Selo Truebox

You seem to be rabidly posting in a few different threads that talk about boxing, not sure what happened to you but I hope you're not here trolling trying to get threads locked by devolving them into attacks. That being said I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt..

What server do you currently play on? You mention you only enjoy pop lock and pre-pop content. Following the "standard" 8week/12week unlock format most TLPs use the earliest seriously proposed removal of Truebox happens is a full 2 years from server launch.

Have you ever played the same server for 2 years?

Have you ever played past PoP on TLP? Or in era on a live server?

Do you currently play on any of the mature servers? (Phinny, Selo, Coirnav, Miragul, etc)? Do you play in Mangler and intend to still single box in 9 months time? Did you recently roll on Aradune and intend to still be attempting to clear content and single box in 2 years?

You can say boxing was never the intended form to play EQ, which back in 99 was probably correct but even the devs recognized it was something that as populations changed and the needs of the players changed should be allowed. Hence why they changed the client to allow multiple instances on the same pc. Hence why they introduced mercs.

Do you have any real arguments for NOT removing truebox deep into a server's lifecycle other than "it was there from the start"?

It is clear they should remove it at some point in the lifespan of the server.

A good testing point would be SoD. Remove it from Miragul / Phinigel / Selos and see what happens with populations on those servers, it will be a good guide for how it should work on other servers as they age out.

Fairly sure they have a way to post a poll. If so then that should end any doubts on if specific servers want to remove truebox or keep it. If they can do an in-game poll make it so it pops up on Selo, once per account, and your char has to be 25+ to vote to prevent trolls and exploiting the poll.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/75840-multiboxing-everquest-one-player-many-characters/2
According to this article dated Sept 16 2005 Sony removed the 1 client per machine "last year" and was now allowing people to box on the same machine. DoDH came out Sept 13 2005 and OoW came out Sept 14 2004. So somewhere in that "last year" or between OoW and DoDH is when the OG Truebox was dropped. Sounds like it's "classic" and "in era" to drop Truebox by DODH at the latest since that is in line with the original timeline and when the devs felt it needed.

So you don't play past PoP so the suggested change here would have no impact on you.

SoD is too late. We all know the first critical point is PoR - that entire time frame is brutal to server populations. But it's less than idea to wait for that actual moment in time; far better to loosen the restrictions earlier and give people the chance to work on their characters.

On Phinigel, just by looking at the progression webpage, guilds overall went down from 9 to 7 between SoD and Underfoot. Versus DoDH, where there were 17 guilds. A mere six expansions, and 10 guilds vanish just like that. Roughly 54 people each guild, plus or minus whatever the difference between raid cap and actual roster was. A little under 2 guilds per expansion, gone.

Proactivity is somewhat important here and "classic TLP era" concerns are not really applicable.

From the old progression page Coirnav went from 17 to 3 between LDoN and TSS

[3:04 PM] dreamweaver: I know, the conversations are still internal. Sorry.

At least we know it's being talked about!

It appears an "official" line can be drawn in the sand for the "most like original/classic" removal of Truebox from a TLP.

I honestly don't remember which xpac we were in, but I do remember playing 3 way back when and having two computers. My main PC would have two accounts running and my "box" (generally the old PC that I replaced with my main one) would have one. I remember having to use EQWindows to make this happen and also having two seperate EQ folders with their own shortcuts. Does anyone remember doing that before this cut off point? Very possible it was in this timeline from the article, like I said I remember doing it but during what xpac not so much.

Yes, this is a huge win. There's internal discussions regarding the proposed change. I'll keep fingers and random body parts crossed that they move ahead with this idea!

Well, thank you for giving us your opinion.

I would ask but a few questions in response though.

1. Did you play on Live servers & what expansions have you played through in-era there?
2. What TLP do you currently play on?
3. Have you played on any TLP that went beyond Planes of Power, if so at what point did you leave that prior TLP & why?

These questions may at first glance seem irrelevant to you perhaps but they will put your response into context with the wider discussion in this thread.

