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

Minecraft has what are called Realms, you host your own world on their equipment and change settings. And can invite only people that you want, not open to the public.

Let me run my own server with my own ruleset, maybe tweak databases, or even add my own graphics packs (like minecraft does also).

And let me throw buckets of money at you.

How do we know that they can?

Cliques. Six solo players who get together every Friday night for four hours and do whatever content they want, but will not invite anyone else into their pre-made group

You made the argument that -in essence - 1800 boxes played by 300 players is worse than 1800 individual players for a determination of server treatment.

I am offering the rebuttal to your assumption that prima facie numbers is indicative of server health. Darkpaw could have tools to sort out boxes to make a better qualitative assessment.

Edit: To be clear, I am not conceding the point that fewer boxers is qualitatively better but rather Darkpaw can do the necessary studies with the tools afforded to them. The treatments could include: engagement (activity) and expenditures on high-box servers vs. low-box servers.

Interesting. As purely a rhetorical exercise...

What if more boxers is better in the end cost/benefit analysis for the business?

300 vs 1800 means fewer people to have CS issues, costs them less.

As percentage of boxers rises, maybe the dedication level to the game, and extra expenditures increase? Lower dedication and spending become less desirable, because they are not as easily monetized.

And that is my point, we have all this hate for boxers when they are not the only groups out there that don't invite others.

the culture of the game has aged with its playerbase ... as most people get older they have less need to meet new people ... i for one.

that being said i never pug and unless i group with a guildy i box 6 characters ... the days of LFG are dead . time changes things either adapt or move on. DPG is not going to spend time and money only to make less money by getting rid of boxes ... dont like the environment? its up to you to adapt or find a new one

I box because I have odd play times. Also, drop rate for stuff in game is absurd. Grouping with 5 other people for a chance to get an aug is not feasible for me anymore. Camps can take up to 8+ hours to get drops. I don't have that much free time anymore.

Im just Anti-Social so i just play with myself lol. I just molo on my ranger but there will be a time i will need to box because mobs are just gonna have too many hps so been leveling up my mage. I usually fight in the Darkended Sea. What expansion did mobs start getting a ton of hps? TBL?

RoS golems is when it started.

I think some people just would rather get it done for themselves for the satisfaction in that. I know I am guilty of that. One of my proudest moments was doing all the mercenary and partisan tasks in Dragon necropolis last expansion. What a pain in the that zone was. I cant solo the hero tasks like some can so take my victories where I can find em.

It's amusing how the anti-boxing crowd seems to think if they banned boxing somehow, that that boxing crew would suddenly go "Oh ok, I'll just keep subbin, and group with those random players that are either bad, go afk randomly, have to leave after 20 minutes the group gets going..." - AND keep all of their box crew active so their is a mix of classes available to group with them.

But the reality is, if boxing was banned... other characters would disappear. Likely shortly after my Rogue would disappear as well. Many of the people that do box a group of their own would do the same thing. The grouping situation would not improve for you. If you're a good player, you can get groups already.

It isn't.

People box rather than play with random live people for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:
1. Limited play time - if someone only has say an hour to play, spending 45 minutes to try to find 5 other people all wanting to do the same thing is a waste of time.
2. Bad past experience - We've all had those nightmare pickup groups in the past. The random AFK people, the loot&scooters, the simply useless, etc.
3. Specific goals - sometimes you have a specific goal, e.g. a quest item you want to camp, a progression mission, etc. Finding a random group that will agree that "item x" is yours because that's what you want to camp usually isn't going to happen.

Feel free to add more examples why having your own boxed group (or a mixture of regular friends & boxes) simply works better in some situations.

I don't disagree with your points, but I'm guessing most people would prefer a solution that didn't require boxing. Boxing itself has lots of complications and annoyances to deal with since it's up to the player to manually manage multiple game clients. I doubt if anyone really finds that aspect all that much fun. For example, just trying to get characters to auto-follow can be a headache. I assume most boxers like 'the ability to accomplish tasks on their own' rather than 'the mechanisms of boxing'. If EQ had a way to accomplish tasks with a single character, would boxing be as prevalent?

If the boxers are saying "DB, nothing is wrong, boxing is a fine way to play", then DB is less likely to make changes to make single-client play viable. But like was mentioned above, maybe DB makes more from a 6-boxer than 6 single players. It may be financially better to have the non-boxers quit and just be left with boxers. My feeling is that's not the case, but I guess it's up to their accountants to make that decision.

If boxing really is DB's preference, then they really should make changes to accommodate them. I assume autofollow is mostly used by boxers rather than individuals, and it sucks. I assume fellowships and campfires are mostly used by boxers rather than individuals, and it's a hassle to get those setup. DB should face the reality that these "grouping" tools are almost exclusively used by boxers now rather than individual players and they might as well make them more convenient for boxing. The game is in this weird middle ground where they pretend a group is being played by 6 individuals, but in reality it's one person playing 6 characters.

Just like real life, everyone has their preference... you're trying to talk for other people here.

Right. If someone actually likes boxing, great! I hope they have a great time. I think the only people left are people who like boxing, so I'm not surprised if there's going to be a near 100% support for boxing on the forum. Anyone who doesn't like boxing has already left the game. If EQ can make the game enjoyable for non-boxers, then they'll stop losing those players and get money from both kinds of players.

There are clearly people that enjoy both.

There should be dedicated servers for non-boxers where single-account-owners can transfer to for free. And where the goal is to build a community. Just like there are TLP that discourage boxing.

You can't have a game where boxers launch up 4 characters and solo all the content, and single-account-owners have to spend hours looking for a group because everyone in the zone is boxing.

No other game tolerates this baloney.

Tell any other game developer that you can launch up 6 characters in this game, and those developers would immediately tell you this is not how games are supposed to work.

It's about time EQ's developers did something about it before everyone plays in their little multibox bubble ignoring everyone else in the game.

Everyone knows boxing is a problem, everyone knows boxing impacts grouping chances for others, everyone knows it undermines socializing. Let's stop playing a dummy about it.

You wanna box? Fine, but single-account-onwers and people who want to stop boxing and actually play with other people, should get their servers too.

A game where everyone boxes their own characters, is not an MMO, it's solo game.

We used to have thriving communities gathering to form groups in the commons tunnel, PoK, Lavastorm, to go on an adventure with people they had never met.

In today's EQ, people are standing AFK in the guild lobby, logging in to load up their 4 boxes so they can solo in a multiplayer game. Or just so they can get another piece of raid loot and log off right after, completely separated from the rest of EQ.

EQ used to have thriving communities, but today EQ is one of the loneliest games you can log into, where almost no one interacts.

I don't know any other MMO where the community has completely disappeared like in EQ, where people either only play in their little bubble or box.

And yes the blame is in large part due to developers who allowed it to happen. Allowing boxing, creating huge player power gaps, spreading people out over far too many zones, creating closed off community bubbles in fellowships, guilds, cliques, far too much focus on raids.

Developers also undermined the few good concepts that brought people together, such as hero/OMM missions that had spontaneous grouping because the power gaps were eliminated.

The only thriving EQ communities in recent memory were on certain TLP because they actively discouraged boxing and where power gaps between players were limited early in the game.

You have made thousands of posts on this forum where you interact with people.

You're not anti-social. Anyone writing on this forum seeks an interaction. No one would post here if there was no one on the forum.

The EQ environment is just not conducive to interaction anymore. That's not the fault of the players, that's a problem EQ developers need to fix.