Setting up 5 WoW's on 1 PC

[Notes]

Heya,
I, and with me all new people, did alot of reading about dual and multie boxing and I only came to one conclusion: 'I love the sound of it so I'm gonna do it myself too!'

Please note that the method I'm using involves buying some software for 10 dollar... Totaly worth it. You can also do it for free if you can code but I CBA..

If you don't want to buy more pc's and expensive hardware, do it the easy way and follow some easy steps I found very reliable / easy to set up a good working 5 man party controlled by 1 person.

First of all, make 5 copies of you World of Warcraft folder. Entirely.
After doing so you should have 6 wow folders.
I named the original folder to WoWSOLO, and renamed the other folders to all the accounts I have(atm trials). Now just make links on your desktop for instance to each wow.exe in every folder and rename the link to the account name of the folder it is linking to. This way you get each WoW to remember its own account name after you tagged Remember Account Name. Saves time, and is far from confusing, unlike starting the same wow and then typing all the names +pw's.

Then, set up macro's for each class and put them under a hot key. For instance, '2' could be for the mages to cast a fireball.
Make sure that hot keys you set in WoW for a specific class, arn't used on any other class you are running.
I stole this macro from this forum, "/cast [target=party1target,exists,harm,nodead] fireball", wich works very easy.

Now, just download KeyClone from http://solidice.com/keyclone/, open your WoWs and the click add in this program after clicking on each WoW.

If you macro'd every thing allright and clear, you should now be able to start. To keep the game running fast and smooth, just set the chars that you don't control directly to a resolution of 800x600 with the sound turned of and minimize the screens. My main window runs like it's the only wow running on 1680x1050 after doing this.

The macro's I used:
Made 1 macro named invite on my warrior, with all the players names in it with /invite in front of it. On the 'box' chars I added a macro like this:
/script AcceptGroup{}
/script AcceptQuest{}
/script AcceptTrade{}
After I put this macro under button number 7 of my keypad, I could just use the invite macro made on the warrior, and then press 7 to get all my chars joined at the same time. Saves time :wink:

For my Pally I made 5 macros, 1 to target the warrior under the 'h' button, and F5 till F8 for instant healing on the party members. Just remember who is under wich button.. Not that hard with 4 people in a party imo...
And, ofc, make sure to disbind the H button on all the other chars, since it would open the Honor screen by default.

Hope this helps people who would like to try to run a 5 man party!
Enjoy and I will add more later on, but atm my chars are just lvl 5 so didn't run into any problems yet :)

[Mannyman]

Thx for sharing that info. What is your party composition by the way?

I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate more on your keybindings/macro setup. This sounds pretty neat, but I'm thinking if you're setting hotkeys or macro keys for one class, and those keys couldn't be used for the other classes as you state in your setup, you'd run out of keys fast once your classes gained most of their abilities. Especially since Keyclone doesn't support modifier keys, although the author may be working on that.

Also, do Keyclone'd toons all just auto follow and assist the main, or is there another method involved? For example, if you run multiple mages, how would you get the mages to sheep different targets, etc.

[Notes]

Not tested myself but I think the creator of KeyClone said shift and alt would work on the same pc, just not to another pc.

And yeah, you'll run out of keys soon enough ... My set up is just to see if I like it and if it's workable on one pc.. Although I think you can manage to do an instance this way of you take the right classes with a high burst dmg output...

I'm currently playing with a warrior, this is the char I 'play'. While tanking, 3 mages take care of the really sick dps and a pally heals them all.

Can't say any thing about the macro's really, since they are so simple :wink: Most look like this:
/target Wnote
/cast flash heal
or something like that ... I'm tanking a mob with the warrior and just press 2 so that my mages start casting the fireball, and hit H now and then to heal the warrior ..

My explaining skills suck a bit but this is all there is to it ... I basicly just smash the buttons and by remembering what's what, I kill too!

