Event idea: Raise the box limit (for new toons only)

TAKP is an extremely faithful reproduction of AK in almost every way. Two big exceptions are the bug fixes - which I think are great - and the three-box limit. On AK, there was no technical box limit, although hardware and subscription fees placed practical limits on boxing for most of the server's history. I paid for a bunch of subscriptions and regularly four-boxed on a G5 Quad, occasionally loading nine boxes for stretch solos, but I was an outlier until the PC client and free accounts became things. For the last year or so of AK's life, of course megaboxing was pretty common.

I don't particularly want to see giant bot armies on TAKP, but I do think it could be fun - and in keeping with the vision of faithfully reproducing AK - to raise the box limit a little bit, incrementally, and as a reward for a fun event that encouraged participation on TAKP proper.

One vision could involve an event on TAKP. As a random example (I'm sure other people can come up with better ideas), we could run an anniversary event for the reset of Dec 31 2025 through Jan 13 2026. Any character created on or after Dec 31 2025 that earned some cool achievement or set of achievements by Jan 13 2026 could be added as a fourth toon to an existing three-box setup. The achievements could be hitting a given level, looting a certain item, maxing a particular faction, completing a custom quest, etc. We could add wrinkles like preventing people from power-leveling these new toons (to encourage grouping), mixing up TAKP ZEMs for the reset (to encourage lolzing around in underplayed zones), allowing pre-created level 1 ubertwinks (to give farmers something to do leading up to the event), etc.

Another vision could involve a temporary spinoff server. As another random example, we could let any one toon per forum account that earns some cool achievement(s) on a spinoff server to merge into TAKP with the new privilege of not counting toward the three-box limit. This would divert playtime from TAKP, but could be fun for a minute, especially if the spinoff server had a cool/weird ruleset.

Anyhoo, just a vaguely-formed idea for events that could revitalize TAKP a bit. I for one would enjoy pushing the limits of trophy hunting with four boxes, or an eight-box duo, or whatever. We could always roll it out on a temporary basis and only keep it if it's widely viewed as an improvement. We could also bump to a four-box limit at first, and if it's broadly popular, think about five or six someday.

 

On AK of old, I paid for two accounts (running a warrior and shaman duo). I later added a third paid account (druid) to complete the mighty war-shm-dru trio. When AK became free to play, I expanded my boxing roster and would often play several characters at once. Boxing multiple characters is a skill and it was fun to see what could be accomplished by myself or myself and another boxer. The most I ever ran was 9, but my sweet spot was 7 (war-clr-shm-dru-brd-rog-enc). I never used automation. When boxing is done that way, there's a sporting aspect to it, and it's fun to build up characters for your team and play EQ like Baldur's Gate 2 (where you control 6 characters).

Before AK sunset, through boxing I had conquered VP, and most of NTOV. I was also able to do some elemental named (not armor mobs), like the Depth 3 named, and was able to explore the Plane of Earth crystalline caves a bit (something that isn't really practical as a three-boxer, and probably not something anybody else would want to join me for, which means it doesn't happen).

I wanted to keep going to see what else I could do-- perhaps some Ssra mobs, Thought Horor Overfiend, the Burrower Beast; maybe even an elemental armor dropper? But I never got the chance (RIP, AK). It would be cool to be able to continue that sort of thing on TAKP. I've got some unfinished business when it comes to boxing targets.

Expanding boxing limits might also inject some vitality into offnight raids and perhaps even official raids. These days, on a regular offnight raid, we're lucky to get 5 or 6 human beings. If they are all boxing, we have 15-18 characters at the raid. If the boxing number were doubled, or even expanded by one, it would expand the possibilities of what could be accomplished.

To be clear, I do enjoy the social aspect of EQ, and I would enjoy continuing that by grouping with others, and attending offnight and official raids with people. Even in the boxing heyday of AK of old I would often run a solo character in xp groups, and would do offnight // small group content with other people. Boxing just expanded what could be accomplished, and the list of targets that was possible (either solo or with a small number of humans).

Sorry for the slight de-rail, but I just wanted to say that I support the idea of lifting boxing restrictions, and your idea is a creative one that might enable it to happen in some form or fashion.

