DBG: Easy fix to stop boxing violations

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Fell, Jun 13, 2021.

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  1. Lanffear Filthy Boxer

    Not to mention there are boxers who box less than 6 and make groups with their boxes combined. My spouse and I each box a few characters here and there. We group with friends who also box a few characters. For anyone to say every boxer is an island is to ignore reality.

    "Solving" boxing would require something on the order of revising the play style and speed of EQ in such a way that playing more than 1 character at a time is not possible. As is, the play speed of EQ is so slow, boxing is easily done. All the band aid solutions that have been tried can easily be worked around (see Phinigel where True Box was first implemented; everyone simply obtained a PC for every character they wanted to box. Plenty of 6 box rig photos on the forums) or would not allow two people to play from the same household (due to IP).

    It sounds like what OP wants is P99. Or to argue and agitate. My guess is the latter.
    Skuz, Bardy McFly and That Guy like this.
  2. Accipiter Old Timer


    Poppycock.
  3. Fell Augur

    Sure. Sounds like a good goal. Why not work towards it -- at least on a limited subset of servers?

    You guess wrong.
  4. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    There are two sides to every coin. Interplayer interaction isn't inherently good or bad. Some people are great, some people suck. Interacting with them will result in an experience that mirrors the person interacted with. EQ had very high dependency early on, and for some classes it still does. There is no lack of grouping, or PUGs, when a TLP launches. The original heart of EQ is still there, it's just not the only thing there.

    Farmers farm, they don't have to be boxers. Guilds can farm, groups of friends can farm. Boxing allows another set of people into that club. But really, what do you mean by "degrades a server's economy?" More items mean lower prices, which actually hurts farmers more than players.

    Not all boxers are impacting content for other players. I haven't boxed anywhere that other players wanted to be, I could fight where I wanted because I brought my own group. Not all will do that, but boxers aren't just one thing or one mindset, they are just people who hate downtime.

    Early raids can be boxed, and with AoC instances they affect very little. Raiders know these early raids are easy, seeing a boxer pull it off with a similar sized force doesn't cheapen anything. Later when you get into complex mechanics, there will be less boxers raiding.


    Boxers aren't robots, we're still people. 12 hours is a long time to do anything, for anyone. And there really aren't camps anymore, just DPS races. So it doesn't matter who is trying to hold a camp, it matters what was brought to kill those mobs. Some boxers build groups for that, some build for the way they like to play. But again this goes back to people. A piece of crap with 6 accounts will be more annoying than a piece of crap with 1 account. But the problem is the piece of crap, not the number of accounts.

    In the end, you have both a misunderstanding of boxing, and of the people who box. The pushback you are getting in this thread isn't about your dislike of boxing. It's because you spent like 3 pages trying to say TrueBox doesn't mean what DPG defined TrueBox as. Then once that passed, you continued on your "if all the boxers were gone, the world would be perfect" crusade. You're digging your own hole here.

    DPG tried to force a character limit on a TrueBox server (Aradune). It barely worked when they had the resources to police it early on, then the policing dropped off as the server aged, and the rule basically doesn't exist anymore. Then you come in and say "what if we just got rid of all boxing?" Which to anybody paying attention, is completely tone deaf. It doesn't matter if they want to, they can't do it. Removing /follow would annoy real players who don't box, it would hurt returning players who don't remember much about the game. It's a bad solution to a problem where good solutions already failed. The sooner you recognize that, the sooner you may find you stop getting dogpiled by the opposition in this thread.
    Skuz and Bardy McFly like this.
  5. Fell Augur

    You're correct -- boxing is as much symptom as it is problem. This is why I've never advocated terms-of-service limits on boxing as a "fix" -- they're irrelevant at best, and counterproductive at worst. The real solution is to address the issue through game mechanics changes.
  6. Fell Augur

    I'll answer this the same why I answer the whines about old-school corpse runs. It's not the bad interactions in of themselves -- it's avoiding them that counts. In early EQ, a player deep in a high-level zone was by definition a person with good interpersonal skills. Now, anyone and everyone goes anywhere and everywhere.

