Just wanted to say "Hi" and "Thanks!"

Like most of you, I have been playing MMORPGs for years.

Started with EQ. Got sick of long LFG ending up in horrible PUG's. So I started to multi-box. I ran 6 accounts to form one mixed class group (Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter, Wizard, Druid, Shaman). I had no idea that key broadcasting existed (if indeed it even did exist in the early days of EQ) so I just did the old 6-accounts-on-two-PCs with some good old-fashioned ALT-TAB madness.

Then I moved to DAoC and tri-boxed. Man, I haven't played that game in years but I still love it. Best PvP rationale ever. Loads of fun.

I then caved in and tried WoW. I swore off my multi-boxing ways, and refused to even make alts. Devoted all my time to a hard-chargin' dorf hunter. After a couple years, I sorta, kinda left Wal-Mart with another copy of WoW+BC. I don't know how it happened, but the game got installed on my hard drive, and I must have somehow managed to "accidentally" create a dorf priest companion to my "sole" character, the dorf hunter. I have no idea how it happened. Yet somehow, this "alt" also got leveled to 70.

I was still doing the old "ALT-TAB" method. After BG gearing up the priest, I tried to create an arena 2v2 with them. Talk about speedbumps. I just ended up sitting the priest in the start area, running the buffed up hunter out to meet his doom. (Although I have no idea how it could happen, this lone buffed dorf hunter did manage to win a handful of matches, and I never even touched the priest -- not even for a heal... *shrug*). Lost most matches, and started to wonder if there was an easier way.

Discovered mentions of Keyclone. I run on one of those new iMacs now, so further research lead me to Clonekeys and soon this website.

Now I am right back where I started, 5-boxing "yet another MMORPG."

I blame you all. Seriously.

But I am having a great time!

Rolled up a cute little blood elf paladin "Qomana" (prot) and 4 tauren shamen "Chirelath/Chireleth/Chirelith/Chireloth" (all ele) on Drenden. I have no other toons there, and know no one, because I wanted to truly start from scratch. We just cleared SM and hit 40/39/39/39/39 (dang, one more level to chain heal). I formed a solo-guild, named "Beauty and Da Beasts." (get it? cute BE Pally and 4 lumbering Tauren? heh, at least I amuse myself). Well, it isn't completely solo -- we have one hanger on from the Durotar Bribe-The-Newbies-2G-To-Sign-My-Charter Tour 2008! But he's a tauren too, so I let him stay.

I get all the usual gawkers, and put on some good light shows and formation movements for them. Then I hear the usual:
-- Wow! How do you do that? (x23)
-- Are you a GM? (x12)
-- Hacker! / Cheater! / Botter! (x4096)
-- Lawlzzers... a 5 boxxer... yer gearzez r failz (x1 -- I really was hurt by this one, of course, since it was coming from a 70 paladin in S2. I don't know who he is, but I am sure he *should* be my role model and all. I was lvl 29 at the time, and didn't know I should be wearing all epic gear by then, instead of the quest rewards on my *very fast* trek to 70. My therapist says it is ok though, as long as I take the blue pills... heh)

But I have quite a few people that struck up intelligent, friendly conversations. Some of which added little old me to their friends list. All of which I directed to this site for further info.

Anyway, that is my game life. In real life I am a former Army officer, who left active duty to attend grad school. Now I am a software engineer (mainframe assembler language, etc) for a global IT company that you all know, but shall remain nameless, since I'm not supposed to mention its three-letter name in private posts.

So, long story short, thanks for all your devotion to this hobby, and I just wanted to say hello!

--Qomana/Chirelath/Chireleth/Chirelith/Chireloth

Nice first post, welcome to the forums!

Welcome to the forum!

I keep telling myself that this multibox thing is just temporary, just until I get a good roster of characters. I hope I can quit someday, but your post makes me wonder if that will ever happen. 8)

Well, I am usually very anti-alt. When people complain about how poor they are in game, I usually point out how their gold is spread between too many timesink/moneysink characters. If you focus on one character, eventually there isn't really all that much to buy (after maxing tradeskills and getting epic flyer), so you end up quite rich.

But being only human, sometimes I give in to curiosity and create an alt. However, I always end up conducting some sort of sick Stalin-like purge of the roster, deleting them left and right to have a clean roster of only one "main" character. My friends usually cringe when I do this, as some end up rather high level before they go *poof*.

You would think someone so anti-alt would never multibox.

I attempt to justify this behavior by considering that I do not have a stable of alts... I have 5 new "mains." This justification is supported because there is only one character per account roster, right?

(Of course, this justification is also contradicted because all 5 tend to be dirt poor throughout the leveling process, just like my alt-aholic friends.)

Qomana/Chirelath/Chireleth/Chirelith/Chireloth
Drenden-Horde, Paladin+Shaman x4