Limit on Boxes

Yay! Hey, Darco!

 

lol k this topic seems old, just wanted to put my 2 copper in yet P ...

Some might like the limit on project 1999 .. i for one actually hate it, since it is UNFAIR .. here is why ..

lots people ask for an exception to be able to log on more as 1 toon from their IP adres .. since they got a wife or kids playing as well .. wich is very fine to me but .. lots people abuse this .. so they end up playing 2 toons anyway ...
not to mention the many other tricks one could use to play 2 anyway .. like
i myself have 2 internet providers .. i could just log on 1 toon from each provider, and i can duo box ,, on p1999 .. i just would need to be lil carefull to act as 2 people .. would be totally unfair .. ..
and there are 1000 other ways yet to actually fool the system .. soo

that being said,, u end up with alot of bad people that duo box nevertheless, and alot of nice people that have to do with a single toon anyway. and, not speaking of all the people that are not playing since they could not box ..

lesson to be learned.. a limit of 1 toon as p1999, will only make bad people get an advantage over the nice people, wich is exact the opposite, from what the rule was meant for ...

so. its better to just not have that rule lol

that was pouky's 2 copper P

)

hugs , Pouky

 

I'm for a limit (two or three) for all the reasons already stated. I personally find I become less social when I box... It's a bit like a disease, you can't just can't help wanting to do more stuff alone when you have the ability.

 

I don't think a limit of one is appropriate, I realize that Al`kabor had a relatively low population.

However, a full team of six is also not appropriate, and can be just as unfair as locking someone to a single character (by unfairly forcing them to now box an army - that's not fun and I don't wanna).

That said, I think this is a salient point, everyone should remember that TAKP is fully capable of having multiple ruleset servers hosted. I'm pretty sure all of the code is there on git.

 

You also have to think, in terms of a logic.

The population of EQmac Server > Population of the TAK Project

 

Right now, sure, but you don't plan ahead for something like this to be a ghost town. You have no idea how popular the server might become once it's actually live; I bet a lot of p99 people will be playing here as well. They've got ~1000 players usually. Plan for the server to be busy (limit boxing) and then if he becomes less popular, make changes for lower population (more boxes).

 

Those same people could have played on the eqmac server

 

Donnie muthafuggin' Darco!!!

 

Though the decision has already been made, I think a 2 box limit is the most ideal number. Here's why:

1. This allows the player some minimal freedom of play when there are no other grouping options.

2. While some duo combos are more potent than others, some people may be more willing to group to increase their efficiency. Once a boxer starts adding 2-3 boxes, their willingness/desire to group with others is sometimes diminshed.

3. Boxxing for raids can sometimes be a necessary evil, and this would allow us to box our much needed chanter/cleric/necro box. This would also allow us to log in an absent friend to flag, loot an item, or whatever else. If we went with no boxes, then raiding in PoP would be much more difficult, but I argue that having 4 players playing 6 boxes made the raids drag on a little longer than they should have.

We made the no box limit work on AK, so we'll make it work here. But until the server goes live, I will continue to voice my concerns/ideas about this topic.

 

The fact that the server will have a lighter population then Al'Kabor (especially at the beginning) and many of those people will be playing in the off hours will necessitate its need.

Secondly there will be a huge need for the extra boxed characters in order to make certain raids happen. Like Merriam said above there are negative aspects as well but I do think these can be policed at a later point by guilds. In Destiny we had points especially when we were first starting to get flagged where there was an absolute need every raid for boxing excessive amounts of characters to make the raids happen. After we added a bunch of people to the guild and had the numbers we put limits on and it seemed to work pretty well.

Lastly I would say that there is a significant population of players that enjoy the solitude of 6 boxing and I think people should continue to be able to do so. It just does not seem right to tell people how they should or should not enjoy playing this game.

Just my simple opinion on the topic.

 

Hi guys,
This is not 100% on topic to the box number limit, but I wanted to post in a thread that was still active.