 

For me, 3-boxing is the sweet spot, so my vote would be to keep things as they are. I do have a lot of alts though, so if the majority were interested in expanding the limit a little further, I could probably get used to booting up another char or two. That said, having even just one more toon would be a huge advantage, so something like that shouldn’t be reserved just for players that are available to play during the holiday period.

I think that an uncapped boxing limit, or a significantly increased one, would turn takp prime into an entirely different server. Many of the open world targets would be on perma farm (because you always gotta gear the bot army) and cool zones/mobs would be significantly more contested. The result would likely be that most of the interesting targets are constantly killed by a small minority of dedicated bot army farmers. Poopsocking long spawns for turn ins would likely become a thing (like on p99), and guilds might even disband because the bot armies wouldn't need to share raid loot anymore. The rest of the player base would need to accept that they can only get loot on properly reserved guild raids or by befriending the bot army farmers. Therefore, I would suggest that if something like this were to happen, it should occur on an entirely different server that never merges with takp prime.

 

Ironically, my free time has opened up and I've been thinking of playing again, and realizing that the thought of 3-boxing is exhausting me.

It took a while to realize why I keep thinking about playing, getting excited, then not logging in- and it's because while the power of boxing is fun (and borderline needed to level with the population), the process is so much less enjoyable than the EQ I remember where I could focus on playing one character, well, without constantly tabbing between screens.

 

I hear you. It could happen that way, but I would predict not. Currently, all of the best stuff is on a longstanding rotation. That means the best stuff isn't going to be poopsocked.

There really isn't a lot of content that is not rotated; from what I can think of, we have:

VP
NTOV
Thought Horror Overfiend
Burrower Beast
Ring of Fire
West Temple of Veeshan
Shei Venitras

There may be some others, but that's really all I can think of. Currently, the non-rotated stuff is almost never killed. If boxing limits opened up, those mobs would die more often. There might be stretches of time where VP was perma-cleared, but eventually the farmers get everything they want and they move on. If it got bad enough, I'm sure targets could be added to the rotation schedule. Just something to think about..

 

Totally fine and understandable. No problem playing EQ (including TAKP) with a single box. Do what you enjoy!

 

Oh, I know. It just took me a while to get to the root of my avoidance. I double boxed for years on Live and it didn't bother me, but it doesn't quite capture that magic of just starting with a single toon.

Probably would be easier if the "single toon" I wanted to play was something more soloing friendly, lol.

 

Yeah. I've done up through 6 boxing, and that was... intense.

I got 3 trios here up into the 30s, but I've been a ranger since 1999 and that's where my heart will always be in this game.

My most common box on live was Ranger + Shaman, but that's not ideal in this era.

 

Depending on the permitted boxing number, the entire FFA cycle could potentially be renamed the swarm botting cycle. Other than mobs on the FFA cycle and what you mentioned, here are some others I can think of that would potentially be on perma farm.

Velious: Yelinak, Tunare, Velketor

Luclin: a grimling high commander, Grieg, Lcea Katta

PoP: Manaetic Behemoth, Manaetic Prototype X/IX/XI, Mujaki, Terris Thule, Aerin’Dar, Bertox, Carprin cycle, SolRo minis and SolRo himself, Rallos/Tallon/Vallon Zek, The Seventh Hammer, the harder PoStorms named giants, PoTorment/Saryrn, Lord Mithaniel Marr, Grummus, Plane of Time (if instance not reserved), BoT wing bosses and Agnarr

EDIT: I forgot to add plane of fear, plane of sky, ring 10 (DA earrings), CT ring of fear & a horror construct

 

I’d be all about anything that changes the experience here. I’ve done most all I can do with a 3-box up to and including killing Nagafen with 3 clerics!

I’d love to open up some new challenges that I could get into with 4/5/6 boxes. But I know not everyone has had my arc of experiences across AK and TAKP, and they may not want to see anything change.

I do think though that because of how lightly populated TAKP prime is now a days, an increase of boxing wouldn’t really impact many people. The primary concerns would be in my eyes a reduced incentive to group (currently very little non-guild grouping occurs from what I’ve seen) and the monopolization of content (which mostly is handled through the great rotation, the very targets outside the rotations that may get farmed I don’t think are farmed all that intensely).

