Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Mission Impossible: Multi-Boxing in Vanguard

by Shayalyn

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I once knew a man from...no, not Nantucket; this guy was from Canada. He owned a network and online gaming center somewhere in Alberta. He played EverQuest obsessively, and among his friends he was a bit of a legend. Why? Because not only could he dual-box, but given all the computers lined up along the wall at his gaming center, he could tri-box. He could’ve quad-boxed if he’d wanted to (he had four accounts), and probably did a time or two just to prove it could be done. He would sit on an office chair and roll from one PC to the other, tanking with his beastlord, firing heals and DoTs off with his druid, and using the enchanter for haste and mana regen. I never saw him in person, but I imagined him looking like the Wizard of Oz, scurrying around at the controls, pressing buttons and flipping switches. “I am the Great and Powerful...” You get the picture.

I have other friends who prefer dual-boxing in EQ and World of Warcraft (among other games) to playing a single character. Their rationale is that they can solo well by two-boxing a tank and a healer; and that playing a single class is boring. At least one of my friends won’t play a game in which he can’t dual-box because he finds playing a single character tedious.

Developers don’t seem to have a problem with multi-boxing. Why would they? To discourage multi-boxing would mean to discourage players from having more than one account. From a business standpoint, it just doesn’t make sense to want to limit players--why settle for $15 when you can have $30? But what about from a gaming standpoint? What does the ability to dual-box, even to the point where some players prefer it to playing a single character, say about the combat mechanics of an MMO?

Doug “Eldiroth” Cronkhite of Sigil Games Online, Associate Game Designer for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, had this to say about multi-boxing:

“In Vanguard, I seriously cannot see anyone multi-boxing and playing their class well. Furthermore, I'm convinced that people will find the combat so engaging that they won't want to multi-box. There [are] just too many things you'll want to be doing to worry about another computer. Put simply, the days of watching TV during combat are over.”

Cronkhite seems to discourage multi-boxing. Yet, does Sigil care if players have more than one account? Of course not. Does Sigil care of people want to try multi-boxing? Again, probably not. But it would appear Sigil does care whether players find the combat in Vanguard engaging, and to that end they’ve endeavored to make a game where players will be far too busy playing to want to try and divide their attention between two computers, or even between the computer and the television.

Traditionally, the protective fighters, or tanks, have the least to do in MMO combat. While things certainly can get hairy for a tank in certain situations, there are may other situations where tanking involves little more than attacking and watching the hits add up until the monster dies. Vanguard aims to change all that. By taking a look at how Vanguard’s combat works for a tank class, you’ll get an idea of why dual-boxing may be nigh on impossible, and why you’ll want to actually be focused on your single character.

Here’s an example of Vanguard combat:

The tank engages his enemy by leading off with a damage chain opener--a special immediate attack that hits the mob and triggers a chain of events that, when followed, can lead to a high-damage finishing attack. Let’s assume the tank has a weapon with a 4 second delay between swings. He has exactly 4 seconds to plan for his next attack. He uses his perception skill to see what the enemy is doing and sees that it is using a claw attack. Nothing major to worry about there, so the tank triggers his bridge attack, which advances the attack chain. At the end of the 4 second delay, the bridge attack lands and begins the next round.

Now, let’s say the tank is taking time out to swig some Mountain Dew and grab a handful of chips before his next attack begins. He absent-mindedly triggers his finishing move to end the chain, and only then glances at the monster’s queue. Ah, crap! The mob is using Devour, a high damage attack. This requires a defensive move. The tank quickly breaks off his attack chain and queues up a defensive special attack. Whew! The special landed first, followed by the monster’s Devour attack, so the tank was able to mitigate most of the damage. The tank loads up another opener. All this takes place in a span of 4 seconds. And this describes just one combat scenario, not the whole of combat mechanics in Vanguard. (Credit for this description goes to Vanguard Silky Venom’s Book of Oloh, which contains some early beta descriptions of combat.)

Given this combat mechanic, its easy to see why multi-boxing won’t be practical in Vanguard. My multi-boxing friend would probably moan about this, but I’m of a mind that when a game involves engaging combat that keeps me busy (so that I’m not multi-tasking watching TV and eating chips...although there’s always room for Mountain Dew), that’s better than being able to play on more than one computer at a time any day.

Should game developers care that players multi-box? I doubt they need to worry about the act itself (although some multi-boxers are also gold farmers, that’s a different topic altogether) so much as what it signifies. If a game is so mind-numbingly simple that a person feels compelled to play two characters at once just to keep the game interesting, then perhaps there’s something fundamentally lacking from the game itself.

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