The evolution of multiboxing

[Owltoid]

In the beginning...

1.) Multiple computers with one client running on each. Each computer controlled with its own mouse/keyboard, possibly jury-rigged so that pushing one button on one would also push one button on another (think of a physical bridge, similar to Kromtor's picture for EVE, I believe).

2.) Multiple computers with one client running on each, but a hardware multiplexer allowing for one keyboard/mouse to be broadcast to multiple clients. I believe Fur moved off this system a few months ago, so others may still be using it.

3.) Multiple computers with one client running on each, but rudimentary software broadcasting on a one-to-one mapping between computers. I'm not sure how long this step lasted, as the next step was likely quickly developed...

4.) Multiple computers with one client running on each, but software allowing for broadcasting on each while allowing the user to make custom key mappings. Now pushing 'g' on one computer can sent 'ctrl-p' on a remote computer. Octopus, AHK and Keyclone likely the dominant choice during this time.

5.) Single computer with multiple clients running, or a mixture of multiple computers running more than one account. This development likely due to computing power increasing. With the hardware performance increased enough to allow a single computer, hardware development falls out of the picture of the multiboxing evolution.

6.) Mouse broadcasting become a reality. HKN and ISBoxer allow for the functionality, with Keyclone close behind. ISBoxer perfects the craft through window rendering while HKN offers a great solution for those users preferring a free program.

7.) Incorporation of macro generation through the software thereby allowing for teams to mix and match with ease. ISBoxer is alone at the top.

8.) what's next???

Long story short, I'm pumped about the US win in the World Cup and jacked up on caffeine, so I'm bored. I could be totally off in the evolution of multiboxing as I didn't truly start until stage 5. Let me know where you think I'm wrong, or give me your view of the evelution! Some old-timers likely have a much better view of the history of our hobby.

[Sam DeathWalker]

1A. Sam DeathWalker connects two computers to one keyboard in 2003 allowing two wizards in EQ to cast at the same time. Multiboxing Focus Fire is born.


5A. DeathWalker still using a combination of hardware (one keybaord/mouse to 6 computers) and software (ISboxer running 7 clients per computer).

[zenga]

Good summary. It's not that i'm against evolution cq better technology. But i fear the point where boxing is going to become so sophisticated (while it's still within the rules), that it's no longer acceptable to *tolerate* it from the game developers point of view. I.e. that the 'future ways' to box are gonna change the perception blizzard gets from us.



Long story short, I'm pumped about the US win in the World Cup and jacked up on caffeine, so I'm bored

Grats, but i blame English not being my native language for reading 'up' as 'off' and thus raising an eyebrow or 2.

[Owltoid]

Grats, but i blame English not being my native language for reading 'up' as 'off' and thus raising an eyebrow or 2.

:D either meaning works well for me!

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Good summary. It's not that i'm against evolution cq better technology. But i fear the point where boxing is going to become so sophisticated (while it's still within the rules), that it's no longer acceptable to *tolerate* it from the game developers point of view. I.e. that the 'future ways' to box are gonna change the perception blizzard gets from us.If it gets to the point where multiboxing software gets "too easy" to use, they'll just ban the "advanced" software, IMO. Nothing else will have changed, so why ban the folks who are still UI/macro craftsmen?

I do agree, though, that at some point, if they do decide to ban something, it'll be the software that "translates" a key on one client to something completely different on another client -- not the basic multiplexers.

[ElectronDF]

My hope for boxing is a combination of simpler techs already available.

G15/G13/G19/Keypad/Keyboard Using any special keys on them does.....
Sends the keys to the game. You don't have to map G1 to CTRL-ALT-A and G2 to CTRL-SHIFT-ALT B and so forth. Game natively take the G Keys as inputs.

Next is multiplexing software. The drivers or any program, but preferably drivers are written so your keys are able to be sent to any networked computer. Now, there is no boxing software, it is already built into the drivers. You can share a USB device already, but the limitation is it is only usable by one person at a time. Vectra boxes (http://www.vetra.com/) get close, but they are wires, not software. Software lets you customize it more to suit your needs.

So if you have multiple computers, you push a key on your special keypad and the drivers let you send that key to any number of computers. If you use one computer, you still need boxing software though. Sorry that my idea only fixes my playstyle, I acknowledge that is kinda limiting. I was just trying to get away from they saying, "Blank" program is not allowed. They would have to stop boxing altogether instead of just a program.

Maybe, just maybe they could do social engineering work to get people that actually would work together rather than just be idiots running around. That in my opinion would stop me from boxing competely. Give LFD a check box (only offense, only defense and some of each). That way the careful people won't get put in with people yelling, "Go, Go, Go, Go", "Your GS sucks", "Don't do objectives, you're just supposed to kill stuff", etc. The defensive people don't have to deal with people that just want to AOE everything, don't know how to CC or can't learn how to deal with colors on the floor. Dude, it is a color. You don't hav to learn how to ballroom dance, learn a foreign language or read sheet music. It is just move out of the color. Dang.