One problem I encountered with my 6 box was that some of the characters ended up very low on certain skills rarely used in the group. To compensate on AK, I would sometimes go to work and leave a character near the PoK buff stone, and a stack of pennies on a cast key. This would cause the character to repeatedly cast some basic illusion to level up the divinity skill or whatever. This does not utilize any outside program, but in all fairness, I can see how that would be considered an exploit. Would this be against the rules on this server? I don't want to get in trouble on the only EQMac server in existence.

 

I boxed on AK mostly out of necessity in my timezone. But I also saw the impact boxing armies had on AK, along with a range of somewhat anti-social (e.g. shaker paging) and exploitative behaviours. A limit is a sensible idea.

 

Shaker paging had nothing to do with boxing a group and everything to do with people exploiting for max aa's in a hurry. Boxing and exploiting are not related.


And the worst part is, you are all talking about a boxing limit when we have no idea of what our population will be. Sure it sounds good to say lets have a 3 toon limit, but in practice if there are all of 100 active people on the server, a 3 toon limit will result in many people, especially if we all keep different hours, and I know many of us do, playing alone with their 3 toons because not many other people are around, or want to do the same thing. Sometimes you can't find 5 other people interested in farming water in plane of valor for 29 aggregate hours for aid grimel, or sitting on an epic spawn for a day and a half.

A box limit is fine to discuss in theory, but we need to wait, and see what our population in like - in reality - before we should decide anything. Part of the reason TGC has so many boxers, is because its population is very very low. Additionally, none of the guilds who raided PoP hell, or even VT (for a while), did so without quite a few boxes. I know tem wouldn't have gotten to p5 in time (and most raids without time were heavily populated by boxes since a good portion of the guild basically only showed up for time - which made total sense, if i had raided as much EP as they had I probably wouldn't have given too big a shit about my 900000th babnoxis kill either) without its cleric and bard box helpers, most of the chain were boxed clerics from various guildies. And on many a destiny raid our entire chain, and often shams and RT healers were also boxes. Imposing a box limit will limit the amount of these that there are in the end game, for raiding - and without raiding this game loses a lot of its luster. Grouping is great, but raiding is the true gem that made everquest difficult and fun.

 

amen faults, I have been holding my tongue on here, because people are already have their mind sets that boxing is evil.

 

Your stance is that its supposed to be multiplayer and foster a community but that doesn't necessarily correlate to boxing and grouping. The multiplayer aspect doesn't HAVE to come while you are grinding group content and same with the community. Raiding can easily fill the community and multiplayer void - always did for me.A box limit - without any facts as to population or level of interest - could very easily hurt the raiding aspect of the game, which is actually the endgame, and for many the goal of the game.

 

lenas's post disappeared

 

Interesting - should've QFE but oh well. The TLDR of all this is lets please wait until we're open, semi bug free, and in possession of the facts before making any global decisions about the server. I beseech thee.

 

I deleted it before he replied because I realized I don't give a shit. P99 has a thousand players that can't box. AK had a few hundred people that boxed the overwhelming majority of content and made a top heavy community that was hard for new people to join. It is what it is, I'll play either way.

 

I said boxing armies had an impact on AK, along with anti-social and exploitative behaviour. If you read that carefully you'll see that isn't equating the two. Also I don't state what that the limit might be, just that having a limit is sensible.

Just offering a personal opinion as a former long term resident of AK who did box on a topic of general discussion.

 

p99 has been around for years, they based their server around a true eq classic experience

Fippy/Vox(?)/Combine/Sleeper(all progression servers) all had 10x the population of p99 during the same era of the game. They never had a boxing limit

 

It was fippy and vulak. Vox was just a server they released as a fresh start when EQ1 went FTP. Fippy, vulak, and p99 fwiw were/are some of the most cutthroat, dirty raid environments you can ever imagine. 24+ hour poopsocks, trains, more trains, bribing guilds with loot so that the #3 or #4 never get a shot at said mobs. Dotting/dispelling mezz/slow snakes during emp fights to keep VT all to yourself - etc. I'd take low population and boxing over that nonsense.

 

p99 started the poopsocking, if you have to ask what poopsocking is....you dont want to know

 

There were tons of poopsockers on AK, only difference is that you had to go 10 years with zero new content so everybody just had a full team of 65's with all the gear they could ever need or want.

