Things I like about Octopus and why it's my choice to use for Multi-boxxing
1. Instances run on the same computer automatically are found. In other words, you don't have to click on the window. You can have 2 games automatically be found when the games are run. I play both Guild Wars and World of Warcraft (not at the same time :) ) so I can put in the Window Title 'Guild Wars and in the process name 'wow' and Octopus works with both of those games. I don't have to change the name of the window or process each time I switch to one of the other games to play.
2. There is no cost for Octopus. This also means there is no registration server to connect to validate you paid for your license. You can donate if you'd like to the person that wrote it, but it works just fine as it is.
3. Source code for Octopus is also distributed which means if you are so inclined, you can look through the code.
4. Mouse and Keyboard works for games and you can use a separate pause key for each of those. You can pause the mouse entirely at any time or you can pause the keyboard. Great for getting non-sharable quests at the same time. You can also pause only the mouse click instead of the mouse cursor if you'd like.
5. The primary machine (server in Octopus terms) has a remote function that allows you to shut down all of your client machines in one press. Great for end of day after you're done playing and going to shut down your machines, you can hit that function and all of your machines shut down.
6. Octopus works great, it can be set to run in the windows vista scheduler when windows comes up as administrator automatically and be placed into the system tray. So you don't have to click on the program when Windows Vista is started. For XP, it's easier to configure as the icon just needs to be placed into the Startup folder.
7. Octopus supports both upper and lower case letters for typing. It recognizes the when the shift key is pressed and all of the clones (clients) will display the same letters. That goes for ALT and CTRL as well. I really like this feature because it allows me to have all of my characters in Guild Wars dance at the same time with the correct sync from the main computer. In other words, /dance * will work fine when typed from the main computer to the clients.
One of the things that maybe annoying to some is that when the Pause key is pressed, there is no indication on the game screen that this has occurred. However, for me personally, I'd rather have it this way than have a window pop up that some times bugs out because of the video resolution.
For those of you that have not tried Octopus, you really dont know what you're missing. I've tried the other programs listed in the software listing on these forums and they have not worked as well as Octopus has for me. I use mutliple computers on a Lan at home connected to a router to my cable modem. Octopus is a champion for me.
If you're going to try Octopus and you're using Windows Vista, it will only work when run as Administrator. That means the icon will either need to be set to run that way, or it is right clicked and run that way or it is configured in the Windows Vista Scheduler to run as Administrator automatically which is the way I have mine set up.
By the way, I box 9 characters at the same time. All of them are on different computers. So by using Octopus, I don't have to register each machine, I just download the pre-requisites (.net framework 3.5 and the Visual C++ runtime) and they all work. 2 of my machines are running Windows XP and the other 7 are Windows Vista. When I boxxed on Everquest, I had not used any keyboard replication software. In fact, when I boxxed in Diablo 1 back in 1997, I don't think any keyboard replication software existed :)
