Blizzard to ban input broadcasting software in World of Warcraft

Blizzard will ban the use of input broadcasting software in World of Warcraft. This software is used to mirror certain actions or keystrokes to several other accounts that are in the game at the same time.

Blizzard says it has taken a closer look at this software and argues that it is increasingly having a negative impact on World of Warcraft by using the software to “support botting and automated gameplay.” The use of input broadcasting software becomes a violation in accordance with the amended policy, against which Blizzard can take action. The developer will soon be handing out warnings to all players who have been identified as using the software. After that, tougher action can be taken in the form of suspending or possibly permanently closing accounts. Blizzard is calling on all players to stop using input broadcasting software.

In particular, this software is used for a way of playing that is referred to as multi-boxing. This term stands for the practice in which a single player manages and plays with more accounts at the same time. Using different instances of World of Warcraft, a player can play more than one character at a time. These characters are linked to each other via the software, so that they can be controlled with the same input from the mouse and the keyboard. This is done, for example, to quickly collect all valuable resources at a certain location with a significant group of characters in order to earn money quickly. That means that sometimes there is nothing left for other players, something that is often complained about.

This practice of multi-boxing has not been banned until now and nothing will change on that point. Only the use of input broadcasting software is restricted, so Blizzard probably hopes that the practice of multi-boxing will also become less attractive. The latter is obvious, because without this software, multi-boxing is actually only possible by manually switching clients and managing them separately. That makes it much more difficult to easily manage different characters and, for example, collect all herbs in a certain place in a coordinated way.