The roots of multiboxing?

[propagandalf]

I was getting all nostalgic the other day, remembering my first adventures in an online RPG, MUDs. If you don't know what MUDs are, they were text based online RPGs, long before Ultima Online.

I started to remember the MUD I played on and why I specifically loved that one, over all the others -- it allowed "Multiplaying". Only a few (out of hundreds) allowed this. You can still search the MUD Connector and filter your search by "Allows Multi-play" (http://www.mudconnect.com/adv_search.html).

This meant you could play multiple characters at the same time in the game. Sounds a lot like Multiboxing, huh? :D

You had to use a special MUD client called TinTin++:

http://tintin.sourceforge.net/manual/session.php (http://tintin.sourceforge.net/manual/session.php)



Syntax: #session {name} {address} {port}


Will start a session with the given name, connecting to the specified address and port.


Example: #ses twinkie neverneverland.bla 1234
Ofcourse you'd have to fill in something else if you actually want to go somewhere. The Mud connector offers a large searchable list of muds.


Other options are #session + and - to go to the next or previous session. This only works if you are multiplaying. #session <number> activates the session corresponding to the given number.

That's when it hit me... I've been multiboxing for almost 20 years! Scary :D

[Binzyrd]

That's a good analogy... I guess I've been multiboxing for longer than I thought ;). Hell, I still multiplay a MUD, but I'm using zmud.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I would say UO was the first game that I really multi-boxed with. Having another toon that would stand there for hours on end while you beat on them to get your weapon skills up with was extremely useful. So was the stealing ability. I remember setting up one toon who was a grand master snoop/steal in the Brit provisioner shop and swipe peoples items. Guards would insta kill you and I used my other account to loot the corpse. Ahh those were the days...

[JohnGabriel]

When I worked at Nintendo in the late 80s there was a game play counselor (the guys you called for game tips) and he could play two Nintendos at once, one in each hand. It was very impressive to see him playing two separate games independently of each other.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I called those Nintendo guys! My mother didn't like that it was a long distance phone call to Washington (I think that was the 206 area code?) They couldn't help much with that god damned Milons Secret Castle. I remember them telling me that only the guy who made the game knows how to play it.

[zenga]

Must 've been 1987 iirc (Im born in 1978) and I was playing Beyond Dark Castle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISP9su7okHo) (still has a busy forum (http://z6.invisionfree.com/Dark_Castle_Forum/index.php?) up) that summer on my Mac Plus. For some reason my dad was doing business with Japanese people and closing the deal required a family dinner with them. He challenged me to practise eating with chopsticks, and the stubborn kid I was I practised a lot in the forthcoming days, to the point where I could multibox chopsticks, 2 in my left and 2 in my right hand. And the Japanese were very impressed with my skills, I don't remember if the deal was closed or not, I only remember the constant stream of jokes from my parents at the expense of the Japanese later on, so I guess not.

We had a newer and an older mac plus at that point at home, and since I was so good at Dark Castle, the chopstick experience gave me the idea to try and play the game with my left hand instead of my right hand. as an extra challenge. Shortly after I tried to play on 2 different computers, which was my very first experience with multiboxing games.

[propagandalf]

That's a good analogy... I guess I've been multiboxing for longer than I thought ;). Hell, I still multiplay a MUD, but I'm using zmud.

Oh yeah, I forgot aobut zMUD. That was a huge upgrade from Tintin++!

[Alge]

I was heavily into MUDs back in the day, so much so that when I started playing EQ I was pretty sure it was most heavily inspired by DikuMUD rather than any other code base.

While doing some fact-checking for this post I learned I wasn't the only one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DikuMUD#Legacy).

