by Savanja on Jul 17, 2006
By: Savanja
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I've never been very big on multi-boxing. I game to relax and to have
fun, and taking control of more than one character at a time seems like more
work than play. The limited experience I've had with duel boxing as proved
this to be true for me. Of course, I'm not well versed in macros and such,
so that could be part of my problem, but when it comes down to it, I really just
rather play my one character and enjoy my gameplay at a leisurely pace.
Multi-boxing is not against the EverQuest II user agreement. As long as
you actually have control of the characters, and are not running third party
programs for "AFK play", then you can technically run as many
characters, on as many accounts as you please. But why would you want
to?
I ran across someone once that played a full group on his own. Six
accounts, six characters of various races and classes, all controlled by one
person. And he was not your stereotypical coin farmer, he was just a guy
who wanted to be able to level up his various characters at the same time, and
keep all that delicious loot for himself. I watched him play out in the
Thundering Steppes, his main character, mentored to one of his alternates,
leading the way and all the alts following along behind on auto-follow.
They would all appropriately cast when they needed to, a healer popping off a
heal or two during combat. One person easily taking on group content, all
by himself. So I had to ask him, why? His answer? It was fun
for him. There was challenge in it, and being able to play with a full
group by himself, entitled him to all the loot, which was filtered to his main
character for whatever he needed. All that wonderful loot and coin, from
all those heroic encounters, all for one character. Now see? This is
so why I'm poor! Silly me, I share the loot with actual living group
members.
There are, of course, those stereotypical loot farmers. The ones who
have names like "Orgdrt" and "Nswurej". These are the
few groups that have become infamous on each server for being coin
farmers. They pick a spot that's only somewhat level appropriate, but
generally a bit easy for the average group level, and they kill whatever roams
into that spot. "Botters" they are called, because more often
than not, they are running botting software that not only runs that group, but
likely countless others, all at the same time. This is against the user
terms of agreement. It's very unfortunate that these people aren't always
caught, as they are very sneaky. It's always my advice that if you suspect
someone of botting, to /report and file a petition so that our GMs may look into
any suspicious activity.
Loot farming isn't the only reason why people multi-box. Some people
enjoy playing alone, and don't care for the slower pace of solo content.
It's not too complicated or too expensive (especially if you have the extra
hardware laying around your home) to start a second account and play two
characters. And now you have access to tougher content and faster
experience gain, and this is a huge bonus for a lot of people. I can't
fault players for this. I tend to enjoy my solo play, and in higher
levels, going out alone makes for painfully slow experience gain. Just
before I reached level 70 on my monk, I was on a solo play phase. It took
me forever to level. And as I watched that bar slowly move up with each
boring solo kill, I thought "This sucks", so I called back to town and
bought out the rest of my level with lore and legend, and collection
quests. Now had I had another account, with another high level character,
I could have just blew through that last 10%!
Another very popular reason for multi-boxing, whether people always want to
admit to this or not, is to help out a friend, playmate, or loved one.
I've known a lot of men that will duel-box their significant other's character,
just to keep that character up to pace with their own, even though their partner
does not play as much. I'm guilty of this as well, even though the whole
idea of it makes me cringe slightly. I'm big on the belief that if someone
wants to play, they should play out their character from beginning to end.
People who have their characters played for them make me nervous. What's
the point? Okay, well, I realize that it fosters an enjoyment of gaming
when (for example), a husband and wife team play together occasionally.
Say the husband plays 5 nights out of the week, but the wife only wishes to play
2 nights out of the week. With such a discrepancy, the wife's character
can quickly fall behind in levels. The best solution for this, is to allow
the husband to duel-box his wife's character on the nights that she does not
play, and she will play it when she has the time or desire to do so, and still
be group'able with her husband's character. The downside of this is that
you basically can have a high end character being played by someone who isn't
terribly familiar with their class or the game in general. This, to me, is
like someone who buys their account off of eBay, and starts playing the game at
level 60. Ever see a high level character, wandering through Antonica
asking where Thundering Steppes is? Yeah, run the other way.
But like I said, I'm guilty of this as well. Not too long ago, I took
control of my daughter's conjurer (being played on my second account) for her,
so that she could head off to do something else. I put her on auto-follow,
plopped her keyboard on my desk, and played her character along with mine.
Quite honestly, it was a little annoying. I was mentored from level 70 to
level 14, so it's not like I needed a second toon there to take out the yellow
heroic gnolls that I was slaughtering. It just felt like more work than
any game should be. Although, she was quite tickled when she came back to
play her character and it was a few levels higher. That won me super cool
mommy points!
Whether or not one multi-boxes isn't going to concern game makers too
much. More accounts being purchased equals more money, and more money is
what it is all about. Companies limiting how many accounts one can have
could be detrimental for a lot of players, even though I've seen the idea toss
around for the purpose of cutting down on botters and coin farmers, I just don't
see that sort of regulation being a very smart move. For me, it comes down
to the idea, that if it doesn't personally affect my gameplay, then I don't
really care what one does. I may not fully agree with the guy who runs a
full group all by himself, but who does it really hurt? If he enjoys
playing that way, then shouldn't he be free to do so? I don't feel I have
the authority or the knowledge to deem multi-boxing as right or wrong. It
basically comes down to personal tastes and preferences, and as long as the
almighty user agreement is being adhered to, then I say multi-box to your hearts
content!
What I want to know is, has anyone run a raid on their own?
Seriously. If there is someone out there that managed an entire raid with
a single person controlling all the characters, I want to bow down and kiss your
feet, for you are, a gaming God.
/notworthy
As always, if you have comments or questions, feel free to contact me via
e-mail!