Server Discussion - Non Truebox rule set.

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by dreamweaver, Oct 25, 2019.

  1. That0neguy Augur

    Just because its a limitation now doesn't mean it shouldn't be brought up. If enough people want it and it adds enough value then they should invest to make it happen.
  2. Machen New Member


    I completely agree. I just think most people think there is no good reason for it being the way it is, and assume it is just a switch they can easily flip.

    I would love to see them put in the time and effort to fix the situation. I suspect it will take significant dev time though, or they would already have done it.
  3. Vexn Elder

    If the next TLP sever is a non-trubeox I hope Daybreak starts to sell scripted bots for boxers so we all don't have to pay for macaroni-quest. Just put it in the cash shop.

    Or better yet just don't release a non-truebox. I think a FV truebox would be much more successful.
  4. That0neguy Augur

    Why would you pay for an open source program you can compile yourself?
  5. code-zero Augur

    Because they don't know what they are talking about?
    Skuz likes this.
  6. Vexn Elder

    People who bot are lazy cmon now. I just want the Daybreak cashshop to have my automated bot and auto sync my spells/abilities for me so I can /bot on and fit in with all my fellow non-trueboxers.
  7. Leifer Augur

    I laugh out loud at these arguments. These things already exist on truebox servers and always will - along with those who box with multiple machines. The primary reason for non-truebox is for those of us who don't always have time to group and also don't have multiple machines. I'd gladly trade being able to play 3 accounts on one computer for the cost of a handful of more botters playing on the server.
  8. That0neguy Augur

    My experience has always been the opposite. People who bot usually put a lot more effort into doing it and playing then the rest of the population.
  9. Sythrak20 Elder

    Complains about botters.

    Wants a server ruleset that would encourage more botters.

    ???
    Skuz and Vexn like this.
  10. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Botters just want whatever gets the population big. Whether its fv or anything they'll look to get easy krono. The answer is shut down botters. They could stop the easiest ones by just zoning into Sirens grotto.
  11. Vexn Elder


    I'm sure some botters put a lot of effort into it when they are literally making a living off of the rewards that come with it, no doubt.
    HoodenShuklak likes this.
  12. Xhieron Elder

    The "They're already doing all they can; it's hopeless" argument rings hollow to me. --and that's not to say it's not true. In fact it might be hopeless.

    But I don't think most of us assume it's a switch to flip, and it's just not being flipped out of incompetence or spite. We concede that a solution wouldn't be trivial. The issue is whether it's worthwhile and whether the resources are in fact cost-prohibitive. That we don't know.

    We'd like to know. We're invested. You can tell us the truth. We can take it. Silence just breeds speculation, and in this instance we're posed with a question we can't honestly answer without more information, or at least all our answers are couched in variables.

    There was a good explanation a few years ago here, and I assume that's what Machen was referring to earlier about limits to /pick. Remember that /pick didn't exist at all just a few years ago. It was created and implemented by the team working on the game now, personnel changes notwithstanding. We're not talking about re-starting a piece of ancient technology written in hieroglyphics. Sure, it's 20 year-old code, but we still see an expansion every year. So maybe it's hopeless to ask for improvements that make a boxxing-favorable server palatable to those of us who neither box nor want to be overrun by alphabet soup armies, but I'm not going to take it as a lost cause until someone with authority tells me that it is, and more importantly tells me why.
  13. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Remove Truebox from your oldest server with the ruleset and see what happens. Trying it out on Phinigel would be the best testing grounds to see how players react to the removal of the code.
  14. Machen New Member


    I'm not sure that most people realize a solution wouldn't be trivial, since "give us single group pick zones" is tossed out almost constantly in peoples' new server wishlist. But that being said...

    The devs have talked some about why it is the way that it is, and given us enough info that we can read between the lines a bit further. Zones prior to instancing were designed differently than zones made for instancing. There are a lot more background scripts and such running that take a lot of processing power. Things that control when and how mobs respawn. These apparently are what bog things down when too many pickzones are running.

    When the pickzone nerf took place, the most advanced AoC server was in Planes of Power. So it could be that later expansion zones, which were designed with instancing in mind, wouldn't have nearly the problems. Clearly the game reaches a point where they learned to design zones that could be instanced for single groups without any issues--ldon, don, and virtually every zone SoF onward have instanced versions, and no problem with six player groups creating endless instances of these zones. Many of these instances have mobs that respawn as well, so it's not just respawns that break things. It could be that the static zones in these later expansions would work just fine with unlimited picks. I don't know, and probably the devs don't either (they didn't predict the pickzone problems prior to implementing pickzones, or if they did, they ignored it and never mentioned it to the player base.)

    But effectively, to get pickzones working well on pop and earlier zones, it would take completely recreating each of these zones without the scripts that bog the servers down. In other words, it's not a matter of fixing the pickzone system itself, which while not trivial probably would be within the realm of something feasible to do. Rather, it is a matter of recreating hundreds of zones' worth of content, zone by zone, changing the way that those zones function.

    In a few instances they have done this (eg the Old Man Mckenzie versions of solb and lguk) but it's worth noting that even in those instances there are some screwy things that don't work quite right. (Basilisks appearing in random places in guk for instance.) Still, we can have hundreds of Old Man Mckenzie instances running on a server without any problem--there was a year or so on live where that's all anyone did outside of raids. So it is hypothetically doable, it's just a matter of resources.

    Also keep in mind that these are the oldest zones in the game, and the people who created most of those zones (and their archaic scripts) are long gone. There have been cases where devs have had to spend hours looking at a single script from these old zones to figure out what it is supposed to do and how, and (very) occasionally they've put in those hours and still not figured it out correctly. The potential to get a few little things wrong here and there would be high, and the consequences could be significant--it would be pretty easy for them to accidentally break epic 1.0 quests, or some of the major progression quests.
  15. Machen New Member


    They should have tried it a year ago, or two years ago, if they wanted it to be a true test. When a server has already lost 85% of its players to attrition, it would be hard to judge what impact removing truebox might have on the remaining 15%.
  16. Rasper Helpdesk The Original Helpdesk

    Random thought and this seemed like a good place to throw it...

    With the existing FV Ruleset nearly all items lose the No Drop tag. I wonder if they could piggy back on that code to make a server where they became Heirloom instead of not No Drop. It would encourage alts without drastically changing the server economy. I could use my mage to farm a chain armor mold and use the shared bank to pass to my rogue instead of running out or pass on my All/All raid gear I've outgrown.
    jeskola likes this.
  17. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Please test it on Selo too.

    Later EverQuest was kept alive by boxers, and post-70 TLP servers could use some life.
  18. Duality Augur

    Not a bad idea, but that would just discourage alt accounts. I've learned on early tlps to not stack toons on the same ones as there is always a time when I wish i could have boxed them with each other. I don't have more than two characters on the same account anymore, and even those that have two on them are ones strictly for alternate means like buffing or whatever.
  19. HoodenShuklak Augur

    ditto on that... like it or not truebox brings in cash by incentivizing multiple accounts. When I first returned to EQ I had 2 toons on 1 account but never did that again. At my peak I think I had 7 or 8 accounts even though I only ever played 3 at most. Heirloom gear would be cool and I'm for it, but it wouldn't help casuals stay relevant like FV would.
  20. Rasper Helpdesk The Original Helpdesk

    Not sure I see how Truebox incentivizes multiple accounts. If the server creates a barrier to boxing it seems it fosters a more one-account centered intention, which Heirloom would enhance. If the server abandons Truebox, then I agree no need for Heirloom.