It’s my view that on the server in its current state there’s just not that many downsides to increasing the box limit since it’s just a choice at this point. You’re not going to suddenly be denied groups or find camps permacamped that you are able to grab currently. There’s simply not enough Purging going on or enough valuable camps worthy of monopolizing that would change with a box limit change.

 

On that note, I was surprised that the community voted for a 2-box limit on the tlp. As opposed to infinite-boxing as I am on takp prime, I voted for the max on that survey, whatever it was.

 

How efficiently can you 6+ box without an enhanced boxing software like ISboxer? Which is not allowed here.

6 boxing if allowed would basically end up being a gimick to just kill raid targets or just have 3 toons in the group soaking up xp and not even being touched. I guess I'm just not seeing the allure. Doesn't really seem like it would be beneficial to most and just a handful of humans honestly that want something different.

With that said, it would be nice if we could log on more than the usual 3 in non combat zones like PoK or the Nexus for buffing purposes.

 

I guess one example is that autofire is allowed here for rangers.

 

I don't really like the idea of raising the boxing limit. I did occasionally 4-box on AK, but doing that on my 4gb of ram mac mini was terrible.

I think if the limit were to ever change, it would need to be done in a way that limited the exp on chars from the same account and/or IP. That way, there would still be some incentive to group.

 

With efficient hotkey creation, it really isn't that absurd. Stacking similar classes is of course more simple but it can work well even with a well balanced group. Allow me to give you an example.

Pal/Cler/Sham/Bard/Rogue/Monk

Paladin stays in camp with Rogue/Monk on autofollow. Bard pulls in mob with bellow runs behind paladin so that the end state will have the rogue/monk behind mob and paladin in front. Paladin has a macro that /assists Bard, Casts Cease/Desist/Cease/Desist. Rogue/Monk have macros that /assist Paladin and 4 backstab or 4 flying kick. Shaman has macro that /assist Paladin, Malo, Slow, Quiesence. Cleric CHs as needed.

So after the pull is done and mob is running to camp. Tab to Paladin, press assist/aggro macro. Tab to Rogue and Monk press assist and 4 backstab/kick macro (20seconds of no input needed here). Tab to Shaman press assist/malo/slow/HoT macro. Tab to cleric to CH rarely.

Including the tabing between characters which I am assuming you do with Hotkey net (we will consider this 1 keystroke) and the character main group role (Aggro, DPS, Slow, CH) hotkey, its 2 hotkey presses per character in group other than bard who just rolls Rizlona, Warsong or Chorus as they come into camp. To kill a general trash mob you may need to tab to the melee DPS a 2nd time and reactivate their backstab/kick/cast macro as needed. May need to tab to cleric to occasionally CH etc.

PoP era is really low APM outside of say a charming enchanter or bard in a group scenario. Having a few standard hotkeys you have setup to allow the character to do its main job gives that character actions often for 20-30 seconds where you don't need to interact with that character again until their action cycle is complete. With logging tools like GINA or the Mac version you can set timers to track when a character is again due for another input.

You aren't wrong that its just some people that want something different though. It has been 10~ years now on TAKP, longer than Al'Kabors run at this point. Many of us having played through both servers to level 65, with some boxes, all the raids etc. But not many people in that time were doing 6+ boxing so it would be something "fresh" without going to another server without any of our friends to do it on.

 

I may be off here, but really how much non-guild grouping is happening on either TAKP server right now? I know in Temerity there are occasionally some grind groups going on and people kick boxes to invite guildmates. But that is the case at 3-box and would be the case at 6 box or unlimited box.

Are there really pugs that this would influence? Maybe I am not on enough during peak hours to see but I didn't think there was any puging going on anymore.

 

In my experience since I joined here in 2020, the dev stance on akkuracy has always been steadfast. Recently the devs have been very kind to the player base and implemented many QoL changes such as not disallowing use of the Zeal client, implementing inakkurate changes to items such as upgrading the Hopebringer and adding in Ossein, as well as buffing monk AC, etc. Like many in the takp community, I think a lot of these changes are great. However since then, threads like this one have been popping up because as they say, give an inch, take a mile.

Many of us selected takp over a multitude of other EQEemus because we were attracted to the ruleset. This includes aspects such as being perpetually locked in PoP, The Sleeper being permanently asleep (well, effectively), and a 3-box limit. Key features like these are mentioned at the top of central takp wiki articles such as the Getting Started guide (https://wiki.takp.info/index.php?title=Getting_Started) and the Server Comparison page (https://wiki.takp.info/index.php/Server_Comparison).

