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?

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

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

[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 (still has a busy forum 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.

[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