft on all of them at the same time, because I am controlling each client individually. If I had 5 accounts I would have no problem with doing that and putting a video of it online so that even Arenanet could see it, because I would not be acting against the rules.

Maybe you tried to say something completely different, but as you stated "you agree with the term itself" I am kind of confused about what it could be that you are trying to say.

What they are asking for is essentially the Mercenary system from Guild Wars 1. That took the hero/henchman format, but allowed you to use your alts as the heroes.

I think any ref to multi boxing, multi clients etc are from a slight confusion in the explanation

Is it going to happen? Pretty much no for multiple reasons - ai isn't going to be strong enough, open world doesn't really work with it, places taken up for real players. Some of these have workarounds, but I don't see a wide enough payoff for the time put into to design the tech to make it fit

@Shirlias.8104 said:I am refering to the part actively playing, situation which can't exist unless you play with shared keys.

That is where you are wrong, and I can explain it with no problem at all. It does not matter what your "view" of actively playing is, it is pure logic.

Actively playing means that YOU must be the person who plays that account, by doing actions. Not a bot, not a macro, not your mouse software. It does not mean that you have to be active all the time, nonstop, and never leave your character standing around. This is perfectly clear because the point "You may use more than one account at the same time." would otherwise not work, ever, under any circumstances. To be able to allow us to use more accounts at the same time, it is absolutely mandatory that you have to be allowed to play one account, then switch to another client and play another account. It is allowed as long as the first account does not take any action that you did not activate yourself. Crafting 1000 items is an action you activated yourself if you set the number to 1000. The game does not require you to stay at the PC until these 1000 items are done, regardless of you using only one account, or multiple at the same time. You are actively crafting on the first account because you clicked the craft button yourself.

@Shikigami.4013 said:

@Shirlias.8104 said:I am refering to the part actively playing, situation which can't exist unless you play with shared keys.

That is where you are wrong, and I can explain it with no problem at all. It does not matter what your "view" of actively playing is, it is pure logic.

It seems a joke to me, but since there were no ban it could also be that way ( they are not able to ban many bots, so it could simply be that they are not able to ban those who use that system too ).

It's like saying "the more account you have, the better you can achieve your goals" cause you can craft 2x/3x/4x/5x and so on.Buy more accounts in order to gain faster better rewards!

But that's also the daily login reward issue, so as said it wouldn't be that strange at all that they don't care and push toward that direction.It would only be another disappointment form the rules they did set.

Yes and no.My two Asuras are 100% played by me. And that should not change. Like in Resident Evil, when suddenly the other player is an NPC, it loses a lot of interaction and fun.On the other hand, when I am in trouble and call for help ("Thieves Guild") and there are 3 more Asura thieves around, all focussing on my target and yelling and talking in combat, that's always a cool feeling.

It should be refined then it could work. Refining a daydream..

Excelsior.

@"Shirlias.8104" Just one more question - does crafting tons of items even make you money? Realistically you cannot craft hundreds or thousands of items because of inventory space, you can only craft high amounts of stuff that stacks. What would you even craft to make this worthwhile? Refining material? Crafting ingots from base ore? I don't think there would be enough profit to be made with this that anyone would want to do this on several accounts at once. Is there any realistic scenario where you would really benefit enough to justify using an additional PC for it?

I believe that people who make money with items do TP flipping, they don't use multiple accounts to endlessly craft stuff that makes basically no profit. So when we take the unrealistic "crafting" scenario out, what scenario remains which could disappoint you about using multiple clients being allowed? I wonder why this is even a thing to waste any thoughts on. Also, the daily login reward gives you nothing which would be so valuable that it would make any sense to log in additional accounts just for that every day. Because if it would, there would be people with dozens or hundreds of accounts doing exactly that. The login rewards are practically all account bound and will not give you any monetary profit worth talking about which you could transfer to other accounts.

I appreciate anyone following the rules and advocating for enforcing them strictly, but I think you are exaggerating here and hate the explicitly allowed multiboxing for no good reason at all.

