luxlunae

This is another repost from my short-lived "Multibucks" multiboxing for gold blog from 2012. I'm reposting anything semi-useful before I pull that site down. Some of the information still applies, some does not.

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Measure twice, cut once! In multiboxing, as in so many things in life, you can make your experience much more enjoyable with a little bit of planning. These are the things you should consider before you start. Before you send a single recruit email or start looking for software, you have a few things to think about.


1) How many accounts do I need to do what I want to do?


We talked about some of the ways that multiboxing can help you make gold in my previous post. Many of these methods require a full group of four or five accounts. Some do not. Examples: If you want a lot of alts, RAF works just as well with two or three accounts as with five. Two accounts lets you take advantage of many of the perks of multiboxing, such as listing auctions for one profession while you craft on another, easy cross faction selling using the remote AH, or just getting that druid you always wanted to max level quickly. With two accounts you will NOT be able to dungeon level alone, sell mounts/runs through old raids, level your bank guild (you need three for a guild run, remember?), or keep a monopoly over all of the crafting mats and transmog gear you would see in levelling dungeons.


2) What software do I want to use?


The only two methods I’ve ever used myself are auto hot key (back when I two boxed) and IsBoxer. Isboxer is definitely better. There is a more in depth discussion of this topic <here> but most of the multiboxers I know use Isboxer. At its most expensive it costs you $5 a month (a drop in the bucket compared to what you’re going to spend on five upgraded accounts and sub fees every month). If you like there is a 7 day free trial (feel free to use “scantron” as your referrer!) that you can try first. IsBoxer is about as plug and play as multiboxing will ever be, with by far the greatest room for customization and flexibility.


3) How am I going to link my RAF accounts?


Not an issue if you are just adding one new account, but if you do more than that you want to really think about how you set things up. Generally it is best to chain them so that A refers B, B refers C and so on. With five accounts that’s
A > B > C > D > E.
What you do NOT want to do is four referrals off your main account. Doing that would cause two distinct problems. One, you can’t boost yourself with high level toon on account A (because two toons must be with their linked toon of the same level to get the bonus XP), and Two, you’ll run out of slots on your main account before you can use up all of the free RAF levels you earn. If you set up the daisy chain of referrals, you’ll get approximately the same number of free levels on four of your accounts. One other arrangement to consider is what I had to do because I created my second account before RAF existed.
A>C>E
B>D


The nice thing about my arrangement (although it led to too many levels for account A) was that this system of summons allowed me to have two different hearths set, one on character C/B and one on character D/E. If you have guild summon that is probably irrelevent to you because you can do the same thing, which brings me to your final consideration.


4) Am I going to start/level my own guild or join someone elses. You want to consider this now because if you opt to start your own guild later, you’ll regret all the dungeon groups and dungeon completes that you’ve left behind.


I’ve done groups both ways. For the most part people are thrilled to have a single multiboxing team helping to level the guild and the perks of being in a high level guild are pretty fantastic. Once you ask for your second and third full team to get invites, though, people are less excited and you start to run the risk that when you take your next three month break you’ll be coming back to no guilds on any of your toons. It is also nice to have a “real” guild for social reasons, multiboxing is by nature a more lonely way to play than grouping with other people.


Having your own guild has other perks. It gives you an overall goal to work at (levelling the guild) that makes your 15th run of Grim Batol a little more bearable. It’s easy to hit the 7 instance a week goal, especially with low level teams. Once you start to get to a higher level, the extra gold for repairs and things is nice. Everything you put in your guild bank is yours and it makes it easier to coordinate the dispersal of potions /gems/ gear/levelling materials/glyphs/EVERYTHING across all of the teams. Coordination of the movement of the sheer quantity of stuff that comes from multiboxing is an art in and of itself.


Having thought about these things, you are finally ready to start multiboxing!