Whats the difference between Bots and Alts ?

Got into a debate with a friend recently. And now I do not think I understand myself what exactly is the difference ..

Between a bot toon .. and an Alt toon ?

Simple a bot is a bot and an alt is an alt. Don’t know what’s so hard to understand.

If your talking bout 1 person controlling say 6 toons at once to play. it come down to how they are controlling them.

Alt(box) toon the person is giving command for each thing the toon is doing. threw tabbing between the toons or using some sort of software or such that let him/her send commands to the toons.

bot toon are being 100 control by a program to so that the person don't have to give any commands at all. think of bots = mercs. when someone is bot toons they are using a program to turn the toons into mercs that do stuff on their own without imput.

My alt is also another character on same account as in alternate main. My box is another account or two or three that I run at the same time as my main. A bot is a robotic character that is controlled by robotic LIKE actions.

But that is just me.

Alt is an evil toon that takes your focus away from your main.

Yeah, when people say bot they are referring to a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or more character that is given less human attention to gameplay. Alts, from a guild perspective are characters of lesser importance that someone focuses on as a secondary concern outside of their main character. Boxes are somewhere in between in that they typically won't be automated in the same manner, but are part of a crew where not every character will be a primary focus for the player.

I once heard alt defined as "Adorable Little Timesinks" and thought it a fantastic description.

I'm not sure that this is what most people mean when they say bot.

To me, a bot is a character that is using software to achieve 100% automated, afk gameplay. Most people who do this run full groups (or multiple groups) of bots.

To be clear, I despise this kind of behavior. Botting has became a plague in EQ. Unfortunately, the powers that be have chosen to ignore it, at least for the time being.

I think we're on the same page regarding what a bot is. I just used "less human attention to gameplay" because I don't know what botting involves on the player side of things, heh.

Man, this thread is making me feel old.

Before the pervasiveness of automated software, a bot was simply a character on a second account that came with your main and just sat there to do one thing (throw a heal, sing bard songs, cast buffs). The only xp/loot thrown the bot's way was only to get it to whatever the main toon needed out of it. The buff bot was the most common usage of the term and most older box teams probably started from moving buff bots to separate accounts and actually playing toons more or less together (back when account to account transfers were a thing).

Alts were simply toons, while not played as much as the main/primary toon, were played just like a main at first. As boxing became more prevalent, alts were generally used to describe the non-tanking part of a box group as well … as generally boxers focus on improving their tank first.

The automated software bot is a relatively recent phenomenon and I'd agree has taken over the general usage for the term bot. But there are folks who still use the older designation and will specifically make a distinction between the two.

Ah yes, the old "buff bots". Makes sense. That is why I like to refer to the automated toons using the term ... wait, I can't say that on the forums.

bot: character that is automated or is only used for very basic tasks ex: buff bot, lockpick bot etc.
box: character on a different account from your main that is used in a supportive role. Ex: rolling a bard box to follow you around for mana song
alt: character that is primarily used without your main. Ex: getting tired of playing a rogue and playing an enchanter alt now and then



People who use bot when they mean box add to confusion, but it's whatevs.

We can also ask is it named or namer. You’re going to get definitions based on people’s game play.
Ie....there is no answer the community will agree to.

AFAIK alts are characters on the same account as the main character, characters on different accounts that play in group by one player are boxed and bots are characters controlled to some degree with 3rd party software rather than by a player and might play /afk are bots.

A character can be a main and solo without even having mercs and be a bot that's controlled by 3rd party software with player /afk

it is a NAMED.. a noun, not a verb. it does not go around giving names to other NPCs.

bot = automated badness
box = toon on another account played manually with the main toon on same or another computer
alt = on same or separate account of main toon played separately from the main toon

I use the term "Rare" since that is what the game uses and many of them don't have a real name. In The Hive in DoDH for example there are 20 loot dropping mobs and they are all "a Hive corpsemaster" or "a drachnid construct"

...but, is it SHAWMEN or SHAYMEN?!?!

sha·man
/ˈSHämən,ˈSHāmən/

noun
noun: shaman; plural noun: shamans
a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia , Norrath and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practice divination and healing.
synonyms: medicine man, medicine woman, healer;More

Really everyone calls their stuff different, some people who don't use programs to help them call their chanter box a chanter bot. Generally a bot has some kind of automation, some people consider the additional characters being used by someone who is running inner space boxer to be bots.

Really, IMO the only thing to worry about is "is the player afk"