It's always nice to stumble across a gem on the internet, every once in a while. I managed to stumble across a blog by David Cumps this morning -- and while it's all the way back from September, it's still quite accurate and quite objective.
First of all, David goes into quite a bit of detail on what multiboxing is, and why its considered legal...
Greg Tito of "The Escapist" recently interviewed a bunch of multiboxers from Dual-boxing.com (indeed, he had put together an interview with Suvega and myself, but ran into a schedule conflict).
It's a good overview of multiboxing in general, and a well constructed and readable one at that. I think it's a little over-focused on Keyclone as a product (and while Keyclone is a cornerstone of multiboxing popularity and accessibility, it certainly isn't the foundation) and, while it has decent breadth it lacks a certain depth -- it's still an entertaining read. For those unfamiliar with multiboxing it does a good job scratching the surface.
I would've liked to see more insight on non-WoW multiboxers or the "old schoolers", if you will -- Team Wizzy comes to mind. While it attempts to show the growth of multiboxing, it misses the target a bit by not looking back at the age of hardware 'boxing and how Keyclone's dedication to EULA/ToU-acceptability resulted in a growth of GM responses and, in turn, made Software 'boxing mainstream instead of that shady gray-area that people were afraid to use.
Anyway, what did you think of the article?
Once again, there's more live material recorded on my mogulus stream, which you can access on-demand.
Over the weekend, I was able to do some questing on a couple of my level 60-ish groups, including my Death Knights and my Druids.
Feel free to join me during the evenings as I level up my 2nd group (hunters), and share in my utter failboats as I wipe on instance trash.
Earlier this week, Suvega and I were approached to do an interview on multiboxing. Sadly, we hit a scheduling snag, but I'm posting the interview information up on my blog for those interested. Information is meant to be shared!
What is your current group makeup?
Faction, Class, Level, Gear level (epics? quest blues?)
Here we go....
As for me..... well... you asked for it. I forewarn, I am a terrible alt-aholic.
Well, I finally kicked out some bugs with the web server, and was able to enable remote blogging on weMultibox.
Remote blogging allows you to use a 3rd party software program that runs on your computer or mobile device to post blogs directly to the website. For this demonstration I'm using Windows Live Writer, but you can also use other programs like iBlogger, Ecto, etc.
The cool thing about some of these programs, is it allows you to use various features that are a bit rougher to do using the basic web interface. Spell checking, post drafts, and a cleaner WYSIWYG interface are a few examples.
To get started, we'll need to configure our application to weMultibox.
I've gotten a few queries as to the status of my video-making, and I admit I have gotten a bit lazy. RL has eaten up most of my time, but my first group is to 80 and I'm working on my second -- and I plan on doing much more instance leveling with that second group.
Hopefully I'll have time to do some more videos, but if you want to spend some time with some of my older vids, take a look at vboxing.net/videos
(if you're not logged in, don't forget to fill out the captcha code and press "search")
It finally arrived....
Steelseries World of Warcraft MMO Mouse!!!
With 10 billion macro buttons of pwner POWAHHHH!!!!!
So, here's the deal -- I saw this puppy at Blizzcon. Yep, way back then.
Like all serious WoW geeks, I oogled over the pretty colors for a second before I realized... Whoa! This puppy has ALOT of buttons!
And who needs buttons more than a multiboxer, hmm?
So they say it'd be out by Wrath of the Lich King's release... So I waited like a patient little WoWcrack addict, picked up my 6 copies of WotLK CE's at GameStop, and was told the mouse was "not in stock yet -- probably tomorrow". I figured, what the heck -- I had already put an preorder in at Amazon, and I was enamored with Wrath, so I figure it'd just show up a couple days later.
Well, a couple days turned into a couple months (yuck)... but it's FINALLY HERE!!!
Let's open it, shall we?
Well, I ended up with some extra soap scrubbies and decided to part with my beloved Tauren Shaman...
Take a look at my Etsy shop if you're interested in giving him a new home!
