Boxer Hate Discussion

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Lionari, Jul 16, 2020.

  1. nanoh New Member

    this thread has gone a long way without ever mentioning cheating, unless i missed it

    not saying you do it (because oh of course you don't), but enough box crews use 3rd party software, and I'm not talkin about window switching software, and there's a stigma against it that devolves into what you might interpret as hate
  2. Thash Zoner

    3rd party software can mean a lot of things. Key broadcasting? It's great, you can act simultaneously, but you still have to literally play the characters. There can be a lot to manage in a difficult battle. It's not allowed on many servers.

    Bots are different. These are people who don't bother to physically play. It just so happens they can see every mob in the zone and its loot, far taunt single pulls across the zone, and warp if desired. They ignore truebox restrictions.

    There's a big difference. We should stop conflating the two under "3rd party software", it's too much of a catch all.
    Bardy McFly and Skuz like this.
  3. Thash Zoner

  4. PathToEternity pathtoeternity.pro


    From day one I've fully expected Rizlona to make it all the way to live with the largest population of any TLP to date. Nothing else really even makes sense? Every other TLP is just a race between guild consolidation and time with a dwindling population; while Rizlona isn't exempt from that predicament, it's totally different when a single person can just fire up another raft of 6, 12, or whatever boxes to keep pushing content forward and keeping guilds viable.
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  5. Vaeeldar Augur


    No argument from me on that. Personally I couldn't handle playing on a true box server - too slow playing one char even in modern day eq that is fast paced compared to the first 10 expansions or so.

    The other thing is I think people would be surprised at how long boxing been going on. Occasionally during Kunark release to start I would fire up a second account (druid) to support my necro kiting. You'd be amazed at how much faster leveling went with druid snare and solo on necro. Two dial-ups - 2 pcs in I guess 2000 it would have been..

    Anyway this thread was super amusing to read through (just moved to TLP from live) and had been reading through the forums while playing (game so much slower back then). Given riz's pop (which is going to be dramatically higher I suspect as gates hits then Aradune (not just a bit) it's quite funny to read this thread and the doomsday predictions on Riz.
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  6. nanoh New Member

    agreed, maybe I was too vague. I am referring to botting, warping, and unattended automated gameplay as 'cheating'

    a lot of boxers on live servers are using this cheat. on TLPs I'd like to think it's different, but regardless, if you have played live for any amount of time, or if you were around before the "truebox" rules, or played Rizlona 'competitively,' chances are you associate multi-boxers with cheating, whether that's fair or not.

    just trying to offer one possible explanation as to 'why the hate'
  7. Elskidor Augur

    It would be interesting to see how a no boxing server works here compared to P99. I box a character but I could take it or leave it as sometimes it's just a pain and I never use the assistance of third party programs, even Gina. I'd be game for trying one out. We'll, I do use maps if I remember to install them but bleh.
  8. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    If Aradune is any example, it wouldn't work at all. They don't currently have restrictions, tools, or policing sufficient enough to ensure a no boxing environment on any server. If they decided to get down to the concurrent IP level of things, they would get a lot of pushback.

    Maybe there is some way they could do it, but somebody would still get around it. As it is, they restrict using a VM, but some people do it, and using VPN's those people would be undetectable aside from direct policing efforts. In the past those have proven to be unreliable at best, and ineffective at worst.
    Bardy McFly and PathToEternity like this.
  9. Tucoh Augur

    Would be interesting if they took an exclusive approach and just said "One/two/three active characters per account and no VPNs" and then utilize a service that publishes common VPN IPs. It won't be foolproof but it would be much easier to enforce than Aradune.
  10. modsiw Augur


    I'll give you a krono if you can show me a packet containing the contents of your hotbar.
  11. Bullsnooze Augur

    You know what I hate?

    When cheaters admit to cheating and then try to justify it with the excuse of 'help'ing others. This whole Robin Hood mentality that cheaters come up with is dangerous slope because they're trying to create a sense of entitlement and purpose.

    'Yeah I box 6, use 3rd party programs, and admit it's against the rules. GMs also don't care! However, I'm also giving back by helping selective people obtain crap they wouldn't be able to do on their own'.
    Raccoo and Duder like this.
  12. Malpheroth Elder

    Boxing and cheating trivializes content that incentivizes socialization, learning character abilities and capabilities, and investing time and work to receive gratification.

