My Theory on Why Trubebox Exists and Why Boxers Hurt the game

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Shakara, Sep 21, 2019.

  1. Shakara Augur

    Over the years there has been a internal struggle in the community about whether DBG should be more light on boxers on TLPs or more heavy handed against them. I think for DBG this is a complicated issue and they have taken a rather middle of the road stance with Truebox. Truebox puts a barrier of entry to boxing thus weeding out some of the people who would like to box but still having the hardcore boxer crowed around. For DBG boxers bring a huge boon of revenue on and stimulate the economy on the TLPs. However they are responsible in large part for one of the biggest problems every TLP has encountered: Load balancing.

    Lets talk a bit about what load balancing is. TLP servers have a much different population than live servers. A huge rush of people storm the server on every expansion launch with a small trickle of newcomers as the server ages. This causes certain content to be in much higher demand than other, mainly high end. Over the years DBG has had to make many changes to the game in order to accommodate the large number of players (pick zones, Instances, key quests, increased OW raid mob spawn). Boxers put a huge stress on this system as they consume much more content per person.

    On Mangler for example there are 3 or 4 people who box 20+ toons. This means this one person requires 20x as much xp, loot and space. Now for many things pick zones and instances can mitigate the congestion caused by this but if we look at some common bottle necks like Angry goblin, Shady goblin, Gloridane, enchanter epic mobs we can see how this type of toon inflation puts pressure on these high tension issues that fill up the forums a lot with complaints. In addition many of the people who box cant actually control all of the characters naturally and often resort to various hacks to automate or break the game (stick, warp, autocast). This creates a someone lucrative market for hacking which makes DBG have to spend more time regulating their game rather than improving it. This is why DBG has made the Truebox compromise. It allows some boxing which is healthy for their bottom line but keep boxing to a degree that doesn't break their game.
    Tymeless likes this.
  2. phattoni Augur

    you have been slain by a wall of text!
    xmPradah and jeskola like this.
  3. LDEffectsMe Augur

    Okay, so you stated a bunch of obvious stuff about how having additional toons in the game soaks up additional resources. People boxing 20+ toons, while extremely annoying, is far from the norm. Even if 10 people were boxing 20 toons each, that's only 200 additional characters in the game world. These servers were made to host thousands. I doubt the extra boxes are effecting much.

    Now the real issue is with the hackers/cheaters. They ruin server performance and crash the things regularly. That's why every newest TLP crashes while the Live servers and ghost town TLPs stay up.
  4. code-zero Augur

    Let's be conservative and say that Mangler has a prime time population of 4000. A couple of 20 boxers represent 1% of that number. With pickzone that means that they aren't really a problem in most places.

    Lots of people love crowded zones that is if there's not any boxed teams in the zone.

    When people engage in jerk behavior like trying to charm your rare or kill a triggered mob for a quest I doubt that those are even botted or boxed and recent patches have changed the way that works anyway.

    Bots are another matter entirely and they are probably not as common as some people think that they are.

    The real issue on Truebox TLP is that they are just too darned crowded.
  5. xmPradah Not a dude

    Boxers don't hurt the game... Botters farming for RMT hurt the game, but not in a literal sense. No matter how you look at it, more accounts played per player = more revenue for DBG. That is a plus for them, but could potentially be a negative for the server community depending on what that player is doing and how he is playing those characters.

    I three box every day and so does my husband, and I'm going to go so far as to say I HELP the server community/population, albeit in the smallest of ways. I hope to enhance other's gameplay. How, you ask? Because I play for fun and want others to do the same. Lonely in zone, need to grind out the rest of your level? Join our group. Can't get your pearlescent fragments from SF? We'll get them in under an hour. Need to farm plate cycle? Let's go! Working on that annoying quest and need help? OK, we'll help. You get the picture... Sometimes, we may not even LIKE what we are helping others with, but we help nonetheless... because we like the people and know playing solo is a struggle sometimes.

    We also single/double group raid content without having to rely much on others. We don't have schedules that are conducive to most raiding guilds, so expecting to gain gear from raiding is just pretty unrealistic. We do what we can for ourselves and with a couple like-minded friends... and boxing allows us to do just that. Boxing gives some people an opportunity to enjoy the game when they otherwise wouldn't be able to.

    I've had my share of run-ins with a$$hats running 12-18 chars in contested camps. Yeah, they piss me off, but they don't ruin my gameplay in the slightest.
  6. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    Honestly, being able to skip content by levitating over the wall in Plane of Fire, has hurt EQ more then a boxer ever has.
    Bobbybick likes this.
  7. Midnitewolf Augur

    I think my issue with boxing is that it is immersion breaking. I mean I don't necessarily mind the semi-afk boxed druid sitting in the corner leading a hand with buffs and healing but when a person is actively trying to play two characters at once, it is distracting to me as a player. I would much rather my party have 6 individual players, with their own personality and style, actively playing in my parties. It is just more fun and engaging that way.
  8. Machen New Member


    This may be the first time in 10+ years I've seen anyone argue for anything related to EQ on the basis of immersion. That ship has sailed...
  9. code-zero Augur

    I've been 3 boxing and invited others to join and suspended mercs. On several occasions my female character has gotten inappropriate /tell from group members thinking "she" was a girl. I reply with "he's sitting in the room here" and they stop.

    I'm sure you get distracted occasionally if the boxes are played badly though
  10. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    I have 1 person on ignore on my main, and like 7 on my box named Sleaze. Internet people can send some sketchy tells sometimes.
  11. Hinastorm86 Augur

    4k is conservative? lol.
    Pretty sure it's no where over 1500.
  12. Hinastorm86 Augur

    Haha, incels man =/
    code-zero likes this.
  13. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Dbg doesn't care that 20 people play their game. Hell, they want more people to play.

    They put in antiboxing stuff because it's easy for a mass boxer to chit on the community. They dont need them. They also tend to be more savvy as far as automated gameplay, but you have to be to spam attack on 12 toons. So you end up with 1 human sitting on a spawn like efreeti ruining the experience for, well, everyone interested in that.

    Over the expansions this sort of thing is diluted and farm crews are less lucrative. But at no time did dbg want less people to subscribe. They wanted less toxicity and less baby sitting required of their staff.
  14. Calzonae Journeyman

    True-box servers were created for the same reason Krono or similar play-to-pay type models exist. Namely, they create a degree of separation and convolution between the developer and what the typical user/player desires. Most players will frown at a direct pay-to-win game, but play-to-pay and krono strikes some sort of middle ground that silences the pay-to-win complaint.... but you can buy anything with krono in EQ.

    In our case the true-box compromise has also been made in order to establish a beach-head where DBG can state they have heard your cries and are acting according to your desires to have a classic EQ experience. But DBG gets to whimsically decide what true-box means, how to detect untrue-box, and whether to enforce it. DBG does not act as a referee (I prefer name and shame + public punishment) and instead acts as an assassin in the night when it comes to enforcement so whatever has been done is all the subject of rumor and speculation.

    For myself, I have tried out the true box TLP for the past 3 months and have found it to be disagreeable for numerous reasons. Perhaps I am too old and nostalgic about the game as it was 20 years ago to have fun in an everquest classic(ish) and I should have known better.

    But it's not all doom and gloom. I did have fun before coming into contact with players concerned with purchasing their next month(s) of gameplay with said gameplay.
  15. Nolrog Augur


    Yes, boxing is just like trying to exterminate an entire group of people. That has to be the dumbest f*****g thing I've read on the Internet in years, and I go to political sites.