Guide - 6 Boxing on a single monitor and No 3rd party software (1 Viewer)

[VanillaPuppy]

(Thanks to someone on Reddit mentioning this website. I have a different username: Oldman_is_wise on Reddit, but it's my post) -I also cleaned up the post for here.
...

So, I figured this out by myself. Perhaps someone had done this before me.

I use a 27" HD monitor, a Logitech mouse, and a whole lot of trial & error over a period of months. And a 2nd monitor

Currently I live in the sticks and waiting for rural broadband. Some months ago, last Feb., the degredation of the Verizon 4g made playing mmo's unteneable. -Due to a large and constant influx of people moving to the area.

So, how can anybody 6 box without using ISboxer? -You need a 2nd monitor for non EQ tastbar tabs/apps like Firefox and Discord

So, in no particular order...

Put every toon in it's own EQ folder. That is VERY important. It's due to how Windows manages tabs from different apps vs having tabs launched from the same app.

Might seem strange, but Windows treats tabs from the same app differently from different programs. To Windows, 3 different versions of the same app is 3 different apps. To humans, it seems like the same app with 3 different tabs.

...

Use a decent gaming mouse, even though you mostly just use a mouse button to swap tabs on the task bar. It's that simple, just map swapping/cycling Windows tabs on the taskbar.

And this is a Windows function... has nothing to do with Everquest. Hence the reason to use a 2nd monitor for everything else... like Firefox, Discord etc.

...

Social Macros. It's your best friend. You need to launch the most things with the fewest clicks. I had to deep dive on how to make social macros for 3 weeks.

...

Setting up your EQ window UI: Use your main toon's UI setup, then adapt for the rest of your characters. Try to get the hotbutton bars in particular to line up in the same spots for every toon. Make it so you always press the same few hotbuttons for each toon, even though the actual macro instructions are wildly different for each toon. (unless you're playing the same class for multiple spots)

...

Final thoughts: it takes time to master. I'd recommend practicing with 3 toons for a few weeks, then adding another toon, rinse and repeat until you master a full box.

Adding the 6th toon was... entertaining, since I no longer had a healer merc to save my sorry tush. Althogh I spent a couple weeks with my monk out of group until I got familiar with 6 boxing... it was even more painful when I stopped that, since I lost the healer merc for my group, and the extra healer merc for my out of group monk.

Monks are hard to kill when pulling, so I only activated the healer merc between pulls or on long fights.

Probably the best thing is that every toon is full screen. Far less distracting.

 

[Redmonkey]

For high speed check into Star Link, its available it most rural areasfar out in the county, they even have a mobile verion that is about the same price, and they are having a sale right now, one month free or couple hundred off equipment. Speed is super fast, very reliable etc. I do not have it as I can't afford the monthly cost ($125) but my neighbors all rave about it.

 

[VanillaPuppy]

I wanted to mention, I wasn't tippy toeing through the daisies when I was learning to 6 box my final toon (cleric).

I was in Gnome Memorial Mountain at level 110. I wanted to do this in hostile territory, making sure I was learning against all odds. Although it was the easy camp near the zone in.

GMM was a good place. 95% of the time, I was the only player in the zone.

Still, the named mobs were just difficult enough give me a good workout.

 

[matthew8732]

Ah yes.. the good ol’ days of rawdogging 6 EQ clients with none of the fancy CWTN plugins, KA, or even EQBC and ISBoxer!

As a younger teenager this was something I got quite good at. Now that I will be hitting 30 on the 13th of this month it sounds like something my old brain would have such difficulty with. But there is something very fulfilling about doing it manually.

As far as the tab grouping.. I am assuming you are saying you should run each client from a separate directory because after 3 or so instances Windows will just group the tabs into one and will give you a sort of drop down menu when you click on it? If so there is an option in Windows that will stop that grouping.

Another very important thing IMO, and this is something I still do even when boxing with software, is to be consistent in the order you log the clients in. That way tab 1 will always be X role, tab 2 will be Y etc. It brings consistency which becomes even more important when not using software. For example my tab 1 is always my tank, 2 is always my healer, 3 is my bard or ench, and 4-6 will be my DPS.

Your choice of classes also becomes a lot more important. You’ll want to choose something low-maintenance which tends to be caster classes. The advent of auto skill or whatever it’s called on Live certainly makes melee a bit more palatable.. but can’t compare to say a Wiz or Mage with some hotkeys set up to chain spells.

Great write-up though and I hope some of the information here can be helpful to some!

 

[Vrakenor]

Not trying to be a dick here, but I am confused...

Your title says 1 monitor but in the text you say you use 2. Was that just a typo?

Title says no 3rd party software but you talk about using ISB. Am I just misreading this? ISB IS about as 3rd party as you can get.

Non the less I am glad to hear that you got things squared away and figured out all the little problems that crop up just trying to get this stuff all setup.

And welcome to Redguides.

Vrak

 

[RobRenfro]

You should really try the plugins. Welcome to Red Guides.

 

[VanillaPuppy]

Not trying to be a dick here, but I am confused...

Your title says 1 monitor but in the text you say you use 2. Was that just a typo?

Title says no 3rd party software but you talk about using ISB. Am I just misreading this? ISB IS about as 3rd party as you can get.

Non the less I am glad to hear that you got things squared away and figured out all the little problems that crop up just trying to get this stuff all setup.

And welcome to Redguides.

Vrak

No idea what ISB is. But I meant the tab bar is still visible. But the rest of the screen is a single toon.

-Probably most players use a larger momitor and have a single main toon and just hotbutton are peeking out from underneath.

Yes, I do run each toon from it's own folder, which was mentioned on

For all intents and purposes, you can forget the 2nd monitor exists. Although I think the whole point of this setup is to free up the 2nd (or more) monitor(s) for other, non Everquest stuff like running Discord window, surfing the internet.

When I talk about macros, I mean the short social macros already available in Everquest.

As far as mapping stuff to the mouse, that's all Windows stuff. I never programmed mouse macros. So it was all single click stuff. -I was worried the Logitech mouse macros might be a step too far in automation, and frankly, I didn't want to bother trying to figure that out. EQ doesn't have any special mouse functionality in-game. (Logitech frequently has patch messages about other games getting mouse support).

Mostly, I ended up just using the mouse to flip eq toons really fast, then lined up hotbuttons in the smallest areaa on the screen, so it goes quickly. Very quickly. As fast as someone vigorously using the keyboard to do stuff.

EDIT: I said I did NOT use ISboxer, which apparently is more popular and less likely to get someone banned from Everquest. At least, people on Vox seem to recommend ISBoxer

 

[VanillaPuppy]

Not trying to be a dick here, but I am confused...

Your title says 1 monitor but in the text you say you use 2. Was that just a typo?

Title says no 3rd party software but you talk about using ISB. Am I just misreading this? ISB IS about as 3rd party as you can get.

Non the less I am glad to hear that you got things squared away and figured out all the little problems that crop up just trying to get this stuff all setup.

And welcome to Redguides.

Vrak

I never once mentioned ISBoxer in my original post. I think other people mentioned it.

As I said, you only need a single monitor to literally play EQ. At least one extra monitor is suggested, but not required.

 

[Vrakenor]

VanillaPuppy

This is a snip from your original post...

So, how can anybody 6 box without using ISboxer? -You need a 2nd monitor for non EQ tastbar tabs/apps like Firefox and Discord

ISB is synonymous with IS Boxer. You can use ISB for running your main toon on your best monitor and literally have 5 separate, smaller boxes on the other monitor, so to display all 6 toons at once. One of the main features of ISB.

So that is where my confusion came from...sorry if I offended you.

Vrak

 

[RobRenfro]

I had socials/macros setup on my toons before coming here. I just prefer the feel the plugins give me of almost having another person run my toons. I can still play EQ with socials. I have pages of socials I use with the automation.

I do know all of my 12 button MMO mice line up perfectly with the 12 action buttons 1-12 if that is stepping too far into automation DBG will go bankrupt.

 

[Jarlentor]

I always prefered boxing on 2 or three seperate pc's and monitors.... Granted... at that time I played 3.... chanter (main, on big pc with 30inch monitor), and then used a mini tablet pc to play mage, it had a 10" screen.
and whatever other character I had of a friends to keep us in level, I would put on a third cheaply built PC with onboard gfx on a 17 inch monitor I had to the side.....
3 keyboards,,, three mice, three monitors.....
Had all the hotkeys I used set to the same spots on each char.... so I litterally would hit all the same buttons on each keyboard..... and curse at the autofollow function getting my bots stuck all the time.....

AHHHHH the memories!!!!!!

 

[hackzimus]

6 boxing with nothing running on TLPs isn't terrible, most of the classes don't really do anything compared to 100+. Most of the finesse you need is spent on your puller/enchanter.

anything above HoT, you'd be better served with 3-4 toons and using mercs. every class has mash keys at that stage of the game and without broadcasting you lose a lot of efficiency. Not to say it can't be done with a certain group build. SK/Sham/Bard with 3 dps mercs can do quite alot aside from some more intricate missions. Really you're swapping between the sk and shaman most of the time too.

If I had to raw dog 6: Pal/SK, Cler, Enc, Mage, Mage, Mage.

Pull mob attack on with tank, swap to cleric and hit heal social (5 heals casted in sequence), swap to chanter, AE mezz if adds or slow, pop each mage with pet attack and 3-4 nuke social. but by that point its not even playing eq its about keypresses in a short amount of time like a mavis beacon typing instructional.

 

[edsarto]

I currently run SK,CLR,BRD,ZERK,ROG,ROG and the SK makes it happen. I could easily drop the Bard for more DPs but the Bard helps moving toons around. I have also had a Mage in that group and taken out the Zerk. I have even went with a SHM instead of CLR, even with raid trash chasing luck augs.
I lean to melee groups just because its hows its been for me forever. I have a three key setup on each toon so that no matter what window I am on (other then the SK) im hitting basically the same three keys W,E,R. W is mash(for cleric its bigger heals), E is burn, and R(for cleric its AAs)is mainly for burns but has stuff that I click on sometimes. The cleric also hits 1 as a key bind quick heals.
Is it as complete as running MQ nah, but stuff still dies on 30sec or less and named drop within 60sec. If I dont want to press all those keys, I drop out toons and replace with mercs. SK and BRD always there Rest can be anything.