Daybreak Game Company Multibox Assistance Toolset

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Quiverr, Jan 5, 2018.

  1. Quiverr Journeyman

    The first boxer I can remember seeing was back in Velious era, it was a guy in my guild who 3 boxed and at that time he was a rarity, there were others doing it no doubt but not many.
    Fast forward to 2018 and as far as I can see it's now the majority of the playerbase boxing, my guild probably has only 2 regular players that don't box.
    Most players on the server I see are boxing 2 to 6 chars, Soloers are the minority.
    It may be safe to conclude that a lot of the income to DGC from EQ comes from players that box.

    What do I propose? That DGC embraces the boxers.
    There's money in it for them, so why not?
    Develope the Daybreak Game Company Multibox Assistance Toolset or DGCMAT
    ( you have my permission to use the name )

    Available for free usage by customers with two or more current All Access Accounts
    or $25 per year/ $2.50 per month for those with one All Access Account.
    Free to Play Account holding customers could pay $50 per year if they wished to use it.
    ( or free for all since it will bring in money through other means anyway )

    So what should it do?
    Well it should the best boxing solution for any supported DGC games.
    Fast setup and less tweaking required than the other options out there
    Quick Login for multi accounts
    Split Screen window sets and Videofx style window over window play options
    Easy setup for use with combinations of player chars and/or mercs and/or other players
    Addition of Group Hotbars where all spellgems and hotkeys placed on those bars are activated by the currently selected character with option to be active on host char only
    Group assist and Group follow the selected character hotkeys

    If DGC released such a tool surely more customers would pay for All Access accounts and current expansions.
    Some other popular MMOs have support for 3rd party boxing assistants, that would be nice to see from DGC but I'd prefer to see the DGCMAT.
    The current and likely future trend of MMORPGs involves a lot of boxing players and encouraging players to buy more subs and expacs can only help the $$$ come in.
    Yimin likes this.
  2. Khat_Nip Meow

    You provide 100% of the capital to fund what that would entail and they might entertain your idea while on a coffee break.
  3. Bigstomp Augur

    Alt-Tab has existed in windows for years. That's good enough. Try grouping/raiding with real people. It's wonderful just how much you can accomplish when playing with other people.
  4. IblisTheMage Augur

    Thinking in similar directions, but with monetization in focus:
    3/6/12 months subscriptions
    A ‘main’ account and secondaries.
    Main must be logged in
    All accounts from the same machine & IP

    Prices: 4 for 3’s price, 6 for four’s.
    If subbed the last year, 40% discount on expansions with 4, 60% with 6

    And a DLC for 15 usd (free for all year subbed 4/6 accounts) with a new spell pr class, 3000 AA, and unlocking a half tier real money purchasable upgrade quest (DB store scroll + current max tier item required) for select max group and raid tier select locations. Each location quest is 1-5 usd, no more than 20 usd total.

    So incentivize remaining subbed all year with all toons.

    No need for box functionality, IS boxer, GINA, Gamparse, Kizant-DPS are fine supporting tools for that.
  5. svann Augur

    Then you would just complain that its buggy.
  6. Yimin Augur

    As a raider in a top guild that raids at prime time hours , I can get and give help for almost any thing in EQ , I never have an issue with content group or raid ,this is why I don't need to box , but I know that not everyone has that much free time .so they must box if they want to do content , your idea is very good and is a win win for EQ , more players are happy and EQ makes more money ...

    YiMin
    Quiverr likes this.
  7. Quiverr Journeyman

    Thanks for your message of support.

    I'm in an Aussie based guild, we strive to get as many mains as we can to our raids and then the boxes plug the gaps.

    I watched a guildmate ( a very good player at that who has a awesome mixed box crew ) offer himself as a DPSer or Tank the last 2 nights in a row in general chat, he doesn't need to since he can handle content fine boxing but likes the group game as well, did anyone take him up on the offer? Sadly no.
    Had I had to the time to partner with him we'd have still had to box.

    Our server was listed as medium population at the time with only Agnarr and FV having a High rating.