I admit, I was a bit inspired to write up this post based on a forum thread that led to another blog post. However, since it's always good to shop around it could be fun to take a look at the different ways to get started.
To begin multiboxing, you need two things: your actual hardware "rig" to run the clients, as well as multiple WoW accounts and subscription fees. Let's start with the easier one...
Assuming that you're going with the "standard" do-it-yourself grouping scenario of 5 characters, you'll need 5 accounts. The reasoning for 1 account per character is actually quite simple: You can only log into one character per account at any given point in time.
Vanilla WoW is actually quite cheap, and will get you all the way to 60 as long as you're not planning on rolling a Draenei, Blood Elf, Jewelcrafter, or Death Knight.
The going rate for Vanilla WoW is $19.99 on Amazon.
$19.99 x CHARACTERS = $19.99 x 5 = $99.75 + tax for regular WoW
Should you wish to later add-on the Burning Crusade expansion...
I had the "raiding" itch after doing Naxx/Malygos 25 with my guild on Sunday. So, come Monday I decided to pug it up in Naxx 10, since I wasn't saved.
I ended up only getting into a group that needed the last 2 bosses, but boy... You don't appreciate a good group until you hit a struggling pug... A struggling pug that told me that they had an "awesome group" when they psted me. They even offered to pay me to heal them -- of course, I don't really see myself getting bribed for that sort of thing so I didn't take anything.
In any case, Saph took several tries: a rogue died so many times to cleaves, the boss barely got to 50% within 5 minutes and I don't think anyone was even pulling 2k DPS, people had to be reminded for decurses, and healers didn't realize they could actually heal while standing behind an ice cubed person, so people just started falling over thanks to AoE damage.
The past few weeks have been quite a mess.
First, the bad news. My senior doggy, Murphy, was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, which is a form of bone cancer. By the time we had a diagnosis, the cancer had spread to her lungs and there was little we could do but put her to sleep. Naturally, I was upset since she has been with me since I was barely a teenager -- so I haven't been around much.
After we lost Murphy, my remaining dog, Athena, wasn't quite herself. She's used to being in a multiple-dog household. So I started digging around on Petfinder and Craigslist and the like, looking for a good match to keep Athena company and to keep my mind off of Murphy.
I'm happy to introduce:
Apollo and Phoebe, two 4-month old German Shepherds
Don't mind the ill-fitted collars. We've ordered some new ones, but with the Seattle snowstorm who knows when they'll arrive. So, for now, they have to deal with second-hand collars we have around the house.
Yesterday, I wasn't able to get much leveling done. However, I did update Macaroon to the newest version so that I could fully utilize the "Posess" option to get Vehicle bars operational (with keybindings!). I'll get into that a bit later.
In any case, I found some of my macros that had previously been working were now failing miserably.
After a bit of trial and error, I realize one of my trinkets was no longer equipped, as I had found an upgrade. However, the /cast TrinketName section in my macro was causing the entire thing to fail and refuse to cast any subsequent spells.
So, I thought to myself... Why am I updating ten or twenty macros that involve my trinkets every time I get a upgraded item?
After a bit of searching, I found my solution: /click
Why a Chat channel?
There are quite a few of us multiboxers on Archimonde now, and no guild that fits each of our goals. Some of us enjoy PvPing, some want to raid as multiboxers, some want to raid server progression as a soloboxer...
So, I got to thinking... What makes a guild (as it stands in-game) anyway?
There's the guild bank -- but most of us already use guilds as our personal guildbank storage facility anyways. Calendar/event planning? The new calendar feature works for individuals and is not limited to guilds. Chat? Yes, chat.
Chat channels allow us to keep in touch globally, just like a guild -- and we still get the benefit of being in whatever guild (our own for the bank, a raiding guild, a pvp guild) that fits our personal in-game goals.
How do I join the Multiboxing channel?
Just type /join Multiboxing
I'll be on the channel when I'm multiboxing on the Archimonde server, but you're welcome to try and start up a chat channel on your multiboxing server as well. 
