Is it the game or the boxing?

[Fat Tire]

I have really never played solo since my wife plays also. We played EQ together even when I box on EQ she still played along with me non-boxing. Even with wow, I can run a heroic with my team or sometimes she brings one of her alts along and I swap a shaman out for her. I also get the benefit of her being in a rading guild so I can bring one of my characters along if they are short or lacking players that night. In PVP tho I am on my own ;p .... she hates pvp.

[Souca]

[quote='aNiMaL',index.php?page=Thread&postID=191179 #post191179]Started a trial account in EvE late last night with the intention to upgrade it,
I tried 3 seperate trials before, but WoW consumed so much time back then that I didn't think it would be worth the money.
Considering boxing it with 2-3 accounts, but since I never really looked deep into it's space I think it's better to first play around a bit solo. [/quote]Eve can be a good game. Playing solo is definitely the way to go in the beginning since there is more of a learning wall than a curve. You should still say hi on [url='http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=20399']this thread[/url] though, since I'm sure myself or any of the other Eve boxers would be willing to help you out.

As for me, I can have a short attention span at times, but I usually have big goals. Before I started boxing in WoW I was always reliant on other people to accomplish things. It was a paradox at times; I want the social contact, but I dislike having my gameplay dependent on others. I guess I'm a social loner Boxing solved a lot of those problems. Boxing changed how I look at online games and how I approach progression or other problems in games.

While I can't say I've played all the MMOs out there, I can say that I own a lot of collector's editions of games I've played for a month or less. For a long time WoW was the most interesting. Lately the fun just isn't there. I started looking for somethign else to play, with the idea of boxing, since I'm a gamer and I'd rather play games than watch TV. Darkfall seemed worth trying, but I didn't have the patience to actually try and get a copy for the 5 minutes a day they sell it. For some reason I never had interest in EQ. I had played Eve off and on since launch. I likely have the worst skillpoint to player age ratio in the game. Not sure what put it in my mind, but I decided to go back to it, and to prospect of boxing made some of the more annoying issues a moot point.

I like reading everyone elses responses. I find it facisnating what people like and don't like about games and boxing. It's good stuff.

- Souca -

[Ualaa]

I started EQ, 1 boxing; left EQ 5 boxing, via 5 computers, 5 keyboards and 5 mice.

Started wow with two computers and two accounts, no software/hardware.
Basically got to the point where wow was boring and I was contemplating quitting.
Progressed to three accounts and keyclone, and then two more within a few days.
Still quit for 5 or 6 weeks shortly after WotLK came out.
I've met a friend from EQ who happens to play on my wow server, that's pretty much the only thing keeping me in the game these days.

[Kaelika]

I've never been a huge fan of WoW; in fact, I initially started playing it at launch because my brother bought me a copy. (I had purchased myself a copy of EQ2 right before this, and even though I liked the game, I had no one to play it with, and didn't want to have to start forming new relationships.) At the time, I was still playing SWG, which I ended up playing alongside WoW since I didn't want to quit. When SWG was obliterated by SOE (April of '05), I quickly made the transition to playing only WoW since my SWG guild and practically every other friend I had was now playing it (WoW).

What does this have to do with multi-boxing? Simple: I ended up multi-boxing in WoW not because I loved the game as so many other people seem to, but because practically everyone I knew was playing it.

One day in '06 I accidentally booted up a second client, and I was shocked to see that it actually ran. After alt-tabbing between the windows, I learned that it could be advantageous if I learned to maximize my proficiency with this new technique that I had acquired. So I bought a second copy of the game and rolled two new characters together -- a mage and a paladin. When someone in-game said, "Oh, you're two-boxing!" I responded with, "So that's what it's called?" I didn't use any intricate macros; I didn't use any key-repeating software -- I did it the hard way. I enjoyed the challenge, however, and so, at least for a little while, WoW was actually fun to play.

Once I was decent enough to actually bring my second character along in instances, I started to wonder if I could dual-box in any other games. I remembered how enjoyable my experience was when trying EQ2 at launch, so I decided that if I could play two characters in EQ2, maybe I wouldn't have to worry about bringing a friend along. I rolled a berserker and a templar so that I would be the cornerstone of any group and wouldn't have to spend a lot of time begging people to run dungeons with me. It would have worked out if not for the fact that my computer sucked and I was getting an average of 4 FPS. In the end, I accepted that it would be impossible to multi-box EQ2 until I replaced my computer.

