Tri, Quad-boxing and Beyond, people still doing it?Follow

Hey there, just was wondering now since it's so easy to solo or dual-box because of Mercenarys, do people still go through the trouble of tri, quad, and even more than that anymore? Just curious, because I just came back a month ago, I am level 51, and I would rather quad-box my guys than use dps mercs, etc.

If so, please share your set-up and your server! :]
All my guys are on Povar,
Shadowknight, Bard, Druid, Zerker

Hello,
I am one of the minority who 3 box (SK/NEC/SHM) on separate computers, though it can get tiring on the hands/fingers over time when doing some longer quests and content with plenty continuous fighting-dungeon crawling etc.

With regards to the mercs, I use cleric mercs for harder content and they work fine for me. Otherwise, no merc and the Shammy is primarily main healer/slower and some reasonable additional dps if he gets the time..

In my case, the DPS is good enough without the dps mercs (thanks to the Necro - this is the type of group make up where the Necro shines), so I rather not split the XP. But that's me, as I see many people using a mix of mercs to fill out their group-maybe for the add'l dps and full group xp bonus and the fact that the 6th person in group does not split xp, though mercs do not get as much bonus xp as a real player in group.

As the link supplied by Yther (above) illustrates... I have seen a real life friend of mine play 3 accounts with IS boxer on one computer and it is outstanding for those who use one computer to box.

Hardly any downtime at all when switching between characters and it ran smoothly on his computer.

Good Luck.

I've 3 boxed on one PC (PAL/RNG/MAG) and i used 2 monitors. I just took all 3 windowed clients, spread them out along the 3 monitors.(I have 1 big monitor and one smaller one. Smaller one- 1 char. bigger one, 2 chars kinda 2/3 of the screen overlapping a bit in the middle to click in between them) I really enjoyed it. Granted, it was on test and it really felt quite necessary there. Mage is easy to box, i have a few buttons for some nuke chains, and some pet commands. Usually 2 heal mers and a dps merc. Ranger was used for pulling and off-tanking in some cases if things got hairy. I played this group on test to about lvl 74 got a bit burned out on it then,Havent been back yet. I found running my own party to be really fun but i started to miss people and got kinda horse-blinders. Depending on what your doing, theres no need for extra software. I had no problems at all running it without anything.
Good luck boxing!

I tri box on one computer, and I do it without any programs to help...

Seriously, though...with Windows 7 I hover the mouse over the windows at the bottom ( I box in windowed mode ) and I really don't have a problem. I have learned the timers of cool downs, I have learned to know when to time spells agro wise, I even did this with a monk, rogue, cleric combo... no tank and managed to get em to 65, killed fableds with them, etc...

I also die a lot, but that is part of the game to me and it helps learn situations and how best to deal, or I just keep dying...

Yeah, she doesn't always get it. Not long ago in such a situation she asked how come I don't PAUSE the game so I can talk to her. And this woman used to PLAY Everquest altho granted that was a long time ago.

I box myself.. I would love to be able to do it better. I have considered getting the IsBoxer software to do it better. And before anyone says anything.. IsBoxer is a software that has been approved as legal to use in Everquest. Piestro himself even commented that it was ok to use https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/i-s-boxer-is-this-illegal.800/

I used to three box on one computer, but it was running 7 and all the memory i can run made it possible. Unfortuntely the motherboard blew and I amnow using a box running an old os limited to 4gigs of ram. Loading up the third instance of eqbrings everything to a bonegrinding halt. So until I rebuild that box ( which looks to be happening no sooner than March at the earliest) I have to two box and rotate out the characters. Bummer because I have two very effective 100's which would be great to level up my other guys I'd like at cap one by one. It is a little harder to do what I had planne now, but still works. Three is a perfect combination in my book: with mercs it is a full group of its own, and when I meet other people in my area I can drop a merc and that way can invite up to three real players to join me. And since I only started boxing by "necessity" to get things done without spending too much time trying to find people either on the same step of progression or willing to repeat something they have done to catch me up ( that became more and more rare) and prefer to group with other real players - I don't play EQ to play a solo,game - I like being able to both advance what I consider my "three mains" at the same time and be able to help and invite other players at the same time. Of utmost importance, I like to put my money where my mouth is so to speak and if it comes down to it I will always pick which character(s) I want to progress first in the case of more real players that ask to join. I do this to do my part in keeping grouping alive and stifle some of the complaints and cries about evil boxers on my server.

I love the game and want it to be around for as long as possible. So while i do box and enjoy doing it as its own challenge, I do my part to keep grouping alive too.

I four box with a Bard, Shammy, Necro, Mage and use two healer mercs on nameds and just one healer merc on trash.

I do all of this on one crappy laptop with onboard video while at home or while at work I run EQ from a pc using a USB memory stick so EQ isn't installed on my work machine. 4 Accounts on one system runs just fine. I use EQplaynice to switch seamlessly between characters using F1 for forward one account and F2 to go back one account. I have one assist button and one "burn" button set up with appropriate macros.

I pull with my bard, bring mob to camp and then cycle through the 4 accounts pressing the "assist" macro key. It takes .5 of a second to hit all 4 accounts. 3 seconds later I cycle through again ( in .5 seconds again) and press the burn macro keys. 3 seconds later the mob is dead or in its death throes. With named mobs I cycle a second time through the burn macros.

It's pretty darn easy and I rarely die.