Hail, fellow roleplayers! My name is Enormo and I've been playing EQ off and on since the original Kunark on hard mode (as a Paladin). After 20+ years, I've decided to try multi-boxing. I have found it initially a bit confusing and overwhelming so I thought I would make a thread to capture my thoughts in real-time as they happen.
Why am I here? I love EQ and I believe its magic is the community. Unfortunately after 20yrs the community size is smaller than ideal so it can be hard to find 5 other people who want to adventure with me. Also, I've morphed from college kid who can play 24/7 to an old guy with a job and a family. I want to make the most of the time I can spend in the game, be more productive, and have more fun experiencing the content which is mostly group focused.
Experience playing multiple characters - For the majority of my EQ life I played only 1 char, but occasionally someone would need to go to bed and ask me to play their char to keep the group going so I learned how to launch a second EQ window and alt-tab between them. I learned that hotkeys are crucial to be able to do simple things in the least amount of time. Very simple things like /assist the tank and cast 3 nukes with an appropriate pause in between them, or invis the group and /follow the main char. My efforts were crude and only marginally effective. I always felt like I was getting at best 25% of the true potential of that botted char versus someone who knew the class and was paying attention. This sparked my interest in a better botting solution and led me to Redguides.
Why Redguides? - I know there are other options out there but I only play EQ so I have no need for a platform that can also bot other games. I am not a coder and have no desire to start from scratch with an "open source" program. I have a bit of disposable income, and I will gladly pay for this community's years of development, fine tuning, and updates. I believe Red is the best solution for my personal situation, so I decided to sign up, pay the 10 bucks, and see what adventures lie ahead. I will update this thread as I learn more so that perhaps another new person down the road will benefit and the community will continue to grow playing the game we enjoy.
Ok here we go!
- In order to learn how to swim you have to jump in the pool. I created my forum username/login, and paid 10 bucks to get access to the program. /borat very nice!
- I watched the first "beginner" video on how to install the program. Not bad. Basically click the red button on the forum, download it, install it like you would any program. Now I have a shortcut on my desktop to the launcher!
- But I'm not ready to go just yet... In the launcher, I need to click on Very Vanilla and install that too. It feels like the launcher is MS Dos and VV is Windows. You need both to make the magic happen. I don't currently have a good handle on what plugins, macros, Lua, myseq, or anything else means. Trying not to feel overwhelmed. Am overwhelmed.
- F it, we ball. I log into EQ the normal way and i see a bunch of new and ugly boxes pop up. This seems like a good sign, things are working! I have no idea what I can do yet, so I watch the next couple beginner videos.
- Some guy teaches me how to have all my chars /wave. All of my problems are now solved, the tutorial ends, I am ready to go conquer EQ with my new software and group! Not so much... I still have literally no idea what any of the commands are, must watch more videos.
- One of the worst parts about botting 2 chars is the /follow feature works about as well as telling your most drunk friend to follow you down a crowded street to another bar. It's virtually guaranteed he's going to stop and look around or get punched in the face. I see a button on the group window called "follow me" and i click it. To my surprise it is working very well!
- I watch the beginner video about movement, and it tells me I need some meshes. I thoroughly enjoy mesh shorts, so I am all in for EQ mesh. Back to the launcher, Very Vanilla, and i launch the mesh updater. I have 0 out of 500, so its time to update. It seems like they should give you these upon install, but we install and move onward, hopefully that we can now navigate more efficiently.
OPEN ITEMS - QUESTIONS - STILL TO COME
- It seems like plugins are little programs that people make that can add into Redguides. I can't tell what Very Vanilla already has already installed by default, or which ones are so good that I need to add, so I have held off so far until i test out the default program.
- Frankly I am not even sure if this thing is called Redguides, VV, MQ, MQ2, or it doesnt matter because we're not allowed to speak about it ingame.
- I'm not sure what macros or Lua are yet.
- I've read some forum threads where people mention/argue about which acronyms are better -- dannet, eqbc, cwtn, kissassist, etc... i dont know what any of this means yet, or how to make those decisions, so I am ignoring until i get to a point where i learn or am forced to install something
- I remember MySEQ from a long time ago, it feels somewhat across the line of cheating to me so I haven't investigated that tab yet. However, I noticed that after the initial install of VV my ingame map has exploded with realtime mob locations. My knee jerk reaction is to figure out how to turn this feature off (which you can do with the little layer "2" button on the map. But... I also notice that it shows the location of the little collectable ground spawns. This will be impossible for me to turn off now because i find those to be the most obnoxious yet necessary aspect of the game and i am ok getting some help finding those. I can feel my moral compass beginning to point a little more south.
- I still have no idea how to make the relevant hotkeys yet. This is top of my list to learn, I have to figure out how to make my bot more efficient while I am playing my pally, and then i will be comfortable adding more chars....
- I only have 2 chars so far, a paladin and a wizzy who I made to port me around and increase DPS. I've now realized porting isn't as big a deal as it used to be because of Guild Hall transports, Throne which is essentially a translocate, and the 2 anchor gates. And apparently wizzies are currently not in favor, oh well, at least she's a high elf. I havent decided what classes I would like to add yet, how many my computer can handle, and how much better 6 real chars would be than 3 + 3 mercs. My initial plan is to keep the paladin main and wizzy bot since they are both 112 and decently geared. I will likely add a shammy or an ench because my ability to pull singles is as a pally is limited, and i tend to get squished on named mobs without slow and only merc heals. Everyone tells me to make a bard, but I have no experience at all with bards and I'm hesitant to learn unless there is some kind of plugin/macro/hotkey setup that will make it literally plug and play easy.
Happy Questing!
Enormo
Note: I've decided not to edit this initial post since so many great comments and advice were given below. I will post new replies as I continue on the adventure.
Why am I here? I love EQ and I believe its magic is the community. Unfortunately after 20yrs the community size is smaller than ideal so it can be hard to find 5 other people who want to adventure with me. Also, I've morphed from college kid who can play 24/7 to an old guy with a job and a family. I want to make the most of the time I can spend in the game, be more productive, and have more fun experiencing the content which is mostly group focused.
Experience playing multiple characters - For the majority of my EQ life I played only 1 char, but occasionally someone would need to go to bed and ask me to play their char to keep the group going so I learned how to launch a second EQ window and alt-tab between them. I learned that hotkeys are crucial to be able to do simple things in the least amount of time. Very simple things like /assist the tank and cast 3 nukes with an appropriate pause in between them, or invis the group and /follow the main char. My efforts were crude and only marginally effective. I always felt like I was getting at best 25% of the true potential of that botted char versus someone who knew the class and was paying attention. This sparked my interest in a better botting solution and led me to Redguides.
Why Redguides? - I know there are other options out there but I only play EQ so I have no need for a platform that can also bot other games. I am not a coder and have no desire to start from scratch with an "open source" program. I have a bit of disposable income, and I will gladly pay for this community's years of development, fine tuning, and updates. I believe Red is the best solution for my personal situation, so I decided to sign up, pay the 10 bucks, and see what adventures lie ahead. I will update this thread as I learn more so that perhaps another new person down the road will benefit and the community will continue to grow playing the game we enjoy.
Ok here we go!
- In order to learn how to swim you have to jump in the pool. I created my forum username/login, and paid 10 bucks to get access to the program. /borat very nice!
- I watched the first "beginner" video on how to install the program. Not bad. Basically click the red button on the forum, download it, install it like you would any program. Now I have a shortcut on my desktop to the launcher!
- But I'm not ready to go just yet... In the launcher, I need to click on Very Vanilla and install that too. It feels like the launcher is MS Dos and VV is Windows. You need both to make the magic happen. I don't currently have a good handle on what plugins, macros, Lua, myseq, or anything else means. Trying not to feel overwhelmed. Am overwhelmed.
- F it, we ball. I log into EQ the normal way and i see a bunch of new and ugly boxes pop up. This seems like a good sign, things are working! I have no idea what I can do yet, so I watch the next couple beginner videos.
- Some guy teaches me how to have all my chars /wave. All of my problems are now solved, the tutorial ends, I am ready to go conquer EQ with my new software and group! Not so much... I still have literally no idea what any of the commands are, must watch more videos.
- One of the worst parts about botting 2 chars is the /follow feature works about as well as telling your most drunk friend to follow you down a crowded street to another bar. It's virtually guaranteed he's going to stop and look around or get punched in the face. I see a button on the group window called "follow me" and i click it. To my surprise it is working very well!
- I watch the beginner video about movement, and it tells me I need some meshes. I thoroughly enjoy mesh shorts, so I am all in for EQ mesh. Back to the launcher, Very Vanilla, and i launch the mesh updater. I have 0 out of 500, so its time to update. It seems like they should give you these upon install, but we install and move onward, hopefully that we can now navigate more efficiently.
OPEN ITEMS - QUESTIONS - STILL TO COME
- It seems like plugins are little programs that people make that can add into Redguides. I can't tell what Very Vanilla already has already installed by default, or which ones are so good that I need to add, so I have held off so far until i test out the default program.
- Frankly I am not even sure if this thing is called Redguides, VV, MQ, MQ2, or it doesnt matter because we're not allowed to speak about it ingame.
- I'm not sure what macros or Lua are yet.
- I've read some forum threads where people mention/argue about which acronyms are better -- dannet, eqbc, cwtn, kissassist, etc... i dont know what any of this means yet, or how to make those decisions, so I am ignoring until i get to a point where i learn or am forced to install something
- I remember MySEQ from a long time ago, it feels somewhat across the line of cheating to me so I haven't investigated that tab yet. However, I noticed that after the initial install of VV my ingame map has exploded with realtime mob locations. My knee jerk reaction is to figure out how to turn this feature off (which you can do with the little layer "2" button on the map. But... I also notice that it shows the location of the little collectable ground spawns. This will be impossible for me to turn off now because i find those to be the most obnoxious yet necessary aspect of the game and i am ok getting some help finding those. I can feel my moral compass beginning to point a little more south.
- I still have no idea how to make the relevant hotkeys yet. This is top of my list to learn, I have to figure out how to make my bot more efficient while I am playing my pally, and then i will be comfortable adding more chars....
- I only have 2 chars so far, a paladin and a wizzy who I made to port me around and increase DPS. I've now realized porting isn't as big a deal as it used to be because of Guild Hall transports, Throne which is essentially a translocate, and the 2 anchor gates. And apparently wizzies are currently not in favor, oh well, at least she's a high elf. I havent decided what classes I would like to add yet, how many my computer can handle, and how much better 6 real chars would be than 3 + 3 mercs. My initial plan is to keep the paladin main and wizzy bot since they are both 112 and decently geared. I will likely add a shammy or an ench because my ability to pull singles is as a pally is limited, and i tend to get squished on named mobs without slow and only merc heals. Everyone tells me to make a bard, but I have no experience at all with bards and I'm hesitant to learn unless there is some kind of plugin/macro/hotkey setup that will make it literally plug and play easy.
Happy Questing!
Enormo
Note: I've decided not to edit this initial post since so many great comments and advice were given below. I will post new replies as I continue on the adventure.
Last edited:
