IS Boxer

maybe rest us care why do you need [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] to play EQ this game not hard ????

No, it is not.

Sony/DBG/DPG have stated that anyting that simply read's output is ok with them.
So, GINA, log parsers. that really useful tradeskill parser, are all 100% fine.

Disagree all you like, there are posts from Piestro many moons ago early in this thread. What people "feel" doesn't matter. Just like seber's and Tappin's (Same person?) ridiculous idea that Gina is cheating. It's been posted by SoE at the time, which is the same crew as now that it's fine.

One of the forms of inner space boxer is word-filtered on the forum because the intersection of people with forum agency and people who care about the forum is zero.

Meanwhile one of the biggest threads on the forum is a guy showing what using inner space boxer is like. Your reality, your choice, bud.

Honestly, I don't think it would have been very sucessful.

First, the main job, and goal, of a gaming company should be to develop and improve the games : world, gameplay, content, class balance, quests etc.
The development of that kind of tool is pretty much off topic, and requires a lot of time, ressources, and manpower.

Secondly, really often, integrated and in-house systems are way less flexible.
Look at the voice chat systems for instance , on EQ, or WoW, etc : nobody uses these systems.
We used mumble/TS/Ventrilo, now Discord.
Even Blizzard, who tried to clone Discord, failed.
Their system works pretty well, but almost nobody uses it.

And thirdly, systems like ISB are expendable, and reusable on many other games : EQ1, EQ2, Rift, WoW, LotRo, VG, Diablo, etc etc, even web games, the list is pretty long.
Most of the bricks of its structure are reusable from game to game.

It's very versatile, and once you know how to virtualize the menus, keymaps, button sets etc etc, you can adapt the same structure to any game in a blink.
That's why I'll still prefer to spend time on something reusable elsewhere, than on static systems, even if I need to pay a few bucks for it. (or code it myself for other software tools if I don't find any to my liking)

Other than that, I don't know why other prople are boxing, their goals, but for my part, I do box because ... I love it.
And it's the same for my husband.
We are both musicians, and we have a musical approach of boxing, same as learning, and later playing a technical line.
I'm pianist, he's guitarist and drummer, and for us, boxing is like a duet, exactly the same as we love to play the melody, the bassline, some chords all together on our respective intruments.
It's probably a strange approach (but I've always said that I'm a weirdo ), we don't box for efficiency, but mainly because we love it, it's another form of gaming.

And on top of that, with our weird schedules, boxing helps a lot.
We're european, and when you play on US based servers, it's not always easy to find people to play with, but it's out of topic.

So I don't know if it would have been successful.
With a very good tool, very well coded, maintained, adaptable, etc, maybe.
But with something generic, I don't think so. Maybe for the «basic» boxers (nothing pejorative here) yes, just to do basic stuff (like an evolution of the mercs) but for boxing lovers, hmmm, I doubt it.

Agree 100%

Besides what you said, the conversation about supporting boxers is a dark road that leads to questions like, "Is this game made for boxers?" and "If you're intending this game be for boxers, why do I have to pay full price for multiple accounts?"

It's better to keep the game's system as box-friendly as it was from the beginning, try to avoid making any breaking changes to follow, and they can collect that multi-box $$$ while gaining the benefit of player(ish)-made tools.

If they really wanted to support boxers I think every boxer out there would prefer they do things like improve follow and improve ability usage (ability queuing, multiple social macro threads) that would help every player, not just boxers.

You are arguing that ISB is cheating while using a bunch of examples of a completely different program. ISB does not run bazaar scripts or automate characters. Anything I have read about it is that it does screen management and key broadcasting. I haven't read anything about it automating anything. It does none of the things that you are saying are bad for the game.

I only use in game audio triggers for mez breaks and mez resists.

My Gina tells me when...
Slow fades.
My dots fade.
My visages fade.
All raid/group emotes.
I can add more for interrupts, resists, stuns, etc etc.

Actually, for boxing, Gina is MORE of an advantage than ISB. ISB only lets you push through a keypress to background characters. GINA will tell you as each of your necro dots fade, what they are and which mobs they faded off of, verbally. A boxer running only GINA will vastly out perform a boxer running ISB only.

If that is not an advantage while boxing, I don't know what is. And GINA is quite clearly acceptible.

The ONLY advantage ISB truly provides is that it allows you to buy a better quality computer while using less power.

Don't compare ISB to he who shall not be named. It's bogus.

The ability to have a single key that triggers your main character's nukes et al and at the same time also fires off a macro for even one box character - a healers spam macro for example - without ever having to tab away from your main window is so much more powerful than anything GINA can do I cannot believe you're suggesting this.

Add in a second boxed character (or more) that also runs off one key and you're not even playing the same game. It's almost functionally identical to the Macaroni plug-in that straight up turns your alt characters into OP mercs.

