2 Bugs with Keyclone 1.8e on Windows Vista.
Hello all you multiboxxing fanatics,
Will try to explain these as best as I can. Please ask if you need more information. First off, I must say Keyclone is an awesome program. I tried the others listed in these forums, but couldn't get them to work, or they were outdated, etc. None of them worked as well as Keyclone did when it was all set up.
I got Keyclone about a week ago. Installed it, registered and it works like a champion. Except for a few things. My set up is that I have 7 computers. All on a lan at home. I have 7 different accounts of WoW, one for each computer. I set up Keyclone by connecting them all first from the main computer to the clones. That works fine. Most of the time. This is the first problem. Some times, for whatever reason, I cannot get connected to one of my computers. All of my machines are Windows Vista and all of them have Windows Firewall turned off, and Norton Internet Security turned on. All of Nortons installs on all of the computers properly let Keyclone through. (I can tell by looking at Norton's configuration and see that Keyclone is set to Allow for all directions and Tcp/Udp). All of the copies of Keyclone are set to run as Administrator and each time I run them, I get the popup to confirm that I can run it that way. The one computer that cannot get connected, I check the port its listening on (default of 1320) using a Command Prompt with netstat -an | more. It doesn't show it. So in restarting that copy of Keyclone on that Windows Vista machine, it shows it the second time. And it works from then on. I'm not sure why it won't listen the first time. I don't see any indication in the Keyclone v1.8e window that it is not listening. It shows just like the others. All of the clones have the checkbox for white-list. That's the only option different from the base installation. I find that I don't need any of the other options of Keyclone such as the keymap editor, maximizer, round-robin, mouse-map, etc because all I'm using are keys send from the main computer to the clones. I don't use the mouse to the clones and don't feel that it is necessary as I use macros that handle my game play operations through keystrokes. Ok, that's the first problem I have with Keyclone. It just simply won't go into listen on its port the first time. I know that no other applications are using that port because I check with netstat -an and don't see it.
The second problem I have with Keyclone v1.8e is very annoying. I cannot get this bug to happen every time. It seems to just do it when it feels like it. What happens is that after playing for a while, all of a sudden, my heals and buffs only apply to the current caster. They won't apply to any targets. Additionally, when this happens, I cannot pick up anything from my inventory. To fix the problem, I have found that I can alt-tab out of WoW and into Keyclone and toggle the override button on the main screen for it. Now, I do use the Pause key from my main sometimes during game play so that I can reply to messages or say something in a battleground, etc. I've not yet had this happen enough to know if that is what is causing it. I just notice that all of a sudden, my heals and buffs aren't going to their targets. Hence, some of my characters die, etc. I am a maximum player of PvP combat while boxxing and my heals and buffs must work or I need to find a way to fix them. To alt-tab out and toggle the override on all of my 6 clones is not feasible. When this problem happens, it happens to all of my clones. None of their buffs or heals to other players or selecting anything in the inventory works until I toggle the override on each of my clones machines. My main computer doesn't seem to have this problem. Well, not that I've noticed anyway because my main doesn't heal and really doesn't buff, but I've not ever seen the selection of inventory items not work on my main computer. Another piece of information about my configuration is that while the clone machines have Keyclone set for 'do-not-pass' 'white-list', my main machine has only the following keys defined in its 'do-not-pass' list: DOWN, UP, RIGHT, LEFT, TILDE, TAB. I tried placing PAUSE in that list, but that doesn't seem to make any difference as it still sends a PAUSE to the other machines anyway which kind of makes sense because the main should always be able to pause the clones.
Has anyone else with multiple machines using Keyclone run into the problems I've listed here? By the way, all of my clones are Windows Vista 32bit. My main is Windows Vista 64bit. All of my copies of Keyclone are installed into the same folder on all of my machines. D: or E: \download\wow\Keyclone. Not sure if that matters, but all machines only have one copy of Keyclone and one copy of World of Warcraft.
By the way, I've been multiboxxing since 2001 on Everquest. Never used any form of keyboard emulators before, never used any form of extra hardware to send keys from one computer to another. I always boxxed with my hands. Crazy you might say? Well, not really, I learned to juggle at a young age. Also learned to type at a young age. So I'm very fast when it comes to keyboards. :) Keyclone and other keyboard programs that send keystrokes to other computers make life really easy for the multiboxxer. In spending time ready through issues and seeing what others have posted here, I've found that most of you believe that you must use a keyboard sender program to box. At least that's what most of guide documents describe. Keyboard sending programs are optional for the multiboxxer and I can attest to that fact. The keyboard sending programs make life a lot easier for the multiboxxer, but they are not necessary to multibox. If you have separate computers running the same program with different characters, that's multiboxxing. Some documentation I've read on here describe multi-instancing, where you have separate running copies of the same software. That's an accurate description, but the ones that describe multiboxxing that say in order to do it, you must have a keyboard sending program is false.
The other thing I've noticed on some of the guides is that they describe setting up multiple copies of World of Warcraft into separate directories and have all kinds of elaborate copy macros etc for their configuration. I've found that even if I multi-instance WoW on the same computer, I don't need any other copies. All of the different account settings and configuration for each account are stored under separate directories anyway. So why is a complete 2nd, 3rd, 4th or more instatallation of WoW necessary on the same computer? If the macros, etc are already stored in separate directories for each account/character, another copy of WoW isn't necessary, unless I'm missing something. If a different set of AddOns is needed for each account, maybe that would mean a different installation path for WoW, but other than that, I don't see why. I only use 2 Addons. The most simple and basic ones out there, ClassIcons and CT_MapMod. I've found those are the only AddOns I require. ClassIcons is a MUST have for any PvPer. It's absolutely the BEST because it's very light on memory and seeing the class of the character you have targetted for PvP instantly. CT_MapMod I use for coordinates, mostly for Pve play.