You haven't considered the following points perhaps:

Phinigel was the first TLP to have Truebox, as such nobody who started here had prior experience of such a server or how it would fare long-term, they may not even have known they would still be playing on it at this late stage.
Since the server opened it has been at the forefront of positive changes to the TLP ruleset & some changes that affected all servers, some are hated by live players, notably the changes to some class abilities - but arguably those abilities were badly designed to begin with & the TLP just illustrated why that was the case.
Now the remaining Phinigel community is asking for some further changes in the final stretch of expansions prior to making it to live status, along with our peers on Selos & many on Miragul.
If you are not playing on Phinigel/Selo then you should consider that your opinion is simply not as informed as the players who are actually playing there & that you have not been through what they have in terms of player loses, guild losses, mergers, returning players, struggling to have enough players to group with, to raid with etc. etc. play on a TLP into this very late game stage & you may well find your opinions have shifted & your deeply held idealism may be challenged by pragmatic realities of your server being so much closer to calling it a day.

No non-Truebox TLP was launched with AoC at the same time and the vast majority of players came to Phinigel here for the AoC feature that hugely benefitted raiding guilds & raiders & the Truebox was probably seen positively at the time after the problems with Ragefire which saw huge Mage box armies appear on the server that did a lot to put players off a sever which had no restrictions on boxing in the early expansions leaving it with the ignominious moniker "Magefire".

Nobody here suggested removing Truebox from the classic to PoP era, at the earliest GoD was suggested to remove Truebox but somewhere between then and SoD at the latest is the most popular choice. At the latest it should absolutely be removed once a TLP hits live, none have managed that feat previously but Selo's will Q1 2021 & Phinigel middle of Q2 2021 and so far both will likely do so with at least 1 active raiding guild or more remaining but no more than 3 - a small population in either case.

I'd argue it needs to be 90+ (free heroics etc) & malicious people are not insignificantly involved in warping poll results.

Good research. Bolsters the case a lot I feel.

For 90% of tlp vets the next expansion after POP is Kunark.

the truebox servers are more popular because people want the illusion that theyre protected from having to compete with boxers for however long the server lasts, as much as some of you want them to do this it would never lead to anything but an instant drop in population so i hope they never do so. Sticking with whatever the ruleset was pitched as at creation is the way to go.

Tell that to selo's population that is wanting true box removed so that the server has a chance to gain new players from live that wanna go thru the last stretch of expansions we have. The server only has 2 guilds left it needs truebox removed to attempt surviving. Removing truebox only affects the ones that wanna see content past PoP so I guess with your argument you dont play anything past PoP anyways so doesnt matter for you.

You would have to quantify the "when" of your assumption the population would drop, the discussion here is mostly around "mature" TLP, ones that have long ago left the Classic-PoP era. I would tend to agree that truebox should stay between Classic & PoP, at the earliest GoD would be when I would see it removed at the latest SoD so maybe somewhere inbetween those two expansions for balance but ideally prior to PoR, DoDH is a good point & given that was around the time when Live servers dropped the restriction of 1 account per PC this makes far more sense.

Certainly on Phinigel we already have so low a population that only good things could come from making boxing easier here. The idea some would quit over this single issue is at best ludicrously over-played.

Selos is also very low population and has like 1 raiding guild clearing content in era, if their GL thinks its a good idea I would tend to agree & support them on it.

/cries in a corner

I'd be strongly opposed to removing truebox. Selo has been blissfully free of automation, having played on live servers with 6box crews running sitting at camps 24/7 I have no desire to see that on Selo. I don't buy the idea that removing truebox will magically fix the issues with population drop off in later expansions. You might get some more boxes but you will lose people who don't want to play on a truebox server.

There are other servers if people want to play without truebox. Ragefire is in SoD if you want later content and Rizlona for those who want to start over. Servers should keep their advertised rulesets.

Been to brells rest lately?


Besides that, what makes you think allowing people to free up desk space would cause more automation? If people are already doing it, they'll still be doing it. It's not going to cause an outbreak of automated bots everywhere.

In february, as we agreed to play on selo with it's speedy 1 month unlock timers, I am fully expecting them to keep this ruleset and move us ahead of live schedule.