Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Ask the Twenty Totems: Some basics

Beyond the comments, you'd be surprised how many emails I get. Many are still waiting for me to have time to respond. I assure you, I'll get to them all.

I was answering one this afternoon and realized I was creating useful content for a single person, when instead I could post my replies here for all to enjoy, absorb and shoot down (when I'm completely wrong).


So here we go. Our first letter is from Goodie.

Hello,

Hi.

I play a dwarf rogue on Nordrassil, and have gotten quite bored with the game, and I'm looking into multiboxing, and I was wondering about a few things.

Sure! Wasup?

Question one: is it possible to multibox without buying more than one computer? As in, having one screen open, and being able to click the buttons on one WoW character, and have the same abilities activated on the minimized window. (not sure if thats clear, if it isn't, please tell me and I'll try to not get so jumbled)

You sure can. As a matter of fact, I run 5 accounts on 3 machines. On the two machines that each run two accounts at once, I could simply minimize one as you suggest, or better yet, use a program called Maximizer, which allows me to split my screen in two, and have one copy running on the top half of my screen, and another on the bottom. There's more info at www.dual-boxing.com... just search the forums there.


Question two: is it possible to multibox with two different types of character, I was thinking shaman and paladin.

Multiboxing is just sending key presses to multiple copies of WoW. It doesn't care what toons you use, which class etc. However, you only really control the movements of your main toon, while the rest follow. That means that while your main can be a melee class (like your Pally), your "drones" need to be ranged DPS/Healing to work well. A Tankadin/Elemental Shaman group is actually pretty common. (if you're a coward of course... DPS4LIFE!)


Question three: if the first two are possible, is it possible to do them on my macbook? (no, I am not a gamer, and so I don not have a gaming computer)

On a what now? :) While I don't game on a Mac, I'm actually a huge Apple fan. However, I don't know exactly what programs are available to you on Mac. I know you can use Synergy, but I don't know about broadcasting your keystrokes to WoW. Maybe someone can answer this in the comments this week.

If not, just type "Mac" into the forums over at dual-boxing.com and you're sure to find the answers there.


Thanks for your help,
Goodie

Hey... I'm here for you. Just you. And well... the other person that reads my blog. /yell HI MOM!

Boom

5 comments:

Goodie said...

Thats insane, I emailed that 10 minutes before you posted about it, thanks for the help!
-Goodie

DreamerMan said...

I run a 5-box group of 70's on the same server as Boom: tank pally, holy priest, fire mage, demo lock, beast hunter. It's quite do-able if you get yourself familiar with macros. I basically use one button to spam all my different attacks on all my characters.

Unfortunately, Orofell, a prominent shaman on our server, informed me once that Macs are incapable of multiboxing, but you should still definitely check it out yourself just to be sure.

Good luck!

Shabang said...

As far as multiboxing on a macbook I have done it and it was laggy as heck. I did level them to 17 but it was near impossible going into cities and such.

Todd said...

Hey Boom! Is Peste. I wanted you to know that I read your blog too. Not just your mom. In fact, your mom told me she stopped reading when you mentioned you called yourself "Boom" and that she was horribly disappointed in you.

Sonny said...

Archaea is correct, but the Mac key broadcasting program is in its second iteration and is called ClonedKeys now.