Selo Truebox

Its a simple fact that truebox servers have been far, far more successful then any of the non-truebox servers were. Yet you want to remove truebox. And you say I'm the one not making sense.

Depends on whose idea of success we're talking about. I'd argue an increased amount of subs would push that to lean in favor for dpg. True box has it's time and place. Early EQ is when that is, and should end when the population has diminished. At the latest, it should be removed when it happened originally on live servers and hope there are enough people still there for it to make a difference.

And you said you play on selo?

Unfortunately this is also something devs have repeated in the past.

Keeping the same exact ruleset on a server from Classic to Live, with no care for the changes the servers and population go through over that time span is silly.

Yes, people that rolled on these servers did so knowing what the rules were when they launched. But that doesn't mean these should always be the rules on the server.

The problems that face a server in Classic are vastly different from those that face a server in DoN, SoD.

These progression servers are meant to emulate the expansions as we progress through them. Truebox or some method to prevent 6-box groups in classic is a good thing. There is no instanced content, there is limited top level content and you don't want 2 or 3 guys being able to monopolize it all preventing the rest of the server from leveling at the top end.

By DoN however, many people were boxing on live. Not too many were running full groups but quite a few two or three boxers were in my guild at the time, as with across all servers. Content is about half open world like RSS / MPG in OoW or Nest in DoN and half instanced with DoN missions and MPG trials. By this point in EQ, it makes sense to loosen the restrictions on boxing slightly. Allow maybe 2 characters per computer at this point in time.

By SoD/UF the population has decreased on all servers and as a result they introduce mercenaries so that groups may continue to grind out levels, AAs and progression even if they cannot find a cleric or a tank. SoD/UF era also represents a paradigm shift in the design of the game. It is no longer just doing some grinding out levels or doing some random quest, with little requirement of order in the quests. The game now has a fairly structured Mercenary/Partisan/Hero achievement line where most if not all Partisan tasks must be completed in series followed by one or two missions for the hero task, completing all of these within a tier unlocks a later tier. That is to say the progression and content is fairly linear, and often doesn't allow players to jump in at some point in the middle and complete quests/missions either due to requesting issues or flagging issues.

This structure encourages players to either find a static group of friends or box a group. It discourages pick up grouping for progression because you can never find someone who needs the exact partisan quest or mission you do beyond the first week or two of an expansion when most people are actively trying to finish progression. If you stopped at the 3rd partisan quest in a chain, you can't just grab anyone to join you since they would need to run the 1st and 2nd to request the 3rd often times. Often times you don't have the time to continue repeating quests you've already done to catch up random PuGs.

As a result more people box, because you no longer need to box 6 characters to fill a group, you can box only 3 and fill the remaining slots with 3 mercenaries and get by (though boxing 6 is clearly a superior option if you can manage them). It is very common in SoD/UF era to see 3+ boxers in game. By this point in the timeline players shouldn't be limited in boxing at all on TLP servers.

TLP servers are a journey from 1999-2020 over 25 expansions of content. Having a single rule that applies across all of them doesn't make sense unless its a rule that also exists on live servers (IE don't hack or warp). The landscape changed a lot over those 21 years. The rules should too.

For those using the argument of box armies and automation. This was an original concern of mine as well. But if you think about it those that want to do these things are already doing it and have been for a while. Selo has had automation in various zones. Selo has the people who "have 38 computers and run all their characters manually". You guys act like Truebox blocks the people who want to automate and run windowed accounts. It does for the majority who either don't know how to bypass it or are to scared to but not for the people who actually want to do these things. Therefor being against removing Truebox because of these things is a moot point because it already exists. If you want to argue that new people would join and automate and box army. Well good! Maybe it will stimulate the economy a little.

Bottom line is the pro's outweight the con's. Don't argue against removing Truebox because you are naive or stubborn. If you're worried about people using third party programs don't be. The ones that want to are using it already.

I'll take my unnerfed charm back, and my veteran rewards. I didn't agree to those restrictions when I started this server.

