Boxing

[Throttle]

Originally Posted by Deathrydar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No one wants boxing. It was discussed at great length before launch and the results were in the favor of those opposed to it. Of course, who am I, but a Dev will inform you. We don't want boxing here.

Heh.

I don't play here, but I decided to check out the forums and I simply had to register and respond to this.

There was an official boxing poll on the beta forums where nilbog asked for our opinions. More votes were given to allow two-boxing than not, but since he had said from the beginning that it would ultimately be his decision and that he only wanted to know how people felt, it didn't matter. This was fair enough, if a somewhat unorthodox choice of management. Not all current players were around at the time to vote, I'm sure.

There were long discussions concerning the matter of whether or not to allow two-boxing. Everyone weighed in and contributed with their opinions. The vast majority of these opinions can be summed up in two categories with the range of reasons:

Anti-boxers: We don't want others to have an advantage. We don't want to risk a lower chance of getting loot. It doesn't feel classic. It's not how we remember it. Boxers won't group with other people. Boxers are selfish, anti-social players.

Pro-boxers: No emulated server will come close to any Live population. No emulated server's playerbase can sufficiently fill out the game world. Off-peak play will be severely compromised. We can't play for five hours at a time like we could 10 years ago. Non-boxing will heavily affect class choices. Non-boxing will prevent a Live-like raid environment.

The general theme of these discussions was that anti-boxing players raised concerns for their own favor and benefit, and pro-boxing players addressed likely issues for the server. There was a blatantly obvious disparity in the tone, rationality and altriusm (for lack of better word) between the two groups. Well-written and thoughtful posts were responded to with almost vulgar selfishness in some cases as certain players were more concerned with their chances at getting loot or being able to charge for services than with the potential success of the server.

I played sporadically for the first few days after the server launched just to take a look, and I occasionally glance at the online tally out of sheer curiosity just as I still visit the forums of games that I haven't played for years. It was pleasantly active at the time, but despite the fact that everyone save for a handful of magicians were in the same level range for the first week, groups were still not autmoatic and half the dungeons within that level range were still empty most of the time. The game was playable, but I don't think one could reasonably claim that the game world was filled out. I had next to no instances of being unable to find a group due to the groups being full or the zone overcamped, but I had my fair share of simply not finding anyone willing to group, or lacking a healer for hours at a time. As predicted, some classes were grotesquely over-represented and others barely present.

My estimate at the time of the above-mentioned discussions was that the server would need an absolute bare minimum of 100 players online at any given time to be maginally playable as this was approximately the amount of players needed to supply one full group per five level increments as well as the inevitable crowd of soloers, socializers, tradeskillers and other players who have no direct influence on the activity of the grouping scene. 130 are online right now, probably a chunk more during peak and a chunk less in a few hours when the actual off-peak shift begins. For the server to meet my criteria of thriving and Live-like to the point where the fact that it is an emulated niche server is not thrust in your face in all elements of gameplay, it would need 4-500 online at a time.

I'm happy that the server is doing well, and as I told nilbog before the launch, I congratulate him on his results even though I strongly disagree with a few key aspects. We simply have different views of what the desired outcome is, and those in charge of the server evidently feel that rudimentarily playable server is worth more than the controversies of two-boxing. I would have played on a server where groups are available at all times to anyone and class flexibility is much more forgiving, but that's that.

What I wanted to arrive at is the fact that no, boxing was not "voted against" or "strongly opposed" or anything of the sort. The matter had simply been decided upon by those with the authority to decide and thus the efforts of the players were futile. It was nevertheless interesting to see such an impressive difference in the general mentality of the pro- and anti-boxing players, and amusing enough to see some of them taking the launch day population as a basis for such reactionist quotes as: "lol and those retards wanted boxing".

edit

You might like your SK/Shaman setup, but the now-superflous Shaman player who doesn't get a group invite due to that certainly won't like it much.

Assuming that the player in question does not have a group readily accessible at most times, which one can guess is usually the reason for people wanting to two-box, two possible scenarios can exist:

1: The shadowknight is alone. He can't play the game as he wants to play it. He can't do much of anything (unless he rolls a magician) and he probably spends most of his time trying to kill low blues with varying success, crafting things noone really wants, exploring on his own, hailing random mobs, looking up quests he might be able to do and so on. If there were always shamans around to accompany the shadowknights of the world, few would bring up such concerns.

2: The shadowknight is allowed to two-box. He can play the game the way he wants to, he can level up and enjoy the majority of the game's content. He can craft, explore or quest with greater success than he could alone. If he did not want to two-box, he wouldn't have to. If the hypothetical superfluous shaman exists, the former player can choose to group with him or he can choose not to. If he does, noone is compromised; if he does not, the latter player still better off than scenario 1 because they can choose to two-box as well.

In all my years playing and two-boxing Everquest, of all the boxers I've known, there has been a tiny, inconsequential fraction of them who staunchly refused to group with others. They are also the players who, if not allowed to two-box, are soloing in some remote corner of the world in the company of their fire pet, or not playing at all. The rest of us just enjoy the game more when playing two characters, whether because we don't have to spend so much time doing nothing, or because the primitive nature of Everquest's classes simply does not entertain us in singularum.