without truebox with AoC's with FV ruleset Would it have taken a lot of the box crews off the other servers? Would there be less RMT farmers on Mangler and Selos? Would DBG be making more money? Would more players be satisfied with their service/game? I mean how did NOT having a non truebox server really change things? For all of the rejoicing and sneering that happened when they elected to not create that server, there sure seems to be a lot of despair on these boards about the very things you all railed against. Not that I am relishing in your misery as I truly loved this game... but I gotta wonder.
Mangler should have been left at harshly low experience and brutally punishing death penalties. Heck they should have kept the Hardcore and Ultracasual labels on Mangler and Selo. By giving in all this mess has been set up to give us what we have.
That's rediculous, nobody liked the initial server announcements and we have what we have now because of failure to police policies nothing more
They're policing their policies as they see fit. The trainers are getting time suspended and banned as I suspect botters are as well. Someone wanting to be a martyr about training may come here to complain about that but anyone busted for botting isn't likely to show up and complain. No camps and DPS race is the rule. We've already seen people amazed at the <Paul> crews losing DPS races.
Wouldn't matter on the rules when the #1 rule is cheat at will. At this point the next server should just be called "The Exploited"
A non-truebox server would have done nothing to impact the number of boxers on the truebox server. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Why box 6 on a server where everyone can box 6 when you can box 6 on a server where few people can and you can more easily monopolize content. Would some have gone over? Sure, but the folks boxing on a truebox server now already know hopw to make it work, no need for them to move. Additionally, the Krono market on a non-truebox server would hardly be profitable for boxers. There would be lots of people buying and very few selling. Most big boxers go where the Krono are, Mangler proved that. And the truebox server would have been more profitable for RMT than a boxing server would be. So it wouldn't have reduced that either. DMG has already proven that they are willing to forego money to reducing boxing. Or they never would have introduced truebox in the first place. Not to mention that I am pretty sure the boxing on RF/LJ drove away more players than the extra boxes people were dragging around made up for. If it hadn't, why would they have looked for a solution? The people who want to box casually would be happier, but the people who dislike the boxers monopolizing their content wouldn't be happier, because botters wouldn't have moved over to the boxing server, or if they did, they would still play on the trueboxer server as well. It's certainly not the win/win you are claiming it is. They just need to start enforcing the rules against automation. They managed it in EQ2, so they have the resources. No idea why they don't just crack down on things and start banning the disruptive botters the way they did in EQ2.
I think we were all fully aware that Krono farmers would have stuck to a truebox server. And us boxers don't care two licks about them. Most boxers are not krono farmers, and not all krono farmers are boxers. As a "hard-core boxer" I'd have been ecstatic for a non-true box server. I'd have had to say farewell to my guild of 10 years to play on it if they didn't choose to go to it. As long as the casual community is willing to spend their money on kronos to purchase items they cannot/do not want to farm themselves, including plat, masks, flags, raid gear, etc., there will always be a market there for them. It happens in ALL games. In FFXIV, the top players will sell spots in raids/groups to get people flagged (admittedly, I was so afraid of Titan Hard, that I almost considered it until I built up my courage to just go for it), and charge more for loot drops. In EQ2, the same is done. Heck, eventually, even on Selo you're going to see the top raid guilds selling spots in PoP raids to give casuals/non-raiders access to Elementals. You'll never escape it no matter where you go. But what a non-true box would offer, is a place for boxers to go without harassment from the community that assumes all boxers are cheating and/or farming krono. It would cut down on the need to run 6 computers in my home (for 2 people playing 3 each) to just 2 PCs with 3 each. And, would also finally prove to the community that this gear/plat farming issue isn't a boxer problem, but an individual with ulterior motives, problem. Heck, I'd bet non-boxers would end up playing on a boxing allowed server just to get away from those jerks.
EQ and EQ2 do not share resources. They have told us this multiple times now that they are 2 full separate teams. What they do in EQ2 doesn't mean anything for EQ.
Separate dev teams, but the same producer. Holly is the one making the policy decisions for both games.
Development wise, I agree, but I highly doubt that each game has it's own CS team. Not to mention if they can afford to have CS go around and manually ban people for botting in EQ2, then they can afford to do it in EQ1. We aren't talking about them doing complicated coding or the inherent capabilities of the program. Just about them maintaining the integrity of the game by doing a bit of house cleaning. They are just choosing not to. It really only took 1 month of cracking down on botting for it to practically disappear on the EQ2 server. A crack down here would have a similar effect.
Truebox vs Non-Truebox The only difference between a Mangler server with Truebox code and a Mangler server with out Truebox code is the cheaters using one less tool in their toolbox of cheats. They would still be cheating. FV loot vs Non-FV loot The big difference here is that with the FV ruleset for "most" loot being able to be traded is that on the non-FV loot server, the farming of items to sale tappers off greatly after the first few expansions because most good item drops become no-trade on non-FV loot servers. The farmers using cheats continue by selling loot rights on no-trade items, but it greatly reduces their effectiveness. In conclusion, being a non-truebox server would have had no affect on the number of cheaters on the server, but FV loot rule set would have had a major affect on the server later in the server's lifetime.
This is a simple concept that for whatever reason is hard to grasp sometimes: the krono farming rmt armies will go to whatever server(s) supply them with krono. Krono can be sold 3rd party anywhere regardless, so they only need to level/farm/bot/sweatshop etc on the server(s) on which people are paying for things in krono. In spite of being WAY easier to level on, selo actually saw a fair bit of professional plvlers show up at the start. This server attracted people who wanted to skip leveling so the people selling this service followed and tapped that market for the first week or so. Likewise, mangler appears to have considerably more folks who purchase kronos for cash and then spend them for in game plat or items, so mangler got those farmers. A non truebox and non aoc server would more than likely be wholeheartedly rejected by more casual players. People who like to box a bunch of dudes tend not to be the same who drop a few kr on twink gear or powerlevels; instead, boxers tend to actually compete for purchasing them for consumption. Any rmter honeypot server needs to include truebox.
The lack of AoC's on RF/LJ drove me off that server after getting to max level. Picks are the only reason I stuck it out to get to level 50. Since then they have made changes to reduce the number of picks and made it so more people are needed to raid. Both steps in the wrong direction. Even though taking out MOTM would allow boxers to box their own raids earlier, it would also allow a lot of smallish guilds to get to do something as well. That would keep a lot more players on the server long-term, I think.
Free trade: The market gets saturated with a lot more product. Drives down prices. It benefits buyers because most stuff is relatively cheap except for the in-era raid content. Botters/box armies would have to focus their energy on the higher end gear. Thinking back to FV, this was the case. The high end raid gear was hugely inflated, but then again it takes more work to get it, it is more rare. I never bought the raid gear, but didn't feel obligated to buy it either. In the days of instancing and Aoc's now, the players that want to earn their own gear can do it and aren't blocked from that content, as is the case when most players are denied any opportunity to efreeti camps, etc.
Valid points. But I would bet that the server I mentioned above would still have been the busiest server of the 3. If you put AoC's in you eliminate 70% of the toxicity of a server. (guess for sure but its my guess). But we will never know...