[Lax]

I played a lot of MUDs in the 90s as well, even used Tintin++ to "multi-play" as well. Those were the good old days! I might even have copies of my tintin triggers somewhere. Or maybe I was using it on a local freenet and they're all gone now... I don't know. Maybe I'll find it. Favorite MUDs that I can recall the names of were Mystic Adventure and VikingMUD. I believe I stopped playing Mystic Adventure when they stopped allowing powerlevelling, and I got kicked off of VikingMUD for using my high level "wizard" (which could contribute code and do other things) to level up my second character. lol... :)

Eventually local BBS's MUDs had a more interesting social setting for me than the internet ones, so I was playing MajorMUD when UO and EverQuest came out. And I was super interested in these new "graphical MUDs". In fact one of my friends from a local BBS got me into EverQuest in the first place. I remember he practically disappeared altogether when EverQuest came out, because at that point the only reason to "play" MajorMUD anymore was to watch a program play it for you in order to compare your internet points to the internet points racked up by other people who watch a program play it for them. Which was then no longer fun because the real point of having it played for you was to get higher level (so you wouldn't have to do *months* of work by hand in order to get a handful of levels) so you could go adventure at harder spots with your buddies. No adventuring buddies, no reason to play. On to EQ! ;)

I also "multi-played" for years in Tele-Arena, Swords of Chaos, Insanity Complex, and a bunch of other MajorBBS/Worldgroup MUDs before MajorMUD. ;) The multiboxing concept was roughly the same, but the execution was different. Back then you usually would have to send a message in the game to your second character with a secret code, and then your second character would read the secret code and initiate the appropriate action, which really was not far removed from botting. It's completely different now, our multiboxing tools are not designed to determine information about the state of the game and can't easily respond to that sort of trigger like we did with text games (and we don't want to because it's not allowed anyway).

Anyway, 100% yes. ;)

[Igg]

My first multi boxing experience was back in EQ, back then clerics (healers) was very rare. So I always had a second account with a pet cleric following me around to resurrect/buff and heal.

Even had macros!
/target <my bard>
/cast complete heal
/sit

[propagandalf]

I remember Mystic Adventure! It was one of the original MERC MUDs, if I remember correctly.

I played on Dragon Swords MUD and eventually started building areas, until I was one of the IMPS for a period of time. I'm amazed that that MUD is still alive and kicking to this day. It looks like Mystic Adventures is still around too... amazing.

[Alge]

Favorite MUDs that I can recall the names of were Mystic Adventure and ...

I played the shit out of that. Great MUD. Apparently it is still around.

[heyaz]

I called those Nintendo guys! My mother didn't like that it was a long distance phone call to Washington (I think that was the 206 area code?) They couldn't help much with that god damned Milons Secret Castle. I remember them telling me that only the guy who made the game knows how to play it.

I racked up a $250 phone bill on that I think in high school, on my grandmother's phone. I didn't know how much I was being charged but hoped it was too small for grandma to notice. When they got the bill I played it out like I didn't know there was a charge at all.

[Ishar]

I don't remember if I really multi-played MUDS. Scripting tho, oh yeah. Lots and lots of scripting. In some ways it was the most interesting part of muds for me...complex triggers and such. It's sort of a meta-game. So since I remember being into that, I'm sure I took advantage of multi-playing at times, but it wasn't really a day-to-day play style. When EQ came out, yeah...playing a melee w/ out a pocket healer really wasn't viable after a certain point in that game.

Even in this day and age some muds are still apparently going strong, somewhat paradoxically, like dragonrealms, which is fairly expensive as games go, and basically a glorified mud. Though, if you've ever played it, other mud's don't really compare to it in terms of depth of content or features. But then, hey, it has a subscription model.

[Multibocks]

Oh man, EQ. Brings back memories. Remember staring at a spell book to get your mana back? Fear corpse runs? Crazy how long ago that was...

[JuV-CRiMiNaL]

Id say Diablo 2...., 2000-2003, those were the days. Best pvp i ever remember, from the hacking hammerdins to amazons

iirc i had a max strenght whirlwind barbarian townguarding the bridge, and 2x "Buff" characters multiboxed and parked inside town, a paladin with maxed out concentration aura(i think it was like 2000% dmg increase and 50 yards) with max+skills gear, all sorts of aura runewords,mercs with auras, a max skill enchant sorceress


There was so many auras lol it used to lag up. My friend played a curse bone necro with max amplify damage curse(which was like 200% increased physical damage),so EVERYONE was dying in 1 hit. Think of it as WoW's bladestorm,just everything is dying in 1 hitcheck

the 4x Cd keys i actually "stole" from the store;i bought the games,(it did not require a cd rom at that time), copied them down on a piece of paper , then returned all the copies next day. O_o


