I spent three evenings looking into the mechanics of how to dual-box two characters using the same computer in World of Warcraft. Thanks to the Dual-Boxing Portal and WowWiki, it was a piece of cake – sorta. If this piques your interest and you’d like to give it a try, just get yourself a trail WOW account to use.
The software side of things was very easy. I read several posts suggesting that you make a copy of your WOW gaming folder to avoid conflicts which might cause the game to crash. I was going to do that when I saw how friggin’ large the folder was and immediately nixed that idea. I just wanted to experiment so I didn’t really care so much if the game crashed a few times. As luck would have it, it never crashed even when I wrote all the macros needed to pull it off. *Shrug*
My first decision was which software to use for sending duplicate keystrokes to the two independent session of WOW. My first attempt at dual boxing was done my actually clicking things on the separate session back and forth – definitely not the way the pros do things. I downloaded AutoHotKey first as it seemed a popular choice on the forums. But after starring at the scripts needed just to get started, I quickly abandoned it. It offers more flexibility but the posts about having to code in ways to pause it so you can chat or interact with the game in other ways other than sending duplicate keys, convinced me that it would be too much work just to mess around.
Next up was Keyclone which seemed to be the more noob-sauce route and required no scripting or setup of any kind. I also found a step-by-step guide that helps to explain the concept behind what you need to do which isn’t initially obvious and I would have struggled unnecessarily. With the software installed I booted up two sessions of WOW and created two new toons.
My first pair was two Blood Elf Warlocks. It’s a class I know inside and out. I didn’t want to have to think about the game while working through the mechanics of dual-boxing. Selecting characters of the same class makes the situation much easier to coordinate. After I got the hang of that I did a Mage with a Warlock and then a Mage with a Priest. I immediately saw why it would be hard to do a melee with ranged class when you advance for combat the characters follow each other. There are ways around it which are found on the various forums. However, I didn’t want to get to that level of detail for this experiment. To get started you want to:
- Download and install the key sending software of your choice. Go with Keyclone if you just want to give this a whirl.
- Macro most of your commands so that you utilize as few key combinations as possible. Less is so more in this situation.
- Establish one of the characters as your main and have it as the “Focus” target.
- Create a Target Focus, Follow and Assist macro for the secondary character.
- Create macros to initiate and accept party invites, quest sharing, resurrection, etc. All of which can be found on the Dual-Boxing web site.
- Create your primary combat macros
- And you’re off…
If you’ve written macros before none of this is very hard and yet it took me hours to get things worked out. Why? You have to match macros so that whatever happens when you press hotkey #1 is a valid action across all of the toons you’re controlling – and this is where the madness begins when you use different classes. Warlock to Warlock and Mage to Mage, it was no problem matching the key presses across game instances. Mage with a Priest posed some interesting options that took me time to figure out. I didn’t want just a healbot. There’s no need for that in the early levels since the Mage can’t AOE and the combat is too simplistic to need healing through. It’s much more advantageous to have them both fighting to making the leveling go faster.
Pressing 1 is pressing 1 in on both characters or you have to leave the
hotkey empty on the character that shouldn’t take any action. This got
tricky really fast and confusing trying to remember who had a command
on the key and who didn’t. I had placed an empty macro on the hotkey
even for the character who wasn’t taking an action so that I wouldn’t
forget and put something in the slot.
Then there were the buffing macros which I divided into “buff yourself” and “buff your buddy”. For example the “[“ key was macro’d to execute all self buffs so when pushed the Priest put Fortitude on herself and the Mage used Arcane Intellect. Then the “]” key did the reverse. Priest buffed the Mage while the Mage buffed the Priest. It was really hot stuff to see in action. For added glamour I also added “buff others” macros. Hey, I’m cool like that. It was quite the hoot marching around pressing a single key and seeing two characters buff players.
The other thing that hung me up for a while was movement. I have it working better now but it’s still not very refined. Sending keystrokes literally means ‘sending all keystrokes” Pressing the forward or back key sends the action to both characters including the one that is one follow. And don you dare press the auto-run key by mistake cause you will lose one of your little minions.
On more than one occasion I called myself turning my main character than then doing auto-run, only to find out that the secondary had turned too but hadn’t started facing in the same exact direction so was off running somewhere else. Finding the lost Elmo was simultaneously interesting and annoying when they weren’t grouped in a Party. For the most part other players thought we were different people because the latency staggers the actions just a bit. I would get invites and tells separately even though the names where almost identical – a PVP ploy I read about.
What finally saved me from some of the synchronization problems and unwanted interactions from sending keys was to use the Key Setting options in Keyclone to disable certain keys from being sent like Enter, Backspace, Del, Escape and all of the cursor arrows– all of which are keys that I need to interact with in the WOW UI on the main character that I don’t want off being executed in the secondary. Most notably, the cursor movement keys which I only want to be done on the main character window while the secondary stays on follow. This immediately stopped the wandering Elmo effect.
