Some newbie questions about RAF and dualboxing

[DiltkNiko]

Hi,

I am new here.. I would like to start WoW as I have not played much before. I am thinking about starting an account from my friend referral.

What I would do is play wow with 2 computers. When my friend recruits account A, I would recruit with it next account, B, and continue to account C and D.

Then, when I would have 4 accounts: I would play with A and B, dualboxing, to level 40. After that, I would do the same for accounts C and D. After that I would level account D to 80. THEN I would grant to account C 40->80 and B and A, too. I would have four 80 levels, am I correct? After that, I would transfer those characters to my main account. It costs 25 bucks each. 75 bucks total..

What I would get from this is:
- 3 80lvls while only levelling 1->40, with 300% RAF boost
- 1 80lvl character, with 300% RAF boost (this is account D)

All this have to be done in 90 days.

So what I would like to know is, that is my thinking here flawed? Am I missing anything? Any tips? What is btw "a toon"? Has any1 done this before? (:

Thanks.

[Ualaa]

Do you want to play with your friend, or are you fine playing with five of your own characters/toons?

If you want to play with your friend (call their account A)...
You have A > B > C > D > E.
Play all five together, and ideally do a lot of combinations, as you never know what will be fun/strong down the road.

If you're not going to play with your friend often, or during the RAF process... but he has given you the referral...
Call him A again, and then your accounts are BCDEF.
We have A > B, which is the link from your friend to you.
And then you do two chains off of B.
B > C > D
B > E > F
Then you play BCDEF together, an initial group which you level to 85+
Then use the toon/character on B to 'boost' characters on CDEF.
B ends up with as many characters as they boost, because of doing two RAF chains from B and how levels cascade.



So the basic question is...
Are you going to be playing with your friend or have they given you a referral for the perks, but don't mind if you play on your own?

[DiltkNiko]

Play all five together, and ideally do a lot of combinations, as you never know what will be fun/strong down the road.

All five together? I was thinking about dual-boxing and playing only 2 characters at once.

[Khatovar]

What exactly is your intent? I gathered from your original post that you planned to level a couple toons just to get a few to transfer to your main account. If that's the case and you have no intention of actually multiboxing beyond quickly filling your primary account with near max toons, then I'm not really sure why you even need five accounts.

What Ualaa is saying is that it's just as fast to level all 5 accounts at the same time, resulting in 5 level 80 toons + whatever for the granted levels, as it is to level 2 at a time.

RAF leveling goes absurdly fast. Most people that have been doing it here or have researched it here can knock out a set of 80s using RAF in less than a week. If you really know what you're doing and have guild perks, heirlooms etc and the time to invest you can probably knock it out in a weekend.

Your first post talks about leveling a couple toons to 40, level granting and then transferring. Honestly, that seems like a pretty huge waste to me. If all you want is 4 level 80s on your main account, do one RAF between your main account and a new account. Dual box 2 toons from account 1 and 2 toons from account 2 to 80. Grant your levels, transfer and now your main account has 4 level 80s and a 79 I think? You'll save on transfer fees and you only have to buy the game twice instead of 5 times.

Also, "toon" is a character. They're called that because they resemble a cartoon character.

[DiltkNiko]

My idea was that I should only level to 40, these toons. Then when i would grant 40 levels, i could continue doing so as well to other accouns. If i would have 2 accounts only, I should level 1->80 4 times, resulting to 5 lvl 80 toons. When i would buy game 5 times, instead of 2, i would need to only level 1->40 4 times and only once 1->80. That is very time saving?

idk.

[Khatovar]

No, you'd level 1-80 twice if you use 2 accounts or once if you use 5 accounts and level them all at the same time.

The way you're trying to do it, you still have to level multiple times {A & B, then C & D} and still have to level to 80 {D}.

Ualaa is saying just level 5 accounts all at once since you're leveling to 80 anyway. This will give you 5 level 80s just from leveling, then another bunch of toons from granted levels.

I am saying that alternately you can just level 2 accounts twice if you don't care about keeping the accounts anyway and are going to simply transfer them all to one account in the end.

You can still do it the way you're planning, but it's a pretty round-about way to do it if all you want is 1 account with 4 level 80s at the end of it all.

[DiltkNiko]

Okay. Thank you for replies!

i am thinking now to start multiboxing instead. What i would do is to play with ~5 accounts together to 80, while granting levels too and using RAF. Then, I would decide what I will do with my accounts/toons. i might stop subscribtion for some of them and/or trasfer some of toons to my main account. Idk.

Does it require lots of horsepower to run ~5 accounts at the same time and using ISBoxer etc. I am getting my new computer next month. It is new iMac 27" with fastest videocard available and second fastest processor. At the start only 8 gig memory but configurable to 32gb.

Thanks!

(I am totally nub in this area and wow altogether, sry)

[Khatovar]

I think you'd have to run BootCamp or something to use ISBoxer on the iMac you're getting, but don't quote me on that. I'm sure one of the ISBoxer gurus will show up and give you more info on that if they aren't all gorging themselves on Christmas dinner yet, lol.

As far as if your current system can handle it, you can go to the WoW site and sign up for 5 trial accounts and use those to test just by running as many accounts as you like. Keep in mind, however, that multiboxers do change a lot of settings that will net you better performance, such as running the slaves on low settings and using the FPS sliders in game to cap the slaves to a low FPS. My slaves use 13 FPS for background and 25 FPS foreground, but anywhere in between will do. My master is capped at 70 FPS.

[DiltkNiko]

Yeah. I am planning to go for Boot Camp.

[Ualaa]

If you're into boxing, the only time you're really required (using that loosely) to play a lot, is during your 3 month RAF window.

