Practice makes perfect - Multiboxing "retrains" the brain.

[Bigfish]

I'd argue multi-boxing, and in fact multi-tasking, while initially difficult, leads to the concept of multiple focuses being a single focus with proper, for lack of a better word, processing resources being used in the execution of a task. People always tell me "I have no idea how you can operate ten computers at once." It's not hard, you just have to approach it as a single system. Its not really any different from driving. You have to pay attention to the cars around you and your surroundings, and your actions and reactions are more or less pre-programmed to behave in the manner that people would call "driving a car".

Of course, there is also a great deal of preparation involved and such things tend to require an intimate knowledge of all the processes involved.

[Ellay]

I can definitely agree and relate with a lot of the responses. Once the same scenario happens enough your able to process the response without "thinking" about it.

[Bigfish]

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

That's what I call "point of focus". When you're attention is focused on one thing, you're fine. When you're trying to pay intricate attention to several things, your concentration falters and you start falling behind. Of course, this only lasts until you can incorporate the several things all in to one point of focus, assuming the task at hand is capable of doing so.

I generally find outputting to several tasks far simpler than absorbing input from several sources.

[Tdog]

Has anybody found that they box better with practice?

Oh of course. I am able to pay attention to alot more things happening to all my toons now then I did when I first started boxing 1 1/2 years ago.

Funny you should say this...I realized the other day that the part of the game I enjoy/spend the most time on is the meta-game -- that is, planning teams, figuring most efficient ways to play them, etc. I think I most enjoy fiddling with my "5Box Wow Planning" spreadsheet. :whistling:

I'm sick, I know.

Not at all. TBH sometims I love sitting there and theorizing up new ideas for macros and placement of them.

Reminds me of those "studies" that say nobody can effectively use dual monitors for more than one thing at a time in a productivity setting. Idiots.

Lawl wut? I use to have 4 monitors and used all 4 of them when studying various things out online over several websites all at once. Much more effiecent than doing it all on one screen.

I would argue that practicing multiboxing makes you better at multiboxing.

You're basically configuring your alts for remote control, not remote operation (meaning, all your toons are at the same place at the same time).

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

That's an interesting thought but tbh I have to disagree in your definition of multitasking.

One set of eyes can only directly focus on one thing peroid, however you can still be aware of other things that you are not directly focusing on and still efficiently perform several tasks at the same speed that you could do one. An example of what I'm talking about...


Say you're cooking some spahgetthi, you don't just cook the noodles, get that all taken care of, then just cook the beef, then just chop the vegtables, then just set the table. You do it all at once.

Get the Pot on the stove and start warming up the water, then start tearing up the ground beef, then add the noodles and oil, then start warming up the beef, then start cutting up your mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, garlic, w/e else you put in your spahgetthi, draining your noodles somewhere inbetween, and then removing the beef somewhere inbetween, mix it all together and you're done.

Now even though you were not DIRECTLY focused on the noodles and beef while you were preparing the sauce and setting the table, you were still aware of them and still prepared each item in the same amount of time as you would have prepared that one item if you just foucsed on one thing at a time. So instead of taking like 45 minutes to make the dish you took like 20 minutes.


In Multiboxing you can still be aware of several different things, espeically in a trinity group, even though you are only directly focused on one thing. Even though you might be hitting a tanking/dps macro, you're still aware that you need to heal this or that toon soon, then this ability is about to come of CD, then you need to reposition the tank here or there, then heal the tank, then the next ability is off CD, then you need a group heal, so on and so forth etc. So yes imho multiboxing requires multitasking.

[Smoooth]

I still can't pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time but somehow I think I'm pretty decent at playing 5+ different character classes at once. Every once in awhile just too much starts to happen at once and I panic and completely stop doing anything useful at all.

[Gadzooks]

The car analogy is a good one, I think - when you first learn to drive, all you can handle is steering the car, it seems overwhelming.

Given time, you gain the instincts and habits to add to your ability list - check the mirrors, check the traffic, check the speed, check your gauges, etc...and later adding things like tuning the radio, talking to passengers, talking on the phone...

But another part of it, what I call the "Spidey Sense", comes into play - it's a combination of habit, intuition, and the other side of the brain processing. It's what tells you it's time to shift (if you drive a stick), if there's a cop around, if an accident's about to happen.

In the game, now that I'm past the basic framework issues of running a team, I'm finding I'm developing a spidey sense for some of my team members. Like, i know isntinctively that it's time for a stun from my rogue, or my pally should use Hammer of Doom (or whatever it's called). It's my brain taking in stimuli from right in front of me, and peripherally, added with experience and intuition. It's pretty cool.

Beyond that, most of us multitask. I'm a trained artist, my thinking tends to be more left brain (creative), so when I shift gears to MBing, which is definitely a right brain task, the left side mulls things over, and I can solve problems while simply running the team through quests and such. I've done this kind of thing since I was a kid, if I'm working on a painting or design or something, and I'm stick, I'll leave it alone and do something right brained - fix something, do manual tasks or chores, play video games - anything that unplugs the creative side of the brain. Give it enough time, my head will solve the problem and I can return to what I'm working on. I do that for the reverse, too - if I'm stuck at something right brain, I'll go do something creative, like draw, sculpt, do some 3d or Photoshop work, or play the guitar, and eventually the solution will pop up.

Our brains are pretty resilient things, and with the proper training and temperment, we can handle vast amounts of data, process it, and do other tasks at the same time. I've found that ADHD people tend to swing to one side of the brain, and they need more stimuli from both sides, or they need to process the data differently than a teacher insists.

For instance, when I was a kid, and I had to keep notebooks for class, and hand them in for review, I always got marked down for doodling in the margins. When listening to lectures, I'd get yelled at for not paying attention, because I was drawing. When I was studying, my father would yell to turn the tv or stereo off, because "you can't pay attention with that crap on!". (He was an engineer, a complete right brain person).

The reality was, I was paying attention 100% - my brain works better at remembering if I'm doing something like drawing while I'm listening. If I don't, then my mind wanders, and starts being creative on it's own, and I don't retain what I'm hearing. Same for studying - I do better with music on. It's almost an aggro-like thing - if music aggros the left side of my head, the right side can get down to serious work.

Who knows. I could be weird, or wrong, but a lot of these studies are crap, because they're trying to prove a thesis, and I tend to think the results are slanted. Our brains are tricky, elusive things, and I tend to think we know less about it than the people who study it would like to admit.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Reminds me of those "studies" that say nobody can effectively use dual monitors for more than one thing at a time in a productivity setting. Idiots.

Lawl wut? I use to have 4 monitors and used all 4 of them when studying various things out online over several websites all at once. Much more effiecent than doing it all on one screen.

Exactly. Having your favorite news site and forum split on one monitor, and doing research and email on the other one/two/n+1 monitors. Some of us CAN keep more than one train of thought going. Which gives the lie to those who justify not giving employees enough monitor landscape because "nobody can multitask that much/good."

[Bovidae]

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

Being a loot whore, I find myself doing this with VOA a lot. While it's not like I'm in VOA and Naxx, I have run multiple concurrent groups of VOA on my shamans. As long as the start times are offset by a few minutes/seconds I can mouse steer on one instance at a time while spamming my rotation.

[not5150]

When you first start flying planes, you learn to stay ahead of the plane.

"Fly the plane, don't let the plane fly you."

When you start, your brain seems like molasses. Carb heat, flaps, lights, seatbelts, radio, look for traffic, are your wheels down, etc etc
But after a while, everything becomes automatic (but you still better damn use the checklist!)

Same thing with multiboxing...

[chaosultimamage]

Personally, I'd say that the only relation to multiboxing and multitasking would be if you did it this way.

One monitor (and no PiP or anything), one keyboard / mouse, and no addon to alert you about slaves. Now, you're still allowed to use Keyclone / your choice of method to get the input from 1 source to multiple clients.

That way, you're actually having to monitor EVERYTHING on your own. No Jamba to warn you that your slave broke follow is dying, etc...Doing it with multiple monitors, PiP, addons, and all that make it more like "teamwork" even though it's one person controlling it. You get assistance from the other toons without your direct attention.

Now, I can safely say that I have definitely gotten better at boxing since I started. I've learned so much more about macros, I've started trying new things, mixing classes, etc...it definitely takes more once you start doing that, adds a whole new level of difficulty to the game. But, I still wouldn't say it's so much "multitasking" the way most of us do it. We've got a lot of help nowadays.