How is boxing a grp of toons, a game design flaw?

In your opinion.

You want to stop people boxing, which is you dictating how EQ players play.

There are servers where boxing is restricted. The true box servers.

If players want to transfer to true box servers nothing is stopping them.

Nothing is preventing people from making groups.
If people want to group they can.
What makes you think you can decide that people have to group with 5 other random strangers and that 'boxers' should be relegated to some dark server that noone talks about ?

That just might be the person. Not the guild.

You forcing social engineering in game. You are free to download the plethora of social networking and dating apps.

Not only are players boxing for work/family obligations, relaxation, challenge, efficiency, or psychological reasons; the world is already heavily saturated by social offerings. EQ is an escape for many people and boxing/soloing is their outlet.

When people box it is often after having to deal with random asshats who have no clue how to play their class or do stupid things like go AFK with no warning, loot&scoot, train the group or generally make grouping a miserable experience.

This is why a lot of people either box, or group with friends and/or guild members.

And again, YOU do not get to decide how anyone else plays. You don't want to box, fine, don't box. You want a no-box server, there is one, feel free to transfer to it.

Well, I haven't mentioned "friends" anywhere. But there's not going to be many friends made if everyone boxes in their own little bubble.

That's why I am not a great fan of what EQ developers have done over the year. They have created isolated bubbles in EQ, with focusing on raiding guilds, fellowships, flags for zones, and by creating static content, they encourage boxing.

EQ developers have been dividing up the EQ community into isolated bubbles that undermine its community.

Sure you didn't mention friends directly but you did mention how you dislike guilds and those are generally groups of players who form connections and can become groups of friends that play together. In general you seem to have a hate for anything that isn't grouping with random people and and want to force people to play your way by eliminating boxing which the developers have shown support for. If boxing wasn't the intention of the game we would see TLP servers where boxing was not allowed at all but on most of them they are just limited to 1 instance per computer and a single server just allows two characters per player.

And you shouldn't blame the developers for supporting the way that players want to enjoy the game as they have done nothing to force people to box.

Give me a break, that is just a poor excuse.

"I box because I am a better player than everyone else"

As if in all these other games where people group, in MMO, in FPS, etc...everyone is perfect. Somehow in all these other games grouping still works.

People box because it allows them to easily form groups, go to the zones they want and keep the loot for themselves, boxing gives you power, power you don't have with a single account.

It's not because the game is "full of ***hats that train you".

The reason people box are gameplay issues EQ needs to fix. There should also be dedicated servers where boxing is not allowed so people who don't want to box on their own, can play with other people, like EQ intended.

You need to take the deep dive and download Tinder or Bumble. Swipe right and ForumQuest may be over for you.

As a society, we learned to compartmentalize and manage our social exposure.

Even in game, you can choose to be a social butterfly and blast General Chat with politics and pick up group invites or you can find a quiet corner in the zone to solo and relax.

As someone who boxes my own group, I'd entirely disagree with this. I met more connections and have more social interactions that lasted beyond the initial interaction with other boxers on Rizlona than I've had playing solo toons on Truebox servers or live. Meeting people through the guild you raid with, or even just discussing boxing with others, leads to just as much interaction. I stopped playing on Riz and still talk to a handful of those individuals, which is more than I can say for the other way. Does it limit interaction? Maybe. But the opportunities are still there just maybe for different reasons.

Players that cause the group to die or not be able to do anything because they take random AFK's without warning is a poor excuse to not group with random people?

Strawberry's rather strained argument is analogous to forcing every American citizen to be registered on social network apps so that our country has a higher birth rate and less loneliness.

It's forcing a wonky, tenuous authoritarian solution to something that should be resolved organically by the people with freedom of choice.

I didn't mention AFK anywhere. I'm not going to reply if you just put quotes around my post and then reply with something else.

You didn't but the post you replied to did.

So reply to him. You are continuously replying with posts that are not directly related to me.

I have no problem talking to you, but don't quote me and then argue about something someone else said.

No, I am going to reply to the person I am intending to reply to. You made a response to a post saying why they don't want to group with people by saying it wasn't a valid reason and I wanted to question your claim.

I would have no problems replying to you if you read my posts, instead of other people's posts. I am not here to defend arguments of other people.

I did read your post and that is what I replied to. Just because it was a reply to someone else doesn't mean others are not allowed to comment on what you were replying about.

I box, so clearly am not anti-box. However, while there are some bad players that are out there... there are also good players who do not box. And placing all non boxers under one "git gud" umbrella is a bit false. Which I do think quite a few box/clique groups do- they assume everyone is terrible based off of past experiences, and never give anyone a chance.

And that is a problem. It is what caused me, in part, to start to box. And what causes others to quit or have resentment to boxers.

The idea that boxing in EQ exists because there is some jerk running around who "trains" his own groups is so silly.

It would be much easier to simply ignore that person you had a bad experience with instead of paying for 6 accounts and multiple PC.

People box because it simply circumvents the difficult process of forming groups.

And again, I don't blame boxers for boxing, the difficulties of forming groups are caused by game design flaws.

While that might be true removing the ability to box would likely see those players group with a small set of friends instead of boxing. This wouldn't result in those players getting more groups as they would likely still be avoided as an unknown player.