The Line between Boxing and Botting

Hey I always wondered what peoples opinons on this was. Most people you ask think 2boxing with 2 characters played by same person is ok. But when asked about botting with say 6 they hate it. I know botting has to do with macros and such but 2boxing is all real person run. So do you think its ok to 3box or 4box as long as no programs are being used?

It doesn't really matter what the other people think, you can play as many as you want, and are capable of, as long as you don't use a third party to program to do it. The bottom line is it's illegal to use third party programs, not to box

You can box as many as you can without using any other programs. I would say playing 6 accounts is almost impossible to do without using something you are not supposed to. 2 boxen is not to bad and can be done relatively easily. 3 boxen would be a little harder because you now have to shift your focus from two computers with 2 hands to 3 computers with still only (2 hands). Have not tried this yet but I do have a licence for a third account that I will use when my Trial of the Isle account runs out of time or I progress those 6 characters all the way through the island.

Plenty of people multibox 2-6 characters, they don't use programs to do it. I only play 2 now but used to play 3 in EQ and know a couple 5 & 6 boxers. Not all 6 characters are doing things at the same time - the individual classes aren't being played to their full potential, it's 6 times harder to get gear for all your characters and you're gearing up on only 1 player's playtime so it's a little slower than playing it as a single character but it's an added challenge that many like to take on. The hardest thing about multiboxing is getting the keyboards & mice positioned on your desk on a way that makes them all easily usable :smileytongue: .
Boxing is perfectly acceptable if you're at the keyboards playing those characters. There are SOE employees who do it, there's nothing wrong with it.
Using third party software, specialized hardware, or other aids to unattended play is over the line and will get you banned.

It's simply players doing whatever it takes to solo.

That comment lost me...

I personally see no problem with multiboxing, If you want to pay for 6 accounts, go for it

It's simply players doing whatever it takes to solo.

That's what I thought too before I did it, and it may be that there are those out there who do it that way (certainly the 6 boxers).

Oddly, when I solo I play only 1 of my two on my main faster PC to do it. I don't take both out to hunt with just a duo unless i'm just finishing up a quest on both. I play in a dedicated group with a 3-boxer, the way we usually play is we play our 5 and take in folks who OOC for help with questies - it's a little like taking the Scooby Doo Mystery Van our for a spin to help where needed. We clearly tell people we're just 2 persons playing 5, and loot rolls are always per player not per character, so only our "main" character rolls (or the 1 who would use a thing but not the rest). It adds extra challenge to the game to try to play each class effectively and it adds a level of cooperative skill to get into a groove with the person you play with - timing taunts, timing heals, etc to get it to be very efficient and very orderly. It's just a different way of playing.

It was much easier to multi-box in eq1 than eq2 the way the macro commands were set up.
But yeah the line is simply using another program to accomplish your boxing, then you have moved into botting.

6 accounts has to hurt the wallet plus the computers/power to run them heh

A couple weeks ago i saw this one guy in Sunken City with 5 dif characters. It was wierd because their were 4 mages of the exact same level and they all did the exact same thing at the exact same time. Either he is quick are hes cheating.

Soloing would be one character, two boxing would be duoing. The diffenence with a 2-box duo is that each toon only has half an operator. It could be I misinterpret what you and you are trying to say "It's simply players doing whatever it takes to play alone." which is kind of a sad statement when you think about it.

I'm a boxer myself, 3 boxing, and i love doing it. ppl have difrent reasons for doing it, my reason is bc it realy gives me something to do, I need to be 100 % focused all the time on what im doing. In order to box good, you need to be able to read the game, and whats going on, and what is the next step. I cant stand ppl that is botting (using 3rd party party software), its just plain wrong.

Playing more then 3 toons in EQ2 is basicly imposibole, (yea i have tested it), even with more computers it just don't work, the game is to fast for that., but I guess that is a good thing

Well slacker out

Thats depends, is using a keyboard splitter cheating? I dont know if it is or not, but I can see how it would not be hard to setup 4 accounts on 4 pc's with the same hotbar layout. Feed keyboard input from one keyboard to each of the 4 computers. Then to say, nuke a mob all you have to do is hit the right spell key on your keybard and all 4 pc's (mages) would nuke at the same time.

That may or may not be against the rules, I dont know.

If everyone was doing boxingbotting, whatever, then fine but since that's not the case, it just seems to me that it's incredibly unbalancing for the game. There was a botting/boxing group camping gyrok and the king in permafrost, would zone in at the spawn times kill them zone out, do other epics then zone in 5 mins before the next respawn time kill them zone out.....it's ridiculous.

If people want to bot/box whatever, by all means let them, just not on a server where normal trying to play.

Yeah, I've always wondered this too. Is connecting 1 keyboard and 1 mouse the several computers allowed?

Maybe dual-monitors or splitscreen is illegal too!

Come on guys, if someone is having more then 1 account he pays for, then what difference does it make how his hardware is set up?

I care when 2 players utilizing two full groups monopolize an entire area of solo mobs. If there was a separate instance for them (or me) I wouldn't care, but when it takes me 45-60 min to do a writ, that is ridiculous. I wind up doing mobs that are further away, with more wandering adds because of plat farmers.

I agree if someone is killing all the mob and an area and I'm soloing That makes it hard for me to get the mob I need. I saw a same guy with 6 all on follow doing Feerrott money guests. Must be nice to get that kind of money x6 he was there 24 hours a day.. had to be working shifts. Completly BS. Don't see him now that they put timers on repeatable money quests.

Monopolizing an area is a terms of service violation and can be reported to a GM, regardless whether they are botting or boxing. If you ask them to allow you to share the area and they refuse, petition it. Now, you may not get an immediate response - might not even get one in time at all, but it is a legit issue to petition.

Double post
Message Edited by Hammerstone on 12-02-2005 04:31 PM