That's only true if it is developed in house. Lots of companies outsource official products. The problem is that, just like you said, discord and TS are not just cross-platform but they are cross-company. The company that can gather the larger user group will win. The economies of scale apply.

However, there are other options. Discord and TS are free. If WoW and EQ had fully integrated them into their game, then they would have saved development costs and had access to a more robust system. Heck, they might also be able to get a partnership commission from Discord/TS when guilds sign up for hosting. Lower costs, more income.

A lot of programs, like GINA and gamparse exist and are free. DBG could make these official partnerships and incorporate them into the systems. By communicating directly with the companies, and providing official support, and requiring review of the source code (for viruses, etc), then there could be a collaborative partnership where these apps are approved and regulated for exploits.

The question is, if something like Game Genie, as an alternative to the mercenary system, allowed you to pay cash instead of platinum, would it be successful? I think it would, and very. It would eliminate a lot of the cheating because an officially supported app would not allow baz scripts and AFK play. There wouldn't be an ethical grey area of what features/programs are(not) allowed because a partnership would ensure only certain features functioned. Since there would be a financial incentive for DBG to encourage their use (subscription premiums), rather than turn a blind eye to abuse (lost subscriptions) then I bet we would see a much more aggressive approach to the regulation of AFK abuse.

I acknowledge that there are downsides to more boxing, as it leaves less room for non-box players, but if merc-able-box accounts were $20/mo instead of $15/mo, it would raise revenues which would improve development resources (or the profits I guess, boo) which could better the game if invested.

So, what's your position on people that have multiple accounts running on separate pcs, separate keyboards, etc ?
Is their ability to press a button on keyboard a with one hand and keyboard b with the other hand cheating ?

Honestly, even suggesting that ISB is in any way comparable with 'that other software' that, from what I have heard, allows people to set up entire teams of automated characters that will run with no supervision 24/7 is ridiculous.

I'd say look at it like this...

Is a person 6-boxing directly hurting another person's ability to play/achieve/enjoy... not really, aside from artificial and unavailable advantage gained from 3rd party software.

Could someone like Tuco complete all content via alt + tabbing, including avoiding mission emotes where you need to run away... I doubt this fact.

Do people pay for the service of boxing software to gain a disadvantage or out of admiration for the the owners of said software? It probably isn't that. It must be something else.

So why doesn't everyone just use IS Boxer? I mean it's free right... Oh. There is the issue.

Yes. I've completed all ToV content while 6 boxing, no use of [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software]. Not my preferred method of running missions, but I wanted to see if I could, and I can, so it's doable.
Conq

Let people choose what (if any) 3rd party programs they use and let DP manage what rules they enforce. It's healthy to criticize DP handle of situation, but it’s not others' problem on what a player decides to do.

So I will say it again – who cares what 3rd party programs someone uses, let them be responsible for their own actions.

There has to be rules in place else it becomes madness. This is a game... a game is DEFINED by it's rules.

IS B - Not cheating (Based on previous dev posts and guidelines)
Gina - Not cheating (Based on previous dev posts and guidelines)
WinEQ - Not cheating(Based on previous dev posts and guidelines)

/\/\Q is cheating, no matter what way you try to spin it next Tappin. /\/\Q fanbois should not be allowed to use the software at their discretion. The interpretation of what effects people and the health of the game will differ based on the user's bias for the software. The moderators of Everquest don't have the resources to police the users and abusers of /\/\Q and shouldn't have to. Abusive behavior doesn't have a measuring stick to see just how abusive it is and whether it warrants action. /\/\Q may offer things that you find major QoL improvements over standalone EQ, but those are unfair advantages over other players. You "boxed" in GMM and laughed at how easy it was to do, came here and posted about it, and GMM was nerfed to all players everywhere. Are you incapable of seeing your contribution and abusive behavior towards other players?

People use ISB to BOX, not for the general play of the game.

Seber, we are in the same guild... You said GINA is cheating too yet you miss more emotes than you make, by a LARGE margin. So you have no ground to comment on whether the game is hard or not because it is too hard for you apparently.

DB should incorporate some of these popular features into their game client or develop their own authorized add-ons that players could purchase or subscribe to. If they're not going to ban some of these programs then by all means find a way to emulate them and make money.

Audio Triggers can do anything Gina can do in terms of letting you know when dots drop etc - advantage of Gina is easy to share your triggers with other people and it can show you things on your screen.

and the visual aspect is important too.
With GINA you can put bars, small text boxes, etc.

Audio triggers are fine as long as you play one character, and if you don't track too many events.
If you box , good luck to keep track of all the audio spam in between mob emotes, spells procs, etc.

It's just a huge cacophony.

It would be SOOOO nice to have the choice between text lines (pure text, no slash commands) or audio files with the ingame trigger system.

The in game trigger system is also buggy. The system gets very laggy when using a larger number of triggers. Most people just never use enough triggers to have the issue, but people using Gina have much more than that number.