Economy Reason:
Lately I've been seeing a lot of characters camping on certain maps (looking at you Poring Island and Dragonfly map) with a timer they only know. Because of them camping in multiple spots on each map, this makes it easy for them to find the boss and kill it, and get that rare item. If that keeps happening and they control that map, they basically control the economy of that item. (I.E. Clip, Evil Wings, Etc.). Doing away with dual clienting will make the economy better on those certain items and prevent the control of the market.
Might I suggest that you're greatly overestimating the importance of common items? Neither of the two examples you listed are worth the trouble of camping the map for, let alone dedicating a character to camp the map with. And for the bosses that are truly worth camping, there are MVP tombstones. If anyone wants to spend their time camping for a clip or evil wing, let their diligence be rewarded. The number of items in the game is finite, and competition is part of the game. If I ever need such items, I will gladly pay them the fair market price.
Discouraging Classes:
We all seen this with other legitimate players. Someone will be playing two characters at once: Their Crusader and their Priest. Not only this discourages people and players for creating a Full Support class (yes I'm including Sage and future Soul Linkers here), but this gives more power to the person dual clienting. Some people do not have the specs or power in order to play two characters at once on their computer, plus it makes it pointless in creating a support class.
I'm not buying the computer argument. The game is two decades old, and not enough players have the supercomputer they need to run 2 clients? The game only requires 128 MB of RAM and a 400 MHz processor to run.
If you've tried dual clienting, you probably see how annoying it is to drag around a second character with auto follow. Having a priest doing buffs every time you go into town is a lot different than running a tough instance with a full support partner. If all the hypothetical priest can do is buff every 10 minutes, why would anyone bother bringing them along to split loots with?
Less Bots:
I'm pretty sure majority of us will agree on this. This will help lessen the bots on the server by a good amount (at least eliminating a third of them if any). Bots use multiple clients and programs on the same computer in order to maximize their input and output in earning money. While EAC helps out for half of the part, banning dual clienting will help as well.
I don't like bots any more than you do, but banning multiclienting is about as effective as using dead branches to kill bots entering pay_fild08. Such radical measures hurt legitimate players far more than they hurt bots. You've presented zero evidence to show that IP restrictions would reduce the number of bots, let alone eliminate a third of them.
But look at the consequences of the method you proposed to block multiclienting. A botter can run 10 different proxies, each with a different character, thus getting around your method. They aren't bothered by an IP restriction. The rest of us, on the other hand, wouldn't even be allowed to transfer items between our own characters via a trade window.
Arguments against this:
I am aware there would be some arguments. Some people like to play solo or afraid they cannot find a FS class to help and party with.
While there are some downsides for you, please think of the benefits that banning this could bring.
What benefit exactly? Nobody's stopping you from playing a FS priest. There are plenty of downsides all right, but I'm not seeing the supposed benefit. Whether or not dual clienting is banned, you can play any class you want to. What exactly is the problem?
So how would we ban dual clienting?
So far the only easy way I can see this is preventing the IP address connecting more than once on the server. When you try to connect twice, it will be like "Server recongnizes you're logged in," but in IP address.
Limiting each IP address to one account would hurt legitimate players while doing very little to stop bots. Bots can just use an army of proxies to run each character with a different IP. Human players, on the other hand, would be forced to use Rodex or ask a friend for help for something as simple as transferring items. Your proposed "cure" is far worse than the supposed problem.
More recently, there have been reports of players leaving multiple dead novices scattered across a map to scout for boss and rare spawns with little effort.
Is this really a serious problem? If someone is willing to go to the trouble of making 20 different accounts with novices scattered at exactly the right position on the map, logging into all 20 novices, and then switching between each window just to figure out which novice has a boss in its window, should we not just leave them to their pain? All this assumes 20 novices are even enough to cover the whole map. For larger maps, 20 wouldn't be enough to cover every square.
If on the other hand the novices are run by bots, then the real problem is not multiclienting, but botting. Botting is already forbidden. Our time would be better spent figuring out how to really stop bots rather than attacking multiclienting.
Dual clienting basically says you're anti social in a social game lol.
Personal opinion, I'd never do it, so far haven't had any issues raising up any of my characters.
Yes I am an adult, and yes I have limited time.
This is a fresh RO server with nearly no real reason to Rush anything.
Want to grind something for hours? Find a guild and make a friend.
Better yet, make some friends in general, help each other out.
It's not rocket science, just too many people playing this game with the wrong mindset.
I disagree with stigmatizing so many players by labeling their mindset as "wrong". Multiclienting people aren't hurting anyone else by doing what they do. Opening a second window is about as wrong as choosing to play a sniper over a lord knight. There's nothing right or wrong about it.
I would argue that if someone were truly "anti social", banning multiclienting would be unlikely to cause them to change their personality overnight. Would their gameplay be hurt by forcing them to stick to one character? Sure. They might not be able to access certain game content. But how many truly social people interact with others by necessity? At least some will be social because being social makes them happy. I don't think a game can force someone to become a different person; nor should it.
People playing solo aren't hurting the server. They are even helping the server by contributing to the market, maybe spending on the cash shop, and helping attract more players to the game. We are always better off adding a solo player than not having that player at all. If people want to start partying and interacting, awesome. But we shouldn't punish them for not fitting some arbitrary mold for how an ideal player should act in the game.
If anything, multiclienting makes us more social by making our interactions more meaningful. Why would I drag along a friend to be a buff slave when I can spend the time teaming up with them to take down a tough boss instead? Multiclienting can save the limited time that friend has, letting them engage in more meaningful and "social" activities.
Tbh, I think the whole argument about being anti social is moot anyways. Inviting someone in a game to a party is a lot different from going outside and physically meeting people. Just because I don't mind exchanging some text messages with strangers doesn't necessarily make me superior to or more social than someone who doesn't feel like doing the same.
Edited by JadedCynic, 26 March 2020 - 03:50 AM.