Won't Someone Think of the Economy?!

On High Drag podcast episode 46 they had on a special guest by the name of Shadowandlight who is becoming rather famous in the Eve meta community as a vocal proponent of ISBoxer and its feature of input broadcasting. He's quite upset that CCP is choosing to rule that input broadcasting is an exploit and as of Jan 1 2015 is no longer allowed and has become a bannable offense, something I support wholeheartedly.

Shadowandlight had several arguments in favour of ISBoxer input broadcasting and I think the High Drag hosts were more than a little restrained than I would have been in confronting some of those assertions. The two that got me the most were that banning ISBoxer was going to hurt the game due to fewer pilots online (not to mention fewer subscription dollars for CCP) at a time and its going to hurt the economy since ISBoxer miners would not provide vast quantities of cheap minerals any more.

What struck me the most, and perhaps you had to have been in the game long enough to realize the parallel, was that his arguments are almost word for word the exact same reasoning players who utilized botting gave for why CCP would never crack down on botting... prior to CCP doing exactly that.

"CCP won't crack down on botting because those bot accounts give them $15 every month!"

"Botting provide vast amounts of cheap minerals to the markets, if you take them away the prices will skyrocket and kill the game!"

Of course we know now those claims to be false. CCP does not want bot accounts as those bots negatively impact the gameplay for real players trying to make their way in EVE (either by taking up resources the players might have had access to otherwise or by driving prices down to the determinet of player competitors) and bots don't spread word of mouth to get other potential players to try the game. Or in other words, bots stagnate the game instead of expanding it. And the economy? Oh please, give me a break! EVE's economy is mature enough to correct as players react to rising prices and change their activities accordingly.

So when I heard those same arguments trotted out as reasons ISBoxer input broadcasting should not be banned it only fueled my belief that input broadcasting is the same as botting with a different source for the bots' script. And those arguments hold the same amount of water as they did 4-5 years ago. Absolutely none.

And another thing...

I admit that I had a modicum of sympathy for Shadowandlight's assertion that a niche gameplay that does not negatively impact the game, i.e. ISBoxer bomber fleets, which by mechanics is limited below ten pilots, is being thrown out as the baby with the bathwater that is the plague of ISBoxer high sec mining.

I can appreciate that type of PvP interaction can be viewed as fun and it puts pilots in space in harms way. But at the end of the day, its still just a clever form of botting and if allowed to develop unchecked, could lead to massive fleets of ISBoxer damage ships controlled by a handful of players dominating the null sec meta since line squad members of a fleet in theory do the same thing in concert. In fact, I can foresee an ISBoxer powered fleet being more effective than a traditional one pilot one ship fleet.

So ultimately I see this decision to ban input broadcasting as a good on on CCP's part.

One last thing...

To head off any rebuttals that CCP is being a hypocrite for not banning multi-boxing entirely, I would like to point out that multiboxing without input broadcasting is LESS effective than one-pilot per ship as opposed to equally or more effective. Since you sacrifice something in order to run two or more pilots (i.e. the time it takes to context switch from one client to another), people tend to multibox only for fulfilling different roles in limited scenarios (the cyno and the jump ship for example). Even if they multibox something like mining, human limitations puts an upper cap at a lower value than what input broadcasting allows. So I, like CCP, are fine with multiboxing.

I am like Prophet, No?

Back in September I charged that ISBoxer is equivalent to botting:

In essence, ISBoxer is just a bot that doesn't have a preset script to follow, but rather follows you.
-THIS UNIT IS WATCHING MASTER-

This is why I think CCP is wrong on this issue and should change their stance. A bot is a bot is a bot. It shouldn't matter if the bot is independent or dependent on the player for their instructions, it still allows a single human to sustain larger operations over long periods of time with fewer mistakes than a human without using ISBoxer would be able to. It doesn't matter that it does not affect the economy or is not a tool of the Real Money Traders. Its a bot, and CCP should make it an exploit.

The number of commentors that disagreed with me was quite staggering, but one entity did agree with me: CCP.

Based on the discussion in this area and our will to be more clear and concise with the community regarding this part of our rules, we have decided to also apply this two-strike policy to prohibited forms of Input Broadcasting and Input Multiplexing as of January 1st 2015.
We would like to add, however, that we will not be taking action retroactively and will only be policing this policy as of January 1st, 2015.
Input Broadcasting and Input Multiplexing of actions with consequences in the EVE universe, are prohibited and will be policed in the same manner as Input Automation.

This includes, but isn’t limited to:
• Activation and control of ships and modules
• Navigation and movement within the EVE universe
• Movement of assets and items within the EVE universe
• Interaction with other characters

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

ISBoxer is Botting

In the latest Derping Through War podcast, episode 11, the hosts get to debating if using ISBoxer, a program that allows your mouse and key commands to be replicated to multiple application, is acceptable in EVE Online or not. Currently CCP has allowed this application to fall under the list of acceptable utility applications to use, like macro keys on fancier keyboards and mice.

Well, CCP is wrong. Using ISBoxer is still botting and CCP should disallow its usage.

Botting

First off, let's look at the reason that ISBoxer is currently allowed while normal botting is not.

I am a bot.

A "bot" is a pilot in EVE who is operated by a third party program operating via a script that the program follows. This is primarily seen in tasks that don't require a lot of decision making like belt ratting or mining, although some bot behaviour can be very nuanced.

CCP has been waging a war on banning accounts that use botting and any associated accounts as the activity has several deleterious effects on the game world. For one, because they can sustain operations much longer and more consistently than a human can, they can generate more resources/wealth and this impacts the economy in the long term with widespread bot use. Secondly, it creates the imbalance where pilots/organizations that utilize botting have an advantage over competitors forcing players to operate at a disadvantage or join botting themselves. Thirdly, since botting is used to amass in game wealth quickly and efficiently with the fewest humans involved, it is a common tool of Real Money Traders who can be shady and dangerous to their customers.

So CCP has rightly declared botting an exploit and bannable offence.

ISBoxer

ISBoxer, on the other hand is not considered and exploit mainly because (1) is it human-directed therefore does not have a bot's ability to operate consistently and for long periods of time, and (2) is currently not a main tool of wealth generation so is not noticeably affecting the economy or being used by RMTers.

One example of the use of ISBoxer is a single man mining fleet where the human uses the program to order multiple mining ships to mine the asteroids. Another example is the one given in the DtW podcast where a single human operated a small fleet of ships for PvP purposes. In these cases the operated ships have to be virtually the same and the client layout of each account needs to be near exact with the same overview settings and everything, but once setup you basically operate any number of ships your computer can handle clients for as if they were just one.

Its not widespread yet but I think it will be over time as pilots move to min-max their experience as the majority almost always do in order to be competitive. Why have a fleet of 5 guys when everyone can ISBox 3 accounts easily and have 15 ships? Why mine by myself in one ship if I can increase my profit by mining in 5? And CCP says its ok.

Isn't ISBoxer just like Multi-Boxing?

Not Me.

No, its not. Multi-boxing, i.e. having multiple clients open at the same time and doing things in each of them, is different because as a human you can only really pay full attention to one at a time. I cannot give an order at exactly the same time to both clients, I need to switch back and forth and while working on one, the other is unattended and essentially vulnerable to mistakes.

One could argue that an improperly setup interface for ISBoxer can lead to mistakes as well but that is more of a mechanical setup issue and not a human mental error issue. Once perfectly setup, multi-boxing can still allow for human error, ISBoxer cannot. The number of times I've heard someone on comms say "just wait, I need to move my other ship" or "dammit, I missed warp because I was on the other client" from multi boxing players is very high. Multi-boxing is human-intensive, ISBoxing is not.

In essence, ISBoxer is just a bot that doesn't have a preset script to follow, but rather follows you.

-THIS UNIT IS WATCHING MASTER-

This is why I think CCP is wrong on this issue and should change their stance. A bot is a bot is a bot. It shouldn't matter if the bot is independent or dependent on the player for their instructions, it still allows a single human to sustain larger operations over long periods of time with fewer mistakes than a human without using ISBoxer would be able to. It doesn't matter that it does not affect the economy or is not a tool of the Real Money Traders. Its a bot, and CCP should make it an exploit.