I very much understand why some veterans might want boxing restrictions lifted so that they can get more out of their takp gaming experience. However, these people will eventually achieve all they set out to do and get tired of doing the same thing they’ve been doing for the past many years. Meanwhile, the server ruleset has been in constant flux to cater to these select few vocal and dedicated players. What’s then to stop them from lobbying for more radical changes such as allowing enhanced boxing software or extending beyond the PoP era? The end result would be that the future takp prime server would be unrecognizable to today’s player base.

From a big picture stance, I don’t see how grouping behavior of the current player base is even relevant to this discussion. I understand that there is a desire for “new” and “fresh” takp gaming experiences, but isn’t that exactly the purpose of the new tlp server? It could be valuable to consider funneling ideas of this nature (e.g., regarding significant changes to the takp prime ruleset) into the ruleset of an entirely new takp server.

 

AK had no box limit, FYI. The three-box limit is probably TAKP's biggest departure from AKuracy, alongside fixes to some of AK's more enormous and hilarious bugs.

 

For 99% of the player base, anything above 3-box is indeed very likely a significant departure from akkuracy. It's also highly inakkurate to be playing a game from 1999 on 2025+ equipment. If I'd read that there was no boxing limit back when I was considering switching to takp, I would have moved on to somewhere else. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

 

The barrier on AK was that it only went free to play in 2012. Before that you were paying for each subscription which limited most people. So, AK had no box limit in the same way that the PC had no box limit. AK was then shutdown later in 2013.

 

I think the group and raid scenes are extremely relevant to the conversation.

Those are the only things that boxing really impacts. Boxing will undoubtably reduce the number of pickup groups. I think anyone who says otherwise is dishonest. But if we are already in a scenario where pickup groups are extremely rare or simply not happening, boxing won’t impact the number of weekly pickup groups going from 0 to 0.

Raiding it impacts because the higher the box count gets the lower hanging fruit becomes soloable. We are already in a scenario where several boxable encounter remain on the rotation sheet and the remaining players split those. The encounters not currently on the sheet are extremely likely to always be up. You could argue that new smaller guilds may form wanting rotation access built on the backs of a few 6-boxers making the rotation spread out I guess? But at this point I know many guilds just aren’t killing their full compliment or even any of their targets some resets. I can’t imagine there would be a major disruption if people get access to Kael or Ssra 2 or 3 less times a year. Even that seems highly unlikely since it would require a handful of humans not already in the guild to create 12-24 level 65 characters, gear, level, AA them and then start doing raid targets.

Because I view the impact on the group and raid scene as being pretty minimal is why I’d be comfortable with a switch now, even if that switch were only enabled on weekends or something. I just don’t see it changing the current status quo.

As for the “where it ends” straw man argument the answer to this is always somewhere. I don’t see this server ever adding new expansions, it’s just not feasible with the amount of backend work involved. Maybe a new server that allows character copies may pop up but TAKP is safe to end in PoP.

 

With the current 3-box limit, these targets stay up 99% of the time. Under your scenario, they are constantly dead. More mobs dying, and more player engagement seems like a win to me (as opposed to no engagement and mobs staying up almost all the time).

Also, as Darchon points out above, this change would have a limited impact on the raid scene and group dynamics. The rotation handles the good stuff. Pickup groups are almost non-existent under our 3-box limit. I spent a good bit of time yesterday in my mid-50s trio looking for people to join me at PoJ Enforcers (one of the best mid-50s camps). I had no takers, and was by myself. What purpose does the 3-box limit serve in that situation? No purpose at all. Would a 6-box limit have helped me yesterday? Yes it would have.

Automation is a bright line that we can always forbid and never compromise on. If you take automation off the table, it provides a natural limitation on what can be achieved by boxing.

Many of the targets you named (i.e. PoP Flag Progression mobs) are really not boxing friendly encounters (in the absence of automation). Anything that flings or fears players or requires a lot of running around, or has lots of adds to deal with is going to be tedious to box. Someone or a couple people might box some of these a couple times, but I'd imagine it would be so tedious and unpleasant, it wouldn't be something people regularly do.I personally would not want to ever try boxing the RZTW encounter.

