The evolution of multiboxing

[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

[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

[Sam DeathWalker]

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

http://www.tomeoftreasures.com/forum...pic.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...pic.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 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 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

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).