So boxing will change (go away) if they give us an option to choose to play with people that caused us to start boxing in the first place.

[Toned]

1A. Sam DeathWalker connects two computers to one keyboard in 2003 allowing two wizards in EQ to cast at the same time. Multiboxing Focus Fire is born.

So true Pre Team Wizzy or whatever you were going by back in the day it was all about alt tab boxing and playing like a f00king octopus.

Then macroquest came along and the fall of EQ began!

[Aenar]

I don't know if it was before '03 or during/after... but had a very popluar guildie in EQ whom we nicknamed xbox. Ran 6 characters consentantly (even during raids) on Vazaelle server (sp?). Forget the exact makeup, but something like Warrior, Cleric, WIz, Wiz, Ench, Druid (or a shaman). Anyways, that was my first insperation to take on this hobby. Tried warrior/shaman combo for a few months before moving to WoW beta (two PCs / two keyboards, etc.. lol)

[HTeam]

The first I heard about in DAoC, way back was Multiple Computers, single account per and a wireless keyboard registered to all of them. Kind of hardware solution without any additional hardware.

[Nejcha]

I'm still useing hardware multiplexing! Hardware foreveah!

[kate]

I think Step 8 is: "ISBoxer becomes self-aware and takes over all MMO computers."
Step 8a would be "ISBoxer decides that humans are the problem and eliminates all human players."

Apologies to the Terminator writers.

Does playing multiple characters in MUDs count? If so, I was doing it around 1993 or so on various MUD platforms. They're text-based since the tech wasn't there to handle anything remotely like what we have today, of course, but MUDS and MOOS were the basis for the first generation of MMOs (Meridian, EQ - though not really Ultima)

I had a pretty simple mud-client setup that I built myself: it was part bot (in that it could respond automatically to certain text sequences to take an action - for example, "The glowing white aura fades from your body" would trigger the casting of a spell to restore a certain damage reducing buff) but mostly just a key repeater that would send my commands to multiple instances of the client simultaneously.

Since there was no limit to the number of simple text windows you could run (well, the systems I was using were next workstations and other very powerful machines, so I could run a huge number of windows) I would occasionally help friends who ran MUDS load test their servers by logging 200 characters on at once and have them roll around fighting things.

Because the MUDs were text based without any graphics, you really could have complete control over the muitiboxing software - there were no issues of facing, mouse repeating or anything like that; if two characters both typed "w" they would go west 1 space and be in the exact same room and exact same orientation or whatever as each other. It made things ridiculously easy to program for, and at one point I wrote a bot that was capable of going from level 1 to level 100 by roaming the earth and fighting things; it could compare equipment to get the best stuff, it could gets its corpse back when it died, buy food and water from vendors, rest when appropriate, etc. Fun tests of automation :)

And I feel old now :D

[Slats]

I was doing a form of multiboxing whenever Shadowbane was around. But I used some horrible hacked up chinese script program to ... uh... automate my other characters. So essentially I could play 6 acocounts at once and use it to powerlevel my main account or friends characters with like 4 druids and a bard and a priest and then the lowbies.

Shadowbane had formations too which made moving shit around really easy and the other players casting wouldn't break formation, only if they tried to move.

I ran multiple accounts in UO as well but once again not really multiboxing.

I hardware boxed for the last half of TBC. Still have all my Vetras and about 4 billlion ps2 cables....

[Lax]

I think if anyone's writing such a list, then for single PC you have to take into account EQWindows, EQPlayNice, and WinEQ, and similar software that worked with other games (FFXI windower etc). EQ1 originally only ran in full screen mode, so someone ("justsomedude") wrote EQWindows to force it into a window. EQ also did not feature any FPS limiting, so its CPU usage was always 100%, until EQPlayNice. When EQPN implemented Rendering Limiting, this dropped CPU usage even further by stopping the game from rendering the world in the background (thereby also increasing FPS the game actually ran at), allowing more clients to run with less power than it had previously taken to run 1. WinEQ started when EQWindows was no longer being updated, and pioneered Picture-in-Picture with instant window swapping.

And lol @ kate. I played MUDs from 1992 or so to 2000-ish. Never played more than 2 or 3 characters at once though, and definitely automated those. I cut my teeth on VikingMUD, an LPmud, and was a wizard (developer; I think LPC was my first experience with a language like C) there until I got banned. Apparently using your wizard to help a 2nd character level up is against the rules ;) Mystic Adventure 2 (think it was a merc, offshoot of diku ) was the most fun I had in a MUD I think. Seems like people stopped playing it, or at least I did, after they banned "power levelling".

