Well yesterday I quad boxed for the first time...

First the setup.



Two computers, Ubuntu, keyclone, synergy on both and running two instances of
Warcraft.



Started with 3 mages running around Goldshire generally dieing a lot and making
a right hash of things, got them up to level 5 or so and decided to level a
healer. Levelled a priest to 10 in half the time it took the mages to get
to 5 and got them together for some quad boxing fun.



Things I learnt:

• Oh dear god it's
  hard... Trying to communicate to people and convince them I'm not a
  bot usually results in the slaves running around, spamming nonsense and
  generally making people believe I am a bot.
• 99% of people think I'm a
  bot.
• "You're facing the
  wrong way" gets old, very quickly.
• Keyclone will disconnect
  and/or crash when either someone’s watching or I've pulled everything.
• Collection quests are
  rubbish (I knew this already but multi boxing confirms it). eg. Collect 15
  red things that have a drop rate of 1 in 4 (quite a good drop rate in
  regards to the last quest I did), this means I need to kill in the margin
  of 250 mobs if not more. Wouldn't be so bad but because your in a
  group money/xp is split so your not gaining as much.
• People who moan about
  multiboxing really really really really don’t get it.

Generally though it's been quite fun, I don't like the
attention that much but I suppose you've got to live with it. Everyone
I've met has stopped and watched, either running on confused after a short time
or accused me of power levelling (yeah because it's so easy!), botting and then
the rest. The best was a level 70 who
followed me for a bit and said nothing but, “OK… this is new…”



I'm not really looking forward to getting my tank involved and quint
boxing. That’s going to be a challenge, there's only so many keys on the
keyboard and I've only got so many fingers!
Also I don’t think the hardware will take it. The older box freezes and stutters when entering Stormwind and
everything stutters to a halt.

Anyway, just my 2p worth to the dual boxing community. ;)

The start is always slow, hard, and painful, specially with all the extra attention you're getting.

You'll get used to it, and improve, no doubt :)

Yeah setting up the macros is the hard part I guess. It's not the actual writing of them thats hard its the what do I need them to do?

The only option is to completely ignore other people if you have to be in Goldshire. Do yourself a favour and start in the Dwarf area or the Draenei area. For even less pain: roll horde ;)
The begining is rather slow, collection quests suck and just killing stuff is slow too because you are grouped. You have to stand through those first levels and see that you can do your first instance. It gets better after that.

Had my first try at a instance this weekend. Was real fun! Can't wait to get back inn there, so hold out, it gets good!

Had a lvl 70 "film" me to prove to blizard I was a bot to. After I said I was multiboxing I didn't bother to replay to him. Had a good laught tho... ^^

1-15/20 is the hardest part imo.

Once I get to barrens and XR, my guys start ripping through content.

edit : also IMO, skip any collection quests that aren't part of a chain of quests that have a good amount of fast quests you can knock it, otherwise its not worth the effort and just skip them imo.

Just do a few instance runs and will more than make up the quests you skip.

if its part of a good chain though, I do them.

Yeah just getting my head around macros at the moment, cant wait to get to the instances :)

I got a few "Multiboxing Headaches" last week, but I finished RFC. This week I cleared WC, DM and I started on SFK. I am starting to feel like I'm getting a head of steam. I can't WAIT until SM. Honestly, levels 35-40 are always the hump levels for me. Once I get to Tanaris it's all over :/

Getting your macros under control is a huge hurdle to cross...once you are comfortable with the actual mechanics and you get a feel for what your team can handle then you are good to go.

Its very easy to waste a tremendous amount of time on tradeskills. Right now I'm focusing on just having skinning/herbing/mining in the group for raw materials, plus 1 leatherworker, 1 alchemist, and 1 tailor so that I'm ready for any bop recipe drops that might come. Otherwise I will level tradeskills when I get to 70 if I still care.

I've got skinning on my main and I intend to get enchanting on another just to disenchant items that I can't use.

Ive got all 5 on the go at the moment, running round Westfall trying to get the knack of it.

I reckon I need another pair of hands, not sure if I'm doing it at all right.

I've got the numlock 1-5 for my mages spells and ctrl 1-5 for healing the party members and then normal numbers for my mains abilities. With macros for targeting and following.

Keep kickin butt... it just gets better and better:) i been tearing up Blood Furnace all day... just running upto the maker.. like 8%xp per 20 min run.. could be worse:) I did smoke a 70 shadow priest that jumped me.. she was suprised i think:)

my point is... keep goin and you will love it:)