Well, i think multiboxing in WoW is over. And i will not return to WoW to play multiple chars. Yet, i will continue to play solo. I also think that Blizzards decision will have echos in other MMORPGs, and probably many of them will prohibit multiboxing too.Originally Posted by nodoze
Those are dark times for multiboxers.
I'm just surprised they wont do a boxer friendly server thing. I mean there is obviously a financial incentive to cater to us in some way! This solves the problem for everyone. ( the bot problem will NOT be solved by this imo.. they have incentive to create new ways to do what they have always done )
Currently 5 Boxing 5 Protection Paladins on Whisperwind Alliance
The Power of Five!!! ( short video )
If i could guess, it is because they also do not want to make a special hardcore gamer server, or a special casual gamer or solo server. Too much effort.
Its not rocket science.
On retail: ban software and hardware boxing.
Create seperate servers for boxers: make it impossible to transfere any item/gold to and from it + disable black auction house. Allow isboxer etc to be used while playing on the boxer servers. Ingame shop is disabled ofcourse. Disable pvp... arena... bgs. Cant buy wow tokens either. To play on these realms, you must subscribe with irl cash. See: we can enjoy the playstyle again + the company earns money.
Last edited by WOWBOX40 : 11-07-2020 at 05:22 PM
(usually chronically bad at finishing a post, please hold for some minutes.... before you reply / quote it, as i might be editing it)
I got my "USB Synchronous K/M Switch" today (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NZSZFL8). I think I was wrong to call it a "multicaster" above - that seems to refer to video display & aggregation. I'll just refer to is as the KM switch from here out. ***edit: nodoze makes good points below, I'll go with "KM Synchronizer" for simplicity and clarity***
So far I'm just testing it out by itself, on a single PC, without loading WoW at all. I think step 1 is to make sure it works as expected on its own.
Just plugging it into a PC and Windows 10 pops up a notification that its configuring a new USB device for a second, then windows pops up a 2nd notification that my USB Composite device has been configured and it working correctly. This is without any input devices plugged into the KM switch.
Here's screen shots of Windows settings, Device Manager and the Windows Event log from when I plugged it in - all seem as expected.
https://gyazo.com/c195cd983ba96433eaff5c7135de18a9
https://gyazo.com/f1c2899e174bf1af9a6faaa943085fc7
https://gyazo.com/670f8e9b7b1a68e758d2374c8ee8f8a8
Next I moved my Microsoft Sidewinder x8 mouse from its direct connection to my PC to going through the KM switch. Initially everything seems fine - left-click, right-click and scroll wheel work exactly as expected. I can even still change the mouse's DPI setting on the fly with the buttons on top of the mouse. But my PC no longer recognizes that I have a Microsoft mouse installed at all.
Before (Mouse plugged directly into PC)
https://gyazo.com/b66237ce36e1499d1a97a97cb67c704b
After (going through the KM Switch)
https://gyazo.com/322f02637a4f2575df21b853436dbaed
This did mean that my 2 side/thumb buttons reverted back to their default settings (page forward and page backward) instead of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V where I had them set on the Microsoft IntelliPoint software (I have to use the older v2.3 IntellePoint which last got its update for Vista - the newer versions don't have support for my very old Sidewinder mouse). This was supper annoying and I lost most of my last edit because I inadvertently hit the "page back" button on my mouse without having saved this edit. Lesson learned - save often while testing. (you'd think I would have learned this lesson well enough over the last 45 years...)
At some point while testing, I also plugged the Sidewinder mouse into the keyboard slot on the KM Synchronizer. That didn't seem to matter at all - mouse still worked as expected, but I did not test thoroughly. It does make me curious if there's any actual difference between the mouse and keyboard input slots, or they're both just standard USB 2.0 slots? But unless someone has a reason why this may matter, I'm not going to bother trying to figure it out.
Next I tried my Razer Basilisk v2 mouse - wired through the KM Synchronizer. Quick tests look the same as the Sidewinder - that is all the basic mouse buttons work fine, but Razer Central does not detect that I have a Razer mouse plugged in at all. So the mouse works as though you don't have any drivers installed - the dpi up/down buttons before the scroll wheel continue to work to increase/decrease dpi sensitivity. The 2 thumb buttons are also set to page forward and page backward and the thumb clutch is set to drastically increase the mouse's dpi setting ("sniper mode"). This does make me wonder where these thumb buttons are getting their settings and if that's adjustable somewhere that would work through the KM synchronizer (maybe even in WoW key bindings directly?) because I cannot edit these setting with either Microsoft's or Razer's utilities.
Mouse Testing Conclusion:
Overall the mouse testing worked about as expected - the KM Synchronizer works fine: All the buttons on both mice I tested still functioned, I don't notice any perceivable lag or other performance issues, but I do loose driver specific programming on both mice.
