I boxed, never harmed anyone and half the time when i didnt box a toon or two i was LFG in the guild and nobody was looking, or on ignore. So boxing got its way with many of us. I found it to be a new game. I at one time boxed 12 characters, it was a truely new game for me in a dying game.
Ill do it again if LFG for hrs on end because you only invite your close friends to the group.
I think the shoe fit on the other side of things more then the boxers, i think it was the pure greed that out weighed the boxers. A true boxer went mainly on his own because lack of time, lots of AFK time etc...
Boxer not botter, there is a truely huge difference.
Finally when the guild was LFG with you, suck it up fella and sit for hrs in guild lobby LFG spamming like the rest of us did. We knew who you where.
Some Muslim are terrorists.
All terrorists are bad.
All muslim are bad.
This is essentially how most of you look at boxing. Which is hilariously wrong. You're living your lives and forming opinions based upon the worst of the worst you've encountered. This is an absolutely idiotic way of thinking. The funny part is most of you would welcome a boxer to help you if it meant you get to benefit from them. When its 4am and you need help killing that named mob for your quest and that guy with 6 wizards strolls past, not a single one of you would say no, that's ok, I dont want help from a boxer. And if you claim you would you're a flat out liar. And everyone here knows it.
Saying that boxing goes against the ethics of the game is also woefully incorrect. Me boxing and only meeting 1/3rd of the players a regular person would is the same as someone who ONLY groups with their friends or their guild. You're limiting yourself to a pool of 40 players. Just because your number is higher than mine doesnt make you a better person.
I personally don't want to play with shitty players. That's why I box. Playing a tank and healer allows me to make up the 2 most important parts of a group with a player I can rely on. My groups will last longer and be more successful because of this. Which not only creates a better gaming experience for me, but for anyone else that happens to join my groups.
If boxing was truly something that VR was against. They would design the game around this. They havent. Infact they've created a game that begs people to come box. They've created pledges with multiple copies, they've created a slow combat system with almost a complete lack of need for fast twitch responses, and they've flat out come and said "hey, we dont care".
For you to be mad at boxers is silly. Were just playing OUR game. The same way you play yours. You should be mad at the company designing that game that is clearly INVITING us to box.
Or, maybe before you arbitrarily cast judgement, wait and see how it goes. Because no amount of pages of people expressing their dislike for boxing has changed anything up to thos point. Theres no indicator that another 100 pages of this discussion will change that either. Spend your time coming up with actual ideas and discussions that can help improve the game.
Porygon said:Some Muslim are terrorists.
All terrorists are bad.
All muslim are bad.
This is essentially how most of you look at boxing. Which is hilariously wrong. You're living your lives and forming opinions based upon the worst of the worst you've encountered. This is an absolutely idiotic way of thinking. The funny part is most of you would welcome a boxer to help you if it meant you get to benefit from them. When its 4am and you need help killing that named mob for your quest and that guy with 6 wizards strolls past, not a single one of you would say no, that's ok, I dont want help from a boxer. And if you claim you would you're a flat out liar. And everyone here knows it.
Saying that boxing goes against the ethics of the game is also woefully incorrect. Me boxing and only meeting 1/3rd of the players a regular person would is the same as someone who ONLY groups with their friends or their guild. You're limiting yourself to a pool of 40 players. Just because your number is higher than mine doesnt make you a better person.
I personally don't want to play with shitty players. That's why I box. Playing a tank and healer allows me to make up the 2 most important parts of a group with a player I can rely on. My groups will last longer and be more successful because of this. Which not only creates a better gaming experience for me, but for anyone else that happens to join my groups.
If boxing was truly something that VR was against. They would design the game around this. They havent. Infact they've created a game that begs people to come box. They've created pledges with multiple copies, they've created a slow combat system with almost a complete lack of need for fast twitch responses, and they've flat out come and said "hey, we dont care".
For you to be mad at boxers is silly. Were just playing OUR game. The same way you play yours. You should be mad at the company designing that game that is clearly INVITING us to box.
Or, maybe before you arbitrarily cast judgement, wait and see how it goes. Because no amount of pages of people expressing their dislike for boxing has changed anything up to thos point. Theres no indicator that another 100 pages of this discussion will change that either. Spend your time coming up with actual ideas and discussions that can help improve the game.
Wow.. I'm glad your one of the good ones! And that you can read minds. :)
Kidding aside, you might be surprised at who would prefer not to group with a multiboxer. Rare exceptions aside, its been my experience that even with the slower pace of old EQ style gaming, multiboxers tended to be less skilled per character, and pushing the envelope was much more difficult when you had a player splitting thier focus. Unless they are heavily scripting, which if I'm reading Kilsin right, is frowned upon due to it being basicly monitored botting, it likely will always be the case that less player skill will show through for the support of the group.
All that said, it has been made clear that multi-boxing will be allowed. We'll see how things go.
Based on the public information, web site, videos to date, and attitude of the devs, up to this point...
the plan for our guild is for everyone to be an enchanter, because of the perma charm mechanic, plus a druid for the ports. As in, everyone will play two characters, 100% of the time. 3 players per group.
That way, there will be 3 NPC-perma charmed mobs in the group, plus enough crowd control to handle however many adds, even if it means two of the enchanters handle adds, while the pets kill everything faster than any 6 other normal players and the druids buff, snare and spot heal.
That's the consequence of the "multi boxing is permitted" and "enchanters can perma charm" and "charmed NPC's will act/be at full NPC power, amplified in an extraordinary fashion by PC buffs". Thank you very much, Visionary Realms.
However, all of us have been at this long enough to know that these decision can change. Yet, if they do, none of these mechanics can be changed so much that they won't be effective unless removed.
In other words, they would have to remove the reason for being an enchanter and druid, (charm, buffs, heals and ports) entirely, before the classes are useless. At which point, those classes will be re-rolled or turned into tradeskill alts. But if/when that happens? It will affect everyone in a profoundly negative way, not just us. Removing, for example, charm from Enchanters or ports from druids would, I think accompany the departure of a significant portion of the target demographic, should such a thing happen between the start of beta and the first year after launch.
Personally? I've seen boxing destroy guilds in EQ1. I would, if it were my decision, implement an optional no-box server rule set in Pantheon. I've seen boxing absolutely dissolve any sense of community in every game that has it. Yet, it's permitted in Pantheon, so we are embracing it wholeheartedly, and will full utilize every permitted mechanic to it's absolute utmost ridiculous limit. We saw how it was in every game that has done it before. We have learned from history, we're not going to let everyone else take advantage of these insanely overpowered mechanics and stand by while they trivially consume all the content in the game. I suspect we're not alone. It's going to be a fun ride to the bottom of the ravine. :)
vjek said:Based on the public information, web site, videos to date, and attitude of the devs, up to this point...
the plan for our guild is for everyone to be an enchanter, because of the perma charm mechanic, plus a druid for the ports. As in, everyone will play two characters, 100% of the time. 3 players per group.That way, there will be 3 NPC-perma charmed mobs in the group, plus enough crowd control to handle however many adds, even if it means two of the enchanters handle adds, while the pets kill everything faster than any 6 other normal players and the druids buff, snare and spot heal.
That's the consequence of the "multi boxing is permitted" and "enchanters can perma charm" and "charmed NPC's will act/be at full NPC power, amplified in an extraordinary fashion by PC buffs". Thank you very much, Visionary Realms.However, all of us have been at this long enough to know that these decision can change. Yet, if they do, none of these mechanics can be changed so much that they won't be effective unless removed.
In other words, they would have to remove the reason for being an enchanter and druid, (charm, buffs, heals and ports) entirely, before the classes are useless. At which point, those classes will be re-rolled or turned into tradeskill alts. But if/when that happens? It will affect everyone in a profoundly negative way, not just us. Removing, for example, charm from Enchanters or ports from druids would, I think accompany the departure of a significant portion of the target demographic, should such a thing happen between the start of beta and the first year after launch.
Personally? I've seen boxing destroy guilds in EQ1. I would, if it were my decision, implement an optional no-box server rule set in Pantheon. I've seen boxing absolutely dissolve any sense of community in every game that has it. Yet, it's permitted in Pantheon, so we are embracing it wholeheartedly, and will full utilize every permitted mechanic to it's absolute utmost ridiculous limit. We saw how it was in every game that has done it before. We have learned from history, we're not going to let everyone else take advantage of these insanely overpowered mechanics and stand by while they trivially consume all the content in the game. I suspect we're not alone. It's going to be a fun ride to the bottom of the ravine. :)
A bit dramatic, but points taken.
A non-boxing server seems like a solution to a lot of these disagreements and would separate those with strong feelings. It would also be a good representation of how many people really care one way or the other. I'm not sure how much of it is just a vocal minority who are anti boxing or if it is a larger percentage of the population that would require more than 1 server?