    I'm arguing that the point of a "massively multiplayer" game is to require at least a certain degree of multiplayer interaction. Why do you feel so threatened by having even one server where this is true? I'm not asking you to play on it.
  7. Fell Augur

    Sure they can. But -- as I've already said many times before -- they can't do it through policing and terms-of-service restrictions. It has to be done by adjusting game mechanics.
  8. Boogatti Lorekeeper

    I've literally seen you boxing. Weird self-hate.
  9. Machen New Member


    If my playstyle cheapens your experience, I'm glad for it. Go back to p99.
  10. Fell Augur

    Thank you for honestly displaying your griefer attitude. I'm also amused that you believe "go back to P99" is some sort of insult. I've never tried it. But players like you may eventually lead me to. I do, though, wonder how DBG feels about players so openly attempting to drive portions of their customer base to a different product.
  11. Baldur Augur

    You just need to go back to p99, because they aren't going to make any changes to player power in these early expansions. At least nothing so significant that it makes it like it was back when the expansions were released.

    I really wish they would make a no-box server, take away /follow on it, it would stop most boxing. Then at least when an anti-box thread comes up we can just point them to that server.

    It would be nowhere near as popular as you think though.
  12. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    The point of a massively multiplayer game is to keep the game maker in business. Originally they were intended for single players to group with others, because of the dynamics of how people gamed and how PC's worked. The world has changed, things that were barely possible or hugely expensive before are not anymore.

    The reason I, and others, will oppose many ideas for new servers--not just yours--is that any new server is a risk. TLP's are a pretty good formula, new Live servers haven't worked in a long time. Adding a new server requires a commitment on their end, for the 5 or so years it will run through expansions. Many of us prefer to shoot down ideas that don't make a lot of good sense for the company. We don't have any control over what happens, and sometimes we can be wrong, but here I don't think we are.

    What we learned from Aradune is that if you say there is a limit, and it isn't policed perfectly, people get mad. There is no point in them committing to something they can't do. A server without /follow would not be very popular, even if it was somehow a single account server. They've had their misteps in the past, some of us can be quite vocal about what they should avoid in the future.

    Keep in mind that P99 is free, and IP locked or whatever, yet it's not that popular, even being perpetually in the prime TLP expansions. If that thing isn't booming, then why would a TLP or Live server like that, with a required monthly fee, do anywhere near well?



    Let me try to explain something to you that you still don't seem to be able to grasp. There is a game mechanic that says you have to move your character around within the limits of its speed and the geometry of the game. People have found a way to get around that. For whatever reason the server can't or isn't detecting this. People who implement this solution are not only getting around the ToS or policing, they are getting around a game mechanic. Simply because the client software is trusted to handle this portion of the mechanic, and they found a way to exploit that, even having a game mechanic isn't stopping people.

    You can make all kinds of suggestions to stop boxing on one server, maybe half will even have a shot of being implementable. And far less than that will actually do anything about this "problem." If they could stop the botters with any regularity or permanency, then I might have faith that they could stop the boxers similarly, if I even wanted them to do so, which I don't.
    Captain Video and Bardy McFly like this.
  13. Healiez Augur

    I am guessing you have not seen the automation some of these box programs are capable of achieving, youtube it, you will be amazed at how well current era toons (which have WAY more buttons and mechanics) are automated.

    Heck, the computer plays the toons better then a lot of people I have played with over the years.

    And just when you think, well theres no way on boss XXXXX a boxing program could play the toon better due to outside variables like jousting, stun/FD mechanics etc. BOOM YOUTUBE GUIDE!

    ALSO

    A lot of People (myself included) box simply because playing one toon is boring, especially some of the more vanilla ones. hit Q, hit 1 every 6 seconds, stay close to the mob.