[jinkobi]

You guys are bringing back some good memories ;) Back in 1991-1994 my best friend and I ran a very popular MUD out of the University of Texas @ Austin called Renegade Outpost. We ran there until our game was literally sucking UT's computer department dry of resources lol.

Back then the internet was new and the majority of people with internet access were in college or part of some major computer corporation. In hilarious code collaborations we'd have people from IBM, Apple, even the Pentagon helping to work out bugs. One of our gods/coders went on to be one of the first developers of EQ1.

We topped out with around 30,000 characters and the capacity of 200 users online at a time. After my friend and I left college we turned the game over to people interested in keeping it going. They've done a great job as it's still up and playable! http://www.renegadeoutpost.com/

If typing at 2-3 Sun workstations at the same time counts as multiboxing I did that all the time :)

MUDS weren't my first game of that type. My first multiuser D&D game was called Scepter of Goth circa 82-84. We payed 10$ an hour to play on a 300 baud modem. GamBit/Scepter of Goth were like the father of the MUDS. In the end MUDS were far more advanced than Scepter ever dreamed of becoming. It deserves credit though for being the first MUD type game.

All this nostalgia got me to rambling :D

[Sam DeathWalker]

Old times ... well here is a wargaming mag from 1970:

http://www.tomeoftreasures.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2929

Lists Gary Gygax as Consulting Editor and Sam Ferris (me) as Gunga Din (I think I actually printed the magazine). We were all in the IFW (International Federation of Wargaming) together which was kinda the precursor to the GenCons, and that was when Gary was coming up with ideas for "Chainmail" which was the precursor to DandD, it was played with minitures on a sand table (or regular table).

[Tonuss]

Avalon Hill... geez I remember that company. I feel old...

[jinkobi]

Old times ... well here is a wargaming mag from 1970:

http://www.tomeoftreasures.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2929

Lists Gary Gygax as Consulting Editor and Sam Ferris (me) as Gunga Din (I think I actually printed the magazine). We were all in the IFW (International Federation of Wargaming) together which was kinda the precursor to the GenCons, and that was when Gary was coming up with ideas for "Chainmail" which was the precursor to DandD, it was played with minitures on a sand table (or regular table).

That's some awesome stuff Sam! Why do I look older than you and I wasn't born until 1971 :confused: lol. Good old Gygax a true legend. Did you ever get to meet or talk with him? Real shame he passed as I always hoped to meet him one day. No telling what other great things he would have created- true genius.

[Zub]

That's some awesome stuff Sam! Why do I look older than you and I wasn't born until 1971 :confused: lol. Good old Gygax a true legend. Did you ever get to meet or talk with him? Real shame he passed as I always hoped to meet him one day. No telling what other great things he would have created- true genius.
oh god what did you just start >.<

[kate]

MUDS weren't my first game of that type. My first multiuser D&D game was called Scepter of Goth circa 82-84. We payed 10$ an hour to play on a 300 baud modem. GamBit/Scepter of Goth were like the father of the MUDS. In the end MUDS were far more advanced than Scepter ever dreamed of becoming. It deserves credit though for being the first MUD type game.

All this nostalgia got me to rambling :D

Oy, yeah - I had an Apple ][ (originally with a WHOPPING 16k RAM, eventually we upped it to a then ungodly 64k) as my first machine. I think it was '77 when we got that, and then a year later we got a disk drive and a micromodem (300 baud, baby!). I used to do horrible things to my parent's phone bill by using BBS's and the like. My favorite was one bulletin board system that would let you play Eamon and you could, if you paid for the premium service (which was some ridiculous hourly rate), play it with 1 other person. There was no boxing, but I did learn Applesoft BASIC inside and out by writing a pretty fun set of BBS software so I could have my own board.

I also remember playing some dungeon game on the PLATO system at school, but I'd have to look it up - I think it was multiplayer, but it might have just had a kind of lobby for people to chat.

Fun times!

[Sam DeathWalker]

I sold hot dogs for Gary at the very first Genva con, and slept in his library room while I was there. I first met him when he worked for an insurance company and then was selling shoes after that while working up his gaming business. IFW was the place for action back then. I played all the old Avolon HIll games (made a fortran programe to calculate attacks and defenses in Stalingrad, like 100 pages readout. Me and another top Stalingrad player played at the Genva Con and its like 1 hour per move people come buy expecting the game to be over and we are on move 2) lol ..... we never finished the game.

Ya Gary is one of the few people I have ever known that no one has anything bad to say about.