Last hurdle which is something that would really need to be investigated is that Follow doesn’t put the secondary character the exact direction as the Main. This can cause havoc in combat with casters who wont cast unless the are facing the target. This was hella annoying and I never worked out a good fix for the problem. It did bring to mind why using Warlock is a nice advantage. Warlocks have many instant cast spells all of which can be cast on the target regardless of the direction the caster is facing. Their channeling spells of which they have a few can also be cast in most any direction and it will rotate your body to the target. So the powerful DOT/instant cast nature of this class makes them very easy to multi-box with and not battle character orientation.
The Mage class is a bit more annoying in this regard. Just playing alone I find myself not being able to cast instant spells because I’m not facing the target. What gives with that?? After playing a Warlock for so long I’m not use to that requirement and it seems odd given compared to the freedom given to Warlock casting.
I kept at it and by the third night things were pretty smooth for someone who’d never done this before and didn’t do any major system or software configurations. It was a fun diversion but not something I think I’d do in WOW long term. I’m too over the leveling to start over from scratch so that I could dual-box level. I did look thru our partially level characters to see if there was one around my Mages level but the three others weren’t a good fit – Rogue and Warrior classes that I’ve never played so would take too much work to be successful. A Paladin and Hunter but we already have one of those at 70 so not much point in pulling them along for the ride.
However, it wasn’t a total waste. I tried something new and the things that I learned will make it VERY easy for me to have the Druid pull the Mage along in instances in the future. Plus the next time I need to do a Mage quest that requires a group I can do it with the Druid and the Mage instead of having the Druid clear then logging on to the Mage to get the needed item.
I've seen this in action only once. It was on the Alliance server I was part of. The person had at least four characters, and they all had similar names. The first time I saw it I thought my computer was acting screwy then I saw her again. I didn't think to ask them what they were using now I know.
Oh by the way the first link is broken, Dual Boxing Portal, it sent me to a nonexistent page on your blog.
Regarding macros I still haven't used macros with any of my toons I imagine it would make my life easier.
Posted by: Diva's of WOW | April 25, 2008 at 08:34 AM
If I had the time and interest in re-leveling, I'd try to 3-box. I'd do either 2 Warlocks and Priest or 2 Mages and Priest. PVP 3-boxing would be pretty sweet too.
Posted by: Saylah | April 28, 2008 at 05:24 PM
On my server, the multi-box class of choice seems to be shaman.
I have seen at least 3 people doing it, one of them with 5 shamans at once.
5xChainlightning is incredible, not to mention chain heal in BGs.
Posted by: TheReaper | April 30, 2008 at 11:29 AM
@Reaper - I saw that one of the popular multiboxers on the dual-boxing.com does 5 Shaman. That is one of the classes that I've had interest in playing. I did one to level 15 to see the Draenei starter zone but bailed afterward. My chief concern was the constant complaints from Shamans about class neglect. I know that they've been nerfed into the ground except for their healing spec so didnt want to invest the time.
Posted by: Saylah | April 30, 2008 at 07:11 PM
@Saylah:
I couldn't really say, the highest shaman I have is lvl 37 and I haven't played him in ages.
However a guildmate of mine has been playing one since release and seems to be doing pretty okay.
In Heroics/Gruul (I just started playing again, so I haven't done advanced PvE-content) he outputs around 1200 dps in S3/MH/BT gear with enhancement spec, given how important Windfury etc. are I'd say thats a pretty good addition to any party, though the dps still lack behind rogues/mages.
He is also part of a 2300+ Arena team, so PvP seems to be possible as well.
Personally I don't really like playing a shaman, but if I would multibox, that'd still be my choice.
Posted by: TheReaper | May 05, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Ok when i run key cone i move forward while my other account move the other way and i have my followed account on facus to the one i have attacking mobs she just stands there how do i fix
Posted by: john | August 04, 2008 at 08:44 PM
You have to make sure that the keys match on each character. So what are you pressing on the main and what is on the equivalent key on the other characater?
Posted by: Saylah | August 04, 2008 at 10:16 PM
i cant find out how to make 2 of me can u help me tell me how to make more of my character plz
Posted by: doggy | September 01, 2008 at 08:43 PM
My question is why bother with follow? If you have both toons in the same spot facing the same direction to start with why not just control both of them equally?
Posted by: Demontrain | January 07, 2009 at 03:51 PM
Because your not standing still all the time. It would be too time consuming to move each character separately and you walk from mob to mob, location to location, etc.
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | January 08, 2009 at 11:21 AM