Are people just exercising selective memory? Do you not remember there being lists for joining a spot at something like AM or Frenzy?
TTTHHHHIIIISSSSSS x10000. The BOXING is not your problem. You want your choice loot w/o competition for it. On live the very best camps had LLOOOONNGG lists. You were LUCKY if you were invited. On occasion some jerkface would ignore the list and fill the group with his friends too and guess what? Rare spawn perma camped for weeks. Sounds like DBG's version is spot on and working as intended. There's this other MMO where the loot is tailored to you individually and you can just queue up to kill bosses on a weekly basis. Might be more suited for you guys needs.
I also remember plenty of boxing then too. 6 boxing (or more) was far less common, but not unheard of. I think everyone remembers that guy who ran the entire raid of wizards on his own, the pictures were everywhere. Some of us poor college students were very jealous of his setup. Most people had 2 boxes by kunark, by PoP I noticed 3-4 boxing more: bring the holy trinity plus the DPS you want to play, etc. Some guy has a real hate on for boxing and he's just going to keep creating these threads for another month or so. Then he's going to quit just like he did last year.
I think the real solution to any of this is persistence. The likelihood of you walking in to a zone and getting the camp you want on any given day is low. You have to be persistent to get what you want. What does that mean? It means be willing to kill things near the camp you want until the camp opens up. Be willing to sit in a group killing lack luster mobs until a new pick opens. Get in touch with who ever is at the camp you want, and nicely ask them to let you know when they are planning on leaving. And, sometimes it means realizing that you just are not going to get that camp that day Just last night, I was in a group at the Assassin/Supplier camp in Lower Guk. Over the four hours we were there for the night, we were trained on purpose by two separate individuals that wanted to push us out of the camp. Did we give up? No. We were persistent, and recovered from both attempts. In the end, I walked away with both a mask and a bag. And, on top of that, I looked at both trains as just another "Everquest Moment", and chuckled about it. Good luck in your efforts to get what you want in the game. Don't give up.
Your first post said it was about you and your friends, mister moves the goalposts! But in this scenario, then yes, you have to play with people you don't know, and some of those will be boxers. Either you play with a static group of friends on a server that lets you run it (either Live or an server, etc) or you deal with other people. If you weren't annoyed by the boxers (and note, I'm not a boxer, and I only play on Phinny), then you'd just be annoyed by whatever was next. There's a reason the entire industry instances everything now.
As part of the promotion of Phinny, DBG literally posted pictures of people who used to box with 6 PC rigs. I played Phinny, I remember them pushing making the game open to both no box AND people who can play on multiple PCs. I'm going to guess you weren't around at the beginning of Phinny or having a senior moment with your memory. Yes, some boxers suck. However, the worst I've dealt with are the asian farmers. If you want DBG to crack down on anything, do something about the massive crews of asian farmers monopolizing 2-3 efreeti camps at once. Most boxers will leave you alone if you are holding a camp, asian farmers will train you until you leave.
There aren't enough people. There is a vocal minority who assumes everyone feels exactly the same way as them and screams endlessly on the forums every time someone commits the crime of playing more than a single account...and then there is everyone else. This game is still financially afloat because of boxers. It is incredibly obvious, especially when you go to a live server and see just how many people have six accounts. Or if you want another example, take a look at the Ragefire server, which doesn't have these tiresome boxing restrictions and has an extremely high population of characters despite a lower number of actual people. What you seem to forget is that someone who plays 6 characters is 6 times as useful to DBG as you are, and in fact, boxers are often the people with the most investment in the game, the type of people who will, for example, buy store mounts and bags on multiple characters at a time. They are a great revenue stream. What you're asking DBG to do is create a financially inefficient server that can't be reliably policed through any automatic method (it is extremely difficult at best to distinguish boxing from say, multiple people playing in the same household, without having someone directly observe them for extended periods of time). EQ is a very simple game, especially in classic, and it is absolutely possible for one person to play 6 characters in a way that is entirely within DBG's rules. It is not hard to press one button on six keyboards every 5 seconds. DBG would therefore need to hire support staff to police this hypothetical server, staff whose job is to essentially stop DBG from making money by banning people who play multiple accounts. Those 6-box mage crews everyone whines about? That's six accounts. What do you think matters more to DBG, one person playing 6 accounts or one person playing one? Every one of those boxers you complain about is still money in DBG's pocket. Those boxers are helping to keep this game you like to play afloat, and they're contributing more than you are. What you want makes no sense from a financial perspective. EQ is old. People box EQ because the game is simplistic, highly entertaining, and easily boxed. Boxing makes DBG large amounts of money. Therefore boxing...is good.
Do you really not remember Sam Deathwalker from back in the day? He ran his own raid, without **. Was he good? Yep. Was he beatable? Yep. As for these camps being perma-camped, perhaps you just need to learn to adapt. Choose a different pickzone. Come back in offhours. I've been able to find Efreeti open on Coirnav several times, and have been able to sit there with a guild group farming for hours without issues (other than the 1-2 asshats who try training you out, but that just becomes free exp.) So, that being said.. Can I has your stuffz?
Realistically, how would you prevent a player from boxing, say, two accounts on two computers with two keyboards and two mice, and no third-party assistance at all?
You must be new to the boards. They'll recommend that they restrict it to 1 IP per household, as always! Then we'll get the 30 other posters who come here and point out why that won't work.. Families playing together, roommates, spouses, college students etc. And these people would be correct; it would be a loss for Daybreak to use this method. There will NEVER be a way to restrict Everquest to 1 character at a time per person. The game can be played by children; it's not overly complicated by any means. Add all of the hardware checks you want. Refuse connections that are routed through VPNs, VMs, whatever. A second computer is all it takes to get around EVERY check they will put out there. "But they can limit it to the billing information!! Bob Smith can only play his account and Jane Smith can only play her account." - Doesn't fix anything. Bob smith could easily be the billed person for both accounts. So, to the OP and the anti-box crowd that can't seem to stop whining.. Either enjoy what you have, which is an immensely better experience than Ragefire or Lockjaw without entire automated box crews running around, or quit and so we can all read the next thread about slow exp.
If you capture proof of players boxing on Coirnav, please send it to CS over at help.daybreakgames.com. Boxing using one PC is a bannable offense on a True Box server. If it is reported to us, we will take action against the offending accounts.
I was just about to quibble with this until I noticed the underlined part was added in an edit. Quibble canceled, nice catch.
I'm not trying to grief you here, but your wording is exactly the problem. You simultaneously ask these to "capture proof of players boxing", which is actually easy. I will even send you a picture of myself boxing. I might even put on clothes, rather than go for a yo dawg boxing in boxers meme. But then you change the definition of what you mean to be unrelated: Boxing using one PC These guys want no boxing, at all, on any # of PCs. They cannot tell if someone is boxing using one PC or more than one PC. They think they can, but they're usually wrong. So you're about to get a lot of pictures, and a lot more posts.
Well, the one-account-per-pc line is specifically part of the official ruleset for a true box server. Feel free keep sending in boxing proof to CS though, as they're the best suited to assess it. Posting here won't go all that far as none of us on the forums have any power to ban players in-game.