But history repeats itself(even in gaming), what is happening to WoW now is what happened to Diablo 2 roughly 9 years ago....alot of developers are first year computer students who can barely code their way out of a paper bag, thus bringing unbalanced pvp, large amount of dupes/gold sellers,(hey,at least they dont "poof"), and the devs generally do not listen to community

but then again both are blizzard's games so what did you expect

[luxlunae]

How did I miss the mud thread! Huzzah!

Anyway, my first foray into muds was the summer after my eighth grade year ('97?). I had just been grounded from the internet for the entire summer by my mother over a misunderstanding with the french teacher*. She did this by changing the aol password. I however, resourceful minx that I was, remembered that our computer teacher (private school) had offered that if we asked we could use the internet by dialing into the school. My computer was in an un-airconditioned loft part of the house so my mother never came upstairs. Unsupervised internet all summer long!

I tried a few (I was actually initially attracted to the idea when I found out about a Pern MUSH, but MUSH's were too socially oriented for me) different games from the Mud Connector (as referenced by an earlier poster) but settled on "Realms of Magic", a germany based Circle Mud which I played happily all summer.


I returned to for a month every now and then until the mid 2000s, when I signed on and it was completely deserted, so I switched to "Materia Magica". I think I spent more on that game while I was playing it than on my first year of multiboxing wow.

For me my favorite parts of MUDs were exploring (and the subsequent mapping/prettifying maps using the zmud mapper utility) and writing down lists of potion recipes.


* ok it wasn't a misunderstanding, I got mono, and fell behind, and I caught up in the rest of my classes but I hated french and was switching languages for high school and colleges don't care about middle school so fuck it not going to do any homework the rest of the year. Also did I mention that the teacher would call my mother and tattle on me every time I didn't turn in an assignment? Bitch! (Or so I thought at the age of 13)

[MadMilitia]

To me it's a change of life event. I loved EQ in 99 and also D2 during the same era. Life was much simpler though. I had a job as a warehouse worker hauling skids and stocking shelves to the wee hours of the morning. I came home from simple physical labor to something much more complex.

Fast forward a decade I now develop for a large network management company. Nothing in any game can match the complexity of what I deal with in the regular day to day. Literally every working day is like an adventure where problems come up and need solutions. Not a day goes by that is ho-hum in this regard.

I also own my own home and thus deal with all the upgrades, repairs and insurance wants single handily. No kids nor wife. Thank God for that. Not to sound weird but if I had a wife and kids I'd never be on my home PC.


Just my opinion here but I think the games haven't changed much. Just me. When I log into a game now the level of complexity just isn't there for me. The breadcrumbs are easy to follow and the whole experience seems insatiable. Some stragglers do come to mind though. Dark Souls is one. The combat is unequal to anything on the market and the variety alone makes it a worthwhile encore.

[Ishar]

I guess I can sympathize a lot with MadMilitia... My 'real job' requires a lot of, eh, thought, since it's R&D focused. Small defense contractor, though, so I get to wear about 5 different hats at a time. Owning your own home is awesome, but it's also kind of an endless project.

I still like my games relatively complex, but they aren't terribly fulfilling anymore. They are more of a distraction, roughly equivalent to a good movie, or a good book. No, wait, that's probably a self-lie, since my favorite games of late have been incredibly complex 'grand strategy' games, lol. I'm also a dwarf fortress player, though I'm staying away from it for now, somewhat deliberately. So its not that games aren't complex...they are just complex in a different way. That's a bit off subject tho, since we are talking about MMO's. We [boxers] tend to take a simple MMO and make it roughly 5x-6x more complex. It's just what we do. Generally MMO's aren't really about complexity though, but about reward cycles. Thus levels, tiered and gated content, and gear resets. Gotta keep the treadmill moving somewhere. And that's ok, really.

Really tho, for me a large component of the experience was always escapism. And I'm aware of that, and cool with that. But not all of it, eh.