Is Daybreak now actively discouraging boxing?

First off this isn't about boxing being good or bad nor intended to discourage grouping.

Second I would like to hear some opinions from everyone as to whether they feel Daybreak is starting to discourage boxing.

The Selos server will eventually become a Live Truebox server (whose stated purpose in the announcement is to encourage people to play with others instead of using alts).

Expansions seem to be becoming more boxer unfriendly especially without the use of third party software.

Whether this is bad or good I don't know. It could be better for the game long term (if the game lasts to the long term) but I am not sure.

Daybreak does seem to be discouraging boxing in my opinion though.

Step 1: Discourage boxing
Step 2: Merge servers
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.

I don't know why people think merging servers somehow magically makes people want to group.

It won't.

It won't magically make people do anything. Just might provide more options for groups and to combat the so called boxer unfriendly expansions. Daybreak would have to weigh the cost of labor to combine servers vs the cost of running all the low pop ones and I doubt it's worth it.

If they wanted to discourage boxing, they would make every server truebox?

Boxing is the tool of the devil. Number of people that left due to boxers count in the millions. Millions I say.

Truebox is the flavor of the week generated mostly by the same people who abandoned the game which in turn created such widespread boxing in the first place. Now all these years later these same people return demanding their EQ back. I predict truebox on a live server will be a bigger flop than the Falcons in the Superbowl.

I don't think they are trying to turn live servers into truebox servers. I think Selos is just an experiment to see if it would work. It won't work if the population drops below a certain point and it will drop below that threshold without a server merge so I don't see why they would even bother with such an experiment.

None of it matters, anyway, unless they go back and retroactively make current live servers true-box. Barring that, there's what, 8 servers which are live and allow boxing? Isn't that enough for those who want to do that?

I don't see anything being "discouraged". "Funneled" might be a better word.

Make priests more fun to play and boxing might not have to be so necessary in later expansions.

Just give paladins all the cleric stuff and be done with it

priests are great fun! Good clerics can be good tanks in group content. Raiding cleric is a really intense experience.

I think they are trying to discourage it on TLP servers, which I can understand with a server with a lot of solo players needing groups. It is hard to encourage grouping without discouraging boxers.

If they allow boxing on a single machine on the TLP servers, a bunch of TLP'ers flip out for months on the forums. They probably create endless petitions as well. Truebox is their way of just reducing the CS load I think.

On the TLPs Truebox became a thing because of the initial small size of the world. It's fairly easy to run 12 to 24 synced accounts on one PC and that was being done pre-Truebox which monopolized parts of the Classic world.

If you are limited to one account per PC it's more of a challenge to have that many accounts. But you still commonly see people boxing 2-4 characters on multiple PCs and DBG has no problem with that.

It's basically about balancing the community in the early expansions when the game world is smaller.

I suspect issues about boxing are way down the list of concerns on Live servers. 20 years in and boxers are still waiting for a /follow that works reliably.

IMO, daybreak is merely giving people that dont like boxxers the option to play on a server that doesnt have any (mostly not anyway). People that like boxing still have the vast majority of servers to play on and it isnt being discouraged at all on these servers.

But the mechanics of the content are becoming harder to box effectively, which, indirectly, discourages boxing. It's not just "does this server allow it?" And honestly, even playing the content with a single character in a group, the mechanics of doing some events from the last 2 expansions are tedious and not fun.

IT was easier to box all the group content in TBL than it was in RoS. Additionally it was easier to solo in RoS than TBL.

So no, I don't think they are doing anything to discourage boxing. I think most of their strategy resolves on maximizing content generation with what limited resources they have and everything else fits within that.

Upon reading the Test Update thread about how little is being done to improve mercs I think that is officially a "boxing friendly" stance. Because, if mercs were really good you'd have less incentive to pay for other accounts and box your own crew. And even if your box is FTP you're likely to buy something out of the store for it or use a Krono once to get thousands of permanent AA. Unlike your merc who is a really cheap date.