So... hardware multiboxing?
Yesterday's "multiboxing ban" (https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...sting-software) specifically prohibits "input broadcasting software". I'm assuming that effectively bans all the mutliboxing software that we generally use, e.g ISBoxer, HKN/AHK, Keyclone, etc.
In today's policy update (https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/24258), Blizzard did clarify that multiboxing (owning and playing multiple accounts at the same time) is still OK - just that you can't use "input broadcasting software". Why they specifically prohibit "software" instead of more generic ban on "input broadcasting tools", "utilities" or some other wording I don't now. But that does seem to leave a gap open for hardware multiboxing.
There's a whole other discussion to be had about whether a hardware solution would still be violating the intent of what Blizzard did, or whether anyone (including Blizzard) would even be able to tell the difference. Maybe they'd just ban you anyway - seems like that's already happening based on nothing more than mass reporting.
This thread isn't to say that a hardware solution is OK by Blizzard, but I do think its an idea worth exploring. What the options, what are the pro's and con's? I'm scared to even fire up any of the software utilities even if I turn off broadcasting entirely, but that's also a discussion for some another thread.
Generally speaking, hardware is a more expensive solution - and the performance likely isn't as good as the purpose built software we're all used to dealing with. But please share any tips/tricks or test results that may be useful.
Synchronous Output (hardware broadcasting)
Synchronous Output (hardware broadcasting):
Short version is the broadcast feature works pretty well and is as simple as you'd expect. There's a button on the KM Synchronizer that when pressed lights up all the output ports and sends both your mouse and keyboard commands to every other PC at the same time. There's a keyboard shortcut to turn broadcasting on and off as well, but its not really convenient and I don't any way to change that key mapping from the default (double click scroll lock, then press 0).
Once in synchronous mode I was sending every keystroke to both PC's at the same time. I could not notice any lag or delay between them. The mouse movement and clicks were also synchronized. I tested with 4 monitors - 2 on each PC - different sizes, aspect ratios and different orientation (landscape and portrait). The mouse broadcasting worked surprisingly well I thought. When mouse tracking did get off between different PC's & monitors I could easily just mouse into some corner of the screen to get both cursors back to the exact same spot.
To turn off broadcasting you just one of the methods described above to switch outputs to a different client (e.g. Ctrl + left arrow). There is no option to partially enable/disable synchronous mode (multicast to some ports, but not others) - its either all broadcasting or in single-casting mode where you select which client to output to.
My only real complaint with the broadcast feature is that I'd really want to change that keybinding to something else - something I could turn off and on quickly and easily.
I haven't tried this device with WoW at all yet, and I probably won't get to that this weekend (I have a ton of real world work to do). As much as it really is a hardware broadcaster and not software like Blizzard just banned, I do think the jury is still out on whether this sort of solution will be OK, or if this violates the "spirit of the law" such that they'll ban users for this also. But the device does what it says it does.
I have not received any sorts of warnings on my account. I do plan to just do some basic multiboxing over the next few days without this device (or any software), just to do my regular crafting. If all that is going OK, I may try running a few dungeons with this device later, but I still need to get 5 PC's and a different monitor solution set up.
But for $35 I think its worth experimenting with. Any other questions I can answer or things I need to test?
