Understanding how control works on multiple accounts.

[dancook]

Hi,

I'm not new to multi-boxing, I've had 2/3 accounts for a while. I usually have a high level priest carebear new characters, or use the priest in conjunction with a warrior/rogue/mage.

I control the secondary pc through speech recognition for healing, which works well enough - I used to use a nostromo gamepad too.

I read the thread about up to 5 instances of wow on one pc, but wasn't sure how controls worked.

Do you use software to control them all simultaneously? or do you control them individually.

If it is simultaneous, then how do you control a 'tank' seperate to 'casters', do you use a seperate set of keys bindings which don't do anything on the casters? what about movement, and chatting?

[-silencer-]

I use 5 instances on one computer, and I use both manual mouse control and software control for key broadcasting.

Basically, I have 1 character as a main, and 4 alts on my other monitor. If I need to interact with, or directly control, one alt, I'll use the mouse on that alt's window. Most of the time I'm just using mutliple WoW macros to control what the alts are doing. For my setup, I'm just using 5 WoW directories/instances, WoW Maximizer in each WoW folder, and AutoHotKey to broadcast keystrokes. Nothing is automated, so Bliz ToS is happy.

This is much more simplified than my current setup, but it's similar with my paladin/shamen:
'1' key is blank on the paladin, and for all shaman is set to "/follow Party1, /target Party1, /target targettarget"
'2' key is /startattack on the paladin, and left empty on the shaman action bars.
'3' key is consecrate on the paladin, and left empty on the shaman action bars.
'4' key is blank on the paladin, and for all shaman is set to cast lightning bolt.
When I press 1, all 4 shaman follow & target the paladin's target.
When I press 2, the paladin begins the attack on the enemy.
When I press 3, the paladin casts consecrate.
When I press 4, all 4 shaman cast lightning bolt.

I just use AutoHotKey to send each key '1', '2', '3', etc. to all 5 instances of WoW with 1 keypress.. that's key broadcasting.

[dancook]

I just use AutoHotKey to send each key '1', '2', '3', etc. to all 5 instances of WoW with 1 keypress.. that's key broadcasting.
I see so you don't have all the keys replicated across, just some select ones?

Yes that's made things a lot clearer, thanks. I thought everything would have to be duplicated.

[Dezeral]

There is a lot of information here on the forums that can answer most of your questions. The sticky threads listed at the top of each section are a good place to start.

Here is a quick answer. To control multiple instances of a game on a single computer requires software. To control multiple instances of a game on different computers can be done with either hardware or software.

Keyclone is very popular for either scenario. How it works is it broadcasts key strokes to either multiple instances of a game on a single computer or to other computers. I use a single computer right now, but in the passed, I multiboxed with up to 4 computers using hardware only. Not having to move my hands from one keyboard/mouse to another keyboard/mouse has been great. It does require a lot of thought about how to lay out your keys/spells/macros though.

For instance, I use a paladin/4 shaman setup. My paladin obviously has different skills from the shaman and I also want do do things at different times. I have laid out my spells and macros so that when I press 3, 5, ctrl+3, ctrl+5 and so on that my paladin uses certain skills. I have all shaman cast lighting bolt when I press 2. This means that I do not have anything in the paladins hotbar in the 2 slot. I also have the shaman earth shock in a round robin rotation when I press 4. This prevents me from using up all the shaman's shock cooldowns simultaneously.

As to movement, I have all the shamans follow the paladin most of the time with a follow macro. I have unmapped all of the movement keys from the shaman except the cursor keys and my "formation" key. This works well most of the time, but I need to rethink how I'm moving them for situations where the paladin is dead or whatever.

This is just a starter, and the way I do things and is in not in any way the "best" way. My way is probably fairly crude in comparison to some of the other boxers. There are probably as many different methods as there are people, so you just have to find what works for you.

So in general, poke around the forums and read the beginners stickies for more information.

[dancook]

Thanks, yes I've read a lot of the stickies and found lots of useful information.

I think unbinding the movement keys and chat keys etc on the slaves must be the way it's done then - that's one thing i was unsure about :) thanks

[Notes]

I like to add, and this goes for everyone new: Just start. Read up a fair bit and just start as soon as you can with trials accounts. After 1 hour of playing around with macro's I already had already add loads of macro's of my own that I found via google or just figured them out myself.

I say this because you learn the most when doing it and makes it alot easier to understand everything. Just pay the 10 dollar for keyclone or use a free program and start making fun. Beware though, it's addicting! :thumbsup: