In an effort to curb the number of bot-like players roaming across Shadowlands and farming endless streams of enemies, Blizzard adopted a much harsher stance towards multiboxing and automated gameplay back in November. Unfortunately, this did not have the desired effect.

Even though the updated policy prohibited any sort of keystroke mirroring software, multiboxers found easy ways to circumvent the system by using hardware solutions. And so, despite Blizzard's best efforts, the great outdoors remained filled with hordes upon hordes of Druids moving in unison. All of that will soon be coming to an end, however, as Blizzard has now decided to take their gloves off and seriously tackle multiboxing and gameplay automation as a whole.

"We will now additionally prohibit the use of all software and hardware mechanisms to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multi-boxing in any way," explains the brief update. "Players found to be in violation of this policy are subject to account actions. These actions can include warnings, account suspensions and, if necessary, permanent closure of the player’s World of Warcraft account(s), as activities which effectively replicate automated gameplay are contrary to the terms and conditions of the Blizzard End-User License Agreement (EULA)."

While certainly harsh, I am happy that Blizzard has finally done something about this after well over a decade of nonsense. Not only do the swarms of Druids strip-mining the land negatively impact the in-game economy, but they're also a massive eyesore and make World of Warcraft look like some third-grade MMO that's infested with bots.

So even though I sympathize with people that were multiboxing purely for harmless entertainment, this is still a positive step forward for World of Warcraft in my eyes. I can only hope the next step will be to take an even harsher stance towards botting and to finally sort out that whole mess once and for all.

Whether that actually happens or not, I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, you can read a little bit more about this multiboxing update over at the Blizzard forums. Enjoy!