So im newish to boxing. Ive never been a huge fan of it. However, the way i always did it im guessing is a lot more tedious than the way you all do it (i 2-4 boxed via alt+tab). With that, ive got a few questions. 1. on servers like this, i know some stuff itll be mandatory to an extent to box. Is there a steep learning curve to doing it successfully or is it pretty straight forward and worth the time for me to read through the forums + youtube and box? 2. When alt tabbing, auto-follow sometimes is awful and characters that were following have ran astray and are mia due to lag i guess. Is this sometimes an issue still? 3. What are some suggestions for your favorite 2-3 box classes? Ideally if i learn how pretty successfully, a full group of 6 would be the end goal, but i figure 2-3 would be best until i get a good feel for how it works. Thanks for your input!
This server has been a primary testbed for a specific MQ2 macro called E3 by Killians (update by Creamo). The learning curve is not steep at all, especially with the availability of in-game help as well as an entire forum section dedicated to E3 (not to mention dozens of other relevant threads for specific issues) You will not be Alt+Tabbing with E3, everything is set up so that you can operate your team from one screen using hotkeys you customize and set up yourself. I would read up on some of the starter guides here for further advice; you can take a peek at the thread below, there's some good information in there. It should be noted though that there is no one "best" setup in this era of EQ; you can manage completely viable group/raid content with a variety of compositions of classes. Several Startup Questions answered here: http://www.projecteq.net/forums/index.php?threads/thinking-of-starting-up-hardware-question.16481/
You don't have to box at first or at all. It might be harder to find groups but there are solo players and you can group/raid with boxers, if they are not already busy. I'd go with just have 1 extra character to get used to using e3 (setting up ini files, commands, etc). Just add a few characters at a time after that. I played solo for awhile before I added boxes. I play 24 characters, and have a trader and a tracker. Some players have 54 (maybe more?). The number you run is up to you.
Yea id mostly not want to do more than a group unless i got into raiding at some point. My other option i considered if i just duo, is to get the game up and running on another computer so there is no alt tabbing. But that still may be more difficult than what the first reply mentioned.
I like eonEQemu's advice to start small. Make a 3 person crew, your main tankish guy, a DPS (rogue, monk, or berserker recommended), and a healer. Those 3 characters will be a good way to learn E3 and how to build bot.inis. Use the bot.inis in the sample folder to learn how they are made.
If you are going to use MQ2 and E3 (which I recommend you do) I would make a full group. Make sure you have a bard. It's super fun.
This thread is a bit aged but I am also new to the server, played on many servers over the years and only boxed up to 4 using alt tab. I played around with IS boxer a bit but it was too complex. Im intrigued by the idea of playing here using MQ2 and E3 and looking forward to getting started. Ive read this thread, the one linked above and a few others and have some questions. Does anyone play only a single group or does everyone evolve to running multiple groups to handle content? Most of the team compositions include the caveat "in this era" what is the expansion plan and expected timeline for progression so one can consider future eras? What is the economy like? What would I expect for availability of leveling camps? Im not saying this is bad/good but with everyone running their own raid forces it would seem that there would not be alot of socialization on the server, is that the case? My initial thoughts coming in were that ranged dps is alot easier to box, requires less attention than melee but im reading here people favor melee dps. Is a caster/ranger team inferior? Thank you.
Lots of people play single groups usually, people play 12-24 and group up in groups of 2 to 3 to do raids. The expected time line is they release xpac's when they are ready. No timelines they will release in the same order as live. There isn't much of an economy but there are 3-4 traders in the bazaar usually with some low level gear stuff is given away very regularly in ooc. Also our bazaar search doesn't work in-game but you can use magelo on the website to search it. Leveling camps are pretty much always available. Socialization is generally in OOC I know there's usually always someone to talk to if you speak up. Some of the larger guilds probably have quite an active /gu. Monks are king this xpac, since e3 plays most your characters there isn't really any attention to be paid. I can't say there any more attention required to play a monk as a wizard. Wizard teams shine till OoW then drop off heavily till you get 2.0s and can have 100% uptime on your wizard epic click. Rangers bowing are garbage.
There are solo players here, there are 3 boxers here, there are 6 boxers here, there are 12 boxers here, there are 18 boxers, 36 boxers and 54 boxers, you will find all types here. There is no end all expansion for PEQ, but we are limited to what clients we can support for EQEMU. Right now we support up to RoF2 client I believe there is some looks to the TDS client but its not on the horizon. There is somewhat of an economy but don't go into bazaar thinking you'll find hundreds of thousands of items, most items are given away. You can expect availability of leveling camps as you would on live, there are a few zones that are AOE pulled but we do not support zone disruption so if someone would like to exp in a camp while someone else was AOE pulling, then AOE pulling would become zone disruption no matter whether you were there first or not. Most people level on their own, and then team up for raids you'll find the most common is 18, 3 people will box 18 chars to make a full 54 man team ( which most instances support only 54) potime supports up to 72, and non instanced zones can support as much as the zone can handle. Right now out of era aa's make some melee way more appealing than casters, if we didnt have those grandfathered in there wouldnt be so much talk about how melee beats casters, this is the only reason you'll ever hear this, people are spoiled with out of era AA/Spells/Abilities. Play what you want, enjoy what you play.
Leveling up dps rogue is by a large margin the best. When Acatu says that monks are the best in this era he is technically correct, but only at the highest level: 70, all relevant AA, OMM hammer, 2.0, AMV offhand, Fero V, Cleave V, tunat augs, max accuracy, max attack, etc. and even then their dps is only marginally better than a rogues. Rogue also takes much less gear/AA to be that good. At any time before that point rogues bust any other dps it's not even close. When Drogerin says that out of era aa make melee way more appealing than casters - that will not change until TSS is released which could likely be over a decade from now. And even then, there is no guarantee that casters will surpass melee. Also in the timeline of this server's development this thread is not aged. September of this year is the same spot (for this discussion) as we are now.
Thank you for the responses. I believe I am biased by my live characters but their performance could be worlds different in this era. My ranger was great on live, I know they were terrible until Luclin but wasnt sure about this era. Wizards have always been my favorite class. Ive created an initial group based on recommendations here and installed MQ2 but it looks like I have a lot to learn and alot of configuration before I am ready to play the group as a new MQ2 user. From where I am at today it seems daunting to control multiple melee characters positioning, spells, abilities in an effective way. Casters are much easier in my mind, usually no positioning, for wizard often nuke only, maybe snare. Cleric just a couple heals, mage, send pet and nuke, ranger autofire and hit an ability macro.