    Playing 3+ toons actually makes the game engaging.
    Bardy McFly and Boogatti like this.
  14. jiri_ Augur

    Right, automation is the problem. It's banned for a reason, though those bans are barely enforced. You're more likely to get in trouble for clicking a Feign Death hotkey with a mouse macro than having a fully automated character.

    But the rest doesn't quite follow. If you box because one character is boring, surely upping the engagement level of that character would make you less likely to box? Except you're also saying that it doesn't matter how complex a character is to play; it can just be automated. So the 'easy fix' here is a hard line on automation, which either can't or won't happen.
  15. Lurikeen Journeyman

    If boxing was an issue such that it was costing DG its player base, then perhaps a robust solution to that problem would be implemented. As it stands, the player base seems tolerant of boxing as evidenced by their continued support for the game. I am not bothered by boxing and I don't box, although I am curious to try it.
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  16. Healiez Augur


    I think the reason why it wont happen is because "can you prove with 100% certainty, that the character is being automated".

    Most people would be like yah, its 100% obvious, just look at them. However if you REALLY start questioning it, and are like am I 100% sure, gun to my head, that character is being automated, would you say yes?

    I feel like that is where they are at. Like MAN I am 99% sure that character is automated, but maybe it isnt? I mean this this and this all look automated, but if I am to ban them I have to be 100% sure... I just dont think its possible in most cases to be 100% sure before you hand out a ban.

    Now IF they made characters more complex, to where I didnt have to box for the game to be engaging I might be more interested... However, would that game still be everquest? or just a brand new MMO with everquest skins?

    I know the gun to my head reference is a little extreme, but it somewhat fits... They arent going to ban someone because they are "pretty sure" they need to be 100% sure.

    I mean, if you are at the keyboard its almost impossible to get banned...

    The GM pops in.

    GM: /say Hey bro, you automating those toons?
    Boxer: /say no its me playing them
    GM: /say ok cool, have a nice day

    You are at the keyboard, you are technically playing the game, they cannot prove at that point automation is going on.
  17. Gnothappening Augur

    Yes, 22 years ago you could earn a reputation in EQ. Also, 22 years ago you couldn't change your name, servers didn't recycle every year, and there was at least 3x the population. Also, you are seeing through rose tinted glasses to a certain extent because, even back then, being a good tank, healer, or crowd control got you invites as soon as you logged in. Being a good DPS didn't really do jack for you.

    Most importantly though was time. Expansions were being released once a year or once every six months. People had been on servers for a few years and reputations had been built. Now we drop into a server and by the time people would normally be building a reputation, the next TLP is releasing. Also, rep wouldn't have meant jack back then if you could race, name, sex change like you can now.
  18. Healiez Augur

    Unless you are talking across the entire game, this is false.

    They have said on numerous occasions that the progression servers have had populations that dwarfed even the biggest servers back in the day.

    If you mean across the entire game, maybe, but except for a very select few players (Tigole, Furor, etc) you werent known outside of your server.
  19. Bardy McFly Augur

    It sounds like you're wanting to play a different game. The more you describe what you want, the more I'm inclined to recommend EQ2 to you. More modern graphics, engaging gameplay that deters/prevents efficient boxing, encounter locking to prevent DPS racing by box armies from stealing your kills.

    Most of the current playerbase still plays EQ because of what EQ still is. Don't try to change the game to fit your personal needs. The changes you want would just as likely push away single players as the boxers.
  20. Metanis Bad Company

    Hey Karen, this is just personal envy and jealousy. Any thought given to this will immediately realize that your "experiences" cannot be linked to the vast majority of other users playing this game. And the assertion that it leaves "less content" is also plainly not true.

    I'll offer an anecdote from my early years playing on Veeshan server. It turns out that Veeshan had a significant population that played from Japan and other Asian countries. But the only time you encountered them were if you happened to play in the early morning hours here in the US. For the most part we were like ships passing in the night. But they were consuming the same content that we Americans were while having negligible impact on us even while we had nearly zero impact on them.

    (The obvious exception were the "first-in-force" raids that every guild contended over. But that was part of the culture and mystique of the game then!)
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