    I've played EQ in the glory days when boxers were almost non existant, It'd be great if live servers were still like that but they're not.

    This thread isn't about Single account players verse Multi account players, it's about a large portion of the current players and a request for helping them enjoy the game more.
  8. Cone head Augur

    As a boxer all I want is to be able to send a key to an unfocused eqclient so I don't have to being it into focus to trigger an ingame hotkey.
  9. Aurastrider Augur

    I have wondered why they have not created something like this myself. The unmentioned 3rd party software is light years ahead of alt tab but it was not designed with EQ in mind. I am sure they could pay some starving or up and coming developers to build something like this and give them a % of the profits. I know this is how my best friend who is a developer got his foot in the door out of school developing some program one of his developer friends. I don't even know that he really made a ton of money doing it but it gave him experience and something to put on a resume. If designed right with input from other players who already use said unmentioned boxing software this could be a huge success and since it would be developed by DB the debate about using boxing software would come to an end or at least there would be no debate about the validity of using this specific software. Until then I will keep giving my money to another company for a service that every mmo should have built in as a paid add on by now.
  10. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    I think they should upgrade the client instead, there are room for improvement in a lot of areas that aren't specifically aimed at multiboxing:

    Better UI(make it scaleable for hires monitors)
    Updated graphic render(no reason to stick with dx9 anymore, now that winxp is no longer supported)


    Just to name a few examples...:)
    They could rework input handling to make boxing easier, while that are at it, no reason to have a separate utility for it.
  11. Tucoh Augur

    This is a tough one because the boxing tools out there are going to be pretty tough to beat. DBG simply doesn't have it in the cards to make a better version of I S Boxer and other tools. But as someone with a pretty complex setup using I S Boxer, here's my wishlist:

    1. Offer a "Boxer" subscription and expansion options. But why would they do that? They'd lose money on people like me.

    2.
    I S Boxer does this already, but it'd still be nice if this was updated to allow that.


    3. An improved follow mode.

    4. Make social macro's and hotkeys asynchronously, that is, to allow for multiple social macros to run simultaneously and not interrupt each other. This would also help non-boxers too, I run into pretty annoying UI limitations when I play only my warrior.

    5. Double the fellowship cap.

    6. Never create solo tasks ever again.

    7. Increase the melee range of mobs.

    8. Make it easier to hit 60fps reliably.

    9. Faster load times.

    10. REmoving the different ranks of augmentations.

    As an aside, I and probably most people reading this have played a tremendous number of games, online and offline, and I've boxed in a few MMOs as well. I can say that EQ has a pretty unique experience as a boxer, and I'm pretty glad that the game seems to have incidentally promoted a box-friendly game.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  12. Bigstomp Augur


    I see this all the time. People are already grouping and accomplishing things. They're not going to invite a random person out of general who isn't even sure what class they want to play, when they're doing just fine as is.
    "Forming group to do X" works way better than "LFG"
  13. IblisTheMage Augur

    I think it would be a hard sell in the executive office. That niche is filled very well by IS Boxer, and DB is making money as it is. Competing with or aquiring Lavaso ft is expensive, and does not in itself give more subscribers. What their business model can benefit from is getting people to pay a little more, subscibe a little longer, buy more expansions, spend a little bit more in the store, and attract a few more returnees or new players.

    I mostly do power point presentations on what IT to invest in in my daily work, which of course bias me some.

    It is a fun speculation trying to reverse engineer or guess what their strategy is... in that context, explicitly catering for paying boxers could be risky. EQ has a narrative with its players, and today they have a game that is very interesting to box, while boxing remains power wise inferior to grouping. Everyone are happy about that, doing stuff with the explicit intent to cater for boxers could damage the narrative.

    Oh well I babble.

    A yearly 15 usd DLC with more AA, a spell pr class, and a +.5 tier (existing gear + a progression dependant mission drop), 6 months after release, would cater to boxers and third tier raiders alike, and keep me subbed all year. So for me, it would be almost 2x the cash I spend now. Make sure to discount DLC and expansion for all year subbers. EQ as a(n uninterrupted) service...