De-mystifying Trueboxing

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Risiko, Sep 13, 2017.

  1. Risiko Augur

    It's happy happy bored time at work, so time to start a thread.

    Something I see people talk about in game on Truebox servers is how people can't possibly be playing on 6 different computers and being that efficient. While there are cheaters out there that use bannable 3rd party software, the vast majority of Trueboxers are doing it within the rules.

    So, here's a quick little discussion on some of the ways they are doing it.

    For the purposes of this thread, I will be discussing Trueboxing based on the following group setup:

    1. Shadowknight - Tank
    2. Cleric - Healer
    3. Enchanter - Crowd Control
    4. Mage - DPS
    5. Mage - DPS
    6. Mage - DPS
    First off, the only two characters that require full focus of the gamer are the Tank and Crowd Control. The other 4 characters can be put on small laptops or mini computers off to the side. More about that later.

    For the Tank and Crowd Control, the trueboxer needs a real keyboard, mouse, and monitor right in front of them. These are the two classes they will be maining. It is very easy to work two classes, so no mysteries to decipher there.
    As for the healer, all of their hot bar buttons will be setup as follows:
    1. /pause 3, /target JoeBobTank
    2. /cast 1
    3. /cast 1
    4. /cast 1
    5. /cast 1
    This will target the character to be healed by name. The 4 casts after it will take care of any fizzles. The healer will have 1 hot button for each character in the group, a group heal, and a sit button.

    As for the 3 DPS characters, they will 2 custom hotbar buttons as follows:
    1. /pause 3, /assist main assist
    2. /pause 3, /pet attack
    1. /pause 3, /assist main assist
    2. /cast 1
    3. /cast 1
    4. /cast 1
    This will assist the main assist (have the tank setup as main assist), send pet. The second one will assist the main assist and cast a nuke spell. The 2 extra casts help with fizzles. They will have a button to cast pet buff and one for sit as well.

    All characters other than the tank will have a Follow hotbar button as follows:
    1. /pause 3, /target JoeBobTank
    2. /g Following %t
    3. /follow
    This will make the character follow your tank, and the group chat message will let you know they are following the right person.

    Now as for the Healer and 3 DPS computers. These can be laptops, mini computers, tablets, etc. They truly are not important. They don't need big monitors or keyboards in front of the player. The player can literally see everything they need to see from their main 2 computers in the group window (health and mana).

    You also do not need to have 6 huge keyboards all stacked together. You can get USB numpads that have a long usb cable. Then you just map the /, *, -, +, 0, and . to your hot bar buttons. Map the 8, 4, 6, and 2 to movement. Map 5 to sit. Map 7 and 8 to look up and down. Map 9 and 3 to move up and down. Literally everything you need for the Healer and 3 DPS can be handled on a numpad. That saves a ton of room on your desk.

    So, then when you pull a mob, you do the following:
    1. Tank pulls and builds agro with snares/debuffs
    2. Enchanter puts the adds on pulls to sleep and slows the main target
    3. Then you simply hit the same key (I tend to use the . key on each of the DPS characters to fire off the send pet hotbar button) on the 3 DPS numpads. Bam, bam, bam. Easy peasy.
    4. If you need a heal, hit the + key on the healer numpad.
    5. At 70% mob health, hit the / key on the 3 DPS num pads to cast nukes.
    6. Rinse and repeat.
    The fact that you simply hit 1 key on 3 small numpads to send pets and then 1 key on 3 small numpads to nuke can make it look like you are using key broadcasting, but you are not. It just looks like that becuase it's so fast to hit 3 keys in a row.

    That's it. There's nothing magical about it. It's just 2 main computers, 4 mini computers with USB numpads, and well defined hotbar buttons.
  2. Risiko Augur

    As a side note, there are some other hotbar buttons you will want to create to make your life easier.

    First off, make spellsets. That means setup your spells for specific roles, and then save them as Main, Buff, etc.

