Claritin's Beta Journal

[Claritin]

As you all probably read in the news yesterday... I had to spend my first day of beta playing from my server...

Specs :
933 Mhz, 1 gig PC-133 RAM, Geforce 4 Ti 4400

I was expecting the experiance to be terrible... and yes it was bad... but WAY better than I thought once I turned the detail down. I had planned to give you a screen shot... but In the effort of conserving resources I turned off my remote desktop ability on that server... and forgot to turn it back on.... so... when I get home I will simply paste it below.

Low Detail Screenshot - 1024x768 on the Geforce 4 Ti 4400... ignore the chat log where I mention my other PC's video card.

Low Detail makes everyone look like they had someone erase thier face.... it's kinda creepy... but I could play... if you can play a MUD (text based MMORPG) than this beats that.. and yes I have played MUDs... so I was OK.

I decided to start out as a scout... which I found is pretty much automatic lvl 3 when you step foot off the ship onto the island... so you are an archetype from the minute you meet another player. You simply have to talk to someone to make your choice.

The boat was kind of annoying... It wanted to help me TOO MUCH... some people will love it though... and I got my starting weapon and tunic there.. and a little bit of money.

When I got the the island I was lost... please... if you remember 1 thing from this beta journal.. remember that if you quit EQ1 before ingame maps that they have in game maps in EQ2 and they are on the M key.. M as in MAPS. That will help a bit... I wasted maybe 30 mins because of a lack of map (and the fact my settings were so low I often couldn't see far ahead and steps looked pretty blurry to the area I wanted to go... I just thought it was more mountain.)

I learned a few things...

1.) On the Isle of Refuge QUESTING is your single most important task... I am only wearing :
1 dropped item...
2 purchased items (the 2 worst items I have)
5 QUESTED items... the best items I have.

2.) Islanders are capped at lvl 6 (max exp but can't ding 7 until I leave the island)

so your best gear comes from quests... and you get exp and money from quests... and you get exp while killing monsters to get the items for the quests... and you have your exp capped on the island to just under lvl 7.

In other words if you gain EXP for the sake of gaining EXP you will have exp drop off into the abyss before you leave the island (as I have now experianced)

Also the quest system seems to give you certain quest items ONLY IF YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE QUEST... so don't gather items and THEN see where they fit... gather quests and then go after items.

Each Archetype talks to a different charector that gives them a few quests... this guy is your buddy because they give archetype specific gear... do his/her quests first... as soon as you pick an archetype the game will tell you "Go talk to XXXX" THAT is your buddies name.

Other things too keep in mind...

The Vendor sells a book on goblins... and the book gives you a quest to collect goblin parts... I am unsure what the reward is... but alot of people were working on it. These parts are rare... so you want to know which ones to save fairly early on since you have limited inventory space. When you have this quest and one of the items drops you can right clcik the item... examine it and hit a button to study the item.. POOF you no longer have to carry or bank that item.. it gets used up. This is fantastic because of your limited inventory and bank slots while on the island. I suggest buying this book.

Shells... you can collect them like the goblin parts

I suggest killing skeletons to get a treasure map and then finishing that quest up.

There is a named bear on the island

Well... lets just say there are alot of quests and most don't take much time because the island is small and the monsters are weak.

OK... first thing you need to buy... it's not a weapon... it's not armor... it's A BAG.

Bags are 4 slot containers... you start with 1... you get another via a quest... but it's a good idea to buy 1 more while you are on the island... (I lost something I won while in a group because my inventory was full... a kind party member let me make room and gave it back though)

I don't know about other archetypes.. but scouts don't seem to earn any upper arm guards or helm... so if you buy any armor I'd consider them first.

I died... I don't remember there being a "blip" on my map telling me where I died... but I might have died before I realized there was a map. Getting my soul shard back required a right click and "absorb" there is alot of right clicking in this game.... if you have an issue.. right click. I was expecting to just run over my corpse and absorb it

One other thing I didn't realize as a scout that was handy knowledge... sneak attack and backstab = same thing. I thought I had to be in "sneak" mode to hit that button but I found you can also just let someone else tank and get behind and use it as a backstab button. I didn't group much which is why I found it at lvl 6... it's hard to get behind a monster when you are the only opponent

I couldn't seem to drag aggro off of anyone as a scout... the fighter always had the aggro of the monster he was on... and a cleric or mage could easily claim aggro on a monster I was tanking... even after a sneak attack, quick attack, and cheap shot as my opener... but I am new to grouping and only lvl 6 so maybe this will change.

