EDIT: THiIS IS THE ORIGINAL POST IN THE THREAD. IT IS SCREWY BECAUSE THE TIME ON THE SERVER WAS RESET (We were originally "ahead" of time when this was posted)


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=3
Perhaps (because I started off on such a wrong foot) I can explain why I am concerned about where the line in the sand is drawn with mouse multiplexing and click replication.

Note: Most multiboxers right now only really use keyboard broadcasting due to the complexities of mouse broadcasting. So if people are confused about multiboxing that might help clear things up -- most of us don't even have to run into this problem.

1) We already know that broadcasting raw mouse signals to multiple computers is OK -- no automation is made and it's just a standard hardware mouse sending signals for all PCs rather than just one PC. The simplest way to envision this is to sync one wireless mouse to 2 or more wireless receivers. So this would be our base scenario, of which software multiboxing attempts to emulate.

2) And they have -- there are several different versions of mouse multiplexers -- not all of them marketed towards multiboxing. In short, all they do is transmit raw mouse signals through your home network (rather than through the air, in the case of a wireless mouse) to multiple PCs on your network. This is pretty much accepted to be acceptable, since no additional functionality exists outside of what standard hardware can do.

3) Click replication is a trickier subject, since we are now moving outside of what standard hardware is capable of. If you think of a mouse as having 3 axis -- X and Y being moving up/down/left/right on your screen, and Z being a mouse keydown and keyup event, then replicating clicks on specific x,y coordinates would be ignoring and/or (I rather hate to use this word) automating the user input on the x,y axis. Still, as an opinion I see this as harmless enough, until you look at the repercussions this sort of precedent could make...

4) If click replication were OK, then software multiboxers with differing resolutions on their various client screens would also want a solution designed for them. Let's take an example and say that one screen is 1000 x 1000 (numbers simplified) and one screen is 500 x 500. When you click on the X,Y coordinate on the larger screen (at 500, 500) then is it acceptable for a program to do the math (i.e. make a logic-based decision) and click on (500 / 2), (500 / 2) = 250, 250?

5) Finally, what about if a person decides that they want to screw around with their UI? Let's say they put "Lightning Bolt" on the standard blizzard UI button #1. But on their alt's screen, they put it on the standard blizzard UI button #5. Is it OK for them, when sending a mouseclick event on the X1,Y1 location of the first screen's "button #1" to send a mouseclick event on the X2, Y2 location of the second screens "button #5"? Those are two seperate and totally unrelated X,Y coordinates that aren't based on simple math like example 4 -- that only tries to determine X,Y locations relative to resolution.

6) If you can make these sort of decisions, what's to stop you from also making decisions about where to click when you're casting a targeted AoE spell? We've already seen that functionality taken away in the accidental bug with Minimap:PingLocation(). From the precedent set in Minimap:PingLocation() you could assume that meant that Blizzard does not wish that you be able to control the location of AoE from the screen of just one client.
For explanation: http://dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.ph...o:Minimap_Ping
Minimap Ping was used before patch 2.4.2 to allow the use of AoE spells while multiboxing. AoE spells were targetted by clicking on the minimap on 1 client so that the other clients would use this location to cast the AoE spell to. However, this isn't possible anymore in the current WoW client.
And as per WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_2.4.2_%...ted_changes%29
Minimap:PingLocation(0,0) is now a restricted function to the Blizzard UI only if you are currently targeting area of effect spell.


You see why I'm concerned?

It's not a "simple keypress". If the precedent that the location of the cursor on an X,Y axis can be moved without specific and constant user intervention is made, then it logically follows that both example 4 and 5 (and possibly even 6) would also be OK.

If this would happen, hardware users would clearly be at a marked disadvantage compared to software multiboxers -- when currently we generally even out as neither of us can do something the other cannot.

When I (as a hardware boxer) choose to use my mouse, I first must have all of my screens the same resolution (and my mice the exact same scroll speed) and "re-sync" my mouse's location by dragging it to a corner of the screen until all mice line up. Then, I must (very carefully) move the mouse to the center of the screen, and I will undoubtedly find that one or more screen (via various communication errors) is slightly out-of-sync from the others. There is no way for me to quickly, nor reliably, click on an exact or even near-exact location on my screen.

For reference, I used to click on chat dialogs on all screens at once (for example, to start the bombing of the Dead Scar quest rather than typing /script SelectGossipOption(1)). Often times I would find myself frustrated when a screen (or two) got out-of-sync and I accidentally misclicked on the wrong dialog and ended up flying over the blood elf ships to burn the sails instead.

Regardless of the hardware lag, there's still no way a hardware boxer can send an exact (or even close) mouseclick on a loction without first actually MOVING the mouse (on the x,y axis) to that location on all of their screens,
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=3

I'm asking the community for a (courteous) discussion about whether or not they feel that Click broadcasting (sending a mouseclick even to a specific x,y coordinate) is OK or isn't. Keep in mind that in the end, it's always Blizzard's decision, but this is some food for thought.

Feel free to discuss in this thread or the official one, though try not to spam/obfuscate the official thread before we get a blue to look at it. >.< I already had enough problems with clarity in that thread.