Next up will be my Razer Tartarus Pro keypad and an old USB 10-key keypad before moving on to some dual-PC testing. My thought is make sure I understand its basic functionality in Windows on 1 and 2 PCs then let some others look at that data before introducing it to WoW.
Last edited by jak3676 : 11-07-2020 at 11:14 PM
I think the key words when describing the intended use when boxing with that USB switch are:
'USB Sharing Synchronous Controller'
A normal/typical KVM or KM switch is one Keyboard/Video/Mouse or Keyboard/Mouse to multiple computers but ONE AT A TIME.
A KM Sharing Synchronous Controller is to connect one Keyboard/Mouse to multiple computers AT THE SAME TIME.
If you just call it a 'KM Switch' that typically means the one to many but one at a time... I realize that the device you have actually can be both non-synchronous and synchronous but since the intended use is multiple at the same time better to delineate that as otherwise folk may think that any KM or KMV switch will do (for example the one I have here will NOT do what you are wanting to do).
It would be better to call it something like a 'KM Switch Synchronizor' to denote that it is one-to-many but at the same time...
Conceptually you were actually spot on as Multicasting is a one-to-many routing type (at the same time) and isn't limited to just video:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast
https://i.gyazo.com/c69c8997e30090942897322a3243b86e.png
Mine should hopefully arrive tomorrow...
Last edited by nodoze : 11-07-2020 at 08:40 PM
fair points all around. I'll leave the above as is, but I'll go with "KM Synchronizer" going forward.
I have no idea if/how this would work - but could it be possible to plug 1 keyboard into the KM Synchronizer, then plug multiple outputs from the Synchronizer back into the same PC - then somehow direct those different inputs to different wow clients or windows? If anyone has ideas how to configure something like that - I'd love to hear it.
Last edited by jak3676 : 11-07-2020 at 11:17 PM
You should be able to do it on one PC if you turned that PC into a VM Host and then bind each USB cable from the KM Synchronizer as a passthrough to a specific VM on the PC (VM host). You would run each wow client in it's own VM...
It should be virtually the same (pun intended) as running the KM Synchronizer to multiple physical PCs.
Yes, that'd work. But if you're going to go the VM route, I don't think you need to bother with a hardware keyboard broadcaster - the functionality of feeding input from 1 keyboard into multiple VM's simultaneously already exists within the VM utilities.
If we can use a $35 KM synchronizer to feed multiple WoW clients without a lot of other tools, that could become a great option for people that don't want to deal with multiple PC's or multiple VM's.
Keyboard/Keypad Testing
Keyboard/Keypad Testing
10-key:
I found an old USB 10-key (probably 10 or 20 years old???) so I figured I'd test that real quick. I have no idea what brand this this thing is, but its model number "HTK-101U", exactly like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Number-Keyb...-/264588268580
USB 10-key through the KM Synchronizer - works fine, exact same functionality as through the KM Synchronizer as when plugged in directly. Windows detects the 10-key as a "USB Composite Device" when plugged in directly. But just like with the mice, I don't see any indication that windows even detects it when plugged in through the Synchronizer. Only think I learned is that the "NUM Lock" setting on my keyboard changes the behavior of the separate USB 10-key (so the stand-alone 10-key behaves the same as the built-in 10-key on my keyboard). This is consistent whether through the KM Synchronizer or not.
Razer Tartarus Pro: (https://www.razer.com/gaming-keypads...-03110100-R3U1)
Does not work through the KM Synchronizer - none of the 1-20 buttons work at all through the Synchronizer, although they work fine when directly connected. The thumbpad works and is mapped to keyboard up, down, left, right (arrow keys) as expected and the scroll wheel functions the same as my mouse. But none of the 1-20 keys on the keypad or the keymap selector button register any input. Neither Windows now Razer Central recognize that I have a keypad installed at all. I also tried some online keyboard and gamepad testers (i.e. https://keyboardchecker.com/ and https://gamepad-tester.com/) but they do not register any keypad input either. I expected I'd be stuck on some sort of default keymap, but this seems to be dead in the water. I tried forcing device manager to scan for hardware changes, but no luck. Any suggestions?
Keyboard:
I tried an old "Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard" through the KM Synchronizer. All the main keys on the keyboard seem fine. They keyboard does have a number of special keys to turn volume up/down, open your email, My Documents, calculator, etc - none of those work or register any input at all. Oddly enough the CAPS/NUM/Scroll lights do work, and they even correctly share input with my main keyboard which is plugged into the PC directly. So if I turn CAPS on from the 2nd keyboard going through the KM Synchronizer, then it turns on the CAPS light on both keyboards and they both switch to all CAPS.
On to dual-PC and synchronous input testing.
Last edited by jak3676 : 11-08-2020 at 01:29 AM
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