Regarding your rant on Fippy: that server population did not exit Classic with enough stability to make it to live. This was a direct consequence of that server having no instanced content, which allowed three main guilds to run roughshod over the entire server's population - to such a degree that the population revolted against those bad actors and forced the failed GoD votes to teach them a lesson. This, in turn, destroyed even more of the server population. By DoDH, the Fippy server population paled in comparison to what any of the modern TLP servers has. Miraguls probably has a higher population than Fippy had in the DoDH era.

You clearly have absolutely no idea why Fippy failed in later expansions, nor why a non-AOC server without Truebox simply cannot be used as an argument against removing Truebox on current servers.

Excellent post & great feedback.

Still waiting to hear if any of these opposing people play on Selo or such, late into the game, and if so if they are top level/raid/etc.

So far the only counter argument is "that's the way it is" mostly. You signed up for it, etc.

So in terms a negative reasoning as to why has yet to stem from a majority group from those playing on any late server, again other than "that's what you signed up for," and again that's if they even play on those late servers...the one guy did classic - pop and the other said he played on selo but im also a millionaire so /shrug.

I play on Selo and would rather not see any changes. Not convinced one way or the other on whether removing truebox would have a positive or negative impact but I'm enjoying the server as it is and would rather not have any changes made at this point.

Who are you in game?

Do you raid etc and with whom?

I have the second highest raid attendance on the server if that's what's required to have an opinion

Not required but would like to know where the opinion is coming from.

Do you currently box at all?

Yes. I started the server 2 boxing and gradually increased to 4. Boxing 2-3 on truebox is not that difficult imo if you just want to be able to do some stuff by yourself but truebox makes the massive box crews and automation harder.

With the removal of truebox is your concern box armies and if so what are you afraid of them taking?

I remember playing EoK live on AB and there were box groups at camps in places like FM 24/7. It made doing some open world quests and achievements hard. It also causes krono inflation and could alienate some of the playerbase. I've talked to a couple of people who are opposed to removing truebox but didn't want to speak up with both big guilds leaders being in favour of it. I suspect there are a few more people around with the same feelings, but those in favour of removal are much more vocal.

Like I said I'm not convinced it will destroy the server or anything but I'm not convinced it will do more good then harm and I love playing on Selo the way it is so without a very strong reason for changes I think the status quo should be maintained.

Fair enough and more reason each server should have a vote put up imo.

I mean thats fair, but regardless the server is gonna eventually hit live and the truebox will naturally be removed when it becomes live. But the server population needs more people and the ability to box in later eras like we are now would likely convince more people to join the removal of truebox would help more than it really would hurt hell we dont even know if we'll keep our named/lockout bonus on the server when we become live. Just mainly theres a good amount of people that join the server and quit because its so top heavy and they want to box but cant because they arent willing to drop an extra 100-500$ just to go and add another char.

I've probably got more accounts with toons on them on selo than anyone here. I'm not looking to automate as that's a bit risky imo. The automated afker in brells rest is still there from a few days ago, and as it affects no one, they'll keep doing it joyfully. I've added over 20 toons since the stale content in the 70s came out. Around half of those accounts are either now free status or busy on other servers. The past couple weeks i've been looking at LFG to see if theres anyone my level that wants to join while i'm leveling my secondary group. Now if I could oog a toon and not need another PC on, I wouldnt mind my 100s being dropped for even more toons... But there aren't that many people even left. Of the 4 accounts i've said would come back pending truebox dropping, 3 of them are buffers. Maybe a few daily mgbs in lobby doesnt affect you but to people like papparage, it fdoes.
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Now let's talk about those heinous afk farmers some more. Selo is a 1 month xpac. The drop rates on tradeskill mats has not gone up any with the fast xpacs. I'm sure i'm not the only one that has blown 1000 stacks trying to max 300. It's a tradeoff as far as i'm concerenened. I don't mind someone flooding the market when i'm trying to skill up an alts TS's... Especially as 350 approaches.