@Shikigami.4013 said:@"Shirlias.8104" Just one more question - does crafting tons of items even make you money? Realistically you cannot craft hundreds or thousands of items because of inventory space, you can only craft high amounts of stuff that stacks. What would you even craft to make this worthwhile? Refining material? Crafting ingots from base ore? I don't think there would be enough profit to be made with this that anyone would want to do this on several accounts at once. Is there any realistic scenario where you would really benefit enough to justify using an additional PC for it?

I believe that people who make money with items do TP flipping, they don't use multiple accounts to endlessly craft stuff that makes basically no profit. So when we take the unrealistic "crafting" scenario out, what scenario remains which could disappoint you about using multiple clients being allowed? I wonder why this is even a thing to waste any thoughts on. Also, the daily login reward gives you nothing which would be so valuable that it would make any sense to log in additional accounts just for that every day. Because if it would, there would be people with dozens or hundreds of accounts doing exactly that. The login rewards are practically all account bound and will not give you any monetary profit worth talking about which you could transfer to other accounts.

I appreciate anyone following the rules and advocating for enforcing them strictly, but I think you are exaggerating here and hate the explicitly allowed multiboxing for no good reason at all.

At the beginning ( and during core game ) of the game there were many that crafted yellow items in order to sell em, and multiclient allowed em to do this multiplied x times. The damage is done, but even so i thought ( to be honest i do already think ) that was something forbidden, since it allowed a single player to gain multiple benefits from multi account without playing em. I am not sure now, since i do play TP as you said, but in the past it was a so good tactic.

It's different from the daily login, because you do the specific action and then log out, though it really sucks a that strong reward system ( multiaccount for daily login are a excellent source of golds if you compare both the time spent and the rewards ). And we mustn't forget about timegate materials.

Talking about me, i would like to see them and multi account changed ( and i asked for changes many times ), but since nothing came, i managed to get some extra account just for the daily login.

I would be extremely glad if they will do something about the reward system and everything which can allow a player to gain any benefit by owning more than 1 account, but unltil then i am going both to follow their rules and ask for changes.

But i do agree with you that i am exaggerating about the specific use of multiaccount as multicraft.

Oh I understand...you don't mean daily login rewards but daily achievement tasks which give 2 gold. I was under the impression that you were talking about the daily login chest.

Well...to send the 2 daily gold to another account you will have to have purchased HoT and you will have to do the daily tasks with the additional account. So first of all you have to break even the purchase price of the box for HoT which you could otherwise have spent to buy gems/gold. The box did cost around 45€ when it was released, and you would have gotten close to 4000 gems with those 45€. Converted to gold this was around 520 gold at the end of 2015. Then you have to consider that you need to do the tasks each day. During that time you could have done something profitable on your main account, which probably does not equal 2 gold but maybe 1 gold. So the real additional income is 1 gold per day. All in all, you would have broken even after 520 days using that second account (sometime this spring), and only after that started to make a real profit of 1 gold per day. This does not seem like something huge :)

But I guess we are getting too far from the original topic by now, which was not even about multiboxing but about implementing a system that would somehow allow you to play 2 of your chars on one account and with one client :) Which is something I would love to see when implemented in a way that it is not significantly more powerful than playing only one char, but I strongly doubt that they will ever put the massive work in that would be needed to create such a system.

Yeah we are getting too far from the topic.Just one clarification

@Shikigami.4013 said:Oh I understand...you don't mean daily login rewards but daily achievement tasks which give 2 gold. I was under the impression that you were talking about the daily login chest.

I am talking about the daily login chest lol.Currently you can login with X account and get materials by doing nothing ( every account has a cost, right, but even so in Y months you will be able to get the same amount of golds you would have get by buying gems instead ). Btw, compared to the crafting itself, while you login you do the action and then logout. You earn the reward by playing 1 or 2 seconds ( while the craft is something way longer ). That was the point i was trying to make.