    Then create a hotbar button for each of your spellsets to load them as follows:
    1. /mem Main
    This will make it so you can click one hotbar button to make that character memorize that specific spell set. This is most useful for your Enchanter and Cleric.
    Some of the utility hotbar buttons that make life easier are as follows:
    • /camp button - for those OMG camp now moment as well as making logging out for the night faster
    • /pick button - you're going to have to pick instances eventually. This makes it easier than typing /pick on 6 different computers
    • /leaveall - Everquest loves to add you to chat channels when you zone. You can set it up to not do that, but just for simplicity sake, you can create a hotbar button to dump the chat channels if you want.
    • /hidecorpse always - This will keep all corpses hidden past, present, and future. Get rid of the clutter
    • /hidecorpse none - You're going to wipe eventually. This will make it so you can see your corpses again.
    • /dragcorpse - It does what it says... drags a corpse. Just click the corpse, and hit the button.
    • /dropcorpse - Yep. It drops a corpse. Sometimes when you are dragging a corpse, it bugs it so the cleric can't target it. Dropping the corpse tends to fix the bug.
  3. Finchy Augur

    according to new patch notes the /pick will only need to be on 1 toon now!
    Risiko likes this.
  4. Kattria Minx Augur

    Great overview. I think many of the people coming back have no idea how customizable the game is now and thus they don't understand things like spell lists, hotbar macros (/cast, /pause, /doability, /assist, etc) work.

    I do box (I don't play on Phinny or Agnarr) very very casually (I'm not a farmer and don't care about krono, I just like to play more than 1 character at a time sometimes), but I didn't even think about adding the smaller keypads (like those gaming ones that have mouse and half keyboards for your left hand) to laptops or tablets. This opened up a new world for me on the boxing front. :)
    code-zero likes this.
  5. Accipiter Old Timer


    If I read it correctly, if one group member is in a pick and others zone in, they will zone into that first group member's pick. So let's say all group members are in a pick together and you want to go to a different pick. One group member can pick and the others... what, zone out and back in? I'm wondering if there's a shortcut I'm not thinking of. Or maybe I missed something in the UI.

    Edit: Never mind, I see you're referring to the Test patch notes, not the Live patch notes. Picking as a group sounds useful.
  6. Finchy Augur

    i understood, that if your group is in the same pick as the group leader, and all are off cooldowns the leader can pick the group to a different pick, in addition to what you are saying.

    Pick Zone Improvement: The ability to /pick as a group has been added.
    - - The Multiple Instance Choice window now has the option to pick as a group that the group leader can toggle.
    - - You must be in the same pick instance as the group leader, be out of combat, and have no pick timer to pick as a group.
  7. Captain Video Augur

    What I want to know is... If AIs in robotic form take over EQ development, will it then be legal for AIs in robotic form to main in a truebox group of six?
  8. Groans Augur

    I think the point of the truebox server is being missed, I don't think it matters if you can box 6 toons or not the idea or spirit of the server it to force players to be semi social yet not cripple them completely by it so that a normal person could box 1 character so they don't have to sit lfg all day. You guys are bypassing what truebox was meant to do. I bet if they start 2 box limit server pretty much every one else would go there.
  9. Gingyr Elder

    It baffles me people cant figure this out on their own. I would add....
    /hidecorpse npc hides npc corpses but not players. nice for the rezzer
    /hidecorpse looted hides corpses you looted and left stuff on

    be careful zoning out and using 2 diff keyboards to tap keys to the tune of a song, that can trigger true box code lol
  10. Risiko Augur

    The term Truebox server was coined first with the Phinigel server. The Phinigel server was created in response to the massive box armies that were causing people to leave Ragefire by the groves. It had nothing to do with getting people to be social. It had everything to do with eliminating 12 mages running around following each other and one shooting everything.

    I think the idea of Truebox being a no-box server is wrong. A Truebox server is an no-box-army server.
    snailish, Chatoyan and Illusory like this.
  11. Illusory Augur

    Let's not forget, all of these characters were being played from the same computer. It wasn't uncommon to see people running around with a warrior, cleric, shaman, and 12 magicians.
    code-zero likes this.
  12. Machentoo Augur


    You don't get to decide what trueboxing was meant to do.

    In the very first ever advertisement for the first truebox server, they had a picture of a guy set up to 12 box on 12 computers. So, if you think they didn't intend for people to do that, you are just wrong.
    NoWay and code-zero like this.
  13. Tweadle New Member

    I'm with Groans . You are in fact circumventing the intended spirit of the server.

    What Is a True Box Progression Server?
    This is a server where each player will only be able to play on one EverQuest account from their computer. We want to encourage players to play with their friends on this server, and not just form groups of only their alts.

    That quote is followed by the picture you mentioned ...as an absurdity . So yeah, they did not intend for the vast majority of people to set up 6 + computers ...
    Deadshade and Jaxarale01 like this.
  14. Nekromancy Elder

    "Vast majority - means almost all or something like 90% or more, but less than unanimous." -' Google
  15. snailish Augur

    Informative thread, thank you.

    If a person wants to old-school multi-rig it, or the modern hybrid described in the OP I have no issue with that. They are paying for the accounts which = the right to play them within the EULA.

    Truebox (as others have said) is just "no single computer running numerous characters with one keystroke --and that is good enough for me. If that is what you want to do, play any of the not truebox servers.

    I tried boxing just enough to know that will never be my thing. I have great respect for skilled players, which includes many boxers.

    Unskilled players I am fine with as long as they are nice. I just assume they are new or new to the class or situation. We were all new once.


    Discourteous play can be any casual/raider/solo/boxer, we do tend to remember the multiboxing discourteous player more is all.


    IF, someday... Daybreak wanted to relaunch a roleplaying server then a single-player per account setup makes sense --for that immersion aspect. Note that this doesn't stop boxing, but it does make who you are who you always are on the server (unless you run enough accounts that some are your alts I suppose). Not sure that would ever be offered, as other ideas are likely more popular (so $).
  16. nantalbus Elder

    thing is they will never make a no boxing server. They can but they won't. the reason is simple. To do a true no boxing server means you have to limit it to one account per IP address and that make it so family and friends living in the same house can't play with each other.
  17. Rhodz Augur



    Actually it is ridiculously easy to make a no-box server in particular with a supportive player base. No need to go near IPs for it, see an older thread on this one.
  18. Groans Augur

    now your just talking scale. It doesn't matter to me if you have 12 mages or 4 the point I'm trying to make is one guy can lock down named spawns for as long as he can stay awake. With no pnp and Kronos now an issue it seems like The only difference in the 12 mages is that one guy with 6 computers now has the advantage, basically you can do exactly what he did on a lesser scale. I guess I would just like to play on a server where 2 boxing is the max or if need be no boxing. Why else would you be here with your 6 computers if not to exploit the fact that most people do not have or want 6 computers to play with? Don't act like your better than the mage army guys of ragefire your doing the same thing on a different level. But hey keep this server, your playing by the rules, just give me a server without this.
  19. Renshu Augur

    I'm not sure that a no box server would be a big hit for them. IMO the no-box crowd is the minority. Hypothetically, why would they burn resources on the smaller crowd, all of which are only going to pay for 1 account/person? Boxers have really kept this game going by paying multiple subscriptions over the years while others have bolted for WoW or free EQ like P99, etc. Without boxing, there wouldn't be TLP servers cause the game wouldn't be profitable and would have lost profitability years ago. Truebox vs non-truebox really is night and day though, you'd be able to see this if you had played on Ragefire/Lockjaw. They not only have more boxes, they have animated boxes, all on the same computer. The capabilities of a six box team on one computer vs six are far greater, combine this with more and more boxes on the same computer. You have p99 as a non boxing option, seems to be a quality server with good uptime. There are some serious downsides though: raiding requires serious socking/batphoning, screwed up economy, stuck at velious forever.
    Kattria Minx likes this.
  20. Renshu Augur

    I'd be all for them making a no-box server though. I wouldn't be interested, but some would. I think many would also like to see a Ragefire type server with instanced raiding.