 

I imagine somebody will make another server that will either allow unlimited boxing or cap it to 1-2, to be a counter to TAKP's official server since this is a fully open source project. I had a lot of fun boxing but there are some serious pros an cons to it. Two servers might be the best solution.

If you can't kill a raid boss without 6 boxers then you really don't deserve to kill it, IMO. I say this as an ex-Malignant member. I'd do what they let me get away with within the rules, but at no time did I feel 'entitled' to be killing PoP gods with 5-6 human beings. Even with a two box limit, that still cuts the number of humans you need in half. This is EQ-- Blizzard may consider 10 mans a 'raid' but I call that one and a half groups. Nothing says raid bosses HAVE to die anyway. Team up with other guilds if you have to. Shit wasn't killed for YEARS on AK.

EQ isn't a terribly difficult game mechanically; the challenge in the game comes from the social and logistical aspects of managing large raid forces. One person boxing the entire cleric rot and another boxing half the DPS is sort of cheating from that perspective. Since the content of the game is not instanced, boxing armies of characters deprives others of content, which does lead to an 'arms race' of sorts, forcing guilds to box to compete. This is why many people avoid servers without boxing limits.

There really should be a poll on this. Let the majority's will dictate.

 

Its not about killing a boss with 6 boxers, its that people won't be boxing appropriate classes when you need them, even 30 people with 12 of whom box can easily be necessary. Not to mention malignant didn't break EPs and obviously never time, and never dealt with the tougher fights therein. There shouldn't be any poll until the server opens, because making rules without facts is a bad idea.

 

Regardless of my past statements and opinions, I would have to vote for no limit. I fear that boxxing "could" and "may" hurt the community, but I agree that a game should never force someone to play a certain way. A limit would essentially do just that.

 

It's apples and oranges to compare AK/TAK to any other Sony run server due to free-to-play.

The progression servers limited boxing with pay to play - you could box, but there was a cost which Al'Kabor did not have allowing anyone with the horsepower to box.

There were a few idiots on eqmac forums arguing FTP didn't matter as their daddy could pay for as many accounts as they needed. While I'm personally for allowing a minimum level of boxing, limiting the number of boxes to discourage those imbeciles from playing can only be a positive.

 

Most of the time while I was playing, I was 3-4 boxing. Rarely was I doing 1-2 and rarely would I do 5+ (Even though I had 14ish accounts).

Boxing for me allowed me to not get bored. Whether it be on raids, where playing just a cleric or just a druid would've been too slow paced for me... I was able to play a druid for heals/DPS, a cleric for the CH rotation and a bard for pulling/resists/AE Chorus. Allowing me to be more actively playing; tabbing between accounts, casting when I should be.

Or whether it be when doing group stuff. Many times I would want to camp X or Y but no one is on or we are lacking the correct group make-up to do certain areas. Having a menagerie of boxes allowed me to do things like C2 PoFire or D3 PoWater at any time without having to wait for a guildmate tank who is flagged or guildmate enchanter who is flagged.

Plus being able to port or rez yourself was extremely handy.

I'd like to see *some* boxing, though I wouldn't be opposed to only 2 or 3 allowed. People who were boxing 12+ though were dumb :/.

 

Let me be clear here: the SINGLE reason why Malignant did not kill Rallos Zek is because Layonhands trained us using warp hacks every single night. We spawned RZTWL on our first attempt, easily. I got it on video; it took us 50 seconds to take fake RZ from full to poof. There is nothing about the encounter that is any sort of roadblock for boxed armies. In fact Rallos is a high AC mob with AoE Ramp so the fight favors caster damage, which we had in abundance as we had many keycloned wizards. Charming pets is not an issue when you have bards with lullaby on them. The server shutdown was announced only a couple of weeks after we started making attempts, limiting our time-- we simply had no days when we did not get trained.

I had figured out Layonhands was the culprit, and I assure you had we gotten into EPs Destiny would have paid a price in the form of fire and water bosses being killed at 3:00am.