Multiboxing in Ancient Egypt - An Historical Primer
Multiboxing in Ancient Egypt - An Historical Primer
Long before Intel invented the Core2Quad processor series, Egyptian society was toiling away with all sorts of new inventions. Black ink, triangular-shaped pyramids, the first ox-drawn plows and many others were great boons to society. Perhaps one of the greatest of these inventions were heiroglyphics; their written language. Shortly thereafter, in conjunction with the recent invention of paper (papyrus), society began to theorycraft ways of controlling their subjects to expedite the building of intricate temples and palace promenades. While it was assumed they gained much of this knowledge from the Atlantians, physical evidence has yet to confirm this.
The primary game that was played back then in social circles was called World of Mummycraft, the predecessor of the modern MMORPG. This game's rules are remarkably similar to the current World of Warcraft, "invented" by Blizzard but curiously appearing to simply modernize the quests for today's pulp society but retaining many of the lessons of the ancient Anubites.
The worshippers of Anubis, largely devoted to the study of mummification and the afterlife, quickly began to see the benefits in being able to recycle their slaves after death to reduce travel time to southern Africa. To this end, they perfected resurrection, which was only allowed to be used at certain points in the game. For example, not being able to resurrect their minions during the building of a huge pyramid meant that having enough slaves to last throughout the construction was critical to winning the race for divine favor.
About 2500 B.C., a major series of breakthroughs by the infamous Anubite cleric, Mahdi al-Moolti bin-Bokksing, began to be recognized as a new and exiting way to play World of Mummycraft and quickly achieve divine favor without having to rely on weaker individual servants in smaller numbers.
The major advance associated with the early reign of bin-Bokksing was the ability to transmit orders to all of the slaves on the pyramid with one apparatus. Early versions of this were varied forms of tubes and papyrus, which were both unwieldly and slow to respond, not to mention that the papyrus carriers tended to die from heat exhaustion, especially during the latter stages of pyramid construction from having to run up and down the tremendous structures. Later versions began to be tested which provided nearly instantaneous communication and were largely attributed to the labors of the priest Rahb al-Kheyclone. An early picture of al-Kheyclone's device can be seen in a beta-testing inscription in figure A below.
Figure A (early Rahb al-Kheyclone communications device):
http://l00py.net/wow/h_keyclone.jpg
Once the basic ideas started coming into wider use, bin-Bokksing theorized that 4-5 people could be much more effective at moving the large blocks and supplies if they were all directly controlled by one person. To this end, they began perfecting the /follow and /assist commands. As might be expected, slaves came from all over Africa and spoke many dialects and, as such, tended to have initial difficulties understanding the /follow and /assist commands. Figure B illustrates one servant of al-Moolti having trouble with 2 of his 4 slaves.
Figure B (a bin-Bokksing adherent having /follow and /assist trouble):
http://l00py.net/wow/h_follow.jpg
Once the major hurdles with /follow and /assist were worked out, things began to run much more smoothly. Mummycrafting talent reworks by the Anubite council resulted in better synergy amongst the bin-Bokksing groups such that productivity increased several hundred percent over individual players. These advances, while stunning, were not without their own pitfalls and drawbacks. In an attempt to educated their like-minded worshippers, bin-Bokksing and al-Kheyclone commissioned the first known instructional documents for World of Mummycraft specifically tailored to the multiple-slave players. This document was inscribed on to the Wailing Wiki Wall so that all others could come and learn from their mistakes and triumphs. Most of the original Wailing Wiki Wall, usually just referred to as "The Wiki," has fallen into ruin in the centuries that followed. Modern Moolti Bokksing students have, though great effort and tireless persistence, been able to resurrect much of original texts from a tablet found in the early 21st century. The tablet, shown in Figure C, is widely thought to be a primer on the do's and don'ts of multiple slave control. The best interpretations are as follows:
Figure C (early Do's and Don'ts list):
http://l00py.net/wow/h_howtomultibox.jpg
1) When leveling, always remember to bring plenty of food and water to prevent downtime. If you're a hunter, remember to being pet food, the cost of which can be offset by picking up trash loot while grinding.
2) When meeting other people at forks in the road, it is common courtesy to rest with them, toss them a heal if you're a healer and share leftover pet food with hunters if you aren't a hunter.
3) When resting near forks in the road, you should always watch your back. There are sneaky bastards from the other faction that may try to gank you, which will seriously upset your wives and throw your family's home into disarray.
4) When running your team around obstacles, you should proceed in as straight a line as possible, taking time to let pets keep up and throwing out heals as needed if you step off of cliffs. Remember that some pets are slower than others and may neccessitate waiting for them from time to time.
5) Get your mounts as soon as you become eligible. They will help you avoid all sorts of nasty creatures, like T-rex'es in Un'Goro or those rabid plainstriders in the barrens. Worst case, if you don't have a mount and get chased by a ground mob, simply run into water to avoid them.
6) When raising new pets, you may be tempted to use worthless pets like crocodiles and turtles. These should be avoided in favor of screeching pets for AoE aggro control or wind serpents for burst/ranged damage. These will help decrease your downtime.
Once the original bin-Bokksing instruction guides were posted on The Wiki, many people started trying to do it. Assuming that it would work much like the rest of the game of Mummycraft, many hunters began trying to play this way. Since hunters were such an easy class to solo, many people tried playing them with the al-Kheyclone apparatus. Figure D shows a scene from one of the noobie zones early in the 3rd century B.C.
Figure D (hunters in the starting zone):
http://l00py.net/wow/h_hunters.jpg