    To elaborate on my first point: At first glance it's easy to see that boxing characters allows you to make progress on quests or gear grinding or experience gain at a much greater rate than a single box player would be able to. Consider that, however, much of the content that is designed for groups is not 6 times easier when done boxing but in many cases infinitely easier. Much of that content is impossible to do without more "players." A boxer will do the impossible through cheating and unfair mechanisms and then once they "beat the game" refuse to go back and help others who didn't spend $120 a month on programs that are detrimental to the health of the RPG-experience. Worse, people seem to forget that any time spent making progress- even with boxes- is less time spent looking for more players to group with. People tell me all of the time that they would replace their boxes with players if there were more LFG but quite frankly these same people never ask in guild chat or chat channels or use the LFG tool because unlike a group that would find it impossible to proceed without more people a boxer will in many cases not even be slowed down.

    To elaborate on my second point: Boxing and especially automization doesn't "teach players new classes," like some of these posts would make you believe. Removing difficulty and complexity from the game does nothing but hurt player's ability to perform. In the way the difficulty curve is designed in EQ, as you level the mobs become stronger and you learn to play better or you find yourself losing experience and not making progress. Boxing circumvents this to an extreme.

    To elaborate on my third point: Much of the game's role playing experience is designed around a certain level of power with a single character. The quests, the zones, the named mobs, the raids... all of this was designed carefully with the intention that players would have to group up to do them. The grinds such as for faction or items were included with the intention that they would take the average player x amount of time and effort to acquire them.

    It's easy to see why people are defending the ability to box or use third party software. They want instant gratification. They want to take a game that is meant to be a time sink, a leisure activity, and remove the time sink. They want to play an mmo but trivialize the content so they can be better equipped or more progressed than everyone else who logged into play with others. Like any hobby or game there are rules to ensure the enjoyment for all participants. Boxing and usage of third party programs is cheating. It is stealing. It is driving players away from the game and the only people left to group with are going to be people competing on how well they can program their box squad to solo the content.
  13. SoandsoForumUser Augur

    Thank you Malpheroth, I was wondering where I was going to get my quota of nonsense for the day but you delivered early.
  14. Malpheroth Elder

    Care to explain what about my post is nonsense?
  15. Accipiter Old Timer


    Did anyone actually say that? If so, I agree it's ludicrous.
  16. Accipiter Old Timer


    I stopped reading there. I think we know where you stand. No need to read the rest.
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  17. Numiko Augur

    I stopped reading when I noticed this is a necro post from almost a year ago.....
  18. Vaeeldar Augur

    It was but it was very relevant because it’s funny how much people predicted Riz being a prison server and now there are other threads about Aradune dying or things to that effect.

    Meanwhile Riz pop is growing and strong.....
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  19. Master Kahleem Augur

    The game was designed around "groups" locking down "camps", or specific locations.

    Multiboxers box their own "group".

    It's how the game was designed. Take or leave it, why are you still playing?
  20. Green_Mage Augur

    More to the point, It's clear that boxers like to play on servers filled with non-boxers, rather than there own server where they can just do their own thing. Part of this can be linked to Krono:

    Once the random group loot was put in, prices on popular box-camped dropables plummeted. This is true on items that are still just as useful on a free trade server (GEBs, Platinum Tiara etc). Meanwhile, this is not true with raid loot drops. Dropable raid item prices stayed consistent. Items that now dropable but weren't, are priced about where you would expect them to be.

    But there are some that aren't krono farming hard. I'm some of them just like being relatively more powerful in game to those around them. But its about how they stack up to others, or they wouldn't insist on having access to servers where non-boxers are.

    All I ask out of EQ is they don't let some guy that takes the game too seriously hold my character progress hostage. Boxers are big offenders on this front because of their economy shenanigans and their tendency to lock down camps as one person for long periods at a time.

    It doesn't matter how many anecdotal stories about great people boxing you come up with -- its a simple fact that it creates these issues. Many would rather they simply not exist. The only reason they do is because its hard to get those that run the game to do anything about it. If you could play a 100% no-box server -- it would be the most popular one.