Comparison of Octopus and Keyclone

[PyrostasisTDK]

Having been a registered user of Keyclone for three weeks, I really got fed up with all of the bugs I ran into and none of them being recognized each time I reported them. Others have reported the same issues that I've had. In searching through the descriptions of the different key replication programs on here, the best description appears to be Keyclone. Why? Because at first glance, you think that a product with good support is a good way to go. I'm here to tell you, that's a wrong assumption. Below are my findings in using Keyclone versus now using Octopus:

1. Keyclone occassionally has runaways. This can occur at any time and cause your character(s) to die as a result.

2. Keyclone has a key registration server that can be down sometimes. What if the company goes out of business and shuts it down? All those copies sold no longer work.

3. Keyclone sometimes causes your focus of your application to change from your game. This can occur with full screen or windowed. I've seen it several times. Didn't bother reporting that one because I didn't get any acknowledgement that my previous posts were actually bugs. In fact, the support I received was 'are you sure you're not running out of memory?'. I had to post several times my memory configuration. A simple post later after I had provided all of the requested information was 'I'll look into that one, others have reported this problem too, etc.'

4. Keyclone occassionally will lose connectivity between machines and not work. Restarting it fixes it. But when you're in a battleground, this means death because of a lack of a solid product. In 3 weeks, this issue happened maybe about 7 or 8 times. Sometimes it showed 'program not responding' in the title bar. But other times, as others have posted as I have, it wouldn't show that, it would just not work.

After being completely frustrated with Keyclones issues and dying in the battlefield, I looked at the 'Comprehensive list of Software tools' again. When I tried Synergy before, I didn't get it working, but only spent about 5 or 10 minutes. So because I use multiple machines, I looked at Octopus. Downloaded the required software to my machine ( MS.net 3.5 and vc redistributable 2000 ) for my Windows Vista machines and got it set up within about 20 minutes. The entire key to getting it working is that you must run it as Administrator on Windows Vista. If you don't, it won't run, just closes with no message.

Octopus has NONE of the issues listed above. In fact, it has no issues so far that I've run into. And on top of that, it does things that Keyclone doesn't do. A really BIG one is that capitalization works across machines. Keyclone doesn't support capitalization.

So my question is, is it better to have a product that has good product support or a product that requires no product support? And on top of all those issues and support question, Octopus provides the source code! So if you want, you can look at it, recompile it, and be secure knowing there isn't any questionable transmission of data.

If you have any questions about how I came to the conclusions here, I'll be more than happy to provide the results that I've found in working with both of these programs. My posts on dual-boxing.com show the issues I've run into and the responses to them. To be fair, I've not used any mouse logic between either Keyclone or Octopus so I don't know how that compares. All my use of the programs is using the keyboard because that's how I play for the fastest PvP play time.

Strange, I have been using keyclone in WoW and EQ2 for about 4 months now and have experience none of the issues you have mentioned. I understand your frustrated but Rob has never been anything but extremely helpful with me and people I have seen. Im sorry you feel otherwise.

Best of luck with your multiboxing =)

[Temor]

As an aside, there is definitely an issue in core-WoW where a following character will seem to lose sync with the main character and break follow on its own. I have dual-boxed for a long time with no software help, literally just following and hitting keys on both computers and this happens to me every once in a while. Its likely a lag issue and a packet gets dropped that causes follow to stop without the character getting a "stop moving" command back from the server.

With all due respect, that's not what happened when I used Keyclone. What happened was even if I just pressed Left Arrow which is in the 'do-not-pass' list, Keyclone passed it to all of the clones. How would I know this? Because all of them turned to the left and spun around and around until I pressed the left key again.

The author of Keyclone even posted and said that WoW did it. With all due respect guys, think please. That's ridiculous. WoW doesn't know about other wow games on the network. It's not programmed to know that. It doesn't send keystrokes between WoW machines. The problem is not just that the characters moving. The problem is that Keyclone sometimes sends characters to other clients from the main computer when it isn't supposed to. Even after all of this description and explanation, people are trying to defend software that in my opinion doesn't work as it should. I feel I owe the community that information. You can either accept it or reject it. Your choice. With multiple machines, Keyclone is not the software to use for multiboxxing until the issues listed are fixxed. Others have posted the problems also, not just me.

[Temor]

Less hostility I <3 you all~

QFT.

would you rather set up Octopus on your own and, since you have source code, be your own product support? Or would you like a code-free run-and-go fully supported product like Keyclone? The OP has the right to his opinion as does those who are happily using Keyclone. Just try to be less confrontational when discussing what you like/don't like (that means everyone in this thread).

These boards are not a multiboxer software resource competition. We're SHARING information, and the first part to SHARING implies SOCIAL SKILLS. Try to be nice, people.

If you want to share what you like about Octopus, make a share what you like about Octopus thread.
If you want to share some repro steps for bugs in Keyclone, either PM Keyclone directly or start a Keyclone bug thread.

These two pieces of software are pretty different by nature -- one being open source and the other being a dev-supported purchaseable product. If you'd like to contribute to the knowledge base, I'm all for it. Just be nice when you do it.

To answer your first question since you asked, I'd rather have a product that doesn't require product support. Which is what I have now and am very happy with it.

The question about open source versus non-open source, that point in my original message thread is just another addition. It's not the full point of the software. It's a bonus to it. Not a necessity. The necessity is that the software works and in my view one of the products mentioned in this message thread worked, one of them didn't. That's the information sharing that I am providing to the community. Whether you view it as nice or not, that's your choice.