Multiboxing explained

3.11.2009 von vorticone.

Since I got asked by friends how I actually play five characters at once, and the casual reader of my blog might have the same question, I guess I should explain this a little. Since there are some many different ways to multibox, I can only explain how I do it.

Feel free to copy my setup, but I encourage you to read up on multiboxing on other very good internet sites that helped me get started. Namely this is the awesome multiboxing community you can find at http://www.dual-boxing.com and the very informative weblog from Beyond-Tec which can be found at http://beyond-tec.blogspot.com. Both websites, and a few other reads, helped me a lot to get started.

First of course you need multiple WoW accounts. Two work for the start, the more characters you have, the more complicated it gets, though the curve is not that steep. I started with two characters for a few levels to see how it all works out, and then gave it a test run with five free trial accounts before buying my accounts.

Then you need some software. As you are running multiple copies of World of Warcraft on your computer, and only one window can be active at one time, you need somehow to send keypresses to the inactive windows. The free software HotKeyNet helps me achieve that goal. The website even has a tutorial and example configuration how to get a quick start with multiboxing WoW with it. I recommend trying this out before skipping to the more advanced features.

Basically you have multiple World of Warcraft applications running. Since each window initially is named the same, you have to rename them. You need unique names so you can send keypresses to the inactive windows. HotKeyNet can rename windows for you, or you can do it manually (using the Windows Taskmanager). Then you define keypresses to be send to the WoW windows.

For example, you setup the key or key combination CTRL-F1 to be send to the WoW window named “Mage”. For the character logged in there, which in this case is a mage, have a macro that casts Frostbolt. This macro is bound to the key combination CTRL-F1. So whenever you press CTRL-F1 in whatever window you currently are, the mage casts a Frostbolt on his target. Easy, huh? Yeah, pretty easy, as this was an easy example. It can get infinitely more complicated though, however you like it.

You could also make a keypress sent to more than one window at the same time. For example, you play 3 mages, and the WoW windows are named “Mage1″, “Mage2″ and “Mage3″. In HotKeyNet you define that CTRL-F1 is to be send to the windows named “Mage1″, “Mage2″ and “Mage3″. All characters of course need the cast macro and binding of course. You press one key and BAMM three Frostbolts hit your target simultaneously. You could incorporate an /assist “Mage1″ in the macros on the boxed characters as well, so they nuke your main target. Or use a /cast modifier if you are comfortable with that. The nuke macro for your characters would then be /cast [target=party1target] Frostbolt (and you would be actively playing the party leader, hence party1target).

As you can see, having identical classes (and talent specs) makes this very easy. This is why I chose five different classes, basically a holy trinity of tank, healer and three dps. Macros and key bindings are pretty huge with such a setup, but more on that later.

Now before you start with multiboxing and think that’s all, we need a few more things. For example, movement. Movement is a bit trickier. Basically you cannot just send your wasd or arrow keys to all windows and have the characters move exactly the same. Your characters never really face the same direction, so they would spread when you move this was. So what we are going to do is use the /follow command.

For a very simple setup, just make a macro on each character that does /follow “Mage1″. Replace Mage1 with your character’s name. You bind this to a key as you have done with the Frostbolt before, and have that key broadcasted to all characters except your leader. When you press this button all characters will follow their leader. This is the simplest way to get started, but there are much better and more complicated ways to do it. But for a start, this works.

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