Edit: Shift and cntrl do work with KeyClone, tested it just now.. :D

[keyclone]

For example, if you run multiple mages, how would get the mages to sheep different targets, etc.

you can add your 'sheep' key to the 'round robin' set. 'round robin' basically means one window at a time will actually use the keys, the others will ignore it when its not their turn (very useful in Shadowbane for debuffs that do not stack.. hated wasting 9 blinds on a single target)

as for hotkeys running out... well, i'm adding keymaps now (and already have some thoughts on the next gen of keymap). you'll be able to load a different keymap on each window if you wish. this will enable key(a) on window.1 will turn into key(b) on window.2. i also have ignores built in, so in case you want to pass around the key for most of your group, but one needs to ignore it... no problem.

i'm thinking the next gen of keymap will allow you to map a key to a channel.key, at which point your incoming map will be able to map it or ignore it. so... machine1.map(a) turns into key(mage.a) ... machine2 receives and ignores... but machine3 will map(mage.a) to key(a) ...

i'm hoping this will dramatically expand the key possibilities

[Notes]

If you can do that, there would be no need any more to unbind keys for other classes in my set up! 8)

Hope you can add it soon, thnx :D

[Otlecs]

.

As I understand it, the shift/ctrl/alt modifiers are only an issue across machines - they work fine for multiple instances within a single host.

how would get the mages to sheep different targets, etc.
The same way as you would with mutliple machines I guess - it's no different :)

I'm using different machines at the moment, but the same principle applies:

- Map a different "set focus" key for each mage. Or, as I prefer, triggger a "/focus <MainName-target>" macro so I don't have to broadcast an assist just for sheep assignments.

- When assigning sheep, hit the instance-specific focus key. I have mine randomly mapped to J, ALT-J, CTRL-J and SHIFT-J for my team, accessed via the programmable keys on my G-15 keyboard to make it feel a bit more intiuitive.

- Set up a "sheep focus" macro on each machine. Personally, I use the same key for this on all mages and when there are fewer than 4 sheeps (sic) I just assign them all the same target.

This lets you have a DPS target that you're casting on, and whenever a sheep breaks you just hit the "resheep everything" button, which is about all the brain-power I can muster under pressure! When the DPS target changes, just reassign or clear (/clearfocus) the associated mage's sheep target.

To assign the kill target, I have a key (randomly, KP3) which sticks a skull over my current target's head and triggers a '/assist MainName-target' macro on the slave instances of WoW.

As an aside, the up-side of using the <MainName-target> format over a party-specific one is that it always works, no matter what party I'm in, including within BGs. It also supports me running multiple teams, using character-specific macros.

This works like a dream EXCEPT on the (sadly fairly frequent) occassion when the assist or focus macro gets missed by one of the slaves. It's easy enough to check targets (I use X-Perl, which shows my party's targets) but it tough to verify a slave focus target without being able to see the slave WoW itself.

The problem with executing a perfectly controlled CC pull only to realise that one of your mages is happily blasting away at a sheep target is that there's nobody else to shout at ;)

Interesting stuff though. I'm becoming very interested in running mutliple WoWs on a single machine, and will watch keyclone developments very carefully.

[Mannyman]

The next gen keymap ideas you presented are excellent. Sounds like a winner:)

[keyclone]

i got the original keymap idea working on sunday. basically 1->2 .. not too exciting, but works. then i thought about the next gen where 1 -> mage.firebolt and that just works better.

so... instead of releasing an update with the simple 1 -> 2 mapping, i'm going to implement the better approach. unfortunately, i have to go to work today... so it'll have to wait until tonight.

sorry about the delay, but i think it'll be far less confusing once its done.

[Xzin]

Just use a UI mod called Acceptance. You can add your guys to each others friends list and it will automatically accept invites.

I even have the macro pause for a moment and then set FFA looting /ffa and even assign raid icons and main tanks.

[Los]

wondering guys, this macro:

/script AcceptGroup{}
/script AcceptQuest{}
/script AcceptTrade{}

keeps the accept decline window open all the time on my second box, is there a way around this?

edit: ow and going for a copy of keyclone! If you can get my account running? :P (warlocks inc!)

[Shogun]

When running more than 1 WoW on a single PC, do you run then all in windowed mode to facilitate swapping between them? I find that even with just 1 WoW running my framerate drops when it's windowed. Do you run the "main one" maximised or windowed also?

[Los]

turned 4 wows open on 1 pc today, all on lowest ress and lowest quality i could set up, turned sound off, if i had all 4 open i still got a 40 fps up. Couldnt test with the tool but it seems very hopefull.

(pcs is a amd 64 3400+ with 2 gb ram and geforce 6600gt)

[Shogun]

Yeah once I got them all to 800x600 and turned sound of it was no problem, just made one of them full screen, then linked it to the main one on the other PC (3 on one PC, 1 on the other)

Now i'm just waiting to get my 5th account sorted so I can play properly :)

[Xzin]

40 fps idle means like 5 when you get in the middle of 50 people in AV :)