By the time I actually did upgrade to a new computer, I felt that I had invested far too much into WoW both time-wise and socially. I didn't want to leave behind all of the characters I had acculmulated over the years. This continued until November of last year when I finally managed to convince my best friend to dual-box while I triple-boxed. At first it was a bit difficult to figure out how to set up all of the software and macros that were necessary. (Two-boxing and three-boxing, I discovered, were drastically different from each other.) Everything worked out flawlessly -- he actually enjoyed it and we managed to complete more content than either of us ever thought we could manage.

I don't need place emphasis on the fact that WoW's paltry system requirements make it incredibly easy to run five instances of WoW on the same computer -- and I only needed three, so I was in good shape. But I recenlty upgraded my computer hardware again, and since WoW is going in a direction that I'm unhappy with, I took this opportunity to finally leave so that I could play a game I truly enjoy rather than playing something just because my friends do, and I have no regrets about leaving. Yeah, there were some hard feelings, but I convinced my best friend to again come with me so that we can multi-box together.

This time, I don't think I'll ever go back to WoW unless some major changes are implemented (the game feels like it did pre-TBC now, which renders five-boxing to be nearly useless as far as I'm concerned, and the acquisition of PvP gear through raiding, which is nothing new, I know, but it only serves to exacerbate my ever-increasing negativity towards the game), which could be never, and I'm really apathetic in any case, so it doesn't matter.

In conclusion, I'm not a huge fan of WoW, and now that I've acquired the ability move beyond just dual-boxing (I know that I could five/six-box now if I had to), I intend to play some of the other games that appeal to me as well. I just didn't have the processing power to do it before.

EDIT:

So, to directly address your question in a concise manner, it's not WoW itself; rather, it's the enjoyment factor/the ability to multi-box a game that determines whether or not I'll play it. Meaning, I consider myself to be a gamer and not a WoW-player.

[Bigfish]

I originally "boxed" in FFXI, though this was before I started keybaord broadcasting. I've only got to the point I have in WoW because nothing really strikes me as the same quality or caters to my polymath tendencies. Now that I've become largely proficcient at it, I find myself in an interesting situation of intolerance of others and responsibility mongering.

My intolerance of others arises from the fact that I can play most classes better than 90% of the population of that class. I can't quite hit that best-of-the-best plateau, but I'm damn near close to it. This ends up being somewhat of a problem when I look at other people playing the same class, and I see them just mangle the class, dropping the ball, and performing poorly. It annoys me that I put so much effort in to what I do to be the best I can be, and others just seem to skim by.

My responsibility mongering is two fold: if I screw up and wipe the group, that's on me, and I hate the fact that others get punished for my incompetence. On the other hand, I hate when scrubs leech their way through content, and then act like content got cleared because THEY were there. I'm much more comfortable knowing I succeeded or failed on my own merits.

Of course, what this ultimately means is that I don't play nice with others.

[Kaelika]

Interesting that this is becoming an Anti-WoW thread - and most of the reasons point to the fact that you're playing a MMO "solo" - having the same burn-out issues that solo players have.

I don't understand why that would surprise you. After all, the original poster did ask the following:

"so for those of you that have recently left wow or reduced your play time I have a question. Did switch to your current game because you wanted a game otehr than wow to box, or because you wanted to play that game and you just happen to be a boxer?"

Reasons for leaving a game, as evidenced by this thread, are highly subjective and vary from individual to individual. Asking people for the reason(s) they leave is bound to elicit some form of negativity towards the game they left, especially since some of us left for none of the reasons described by the original poster and wanted to point that out. I played WoW for nearly four years, which was long enough for me, personally, although I have friends who will probably play the game until the servers shut down. To each his/her own.

I, personally, did not play solo, but always had at least one person whom I was playing with, which was the way I liked it. I could never play an MMO completely alone. I preferred multi-boxing to the traditional group-setting due to the challenge it offered, but my raiding days are long over due to the fact that I just grew tired of having to make a commitment to a guild, and it wasn't fair to them to keep finding excuses for not wanting to show up on a raid night. On the other hand, I'm not willing to ten-box, so where does that leave someone such as myself? You guessed it, and, as a result, I made the right decision.

Believe it or not, I don't hate WoW. It's a polished game that many people find to be appealing; however, it's not my cup of tea, but I can thank the game for teaching me to multi-box. I don't know why people seem to think there's a mass exodus of people from WoW. I can't say that I've noticed a great deal of people suddenly leaving, but if they are, I think that it's only to be expected several months after the release of a new expansion since many people are at last clearing the end-game content and those with short attention spans will leave for a while. It was the same way after TBC was released.

EDIT:

Also, no one can deny the fact that WotLK has taken a very different approach compared to its predecessor, and I suppose that some people just weren't aware of how drastic some of these modifications to core gameplay would be, particularly when it concerned group content. I know that I and many others I know were surprised by the picayune of 5-man content that was avaialble with the expansion. TBC, in contrast, offered a plethora of content for us. Why would anyone PAY for a product they are unhappy with?

[Gurblash]

As Morganti so eloquently put it last night... "Wow is like Herpes. You can leave and be WoW free, but in 2-3 months it will flare up again"

[Hachoo]

I'm actually a WoW player first, boxer second. I only box wow, only ever plan to box WoW, etc... I really want to play darkfall and SW:TOR but I have absolutely 0 plans to box either one.

The only reason I started boxing WoW was because I got bored with PvP and never had enough consecutive time to run instances with other players - 5 boxing let me experience the pve content with the least amount of time invested.

My slave accounts are expiring but I still plan on solo boxing for a bit. I also am getting back into CS:Source, TF2, and some other xbox 360 games I haven't played in awhile.

[Alptraum]

I left Wow, mainly due to being let down in the expansion, Lich was again more of the same as BC was, Kara was replaced with Naxx, but it was all basicly the same, another grind, even with 5xdruids it was limited entertainment for great amounts of effort and a huge time sink.

Eve's real time training, and essentially no end game is a huge draw for me, I box simply because I can. As in any MMO game a group of characters is often more powerful then a solo character, the same is true in Eve, weither you setup your group to run missions or to mine, it's incredibly handy having 3-5 accounts running at any one time.

"I box, because I can", this is very hard to deny, having met so many assclowns in Wow with pickup groups and having idiots ninja loot items, or just flat out partying with hunters that think every freaken item in game is made solely for them. This was a great excuse to buy a few extra accounts and learn to become a multiboxer, I've been boxing since I first started playing FFXI online, it didn't take long to figure out how fast you could level if you had a perm healer standing behind your tank all the time healing you....hence began my boxing career, being limited only at first by the number of computers in my house..and then much later that limitation was taken away as software became avaliable to let us run multiple copies of our games all on the same machine and macro between them to command our boxing alts.

Eve is very much a boxable game, allowing you to accomplish so much with just some decent planning and a few accounts. Especially in regards to mining, as a solo player I used to sneak into 0.0 or 0.3 areas and try and mine up those juicy roids that were worth small fortunes, only to be quickly discoverd and podded by some ruthless pirate. Now using 5 accounts, I can freely move into those same 0.0 to 0.3 zones and feel safe and secure....I like to pretend to be a macro farmer and let the pirates get right ontop of me now, before I activate my battleship and blow them into next week.

I think most boxers probably box for the same reasons....we want freedom, we want to do things at our own pace, and not be held down..ie: the frequent "guys i gotta go its dinner time" type messages you'd always hear in Wow just as you started that heroic dungeon after waiting an hour for everyone to fly there or what have you. I love the fact that boxing allows me to accomplish so much at once, and when I've had enough my alt's never bitch when I decide its time to log off and do something else.

[Khatovar]

Interesting that this is becoming an Anti-WoW thread - and most of the reasons point to the fact that you're playing a MMO "solo" - having the same burn-out issues that solo players have.

Solo players and small group players make up a pretty big population in any MMO. If solo content and small group content can get a burnout factor this soon into an expansion, I have to say there's something wrong with gamedesign.

Personally, I wasn't solo. I always had my husband to play with. Our guild had several other people {RL friends} in it that played as much as we did, several of them also multi-boxing on a smaller scale. We had enough people to raid, but no ambition to bother. We grouped up with various guildmates to do heroics and such, but no one was interested after the first time or two. They were all sick of "more of the same" and you can only put out so much effort trying to get people excited about something they have no interest in.