I see opening up box limits as something that is going to promote player engagement, open up possibilities to mobs that are currently sitting idle 99% of the time, and overall bring about an improvement.

To be clear though, I don't want any of my posts to come across as being ungrateful or complaining. I absolutely love TAKP and if the 3-box limit stuck around, I'd live with it and be content with it. Thank you Devs for maknig this place. It rocks!

 

Of course grouping and raiding are relevant to this discussion because those things are at the core of the everquest experience. Stating that boxing will only impact those things is equivalent to stating that changing the boxing ruleset will affect the core of the takp experience. This much is obvious when you compare grouping on p99 (single box) vs. takp (3-box).

I was merely pointing out that whether or not the current player base prefers pugs or guild groups has no bearing on what takp players of the future will prefer to do. Takp players come and go over many months/years, each with his/her own preferences, playstyle and skills. Just because no one wants to join PoJ enforcers right now doesn’t mean people aren’t doing something similarly or even more productive in that level range, like AoE killing or chain pulling in another zone with more mobs for example.

From my perspective, the only “straw man” argument here is proposing that lifting the boxing restrictions won’t affect the takp experience much. As for adding new expansions not being feasible due to the amount of work involved, please review the following log from Robregen just 10 days ago on June 5:

[Thu Jun 05 XX:11:12 2025] Robregen tells Alliance:1, 'the plans at this point was to merge after 6 months from the release of PoP. then probably open a new TLP that is Post PoP'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:11:37 2025] TAKPTLP.Gitlrihc tells Alliance:1, 'that is very exciting Rob!'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:12:43 2025] Robregen tells Alliance:1, 'probably wil lbe a permenent server. will see.'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:13:23 2025] TAKPTLP.Gitlrihc tells Alliance:1, 'I would hope it would be permanent given all the work you would have to do to create that, hehe'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:13:34 2025] TAKPTLP.Gitlrihc tells Alliance:1, 'that is a huge project for you'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:13:52 2025] TAKPTLP.Diadra tells Alliance:1, 'what do u mean?'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:14:11 2025] TAKPTLP.Gitlrihc tells Alliance:1, 'I was talking to Rob, sorry'
[Thu Jun 05 XX:14:57 2025] Robregen tells Alliance:1, 'probably used the based eqemu with some tweaks.'

Regarding raiding, one particularly awesome aspect of the takp experience is that the multitude of non-rotated targets are mostly up and available for a small number of players to tackle with off-night guild raids or pugs. It was mentioned that not much outside of PoP is not rotated, however that list is actually quite long: Yelinak, Tunare, Velketor, a grimling high commander, Grieg, Lcea Katta, plane of fear, plane of sky, ring 10 (DA earrings), CT ring of fear & a horror construct, N/WToV, THO, Ring of Fire, Shei Vinitras, etc. From the perspective of time geared characters, of course it would appear that, “the rotation handles the good stuff.” However, many players are excited to tackle these mobs whenever they can for valued upgrades. Indeed, part of the allure of items like Akhevan Shadow Shears is that not only are they very useful for tradeskilling, but they are also very rare. With the boxing restrictions lifted, this awesome aspect of takp prime would become a thing of the past.

 

Interesting discussion, thanks all.

I think the conversation about unlimited boxing and automation is worth having (and has been had many times before on these forums over the years), but I didn't propose any of that. No one else did, either. The specific proposal on the table is to temporarily raise the box limit from three to four, see how it goes, and make it permanent if it's broadly popular.

If other folks have specific proposals, I'd love to hear 'em.

 

Take another vote on box limits for the TLP project )

 

For me the biggest advantage I see to raising the box limit to 4 is that it would make AAing toons like my rogue a little easier. Since grouping is happening less and less with the declining population.

Most of my alts have several common PoTime drops from phase 1-4. I have zero interesting in boxing encounters from previous expansions more than once to say I did it. Maybe I would try minis in Sol Ro for alt loot, but with the top heavy population I don’t see additional boxes disrupting availability of non rotated targets significantly.

 

Oh myyyy

 

Post-PoP content sounds amazing! I'd love to progress my best-loved TAKP toon(s) into GoD...