Trolls, Ogres and Rotonga were no where to be seen... now granted my visibility was bad due to my settings... but they seemed to be really rare. Priests also seemed to be in demand at lvl 6.... but the only priest I grouped with was lvl 2 when I was lvl 6 and only stayed for 4 fights.... you don't really NEED a priest on the island... you don't really need any help at all except for the named bear, the orc chief, and the skeleton map. (keep in mind though that I hit lvl 6 fast because I didn't realize I was going to be capped at 6... so I guess I was overpowered for alot of stuff)

I won't be able to play much if at all tonight... but expect another update on Friday or Saturday.

[Claritin]

Well... I am still in "the land of the sucky PC"... it seems removing and recreating my system partion and reloading WinXP wasn't enough to fix my problem... because my good PC told me I had a 5 hour download again even though I had verified at 8am yesterday morning that my download had completed sucessfully... Odds are I should have reformatted the drive I installed EQ2 on also... oh well... no big deal... It's my fault anyway for trying to cheat my way out of a 5 hour download by attemptng to burn to DVD and copy onto the second PC.

The good news is... my new CPU/MB/RAM/HD all arrived today... and I wasn't home... but they will hold it at the local "hub" so I should have it all at 6pm.... When I re-distribute my hardware to include the new my problem with "permanent download syndrome" should vanish because it will be a COMPLETE system purge System drive and EQ2 install drive.

Last night I geeked it up... 3 of the other Dangermice (my real life brothers.. it's our last name in online games that allow it) came over after a family dinner.... so I pulled up another desk... moved my Geforce FX 5900 into that piece of junk server to help me get by another day or 2... slapped a second monitor on that other desk and did a dual-screen set-up... moved over the futon also. My daughter running around climbing on all of us was our only distraction... and the Click-Pssssh of opening Mt. Dew cans.

The task at hand was to create Shaman and a Warrior and bring them both to the point the could leave the island (if we wanted to) and we suceeded.

We spent a short period of time battling the interface... the interface is not bad... it's just... different than EQ1. Some things are not where I remember them being (although I am not 100% sure I remember where they were correctly)

Note : To turn off other people's hits so you can actually READ messages to you you RIGHT-CLICK the chat window and go to chat options... you can not access it through the EQII button in the lower left hand corner as far as I can tell... and the little colored ball on the lower left hand corner of the chat window is an indicator of what channel you are in... WHITE=Say... Blue=Group Etc... right click it to switch channels.

Also I know I have probably read this in another review... BUT I had forgotten it and you may have also.... here is the conning system.

Letters of the monsters name = difficulty of encounter:
Grey - Trivial (no reward for killing)
Green - Very Weak
Blue - Weak
White - Even
Yellow - Strong
Orange - VERY strong
Red - U gunna Die

if you see arrows next to the monsters name it means it's more difficult or less difficult... so Red with 2 UP arrows = You will die before you finish drawing your sword. a Red with a down arrow means it's about as easy as a red monster gets...

I kinda already knew all that... BUT I forgot this section... aggro :
If a monster's name is outlined in red... I am pretty sure that means it will kill you on sight.

We saw 2 more named monsters... one goblin in the top of the tree... and a snake. I don't want to turn this into a spoiler so that's all I am saying... the goblin in the tree is a "give me" I mean the tree is like named for him... but my scout didn't meet him.

We have encountered a couple bugs... one was not reproducable even though we thought we knew what caused it... the other was a simple matter of text saying "you are way overqualified for this book" when they mean "you are too dumb to even think about reading this book" they have the scale like reversed or something... that cost me a good chunk of change figuring that out... but it's just beta... it's all "funny money" anyways... gone in 2 weeks.

I have seen no bugs yet that would make me go "OMG I can't believe they are releasing!" I just want to get that out in the open.

My next thing I want to mention is some of us are a *little* rusty on which keys are which.... but it's all good... SOE gave us a key map... they just hid it a little....

Since I was talking to my brothers and watching my midget... and covering areas I have already been that's about all the news for now....

P.S. Silverleaf was correct on my old beta journal... Evils go to one instance of Isle of Refuge and Goody-goodies go to a different one... Not sure where neutrals fit it... maybe there are 3 instances, maybe it's random for the "undecideds" I haven't done much probing into the matter.

[Claritin]

I finished setting up my new PC at 2:30am this morning... Grrr SATA on a MSI nForce3 motherboard was ROUGH... I don't even know what fixed it I did the same thing all 50 times... my twin bro Pilsburry was setting his up along side me... also with a MSI nForce3 board and SATA... same types of issues. I know plenty of people with Asus boards and SATA that just hit F6 when booting from the WinXP install CD and loaded thier SATA drivers (as I instructed them)... but not on MSI it seems.... I'm sure there is some special trick to it... but I suggest Asus MBs to anyone who is not extremely patient.

Anyway... on to the beta journal....

Like it was stated earlier Isle of refuge caps at level 6 (with max exp ready for level 7). However you can continue to gain more exp (which I didn't realize before because I never left the island)...you can get 220% right now so you have an additional level beyond the cap. HOWEVER if you cap that on the isle of refuge your going to waste time because your going to earn exp during your citizenship quests.

What's a citizenship quest? Well the basics, when you leave Isle of refuge you talk to a recruiter type guy then the duke and you can use the bell to go to town. In town your top priority is to earn citizenship because your not capped at level 6 for Isle of refuge, your capped at 7 until citizenship...

Citizenship is easy for the most part, but can seem tedious, especially the 2nd time around. Basically you have to find your inn (it's marked on your map) then rent a room...it's free the first week...then rearrange some furniture, visit the bank and finally apply for citizenship. That means you have to go to South qeynos gate in my case (Actually both cases so far) and click the sign...the sign has a paper, read your paper and fulfill the task. Both my tasks said to go to one of the newbie zones (the closest depending on which race I was) and find 5 tokens on any mob type there. Then come back.

When I came back I was in my own zone and had to kill 4 traitors or so...it was easy for a level 6. I received a nice ring, a weapon, and a book of general qeynos quests. Plus citizenship. Since I had 220% earned (which happens to be the cap beyond the cap)...that made me level 8.2 or so.

What to do now? Exp/Quest...earn some copper...actually I set my goals higher...silver. When I hit level 9 I had to go find a guy and talk to him about becoming an adventurer (in the case of a good priest that's North Qeynos, near the tavern in the woods) now he sent me to heal 2 guys...one nearby, and one in my starting area..I don't know if that was a fluke or not.

When that was completed he sent me to go kill 5 oakmyst fairies...that was a little hard to solo, I ended up with some help..it turned out it wasn't much help...but it was all I needed.

Note: In the case of killing creatures for credit towards a quest I found out quickly if you both need to kill them they count for both people..which was nice because we could help eachother more easily.

After that was done I was given yet another task....go kill 5 toxic slugs. I killed them easily....it was much easier than the fairies. Fairies came 2-3 at a time, blues, healers....the slugs were simple...green, singles and didn't heal.

Next the guy sent me to Antonica to go attend to some guards....that is still to be done. I'm wondering if there is a cap on level before you become an adventurer as well....Will I get stuck at 9? Or 10? I think I probably could. But since I was focused since level 9 I'm sure I'll finish before the exp is capped for the level.

I did get my first ability on the scout and priest now at level 8....scout choose to be nimble and the priest insightful...the obvious choices of a min/max'r

Also I began to rearrange the interface...made the top blank areas skinnier, moved the exp bar up by the compass, made the chat box longer and gave it a black background so it's easier to read, moved as much as I could into the black boxes at the top/bottom (keeping in mind group members health appears in the top).

Trade skilled myself to level 4 and scribed 2 recipe books. Bought some jewelry, transferred items between the scout and preist (both good characters).... Oh and I also upgraded all my spells/abilities on the priest and scout to apprentice II. I also rearrangd my spell book and hotkeys. It's all fairly intuitive. I have only hit 1 bug so far that caused me a headache and that's a new one, it wasn't there yesterday...probably won't be there tomorrow.

Things are shapping up nicely.

More on trading between your characters.
1. I couldn't seem to trade between good and evil, the level 5 Iksar-Bruiser want to be had a lot of nice gear I wanted to borrow...he was lucky on the loot (speaking of loot you can put group loot on a lotto mode where you can pass or /random)
2. I couldn't get good and evil in the same instance of Isle of refuge to trade using an intermediary person to hold the goods while I relogged....
3. I could not transfer lore items using the bank 4 shared slots. I tried to transfer a goblin claw, between my 2 characters no dice.
4. Trading between 2 Qeynos citizens on the same account went just as expected.

I did some tradeskilling. I'm a level 4 artisian now, not a huge accomplishment....but I got to see how it works. I took some damage and almost died once...that was unexpected.

Also you can and will take damage if you open chests without a scout to disarm traps. I've died atleast 3x from this. Once from full life. It is a real issue to have a scout present even at low levels.

[Claritin]

I have been busy mostly with hardware issues... but I have played some.

lvl 7 Fighter
lvl 10 Shaman
lvl 12 Bard

I am continuing to see that quests is the quickest way to get good gear.... way different than EQ1....

I did the scout quest... the hard part was finding a dude in Antonica... man... that zone... HUGE... at lvl 9 it's also pretty dangerous. The end fight for the quest (solo) was so easy it was laughable though...

I am enjoying all my classes... and I think solo game play is VERY viable... almost all my time has been solo. I am not a solo person normally but I guess I am a little anal about all these entries in my quest journal... I keep trying to clean some up and in the process of closing one I often find 5 more new ones to replace it...

Let me give you an idea how many quests are in this game... there are a few areas of the city I haven't really been to... I have now completed 62 quests... yeah.. SIXTY-TWO. I have over 20 more on my quest list... and I have no problem finding new ones. REMEMBER I AM LVL 12 on my scout... the one I have done most of the questing with. The Priest has 34 quests completed.... add in the fighter and I am over 100 quests in EQ2... I got in beta on Tuesday Night....

I have a trait of nimble on the bard.. and he has an extra ability to kill gnolls. So it's more than SoE wants to implement them... they are already showing up.

Heroic Opprotunities still kinda confuse me... because I solo so much. www.clanwhitestorm.com has some info on them under the combat section... but I am still lacking the info on what icon corresponds to which abilities. Once I start grouping I will start looking at it more.

There was a graphical yesterday that was fixed it seems today... so they do seem to be making fast progress. However I keep running into daggers with no graphics... it's cool... they are flagged as bugged weapons... I like to buy them every couple levels so I can use them in a group and freak everyone out when I whip a big pink square of whoop-ass out of my pocket and beat a mob over the head with it. Most beta players avoid the bugged weapons.. but hey... the stats are good and they work

Today was stress test the login server day... so they ARE working on making sure stuff works.... zones get taken offline all the time still... but i don't know why... could be them crashing... could be them doing a zone-specific patch.

I have run into fish chasing me on land like in EQ1.... and I have had snakes on rocks where I couldn't seem to hit them... BUT as far as pathing goes it's better than EQ1... no merchants on rooftops etc so far as I have seen.

I am enjoying the game.... leveling pace seems a bit fast to me... but I am an odd duck... I like things slow and painful... I hate being max level with nothing to do.

Emotes... they crack me up... /flirt and /dance are pretty involved... /moon and stuff are just funny.... the fact that they are so good just makes me proud to be a beta tester... I mean yeah there are bugs... but the voice overs and the emotes didn't have to be there... but SOE went the extra mile to provide them.

---

Wow... this is starting to be a collection of disconnected thoughts... too much caffiene and not enough sleep. But I have 1 more topic to discuss....

A few of you remember I was a 3-boxer in EQ1... Bard, Druid, Shaman.... many of you want to know what I think about multi-boxing or dual-boxing in EQ2.

Well.. I only have 1 acct But I have had the chance to play... and I am kind of a pro on this topic (bard 3 boxers are RARE in EQ1.) So here goes...

In EQ1 I was a bard for a like a year and a half or so... then I got a second acct... then 6 mths later a 3rd. What I am saying is I GREW INTO 3-boxing... alot of us that multi-box in EQ1 didn't start that way. This allowed us to get accustomed to the interface and the combat mechanics.... this stuff is not easy enough to jump right into... the game is different enough to require a learning curve from EQ1 players.

Combat is WAY faster than EQ1... and often involves more than 1 target. This makes it difficult to just hotkey stuff and chill... watching TV while your fighter tanks and occasionally hitting the CH button... odds are you will have to re-target in 30 seconds... and there will be a mob beating on your cleric as well.

LOTS of skills. Your hotkey area/spells area is 12 long 1234567890-= not 8... of course they are not seperate either.... so I guess technically we lost space. However at lvl 12 I take up 1 and a half of those bars with commonly used skills... you can switch "hotkey banks" like in EQ1.

What I am saying is... don't plan on 3-boxing in EQ2... I said it before beta and I have not changed my mind. I would buy 1 acct to start with... learn it and buy a second... I would definately not buy 3 or more accts on release day to multibox.... 2 will sit there charging you monthly fees while you are still learning the interface... and they may possibly never get used. (I think dual boxing might be possible after the learning curve.... depending on this HO stuff) but it won't be easy... not like EQ1.

[Claritin]

I'm going to explain what multi-boxing is in an MMORPG at the end of this... I know most of you know... but a few people didn't... I wrote the ones that wrote me... but some might have been too timid to ask me what I was talking about... so I'll just show ya.

But now for the part most of you want... Beta knowledge.

I am now lvl 14 on my scout/bard... lvl 12 on my priest/shaman and a new lvl 7 warrior... not the one I had before.. he had issues so I purged his butt.

I don't have much to share... except on the bard.... because that's my area of "expertise" although I am quite fond of priests too (points at EQ1 info in sig file) If I think of some priest stuff I'll add it later.

The patch yesterday added alot of stuff... alot of it fairly subtle...

The change to Heroic Opprotunities when solo was nice... it made it ALOT easier for me to do my job....

here is how it works now :

Each Archetype was given a new skill... this skill is your "Solo HO" activator. Click it... it will pop up the wheel. Look at the icons on the wheel... examine the hotkeys for the skills you have... the examine screen will tell you what TYPE of skill it is... for instance a sword icon... if the HO wheel has a sword on it... hit a sword button and BOOM.. an HO is completed. I know it sounds simplistic... it's actually alot more complex in a group.... and there are other aspects like "HO switching" to get different effects etc... but I just want to explain how much easier it is now to start one.

Now that I am lvl 14 I saw some interesting behavior... I saw an Enchanter MEZZING! Yes that is right... I got in a real group!!!! Mezzing and assisting off the tank... I had to figure out how to make a Assist button... but after I did it ruled.
(EQII button in lower right hand corner... Socials... Macro tab.. right click one and select edit /assist tankname... and yes I will try to write up a EQ1-PRO to EQ2-NEWBIE UI GUIDE)

Now only did we have mez... but we were doing 5 vs. 5 battles... and I had bard haste etc... it was nice to see classes doing class specific stuff I was used to. I also finally got to use my "hated race" ability or whatever you call it... I picked that I hate Gnolls... and now I can use my extra Icon that does extra damage to Gnolls.

Now that's all fine and dandy... but my in game progress wasn't my main focus... and leveling... well it's just leveling.

I wanted to learn more about the game's UI... not alot... but how it can best be put to use.

I want to start off with this... a quick re-cap of my system as it stands today....

AMD64 3500+
1 gig Dual-channel DDR RAM
Nvidia Geforce FX 5900
74 Gig SATA 10,000 RPM drive
19 inch monitor.

It's not mid-range... it's not the best either.... but probably better than alot of you.

My pet peeve was that the UI too up too much "screen landscape"... I wanted to see the terrain and my enemies but I had all this #%^#$# in my way.

I found that 1024x768 is probably too small for most of us to want to use.

1280x1024 is the screen size I think works best for performance etc.

By upgrading your screen size you put extra strain on your system but compartively the UI shrinks while yoru window into norrath stays the same... which was my goal.

Also the EQ2 world is "letter box format" by default... so you have black areas above and below your "Norrathian-Window" That is ideal for sticking your UI junk in.

Now there is ALOT of battle spam... and you have alot of abilities. So you want to take care of those issues.

right clicking the chat window will allow you to create a seocnd chat window..... then you redirect all "REAL chat" to the new window and leave the other window for battle spam. I also suggest chainging the transparency of the window... having them vanish as you try to read them sucks.... they designed that feature for people who are forced to use the smaller 1024x768 resolution I think... but I hated it even then and turned it off... EQ1 was the same way if I remember when the implemented the new UI (I ran with my own custom UI soon after... so I don't remember defaut modes)

So chat problem solved... just like EQ1 for the most part.

Hotkeys though... as I said before you don't have just 8 keys. you get :

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =

yeah 12... and 12 ain't enough... atleast not for a bard.

It's an easy fix though... and something you COULDN'T do in EQ1... right click it and tell it new window also.... now you have 2 of the same hot key banks.. but just like EQ1 you have arrow keys on them... change the arrow on the new one to show row 2 of your icons...

PRESTO!!!
ALT-1 ALT-2 ALT-3 etc.... and they are all displayed and clickable... and they are pretty each to squeeze onto your screen at 1280x1024 resolution... you now have 24 clickable buttons.... I'm sure I can add other windows as well for CTRL-1 etc... but I didn't test it because I didn't need it.

All you EQ1 types already know to change your filters on the battle spam to get rid of non-grouped player's hits, and all misses.... but I thought I might remind you... that's a simple right click the window and enter it's properties also.

All windows have varying degrees of transparency also.. so while I said setting the chat windows darker... for regular and for when you hover the mouse on it... you can set the background for group health bars real light and then darken it when you hover the mouse over it... for a cleric how's main job is monitoring them I set it dark... but for my scout.. I set it light... the bars themselves stay the same thick bright color... it's just the background.. and HP bars are not my problem.. I can see them well enough to do my job.

When the game gets released I will probably be working on making the UI smaller (by using XML) because even on 1280x1024 it was still too big for my taste... and I feel sorry for those of you on 1024x768 that don't have the cash to have a rig to run at the higher resolutions. Maybe someone on http://www.eq2interface.com/ will beat me to it... but I do have that intention. I'd do it now... but the UI might change a little pre-release and then everyone will be running on broken XML code written by me... and I don't want that hanging over my head

P.S. although it is in "letter box style" by default... you have a slider to expand the window from top to bottom... the black space is variable which was a nice touch.

------

Now to the multi-boxing info...

Multi boxing is when you use 3 PCs... people called it multi-boxing when you ran in 3 windows on the same PC in EQ1... but that's really "Ghetto multi-boxing" because multi-boxing means 3 CPU-boxes.... 3 whole machines.

Someone wrote me asking if we use a KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse switch)... the answer is no... that adds too much extra hassle to the mix... I mean 3 WHOLE PC's not even just the CPU-Boxes... the monitor, mouse, keyboard... 3 of everything for my old setup.

This is about a 2 year old photo... of my daughter in front of my multi-boxing set-up I used to use. Sorry that the photo kinda sucks... but I don't take pictures of my PC's often... I was shooting her... not my rigs.


You will see 3 monitors... I prefer the middle one to be my main acct... and to have a larger display... I also prefer to have a trackball (but I am kinda alone on that choice) because of the lesser amount of desktop real-estate it uses AND it feels different so I know "Main PC=Trackball" if my hand is on a mouse I know I grabbed the wrong damn thing.

Under the other 2 monitors you will see 2 more keyboards... they are linked to the monitors they are under... for obvious reasons.

In front of my daughter you see the trackball I mentioned.. and her left hand is on a black keyboard (harder to see) and that is the controls for the main PC.

The mice for the other 2 PCs are
1.) In front of the big middle monitor is the mouse for the PC to the left.
2.) On the floor is my third mouse... 9 mth old kids are terrible to PCs.... it is supposed to be on the desk to the right of the trackball.

The order for the PCs was
SHAMAN/BARD/DRUID

This was because I was right handed... look at my sig file at my levels... you can see which ones I used more.... the ones I truly loved.

Middle PC = Main
Right PC (for right handed peeps) = Secondary
Left PC = least used.

You try to set up as good of a hotkey bank as possible... you try and skate by on JUST hotkeys. "Heal Main PC" "Buff Main PC" "Follow Main PC" "Nuke Main PC's Target" are common... and the most used.

If someone wants to talk to someone other than your main... too bad... you are too busy and the keyboard is not at a comfortable location... they are out of luck

Side Note : I saw a dude walking by named OneBox and his buddy TwoBox in EQ2 beta yesterday... he didn't answer if he was really multi-boxing... but I think the answre is obvious enough... it IS possible... but I don't know how possible.. he was the same lvl as me fighting mobs I was soloing.... when I 3-boxed I took on monsters that were way too hard to solo.... so since he wasn't doing that I don't know if he was as effcient as I was in EQ1.