My geuss is that the no boxing server will suffer from community and eventually die because the sheer lack of numbers of unique accounts / characters will be too low. Where boxing enables people to do content when unable to find a group due to a lower population at non peak hours. Non box servers will have maybe 6 hours a day of prime time, the rest is just tradeskills or other solo-able tasks. I imagine this will get old very quickly.
But thats just my opinion and geuss. Time will tell.
decarsul said:My geuss is that the no boxing server will suffer from community and eventually die because the sheer lack of numbers of unique accounts / characters will be too low. Where boxing enables people to do content when unable to find a group due to a lower population at non peak hours. Non box servers will have maybe 6 hours a day of prime time, the rest is just tradeskills or other solo-able tasks. I imagine this will get old very quickly.
But thats just my opinion and geuss. Time will tell.
Seems unlikely. I bet a "no boxing" server would be the highest population server.
I think it would be nice to have the no-boxing, or a no-boxing server, also be a single character per account server like SWG was at launch. The only way to get a second character slot would be through the progeny system and the progeny of one character would be clearly tied to the parent. In this way you would REALY be tied to your reputation, unable to just slide over to an alt on the same server after bad behavior.
Crafters would need to work with other players to complete multi-craft items rather than just passing components between alts. Guilds would be much less able to zerg as you would not be able to on the fly assemble a perfect raid group. Finding a group to consistently adventure with will also be important as you want be as flexible to just swap in and out alts. There would even be less overall consumption of items as on character can only make use of so many pieces of equipment rather than each player possibly wanting to equip 8 different characters so their lead character will always be looking for more.
My only issue with a no-boxing server would be wasting resources to police something that's not actually a real problem and is just worked around by the bad actors anyway.
Boxing is a symptom of a game having a low population in most cases. Some people enjoy boxing for the challenge but most people who do it do it out of necessity. I go in for a little of both, but if I have an opportunity to group I actually prefer to not box because it's tedious, I know I'm slowing the group down, and I'd much rather have people to socialize with if there's a choice to.
I think most people who box legitimately play similarly, or at the very least, would welcome other people into their groups if those other people existed.
In games like EQ the populations are so low outside the top levels that boxing has reached a critical mass where it's necessary. It didn't used to be this way, and only grew into a problem as populations declined.
But if people want a no-boxing server and VR are able to waste the resources policing it without taking away from developing the game, then I say let them have it.
I’ve seen the concept of “don’t want VR to waste resources on X” used in a lot of arguments. There may be a few instances where Head count for one project must come at the expense of another project but often times headcount will be from completely different teams. The man power cost of those teams can vary greatly based on their skill set and not all groups have 100% workload as in greater projects there are usually group specific delays and bottlenecks.
VR as a company I am sure will investigate the business case for each side project to estimate how many man hours a project will likely take vs how many man hours they have available on the applicable team and what the possible impact of the project would be. Things like account and server security will be a completely different team from the zone and quest design team which will be different from the CS/GM team.
Granted that currently the VR is very small agile (thanks Chris Rowan) as they conserve capital to get a product to market. Once the game has some revenue coming in they can tailor their constant improvement teams man power to begin knocking off these low hanging fruit outside of the base core function that must be completed before launching the game. Many of the ideas for features and functions I see suggested on these forums could be post launch patches or outright expansions.
I see no reason why a no-box server must be available at launch for it to still be a good idea to add once we see the in game environment. Maybe due to the nature of game play the concept of no-box will be completely unnecessary as it is virtually impossible to effectively play two characters at once. Crafting may either be so time consuming that you really only pursue one craft or so pointless as there is no reason to have a server setup to make it more compelling (polishing a turd and all that).
Either way I would avoid suggesting a concept is a waste of resources simply because that project does not appeal to you. (the plural you, not you specifically Chanus as you seem pretty open minded)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a waste of resources because I've seen no-box servers in effect and they only result in people who want to box for fun being less able to while others work around the rules and run box armies monopolizing entire zones.
You could combat that with a more robust and engaged GM presence, and I'm sure you would see some success, but I just don't personally see the benefit of using all that time and manpower to stop something that shouldn't be a real problem in the first place.
I think most of the opposition to boxing comes from people conflating boxing with cheating and botting. Cheating and botting should absolutely be prohibited and policed, but assuming that is done effectively, the number of players who would box otherwise, given a game with a decent-sized population such that groups are available often, will likely be pretty small and not affect the experience for others.
Chanus said:I think most of the opposition to boxing comes from people conflating boxing with cheating and botting. Cheating and botting should absolutely be prohibited and policed, but assuming that is done effectively, the number of players who would box otherwise, given a game with a decent-sized population such that groups are available often, will likely be pretty small and not affect the experience for others.
This is my thoughts on the matter as well. The healthier the server population is the less boxing you will see.
Porygon said: The majority of you have a negative view of boxing because of Everquest. A game that was so minimal in the requirements to run it that even the most basic computer could run 6 instances of it. A game that was so easy to bot and hack that multiple open source programs were created that allowed ANYONE to do it. A game who's combat was so slow that often a caster class would cast 2 or 3 spells per fight and sit down, where a healer might not even cast a single heal per fight, bards didnt even need to be touched in order to be played to 85% of their max. One of the main classes buffed and slowed, and that was it. The game was essentially DESIGNED to be boxed. Finally, a game who's itemization design was so backwards that level 50 characters were required to lockdown level 20 mobs or zones in order to obtain the most valuable items for themselves.
Again, spot on.
Porygon said: It's like someone told you about ice cream and had you try sweet potato icecream and you hated it. But instead of giving other flavors a try you said F it. I'm never gonna like ice cream, I'm done with it.
On the other end some people loved sweet potato ice cream so much, since it was their first ice cream, they can't even conceive how other ice creams may do some things better than their first love.
Chanus said:Porygon said: It's like someone told you about ice cream and had you try sweet potato icecream and you hated it. But instead of giving other flavors a try you said F it. I'm never gonna like ice cream, I'm done with it.On the other end some people loved sweet potato ice cream so much, since it was their first ice cream, they can't even conceive how other ice creams may do some things better than their first love.
And some people think every new ice cream flavor is the best one because it's new.
Chanus said:Porygon said: It's like someone told you about ice cream and had you try sweet potato icecream and you hated it. But instead of giving other flavors a try you said F it. I'm never gonna like ice cream, I'm done with it.On the other end some people loved sweet potato ice cream so much, since it was their first ice cream, they can't even conceive how other ice creams may do some things better than their first love.
So. Your counter point... is that... you THINK something is SOOOO AMAZING you arent even willing to try alternatives...
Do you not see how silly that sounds.
Porygon said:Chanus said:Porygon said: It's like someone told you about ice cream and had you try sweet potato icecream and you hated it. But instead of giving other flavors a try you said F it. I'm never gonna like ice cream, I'm done with it.On the other end some people loved sweet potato ice cream so much, since it was their first ice cream, they can't even conceive how other ice creams may do some things better than their first love.
So. Your counter point... is that... you THINK something is SOOOO AMAZING you arent even willing to try alternatives...
Do you not see how silly that sounds.
That's exactly what I was saying some people are like, yes. Not me.
There are definitely people who post here who don't understand just because Everquest did something, that doesn't mean it was a good decision or can't be changed.
I am one who disagrees with that point of view.
Porygon said: The majority of you have a negative view of boxing because of Everquest. A game that was so minimal in the requirements to run it that even the most basic computer could run 6 instances of it. A game that was so easy to bot and hack that multiple open source programs were created that allowed ANYONE to do it. A game who's combat was so slow that often a caster class would cast 2 or 3 spells per fight and sit down, where a healer might not even cast a single heal per fight, bards didnt even need to be touched in order to be played to 85% of their max. One of the main classes buffed and slowed, and that was it. The game was essentially DESIGNED to be boxed. Finally, a game who's itemization design was so backwards that level 50 characters were required to lockdown level 20 mobs or zones in order to obtain the most valuable items for themselves. It's like someone told you about ice cream and had you try sweet potato icecream and you hated it. But instead of giving other flavors a try you said F it. I'm never gonna like ice cream, I'm done with it.
Whoa now. I mentioned ArcheAge, the worst case of multi box alt characters I have ever seen. It would be nice if you could address boxing in modern MMORPGs instead of resorting to a downright ancient game (sorry EverQuest I love ya but yer more ancient than the cyclops now). WoW is old now too...should I point out boxing in FF14? What will it take to get the point across that the behavior is harmful to the overall health of MMORPGs? This isn't a matter of opinion there has been enough experience by hardcore MMO players to know what boxing does to a game. This is going to be a non instanced MMORPG, having people hogging the best camps with multibox alts is not gonna be pretty. I have seen enough to know better. People who are pro multiboxing are talking about exceptions to the rule and expecting us to be optimistic, that is ridiculous. This is not a behavior that should be allowed if you want a healthy multiplayer environment.
