Aradune a GM enforced no box server?

uhm yes you can lock people out of content botting, by being at the camps needed 24/7, that's kinda what they do

and if people box at a camp then let them, when they are done they move on to the next camp, botters blocking you from camping stuff so you have to buy it from them are those being harmful, not boxers.

EQ is the only game I know that has such a dedicated fan base that WANTS to pay for multiple accounts to be able to play the game solo.

But hey it’s good for the company even if it mostly resulted from poor game design and a lack of an actual community that wants to play together. (Outside of raiding).

that's how it goes when your friends stop playing but you love the game and want to do stuff... I started boxing because I played way more than my friends so to be able to do stuff I began boxing when they were not on, when they were on the boxes were packed away or sat outside grp for buffs if needed.

and I know many others that boxed for the same reasons, noone has the exact same life schedule so either you "fix the issue" or you stop playing... I wanted to keep playing so I fixed the issue + it supported the game I loved with more money, so win win

But people were so anti mercs, that one really confused me.

(In my opinion,) that's because EQ has had no successor and with a small community for an MMO's standard you really have to box.

yeah mercs tried to patch the bleeding wound of leaving players and to give those still left a way to keep playing

TLP servers tries to reawaken the old spirit but just like on live they fade out too, people fall out due to different reasons (real life, boredom, whatever reason) some return, others never return, but in the end the numbers gets smaller and smaller

a new TLP server reignite the spark for a period but it never reignites the roaring flames, that could only happen if you draw in new people (younger people) and not just us old farts returning, but new people look at the clunky graphics, all the bugs and what not... and run away screaming

they don't have all the fond memories, the friends you made over the last two decades, battles in groups that you remember forever where everyone in the group made it with 1-2% life left and all around you are a massive pile of corpses because of an accidental train from someone else, combined with the full respawn over time during the battle in the camp you were at and the battle took like 30 minutes nonstop combat, the healer trying to sit without getting stomped on, to get just enough mana for a heal to keep the tank alive, everyone else stopping to bind wound when the mob they had agro from dies, so they save the healers mana so he can heal the tank and you bandage the tank as well while medding those few drops of mana you need to cast the next nuke and the ranger get his puny DS on the tank again for those few extra points of damage... THAT is the stuff we remember and what these new people that just see a clunky buggy game with ugly graphics will never experience... a full rewrite and relaunch with new engine, graphics and all but with the old game in mind, not some EQNext BS... but just EQ in new dressing... fix the bugs, do away with some of the "errors" made over time, like change LDON points to just me "alternate currency" and the same with DON crystals, no reason they are different systems, LDON's with the HA system would be way smarter but not feasible to fix without a totalt revamp... start with classic, fix all the old broken quests, redo the quest rewards (30min quest to get a rusty dagger is kinda silly) change the rewards but keep some of the good ole items like cloak of flames and what not, keep the idea of the game intact, the layout of the zones and BURN DOWN THE NEW FREEPORT and bring back the layout of the old freeport in 3 zones not 2, maybe even expand a little if more room is needed then every year launch the next expansion, going through Kunark and Luclin, bring in the later expansions (skip PoK books) so EoK, RoS, ToV gets pushed up to follow after Luclin and make the levelling/AA's more liniear and not logaritmic)

/sigh

Edit: Also, you necroed this thread just to say that?

I don't disagree, but the staff's track record implementing such measures hasn't been very good. They end up with a lot of false positives while the cheaters go merrily on their way.

Most other on line MMO games are so easy you can solo right up to max level without ever needing a heal or a buff....

Major hyperbole but let’s not overly pretend that leveling in EQ is hard.....

I came into this thread too late. There's so much I want to reply too lol! I do think disabling /follow should be a thing if it can be a thing.

Disabling /follow would be insignificant. Most of your game time is spent 'camping' and while you are in a camp there is no need to /follow. I true boxed a warrior, shaman, and a cleric on P99 for a while and to keep myself under the radar I would just run them to the group one at a time. No one would ever, and could ever know.

In a game like WoW where it isn't practical to sit in one spot for hours then disabling /follow would be all you need. Anyone who's ever used key broadcasting to try to sync their bot party's movement can tell you that you will not be able to move very far (a few steps/feet in game) before all your characters begin to stray slightly away from each other. Even using mouse clicks to move with the clients set to identical resolutions will result in characters straying. You need something much more aggressive.

You obviously didn't read the entire thread, nor the many that came before. That's OK, I wouldn't expect you to. But I'll point out for the 100th time perhaps, that disabling autofollow will only hurt the honest boxers. The dishonest ones use 3rd party apps that work much better than autofollow. Frankly, if they disable autofollow I would quit EQ.

You're right, again, and I think disabling /follow would actually just encourage more use of 3rd party programs so players could get that functionality back - not a very smart thing to do at all.

Wait so someone actually thinks people do not box on p99? Well they do, I did, as it wasn't hard when I had 3 accounts and my friend had 3. He raided with a rogue,druid, and added a monk when kunark launched. I did not raid but I used his druid to pl my toons all the time. He quit playing, then we deleted the druid and less than 2 days later the druid was on another account same name and gear.

P99 is nice for the leveling aspect, but once you get to the end game it's one of the most toxic communities you will witness. You want to kill a raid target you better be willing to endure constant trains and poop stocking to no extent. I checked the p99 green server and the fbss was already over 20 k less than 6 months after launch. Camp was being controlled by a couple necros that just traded off the items to alts.

Thing I would like to mention is that any tool provided, both cool and jerk people have even access too. There are cool people who box, and there are jerks. Personally I got no issue with inviting lfg folks when I am 2 boxing, I've even made a few friends that way. And it is pretty awesome and convient being able to just log in, and be immediately ready to go grind AA or whatever suits your fancy.

Personally, I 2 box, but its truebox with two computers. I don't use any programs or outside assistance in doing so. 2 keyboards, 2 mice, and so on. Just ingame macros to help. It is certainly nice being able to just go solo out some AA instead of sitting in lfg for hours.

I got no issues with people trueboxing. If they have 6 computers, I say let them go for it. What I do have issues with is when people are deliberately blocking progression, such as a mage army sitting on a cleric epic mob which did happen (on agnarr i think?) DM had to get involved directly with that one.

Some people are cool with boxing, others not so much. Personally i dont like botting or having your own full sized raid, thats a bit much. But people 2 and 3 boxing? No issues personally. Heck even 6 if its trueboxing, more power to them I say.

No easy answer to this one. But I do think that making it impossible to box would do more harm than good in an already aged game and community, particularly on servers with lower populations. Removing a players person to play wont make them eager to log in, and you will see more people leave than new people join I suspect.

Just my two cents.