Some thoughts(multiboxing)

[Thulack]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Eh... The encounters are pretty simple on this server.

Belly Caster - Yes/No
Slowable - Yes/No
Rampage - Yes/No
Enrage - Yes/No
AOE - Yes/No
Avoid AOE by Walling - Yes/No

Answer those questions on run #1 and then hope your clerics have the mana to last through number 2.

Live EQ raiding is way more annoying to figure out events. The final one in VoA was a total bitch. You spend 90-120 minutes doing the whole encounter, and you get to the last part and due to no script / explanation / logic, you can fuck up the whole thing by killing the mobs in the wrong order. That was a fun waste of a night.

Raiding on live is 1000x more fun then raiding here and actually takes some skill and comprehension to understand.

[fadetree]

Well, while I wouldn't compare classic raiding to chess, anytime you get a large group of people together you're going to have some difficulty just keeping all the cats herded and the idiots pointed in the right direction. With a group of seasoned raiders though, its pretty easy.
Velious got a little harder, if I recall, with some adds and things that you needed to handle and react to. Still not super hard but not ridiculously easy either. 'Hard' is always difficult to quantify, anyways. Knowing a big list of requirements like mob kill order, etc., is hard at first but stops being hard the second its written down and memorized. A long encounter always raises the probability of someone screwing up at some point, but a lot of people don't seem to think that counts as 'hard'.

[Destron]

Chutes and Ladders, that's what he meant.

[iruinedyourday]

ahh the age old skill vs MMO debate..

you know what a real skill is? Widdlin'

In my day it took a man years to learn to widdle, could make him self a pretty cool giant cigar smokn' indian if he kept at it. yep.

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[TaZeR]

Originally Posted by iruinedyourday [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

ahh the age old skill vs MMO debate..

you know what a real skill is? Widdlin'

In my day it took a man years to learn to widdle, could make him self a pretty cool giant cigar smokn' indian if he kept at it. yep.

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Well I know its true because I have no skill I suck at all games except MMO's or RPG's like Diablo, I'm really stupid in real life too lol.

I think its even an advantage to be stupid because you don't have any smart thoughts bothering you while you grind all day and night.

[tanknspank]

Yes to boxing, limited to 2-3/ip (so you can box OR play with a spouse/roomie, not both). This allows limited boxing, removes the need for an IP exemption process, can be enforced with the same IP filter and prevents the "I'll 6/12/18 box content on my own"

I don't think $15/mo was ever a limitation (back in 1999 it amounted to a couple lunches at the cafeteria, now it's about 4 cups of coffee or the gas a day's commute), but if people feel that made the difference would it be possible to charge for IP exemptions / IP exemption processing (not game access / accounts)?

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The entire point of the whole genre was to bring like minded people together in one place to enjoy a specific form of entertainment.

Except people often aren't available in a suitable proportion. Being able to wildcard a spot in a group improved the experience for the other 5 that were brought together.

Originally Posted by Glenzig [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There is a reason why p99 has been successful. No boxing is a pretty big part of that. Don't buy it? Look at the population of the other emu servers.

Do any other emu servers provide a faithful replication of classic EQ capped to RoK/SoV? P99's success has more to do with the classic experience (box or no). SoE's official progression servers were pretty populated for the first 2-3 xpacs despite the very un-classic classic experience and the multiboxing. And look how many ask for a new progression / classic server on the official forums. It's not about boxing, it's about the classic gameplay (xp loss, non-instanced, no PoK, no guild hall)

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Boxing is a catch 22. In EQ live as computers got better and this game got older, it was a convenience to be able to box "X" class that was in high demand but low supply ... the rate limiter for grouping. Unfortunately, the impact of boxing on a server or population is a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom in my opinion. Even with 2 boxing, and for those classes that are needed ... you end up slowly killing the community. If everyone is 2 boxing, people will prefer to 2 box - especially those classes that have more downtime. Each "box" that exists takes up a spot for a real player.

I disagree. People who like to play solo (box or not) will like to play solo. There's plenty of ways to do that. People who like to group will like to group, whether they can box or not.

I was an avid boxer on live and started in classic, back when I was doing it with 2 computers running EQ in full screen with the default 1999 UI (hadn't heard of the alternate mode toggle yet). But for me the group gameplay was what made EQ fun and I always preferred to group with people than duo my boxes. Even when I eventually had 5 accounts I still preferred to get as many actual people in the group for chatter, company and better reaction times and only use the alt accounts to supplant what we couldn't fill.

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've seen what boxing does to an eq server over and over again.

You've seen what boxing + all the other changes that happened do to a server. Boxing existed in actual classic and I would say the community was just great for the first couple years that correspond to P99 content.

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Allowing even 2 boxing would make it very difficult/time wasting for GMs to check people who might go beyond 2. It would also result in 9 people playing 18 characters and locking down a lot of raid content.

This isn't harder than finding who goes beyond 1. If anything it's easier because you automatically can discount the first box.

Also, the more you go beyond 1 character the harder it is to multibox them and the more obvious it is. You either need to introduce key duplication (extremely obvious), botting (If someone is risking a ban to bot, do you think they're afraid of a ban for boxing?) or you'll suffer very slow response times that makes it easier to spot/test for GMs.

[myriverse]

Originally Posted by tanknspank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You've seen what boxing + all the other changes that happened do to a server. Boxing existed in actual classic and I would say the community was just great for the first couple years that correspond to P99 content.

No. The reason the community remained "just great" is because only, maybe, 3-4 out of 1000 were doing it.

[tanknspank]

Originally Posted by myriverse [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No. The reason the community remained "just great" is because only, maybe, 3-4 out of 1000 were doing it.

I assure you more than that did it regularly and a whole lot more had the capability to do it when needed. My guild alone had a couple of loners who 2 boxed guards or whatever. One of our tanks had a cleric he'd trot out to keep the SolB/LGuk group alive in the late hours of the night when actual healers dried up. A few people had dru/wiz they'd bring out when Naggy/Vox popped and we had to port 25ish people asap to get them before other guilds.

Granted we were a hardcore guild, but we probably had about 15 people with 2nd accounts and the ability to box them. I'm sure guilds #2 and #3 on the server had at least some, and a handful of the non-uberguild players as well. And this was late '99/early '00, before Kunark was out.

[Whirled]

Originally Posted by iruinedyourday [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This the prequel to Office Space? ^ They talking about a case of the Mondays.

http://www.bullshitjob.com/office_im...fficeSpace.swf

http://www.funlinks.com/bill-lumbergh-soundboard.html

[Brut]

Boxings fun on servers where the server/gameplay is built around it, ie. THF, EZserver, most every random prog solo server.

P99 only outcome is more reclusive farmers who with boxing have no need whatsoever to interact with other players.