This is where DandD started and the foundation of most fantasy games today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_(game))

I read these and had copies of SandT when if first came out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Bodenburg

He had the whole thing set up at the early GenCon, I was amazed with it and bought a whole bunch of minitures. The Huns werer my favorite, so well made.


My first computer game was this I think:

http://www.nethack.org/v343/Guidebook.html

I bought a IBM pc (8080 lolzors) for $2000 bucks right after it came out (used machine heh).

[zenga]

Oy, yeah - I had an Apple ][ (originally with a WHOPPING 16k RAM, eventually we upped it to a then ungodly 64k) as my first machine. I think it was '77 when we got that, and then a year later we got a disk drive and a micromodem (300 baud, baby!). I used to do horrible things to my parent's phone bill by using BBS's and the like. My favorite was one bulletin board system that would let you play Eamon and you could, if you paid for the premium service (which was some ridiculous hourly rate), play it with 1 other person. There was no boxing, but I did learn Applesoft BASIC inside and out by writing a pretty fun set of BBS software so I could have my own board.
...
Fun times!

That sounds pretty much like me, though you could add 6y extra for that. I used the same machine and shortly after the Apple Macintosh Plus. And I used to play Dark Castle / Beyond Dark Castle. Which was an awesome gome back then.

[jinkobi]

I sold hot dogs for Gary at the very first Genva con, and slept in his library room while I was there. I first met him when he worked for an insurance company and then was selling shoes after that while working up his gaming business. IFW was the place for action back then. I played all the old Avolon HIll games (made a fortran programe to calculate attacks and defenses in Stalingrad, like 100 pages readout. Me and another top Stalingrad player played at the Genva Con and its like 1 hour per move people come buy expecting the game to be over and we are on move 2) lol ..... we never finished the game.

Ya Gary is one of the few people I have ever known that no one has anything bad to say about.

This is where DandD started and the foundation of most fantasy games today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_(game))

I read these and had copies of SandT when if first came out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Bodenburg

He had the whole thing set up at the early GenCon, I was amazed with it and bought a whole bunch of minitures. The Huns werer my favorite, so well made.


My first computer game was this I think:

http://www.nethack.org/v343/Guidebook.html

I bought a IBM pc (8080 lolzors) for $2000 bucks right after it came out (used machine heh).

That must be so great to have those memories! Amazing how far computers have came much less gaming. Sucks that so many of this generation have no clue of the history or appreciation.

Still have some of my TSR AD&D books in storage- mint condition no less, lol. Which is really astounding as much as I read those damn things. I'm a packrat and still have numerous drawings of D&D scrawled during many boring jr high school days.

My first computer was an Atari 800 with a 300 baud scrodum err modem :eek: Even that POS cost well over a grand.



Oy, yeah - I had an Apple ][ (originally with a WHOPPING 16k RAM, eventually we upped it to a then ungodly 64k) as my first machine. I think it was '77 when we got that, and then a year later we got a disk drive and a micromodem (300 baud, baby!). I used to do horrible things to my parent's phone bill by using BBS's and the like. My favorite was one bulletin board system that would let you play Eamon and you could, if you paid for the premium service (which was some ridiculous hourly rate), play it with 1 other person. There was no boxing, but I did learn Applesoft BASIC inside and out by writing a pretty fun set of BBS software so I could have my own board.

I also remember playing some dungeon game on the PLATO system at school, but I'd have to look it up - I think it was multiplayer, but it might have just had a kind of lobby for people to chat.

Fun times!



LOL. Geez BBS'!! My friend and I were SysOps for a couple of BBS' here in Austin. We used them to trade software- and at 300 baud 700k games taking a day to download. Some of my long distance bills brought down hell from my parents. Had to start mowing lawns to help pay the bill off, lol.

My friend and I were well 13 at the time. He was already a coding genius and is now the head of a multi million dollar company. We started writing and freely distributing BBS software and had built in all these backdoors. With the right commands it would make you a SysOp and invisible, dump the passwords+usernames, total control... Yeah we were jerks but we were 13 year old idiots.

Needless to say some funny stuff was happening on the BBS boards here in the 80's. Log in as every user of the BBS telling the SysOp how crappy his BBS was, lol. Or when I figured out creating accounts as ALL would allow you to delete every message to ALL on BBS'. :rolleyes:

Harmless fun at the time. My friend and I laugh about it today because we can't believe we did such things. Very bored 13 year olds with computers. Always a danger :D

[Toned]

Yes EQ without EQwindows and EQplaynice would have been horrible... Once again gogo Lax lol

[Souca]

And I used to play Dark Castle / Beyond Dark Castle.

Man, that game was awesome. If I remember correctly, all you had was a rock you could throw at things.

Hell, I even remember when Castle Wolfenstein was a text adventure. And did anyone else play Pirate's Cove on the VIC 20?

- Souca -