question about multi-boxing

[dabuddha]

I apologize in advance if this topic has been covered/answered. I spent a few hours searching the forums and reading the FAQs and didn't find an answer.

My situation.

I have two WoW accounts. They were setup on two different machines awhile ago (for me and the wife). Well my wife has pretty much stopped playing and I suspended her account. On top of that, I had to reinstall windows on her machine and never got around to reinstalling WoW on it.

What I was wanting to do was run 2 instances of WoW on my laptop. Since it's running out of the same folder, the installation will be the same cdkey. I (of course) would log in to both accounts.

So to sum it up, it'd be the same installation of WoW but it'd be connected to the server with two different accounts. Is this allowed? The other option I was thinking of trying (which I'd rather not because of the pain of setting it up) was to setup a virtual machine on my laptop and install winxp/WoW on it.

My ultimate goal was to help level one of my toons using another one.

Again sorry if this was covered already. I'll continue reading through the forums (lotsa good information! )

TIA!

EDIT: Forgot to mention this. Both accounts were created by me and both accounts are in my name. Also, I forgot that I could do this but I'll probably make a copy of my WoW folder and run the 2nd instance from the copy.

[DigitalDeuce]

The thing is, it's not the CD key that was used, it's the name that was registered when you created the account.



My story: I decided to create another account, and when I did, I
forgot that I put a roman numeral 2 after my name when I created the
account. (IE: Hans Zimmer II) I then found out when I tried
to move a couple of characters over, that I hit the "this account isn't
valid for character transfer." I contacted Blizzard, and
the helpful customer service guy saw the issue. He added the "II"
for me and all was right as rain.



So what you might do, I don't know if they will or what -- is call
customer service and explain your situation. You might have to
purchase a new account and totally abandon your wife's account
forever. UNLESS your name was actually used to set it up -- most
people never read that part of the TOS when they setup accounts.
You can't share an account with your wife.

[Otlecs]

So to sum it up, it'd be the same installation of WoW but it'd be connected to the server with two different accounts. Is

This is allowed, and is the modus operandi for most software boxers.

What's not allowed is for you to use your wife's account. You need to get a new one, in your name.

[gbremset]

Hi.. Welcome to the world of multi boxing.

I'm quite new to active multi boxing myself, so I can only answer based on my own limited experience, but I'll try to help you as much as I can.

Firstly, WoW is not based on CD keys for installation and running of the game, the CD key is used to create your account, and has nothing to do with the actual install of the game.
I have no experience with running from the same installation, as I have dual boxed with just copying the contents of my wow folder into a new folder called wow-2. I'm sure there are lots of tips here on how to pull that off.
You do not break any rules by making 100 copies of your wow folder and running 100 copies of wow, as long as you have 100 separate accounts to run them. If I'm not mistaken, the manual of the game actually tells you to give it to a friend and give them the guest pass key to try out wow.

As for the legality of dual boxing with your two accounts, well, the basic rule is that all accounts you play must be registered to you, or you must be the legal guardian of the owner of the account (wow TOU). Using an account not registered to you is considered account sharing, and I don't think I would discuss that on these forums.

Running two wow's on your laptop depends entirely on your laptop, as wow do require a reasonable amount of resources from it. There are good threads about hardware on these forums, which I'm sure will be very helpful.

Basically what you need to do (I haven't tried running it all from one installation, so my tips are based on that), is make a copy of your wow folder and make a shortcut to your desktop for the "launcher.exe" (or wow.exe), launch the first wow and log in with your username and password. Then you log in to a character (I always found that the login and character selection screens are heavier on my PC than the actual running game), set it to windowed mode (Makes the switching between screens easier), alt tab or minimize to desktop and launch the second wow. Log in with your other username and password and log in to a character on the 2nd account.

When you are logged in to both characters, group them up in a party and start dual boxing.

When it comes to the character control etc, check out the other threads on the starter forum. I use AutoHotKey (But will change to keyclone when I've got a new visa voucher, as it appears to be a "much less fuss" program) to distribute my keypresses to my 2nd account, and use macros on the 2nd account to make the character do what I want.
Mainly /follow party1 (follow macro), /assist party1 /cast xxxxx (main attack macro) and then all the other hotkeys are the same.

Edit: removed my personal opinion about using wife's account to play.

[dabuddha]

The thing is, it's not the CD key that was used, it's the name that was registered when you created the account.



My story: I decided to create another account, and when I did, I
forgot that I put a roman numeral 2 after my name when I created the
account. (IE: Hans Zimmer II) I then found out when I tried
to move a couple of characters over, that I hit the "this account isn't
valid for character transfer." I contacted Blizzard, and
the helpful customer service guy saw the issue. He added the "II"
for me and all was right as rain.



So what you might do, I don't know if they will or what -- is call
customer service and explain your situation. You might have to
purchase a new account and totally abandon your wife's account
forever. UNLESS your name was actually used to set it up -- most
people never read that part of the TOS when they setup accounts.
You can't share an account with your wife.

Ahh forgot to mention that both accounts were setup with my information and name. I have access to both accounts as well (was going to reactivate my wifes account tonight in fact).

