Boxers, why play on TLP rather than live?

I multibox so that I don't have to deal with fanatics like Magician9001. A person that behaves so neurotically about multi-boxing usually behaves neurotically about other stuff like loot rules, which camp we go to, how many mobs I pull to the group, etc.

Nah, I find myself much easier to group with.

I am on a TLP and I usually have the whole zone by myself for hours. Oh that is right I am playing all the way to the end of the TLP until it goes to live. The start of TLP yeah it gets pretty bad at times but you do have picks. By the time depths of darkhollow comes out its starting to get a small server. So I don't see the TLPs having the issues you talk about after a while.

Actually this doesn't make much sense because as far as I know, all the old zones all still exist on the Live server so content can't be the real reason. I mean it is pretty easy to start at level 1 on live, go back to the old school newbie zones, not use a merc and experience the old content to your hearts content.

For example, I know that I play on TLP exclusively because I want the old school, social experience I had back in the day because no modern game has replicated that experience but I don't box and honestly wish they would figure out a way to prevent boxing completely on the TLPs.

As to why people do box, a couple of legitimate things come to mind.

1) They want a toon to be able to powerlevel any new toons your create.
2) They want a instant partner or group in case you can't find a group.
3) They played EQ, liked the concept but hated having to rely on other people, then went to WoW where they learned that everything can be soloed, then realized they wanted EQ to be completely soloable like WoW so they built their own solo group.

The first two I kind of get. In fact I may very well have boxed a second toon on the new TLP if the game wasn't truebox for those very reasons. Also I am kind of torn between several different classes as to what I want for a main so having a box would have allowed me to progress two characters simultaneously, rather than progressing them back to back one at a time. So there is at least some pressure for me to want to consider to box at least one additional character. Still I doubt I would because I really do feel boxing is bad for the game though I am not going to get into why here.

As for the last one, that is the one that might be "legitimate" that I reject. The game was never designed to be a solo experience and dragging around an entire party just ruins the game for other people simply because you have one person consuming the same content as 6 people. It is hard enough getting a camp without a box party sitting on top of spawns.

And that brings up to the illegitimate reason to box and that is box groups ran with the intent to farm content to sell for Krono or real money. I really don't think this reasons are legitimate at all and have a huge negative impact on the game but to the OPs question, this is why many if not most people box.. at least to the scale of running full size groups of boxed bots.

If you are not boxing at least one other toon, you are not doing it right.

Yeah, well, thats just like your opinion, man.

Honestly, I started as a single boxer on Coirnav, and slowly added an extra computer every few months over time. On a dying server it was like "oh i can't find a healer? I guess i'll play a healer".

I wanted to play on TLPs because my friends talked me into coming back to EQ, and coming back to EQ fresh and going into live after a 15 year hiatus was sensory overload. Slowly gaining skills a few months at a time is much less horrible.

I played Coirnav til house of thule, and actually really enjoyed the later content, and only left for free trade, so it'd be easier to buy stuff in the bazaar for my alts. Honestly the first few months of Mischief were a slog, I can't really stand classic. Now that it's getting into OOW and some of the mid-later expansions, I'm getting excited again though.

You miss the point, I play TLP's for the social aspect as well but I do box a character now and then especially doing epics where you are sitting for long periods waiting on a spawn. What if a 6 boxer wants to do VT raids, or Omens raids on Mischief for example. They can't do that on live, you cannot recreate the TLP experience on live, and boxers are just as social as anyone else. Hard to be social in an empty early era expansion on live. I know in my guild we have quite a few 4-6 boxers, but when raid time comes there is very few people even boxing 1 additional toon. Personally I love raiding with my guild and 99% of the time I play 1 character on raids. But when I guild member asks for help to kill something for epic I will fire up my box and help them out to have more characters.

But see that is kind of how WoW works. You solo to max level and your social experience is raiding. That is what I want to avoid and why I come back to EQ time and time again. I guess yeah that is still socializing but 6-boxing and 100% avoiding any social interaction in normal, open-world content is really corrupting the intent of a game that was designed for social interaction from level 1.

Yeah, I know, that is just my opinion but I still will never agree that 6-boxing is valid claim as a social type of gameplay. To me it is just forcing a WoW model of gameplay into a game designed for players to always be cooperating.

Have you played live recently? I see six boxers just about everywhere I go and always PLing services and achievements being sold.

And the majority of boxers don't pay a thing and are just in it for RMT is the biggest line of crap I've heard lol. Maybe... maybe if you only count 6 boxers. But a good chunk of people box on TLPs nowadays, definitely more then 10%, atleast looking at my guild of 50-60+ people on Thornblade, the vast majority of them box even though we primarily raid with mains only.

Some people like just being able to do content without having to find a group, or work on things until they find a group. I three box a war/clr/brd... that allows me to log in on my main, ask in guild if anyone needs me, if not I can just start my own group pretty much anywhere and pick up guildies as they come online and replace my boxes as able. Not everyone boxes with that mentality but there is a good amount of there that do.

Its why YOU come back to EQ. What YOU personally feel isnt important to the rest of us.

And that's fine--you're a casual. Most serious TLPers don't see leveling as a major part of the experience, we literally get it done within hours or a couple days at most of a new TLP opening or a new expansion launching. For us, the content is the things that happen at max level. The fact you consider leveling so important means you're playing a very different game than us--which is fine, in an MMO people all play the same game, but with different playstyles and goals. Where it becomes a problem is when people feel like their way is the only legitimate way, and try to force illogical rules on people who "play the game in a way they don't like." It is the ultimate Karen behavior.

99% of boxers outside truebox servers do not RMT AT ALL. Now you have the krono farmers on truebox servers yes, but that is simply because they provide a service to true boxers (Power leveling). I find that one hilarious, a group of people that hate boxer so much they pay them to do all of the grinding for them lol.

Because 90% of them are Krono farmers, or they sell items/loot rights on 3rd party sites. They aren't playing EQ for fun. They are playing it to make money which is why they will run into your camp with a handful of trash mobs in tow, kill your named in your camp and run off like you weren't there because they don't care. And its pretty clear that DBG doesn't care either.

Lots of people box that play EQ for fun. Its pretty clear that you were hurt once before by somebody playing more characters than you and you haven't been able to let it go.

I find it hilarious how many people say boxers are anti-social or a**holes. Its weird because pretty much everyone I know that boxes characters is in a raiding guild and sits in discord "socializing" with other people the whole time they are playing. Meanwhile the single boxer who joins pick up groups and types in group chat is somehow playing the game the "right way".

Give me a break.

I would agree with this. I used to box on live with 6 characters and never got into the selling stuff. I did it because group were getting harder and harder to find.

On mischief I would have to say is incorrect. There are only a handful of groups on Mischief that power level on the regular of those their mains are in raiding guilds so they are power leveling while getting EXP for their chars as well as KR to pay for all the accounts. There may be a lot of people in /ooc offering but only a few are actually getting customers.

Most of the people with larger box groups are absolutely doing RMT. We have 3 guilds that have a lot of boxes on the server, at least one openly admits to using 3rd party stuff. It's the same guilds that are sitting on current epic stuff then turning around to sell the 1 no drop item for the epic 1.5/2.0 that a class gets. It's the same guilds with boxes that run into peoples camps and steal their named like they are the only people in the zone and they don't care. It's the same guilds that kill End game content (Anguish for mischief) within 7 hours of the expansion going live, then 1 hour after that on a certain site a long list of Anguish loot for sale for $50-$300 and if they don't have it on their list they will see if one of the people has it.

Mischief would be 100x better if DBG would enforce their own Eula...

Whats funny is I never said that but carry on.

The best part is people that say stupid things like this and are willing to die on that hill are typically the ones that are part of the problem.

All it takes is to level a character on Yelinak to see that the vast majority of people don't box.

If you like to box that's your call. Don't try to justify it by lying and saying everyone boxes. It's simply not true.

I 7 box on mischief, I raided until COTF on live and would love to go back there, but i want to play until live on a TLP so I dont miss any expansion of EQ along the way.

I do all my own exp and questing when I can inbetween work and kids / mrs time, and then have 2 set nights a week to raid.

It works well, I can already have planned what I am going to do when I log in, I don;t normally need to ask for help to do it and if I log on for 45 mins or 4 hours it can be productive.

Boxing can get stressful and tiresome for at time, I'm not the best at it, but can get most stuff done with my 7 no problem. The worst was not boxing and being LFG for an hour then having to log.

mercs killed live for me

one of many things.