Devs: Please Enable "Relaxed True Box" on All TLPs in Omens+ Content

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Protocol, Apr 8, 2022.

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  1. Magician9001 Augur

    The thread was started by someone who boxes more then a group. The people asking for 3 on 1 PC aren't gonna stop at 3. They're gonna up their 6 box to 18 and use a bunch of programs that aren't supposed to work on truebox to farm cheat loot into the game. No thanks bud. Servers don't need "3 boxing" They have a healthy population without it.
    Clove and Brazy like this.
  2. Endacer Augur

    Are you even going to be staying on server past the new TLP launches, so would enabling the relaxed truebox even effect you?
  3. a_librarian Augur

    This is a good reminder for everyone: if you're on an old TLP then daybreak already has your money. Bags, xp pots, mounts, crates, illusions, race/name changes, etc. The fruit from your wallet has been picked. At this point you quitting the server is a net gain for them because you'll be back in a few months on a new server to rebuy everything.
  4. Magician9001 Augur

    Yes. Boxing sucks the life out of the game, the less of it the better.
    Logulai, ToVNeedsPicks and Brazy like this.
  5. a_librarian Augur

    You really should be on the new server then. The game doesn't exist without boxing on dying servers (all of them except the newest).
    Dre., Xanathol, Corvo and 2 others like this.
  6. TLP Addict Augur

    How did you get 40 out of 2 or 3?

    Not true, he boxes a single group at most and typically raids with 2 or 3. Stop tarding up the thread with misinformation please.
  7. error Augur

    Relaxed truebox sounds great. I hate having to rearrange my gaming setup specifically for EQ on occasions when I need to box for whatever reason.

    Strict truebox always seemed a little weird. I mean, boxing is either okay or it's not, "it's okay but also kind of inconvenient but only in an indirect way" is a really bizarre compromise. It's not like it prevents cheating, automated gameplay, or really does much of anything aside from provide that indirect inconvenience. I also don't think relaxing the rules would have a huge effect on the number of people who box, truebox restrictions are probably really low on the list of reasons why one would chose not to box. And things like 40 man box armies don't really factor into this, those people are already circumventing truebox through various means.
    Faydark likes this.
  8. Appren Gnomercy

    Finding myself agreeing with Zaide..now thats a first! Old TLP's really need this, it can be sooo frustrating to find groups once the server is no longer the new hot thing.
  9. Heile_RF New Member

    it makes total sense to remove it as they get older. It gets removed once they hit live and merge with live servers anyways, right? Really makes sense for mischief imo.
  10. Liren_Lockheart Journeyman

    Nothing riles the progression community like the tireless debate over boxing. But friends, it's 2022 and it's long past time to rethink True Box. Our current slate of developers are far more responsive and willing to innovate than any we've previously enjoyed so now is the time.

    Let's remember that True Box was created to curb the excesses of Ragefire and Lockjaw. And like most adjustments made to fix problems on progression servers over the years, the "fix" was too broad and had long-lasting consequences that continue to do more harm than good.

    Recall that Ragefire and Lockjaw were the first progression servers to allow the sale and trade of Krono. The introduction of Krono both enabled the 72 man box crews that so disrupted those servers AND gave them an incentive to exist. Krono is cross server, liquid, and holds its value over time so Krono farmers were more than willing to destroy the progression experience of many for the benefit of a few. Krono did not exist on earlier progression servers and while those servers had their own share of problems, huge box crews that competed for limited resources were not one of them.

    Big box crews can cause lots of harm in the earliest EQ expansions where open world raid mobs are common. From Classic to PoP, a small number of real players boxing innumerable characters can out-compete traditional guilds in open world, ruining the fun for many to enrich a relative few. A few large box crews can control a disproportionate amount of a new servers loot and krono in these early expacs but by Gates of Discord, the best loot is locked inside instances. Once box crews can request their own instances, they largely disappear into them. And while their presence can still affect a servers economy, the amount of harm they can do is pretty limited.

    Phinigel server launched in 2015 and introduced the concept of True Box to combat the huge crews from the previous set of servers. But even at the time of launch, True Box was already redundant. Phinigel also created Agents of Change. The ability to request your own instances of raid content from classic on up meant that large box crews could no longer ruin the experience for everyone else in their pursuit of Krono. Agents of Change were the solution we needed, not True Box.

    Phinigel also brought the concept of pick zones to EverQuest progression. Pick zones eventually reduced the disruptive power of box crews even further by curbing their ability to monopolize group content.

    Since 2015 there have been 10 progression servers. 9 of them have been saddled with True Box even though Agents of Change and Pick zones have become standard. All that did was force a lot of people to go out and buy cheap laptops so they can maintain the same QoL regularly enjoyed by players on Live. True Box restrictions were most harmful to casual boxers who couldn't or wouldn't set up extra computers for a pocket healer or porter. These were not the folks who ever caused problems when they boxed but they are the ones most inconvenienced by True Box rules. Loss of these casual boxes likely curbed profits for Daybreak and reduced the resiliency of progression server populations these past 7 years. And the big box crews never went away. They simply disappeared into their instances. It's the worst kept secret in EQ that there are ways around True Box. It's time for this unnecessary and ill-conceived "fix" to go the way of the Mana Stone.

    TLDR: True Box is no longer necessary to control the negative impact of large box crews in early expansions. Agents of Change and Pick zones accomplish that without harming the staying power of progression server populations. We can and should relax True Box rules on all progression servers, especially in post-Planes of Power expansions.

    Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

    Melusine the Siren
    Mischief, Aradune, Selos, Lockjaw

    Liren Lockheart
    Vulak'Aerr

    P.S. To all of you purists who are about to argue that boxing of any kind is not the classic EQ experience and shouldn't be allowed on Progression at all, it is 2022 not 1999. If you can accept store potions, pick zones, Agents of Change, the raid tool, and using Discord for communication, then you can accept boxing. It's just another quality of life feature that's grown with the game over time and is now as much a part of the EQ experience as snakes that can kick.
    Faydark, Grumpydoc, jeskola and 6 others like this.
  11. Nicorus Elder

    Agree with Zaire. Relax it on all servers by omens this is a great change.
  12. Brazy Augur

    If you wanna box more on one PC go play on Rizlona. People on Truebox dont want more 40 boxers selling us raid loot.

    If you wanna box more buying a $100 laptop isnt hard.

    Soon as this is allowed I'm sure a few people will box 1 more toon but you'll also have people taking it too far brining multiple groups to take what they want on expansion launches. No thanks.
    Logulai likes this.
  13. Endacer Augur

    They already do this exact thing you are so afraid of. The people with the big box armies circumvent the rules and the true box already anyway. This wouldn't change anything as far as that's concerned. It WOULD make it easier for the people that box a group or less to be able to. The majority of the playerbase server hops with each new TLP anyway, the only people this would effect is the ones left behind on a server with dwindeling populations, which this would be a massive boon to. Not only to the players left on servers post Omens, but to DBG's pockets. I'd be really curious to know how many people that seem so against the Relaxed True Box are people that are just going to be leaving for the new TLPs anyway, and are argueing against something that won't even effect them simply because thier afraid of the big box armies that already exist right under thier noses already.
  14. Loky New Member

    Really well said Mel. Couldn't agree more with every point you made. And I really have to wonder how many of the people who bother to post the obsolete arguments on how "boxing ruins classic eq experience" and similar protests aren't just the existing mega boxing krono farming ones to begin with. They are the ones with the most to lose when other players who bother to follow the rules suddenly obtain greater potential and flexibility.
  15. Brazy Augur

    Truebox curbs box armies. Sure some exist, never said they didn't, but it will be 100x easier if you just get rid of truebox.

    Also it will allow third party programs to be much more accessible since most providers do their best to keep it off Truebox. I'm well aware they exist on TLP's but it'll make it much more rampant.

    Like I said earlier they have a server you can box multiple on one PC. You guys should go play it instead of trying to get rid of Truebox if you feel so strongly about removing it.
    Clove likes this.
  16. error Augur

    Strange that people keep arguing in extremes, that there's going to be this surge of 40 boxers the moment truebox is relaxed well into the server's expansion progression when you normally start seeing a drop off in box armies as the raids become harder to automate. I very much doubt a 2 boxer would even want to become a 6 boxer, the effort and expense/time investment are on completely different levels and it's overkill if the goal is just to open up group content.

    Also, if this somehow became a problem there's really a simple solution that I'm sure wouldn't be difficult to implement - 3 characters on 1 pc, 1 character per pc after that.
  17. Magician9001 Augur

    Boxing is what kills the game later on though. It becomes harder to find pugs in the later expansions. Then people start choosing boxes over guildies, people that don't wanna box start to quit, guilds die, then the server dies. This happens literally every TLP in the 70s. It never changes we need less of this boxing not more.

    "True box doesn't stop boxers from boxing armies"
    "Also, I want to remove true box so i can box more"

    Sounds like truebox is working and needs to be strengthened not relaxed.

    You guys had your chance with Rizlona. That server failed. Deal with reality.
    Logulai, Hirbow and ToVNeedsPicks like this.
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    The relaxation & eventual removal of Truebox that will be taking place on Vaniki & Yelinak is a far more educated & "nuanced" approach to the use of Truebox, one which I believe will be proven valid.

    This is the the devs seeing the point of the argument I & others have made that Truebox has both a time a place & an optimal duration and giving it a chance to see how the theory plays out in practice, that deserves a lot of kudos.

    Truebox during the era of EverQuest where content is primarily "Open World" makes a lot of sense, but once the game enters expansions where even a huge amount of group content is instanced that is when Truebox starts to hurt the server - and the lower the population a server has the more problematic Truebox becomes, actually harming player retention.

    Maybe there are enough players who want "Truebox forever" servers, but so far every Truebox TLP which has moved beyond PoP has eventually had a significant number of players asking for it to be removed - the devs have been listening to that feedback.

    I can understand players on older TLP asking for their servers to get this, I can empathise with it, but I think you may have to wait for the devs to assess the impacts of how this nuanced approach pans out.
    Perhaps they will change their mind, but I wouldn;t bank on it - they don't want to upset the small number fo people who only played on a Truebox for the Truebox rule and they don't like changing server rules after launch.
    Vaniki & Yelinak are different because this "change" is actually presented as a part of teh ruleset in advance of launch so anyone who wants a Truebox forever TLP is not being deceived & knows that the Truebox is getting turned off eventually.

    Myself I think the nuanced approach the two new TLP are taking with regards to Truebox will make them even more popular, and I think this is going to be part of the TLP evolution moving forward.
    Tweakfour17, Neuro and Appren like this.
  19. Protocol Dragon Defender

    People responding to the troll in this thread are doing it wrong.
    Appren likes this.
  20. Brazy Augur

    Getting your guild to come like your post isn't gonna have the Devs change a ruleset of an ongoing Server.

    Try Rizlona if you wanna multi-box on one PC :)
    ToVNeedsPicks likes this.
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