[gbremset]

The thing is, it's not the CD key that was used, it's the name that was registered when you created the account.



My story: I decided to create another account, and when I did, I
forgot that I put a roman numeral 2 after my name when I created the
account. (IE: Hans Zimmer II) I then found out when I tried
to move a couple of characters over, that I hit the "this account isn't
valid for character transfer." I contacted Blizzard, and
the helpful customer service guy saw the issue. He added the "II"
for me and all was right as rain.



So what you might do, I don't know if they will or what -- is call
customer service and explain your situation. You might have to
purchase a new account and totally abandon your wife's account
forever. UNLESS your name was actually used to set it up -- most
people never read that part of the TOS when they setup accounts.
You can't share an account with your wife.

Ahh forgot to mention that both accounts were setup with my information and name. I have access to both accounts as well (was going to reactivate my wifes account tonight in fact).

Then there's no issue at all.. They are both your accounts, and your wife actually weren't allowed to play on "her" account. :P

[dabuddha]

Hi.. Welcome to the world of multi boxing.

I'm quite new to active multi boxing myself, so I can only answer based on my own limited experience, but I'll try to help you as much as I can.

Firstly, WoW is not based on CD keys for installation and running of the game, the CD key is used to create your account, and has nothing to do with the actual install of the game.
I have no experience with running from the same installation, as I have dual boxed with just copying the contents of my wow folder into a new folder called wow-2. I'm sure there are lots of tips here on how to pull that off.
You do not break any rules by making 100 copies of your wow folder and running 100 copies of wow, as long as you have 100 separate accounts to run them. If I'm not mistaken, the manual of the game actually tells you to give it to a friend and give them the guest pass key to try out wow.

As for the legality of dual boxing with your two accounts, well, the basic rule is that all accounts you play must be registered to you, or you must be the legal guardian of the owner of the account (wow TOU). Using an account not registered to you is considered account sharing, and I don't think I would discuss that on these forums.

Running two wow's on your laptop depends entirely on your laptop, as wow do require a reasonable amount of resources from it. There are good threads about hardware on these forums, which I'm sure will be very helpful.

Basically what you need to do (I haven't tried running it all from one installation, so my tips are based on that), is make a copy of your wow folder and make a shortcut to your desktop for the "launcher.exe" (or wow.exe), launch the first wow and log in with your username and password. Then you log in to a character (I always found that the login and character selection screens are heavier on my PC than the actual running game), set it to windowed mode (Makes the switching between screens easier), alt tab or minimize to desktop and launch the second wow. Log in with your other username and password and log in to a character on the 2nd account.

When you are logged in to both characters, group them up in a party and start dual boxing.

When it comes to the character control etc, check out the other threads on the starter forum. I use AutoHotKey (But will change to keyclone when I've got a new visa voucher, as it appears to be a "much less fuss" program) to distribute my keypresses to my 2nd account, and use macros on the 2nd account to make the character do what I want.
Mainly /follow party1 (follow macro), /assist party1 /cast xxxxx (main attack macro) and then all the other hotkeys are the same.

Edit: removed my personal opinion about using wife's account to play.

I was thinking of putting the lower level toon on auto follow and just playing my higher level toon. The main reason for doing this is I can never find a group for any low level instances and would rather just run myself through them.

[dabuddha]

The thing is, it's not the CD key that was used, it's the name that was registered when you created the account.



My story: I decided to create another account, and when I did, I
forgot that I put a roman numeral 2 after my name when I created the
account. (IE: Hans Zimmer II) I then found out when I tried
to move a couple of characters over, that I hit the "this account isn't
valid for character transfer." I contacted Blizzard, and
the helpful customer service guy saw the issue. He added the "II"
for me and all was right as rain.



So what you might do, I don't know if they will or what -- is call
customer service and explain your situation. You might have to
purchase a new account and totally abandon your wife's account
forever. UNLESS your name was actually used to set it up -- most
people never read that part of the TOS when they setup accounts.
You can't share an account with your wife.

Ahh forgot to mention that both accounts were setup with my information and name. I have access to both accounts as well (was going to reactivate my wifes account tonight in fact).

Then there's no issue at all.. They are both your accounts, and your wife actually weren't allowed to play on "her" account. :P

BTW thanks all for the information everyone Going through Vyndree's guide atm (lotsa good info in there).

[gbremset]

Hi.. Welcome to the world of multi boxing.

I was thinking of putting the lower level toon on auto follow and just playing my higher level toon. The main reason for doing this is I can never find a group for any low level instances and would rather just run myself through them.

That's exactly how I got sucked into this.. I originally only had my extra account for enchanting my non-enchanters gear etc, then, when I transferred server, I transferred one of my 70's to the other account at the same time, and discovered the glory of self boosting.

At the moment I'm actually helping myself do the netherwing dailies on my mage, which is quite a lot easier when you're playing two characters on your own.

[Otlecs]

<rant>
General, undirected comment.... please be sensible when quoting. If the quote is larger than the response, there's a fair chance you don't need to quote everything you actually have!
</rant>
:thumbsup: