Multiboxing should not be considered in game design ???

[Flight]

Background : This thread on the FoH forums is a discussion on the MMO currently in development by 38 Studios . 38S was founded by Curt Schilling , the Baseball player, Todd McFarlane , the artist (Spiderman, Spawn etc) and the fantasy novelist R A Salvatore, creator of Drizzt Do'Urden and killer of Chewbacca, amongst many other fantasy works. I truly believe these guys are going to produce a very special MMO. The quality of staff they have recruited is exceptional and their company ethos is outstanding. The thread on FoH is a 'fast track', if you like' to 38S. Curt and a number of the dev staff regularly read and reply to the thread.

A couple of times I've brought up the subject of multiboxing. Historically and until very recently the FoH forums have been very anti-boxing, so its not the best place to have the discussion. However, Its a great place to be getting the attention of the folks forming what I believe will be a milestone of Eastern MMO development (its actually nearly two and a half years into its development cycle).

In summary, I've suggested boxing comprises a not insignificant part of the customer base and that a small number of minor issues being considered by the game designers early in the games development cycle could produce huge benefits in terms of both game experience and subscription numbers.


The replies are pretty much along the lines of ; '..multi-boxing is not a problem that needs to even be discussed..', to '..Designers should waste no time on developing a damn thing with multi-boxing in mind.' and, possbily the furthest from the truth post I've ever seen on boxing, '...It's a non-issue. Seriously. Multi-boxers have never been frowned upon..'.



So, a couple of points :

i) have you ever been frowned upon for boxing; and,

ii) what small things would you like to see designers consider which could make life better for us and make their game more attractive ?

[Coca Cola Injection]

hahahah i agree with fursphere's first comment this thing is doomed

[Flight]

hahahah i agree with fursphere's first comment this thing is doomed

No disrespect to you or Furb - seriously, but you guys are sounding more ignorant than most anti-boxers. Schilling actually helped put up the money and found the company and is Chairman of the Board, but he isn't part of the game development or dev staff; as far as dev staff and game designers they have recruited amongst the bets people in the industry. I am 100% confident this company will produce a very special MMO.

[Tombs]

To be able to multibox the game needs:

follow and assist options
some sort of party mode to share credit for questing/looting
customizable macros
windowed mode

I think any mmo not adding those in a rudimentary form is doomed to begin with. Unless the mmo is an FPS hybrid that is more based on the mouse targeting than sticky targeting which I think multiboxing wouldn't really work in the first place.

[Tombs]

Things that would make boxing easier:

An option to change your facing to be pointing at what you're targeting.
Ability to move into range of your target.
A combination of master looter and round robin such that one person does the looting and it spreads it amongst everyone in the group.

[Taliesin]

I'm not going to comment on the quality of the game, because I have no idea of the expertise of the creators in the gaming world, though the background of the creators definitely doesn't lead me to think that they have any advantage that the other 500 MMOs haven't had before them.

To answer your questions:

i) I've only been frowned on by people that appear to not understand what I'm actually doing. Being called a "botter" is a pretty clear give-away that the fear is based on ignorance.

ii) I don't want to see any MMO do too much to make multi-boxing "easy". I like the challenge, and taking that away would also take away a lot of driving force behind me wanting to even do it. As long as the game has a built-in following system, allows the use of some means to pre-define attack/heal/assist rotations, and permits at least hardware/software replication of keystrokes, then I think it has all we really need to get the job done. The only other optional, but very useful, feature would be to allow custom addons that can be used to make routine actions easier to handle, without really playing the game for us.

[puppychow]

Given the track record of MMOs the odds are any new MMO is going to fail -- after all, out of dozens of MMO launches only a handful are still around today, and only one has really achieved breakout success. All have had great teams, funding, personalities, etc but failed in some of the very basics of the game or replay value (AoC, Matrix, Tabula Rasa, Fury, POTBS, etc), not because they didn't support multiboxing well. I'd put multiboxing support in the same category as supporting blind/deaf/etc users -- put in some basics to not shut it out, but its something you can iterate over even after launch, not something to focus on during design.

Sometimes having too many "great" people is actually a bad thing, since you end up with decision paralysis and no clear decision leader.

[Coca Cola Injection]

hahahah i agree with fursphere's first comment this thing is doomed

No disrespect to you or Furb - seriously, but you guys are sounding more ignorant than most anti-boxers. Schilling actually helped put up the money and found the company and is Chairman of the Board, but he isn't part of the game development or dev staff; as far as dev staff and game designers they have recruited amongst the bets people in the industry. I am 100% confident this company will produce a very special MMO.

I have no doubt that they would have recruted excelent programers and such along those lines. I was juse imputing my thought of that this game, and its design, how it looks, the options, and everything along those lines will in the end run past those 3 people from my assumption. This the game will in ends sort of be designed by them. I.E. if they dont like something chances are they will tell the programers to chnge it. And something the comes into an agreement from the likes of those 3 people i think is bound to be one odd and as you said "special" MMO. I dont think it will be that big of a hit.

[Nisch]

To be able to multibox the game needs:

follow and assist options
some sort of party mode to share credit for questing/looting
customizable macros
windowed mode

I think any mmo not adding those in a rudimentary form is doomed to begin with. Unless the mmo is an FPS hybrid that is more based on the mouse targeting than sticky targeting which I think multiboxing wouldn't really work in the first place.

The last two are not necessary. I boxed in DAOC, which did not have a macro system, and macros were very illegal in that game.

Second, if you hardware box, you don't need windowed mode.

[Owltoid]

IMO, multiboxers enjoy being different from the norm. If developers created a game with multiboxing in mind, then it would take that additional step of encouraging the playstyle thereby ruining the niche. A good amount of the fun in MB comes from trying to figure out how to do things through macros, strategies, etc that other players need multiple users. If 50% of the WoW players were MB, then it would likely lose its appeal to many current MBs.