Everyone has their own preferences.
Quite a few like: Paladins, Druids and Shamans.
Having more options is better than fewer options.
If you're into PvE, every tank capable character and every healer capable character is nice to have.



If you have a lot of friends on your current server, stick there.
Friends are what makes the game.

If you don't have a lot of ties to your current server, consider one that other boxers play on.
Playing with other boxers rocks; there is a decent level of support, on how to do something, plus they understand where you're coming from and likely have common in-game interests.
These are amongst the largest boxed populations:
- EU Alliance, Outland, Autobots Roll Out
- EU Horde, Grim'Batol, GIMP
- US Alliance, Kil'jaeden, Legion of Boom
- US Horde, Magtheridon, The Zerg

If you do decide to try playing with other boxers...
Transfer one toon (a good booster, like an 85+ Paladin/Druid/Death Knight) to a new server, that the boxers are on.
Include some gold for bags.
Bring heirlooms if you have them.
Create your toons, get them invited to the guild (level 25 guilds get you perks like faster leveling).

Level away.

If you're starting, your first set of toons would include a good booster on the 'A' account.

And either way, two chains will get you the most toons.
A > B > C
A > D > E

If you 'boost' four toons on BCDE, with A.
One set, the first (if you're starting and don't have characters on 'A') could be 5x level 1's, leveling together.
You end up with:
A= 6 toons from Granted Levels
B/D = 4 toons boosted/leveled, plus two toons from Granted Levels
C/E = 4 toons boosted/leveled.



The procedure for RAF chains is...

Log into www.worldofwarcraft.com, on the 'A' account.
Send yourself (to your own email) two RAF invites.
Use the emailed codes to create accounts, that way they are linked to your main account.

From the first of those, send another RAF invite to your email.
From the second of those, send another RAF invite to your email.

Now you have five accounts, in two chains.
Use either digital codes or retail codes to upgrade the accounts.
RAF is to 80th, so aside from a booster on 'A' (who should have at least Cataclysm), you only need the Battlechest level for now (with a level 80 cap).
If your first set, is all brand new characters and you'll be leveling to 85 to boost, Cata on all accounts is a good idea since you'll be doing the Cata leveling anyway.



Five boxing doesn't use the most resources.

I'm very unfamiliar with the MAC offerings.
With Windows based systems...

CPU is by far the most important, for boxing.
Any of the i7 based systems are superb, and the i5 based systems are workable.
Having the logical cores, to go with the physical cores really helps out.
The current generation of Ivy Bridge (with 4 cores) is a good option, or the previous version of Sandy Bridge (with 6 cores) is good too.
View Distance of characters and objects, are more CPU intensive in Warcraft.

You'll likely need 1GB of ram for the operating system.
And an additional 1GB per client, you're running.
So, 5-boxing will likely require around 6GB of system ram.
Since you have 8GB, you'll be able to run a few more background programs.
And as you said, you can upgrade if you like.
Ram is only an issue, if you don't have enough.

Not sure on the power of your video card, but if its fairly new it will work.
With DX9, you'll use approximately 1GB of video ram per FIVE characters.
With DX11, you'll use approximately 1.5GB of video ram per FIVE characters.
That's not saying 5/7.5GB of ram, as others have read it... 1GB or 1.5GB in total should be the minimum you aim for, depending on the version of DX you want to use.
Wow supports DX9, and will likely default you to DX11.
In IS Boxer, you can go with either a DX9, DX11 or Default profile; the Default will let you switch in game, while the other two pretty much stick to the version of DX you picked.
DX11 looks better, but DX9 runs with fewer system resources if your card cannot handle the higher load.
Shadows, Water Quality, Reflections, Sun Shafts, Spell Effects... are more video dependent, so reducing these settings can help if video is a bottleneck.

The other component that can help greatly, is an SSD for the gaming folder.
It's only going to help when textures are loaded or when you're zoning.
Once everything is loaded, it isn't really a benefit.
But as player or npc models move into your view distance range, their models (and equipment models) are loaded so especially in cities this can be a major benefit for you.
You don't need anything fancy, unless you're putting your operating system on it too.
A 64GB or 80GB (or larger) SSD is plenty for a gaming folder.




I realize you're five boxing.

I was five boxing on my original server, with a lot of combinations.
Many from my initial RAF, but several leveled slower without RAF over the years (RAF leveling rocks, normal leveling sucks in comparison... level lots with RAF).

I did a faction transfer and server transfer with my main team, to join other boxers on Magtheridon.
We have 18 active boxers, and several less active, which is a rather fun environment to play in.

I'm in the process of RAF again, and doing it in three phases... as I have five existing accounts, and want teams/chararacter sets of 10 on all of the accounts.

The combinations I want are:
a) 1x Holy Paladin, 5x Retribution Paladin, 4x Frost Death Knight {One of my Ret Paladins might go Protection}
b) 10x Druid... a combination of Feral and Resto.
c) 7x Warlocks {Demo or Destruction}, 3x Resto Druids.
d) 10x Shaman... a combination of Enhance and Resto {Possibly Elemental & Resto, in the future}
e) 10x Monks
f) 10x Priests
g) 10x Hunters or Mages {or 5x of each}

I'm primarily interested in PvP.

If you're primarily interested in PvE, check out some of the threads by a guy named Mercurio.
In the past, he has raided most 10-man content, as a 10-boxer when the content was current.
He had 3 sets of ten characters, that were doing content each week.
It's not uncommon for two 5-Boxers to attempt 10-man content, and if you get enough boxers five 5-boxers could attempt 25-man content.