Friday, July 11

2Accounts1Pc - part1

This about something called dual boxing/multi boxing or whatever other slang there is for it.. except i'll be using 1 PC here.
Yep that's right, i got myself a second account for a number of reasons:
1. I need some gold to get my new main an epic flyer.
2. My new main is a healer so could use some help doing quests.
3. I will be leveling 2 toons to 70 when WotLK comes out to save myself some time.
Perhaps i will drop my second account after that but for now i got something new to toy with.
In a couple of posts i will try to explain how i've set up things, what i used and how i did it.
Part one starts below:


Hardware preperations
Now what helps is a second monitor but it isn't required at all. When your pc aint as fast it's probably better to keep your slave account minimized which has the extra benefit that you can keep your main wow client maxized (non-windowed) which makes it run quite a bit faser, difference on my pc is easily 15FPS. Depending on how you intend to controll your slave later that is something to consider.
I'll be using it windowed so i can always move my mouse to my second screen for either interaction with the other account or a webbrowser.

I myself intend to controll my 2nd character with my first keyboard and for that i bought a keyboard with extra keys: the Logitech G11 which is basicly the G15 without LCD screen.

You will need to check if your PC has enough RAM, at least 2GB for 2 accounts and a dualcore might help aswell although i must confess i have no idea what is exactly needed. I myself got 2,66Ghz dualcore, 4GB RAM and a X1950 Pro videocard from ATI.. no high end system at all.


Creating the Second account
Buy yourself a second copy of Wow first, perhaps with The Burning Crusade aswell if needed. You can either buy one of the so called "Treasure Chests" which contain both in the shop or simply order your key online. I bought mine at Gamecards EU who deliver in the US aswell btw. After i used my visa (can use various other methods like Paypal aswell) they called me to verify the first payment and i got the keys within 5mins by mail... if things take long, just use the chatbox on the site and you will get an answer straight away.
After that go to the official Wow site and create a new account, likely on the top right. After creating your normal account enter the account and upgrade the account using the Burning Crusade key.


Setting up the Second account
Best is to copy the directory you installed Wow in to an other physical diskdrive. It is possible to run Wow twice out of one folder but running it from two different spots will improve performance. Make sure it are actually two different drives, not one harddisk split.


Addons
The addon i installed first was Multiboxer V2 (direct download here.
Install this addon in both Wow clients.
This addon will add all sort of helpfull options like autofollow, auto-accepting rezzes, invites, quests and trades from friends, redirects whispers, aswell as a few other helpfull things.


Macro's
A few essential macro's to use:
Follow, follows the leader in the party. You can also replace party1 with a name ofcourse
/target party1

Assist, uses the same target as the leader in the party. Can again replace party1 with a name.
/assist party1

Trade accept, might be helpfull when using the Multiboxer addon as you can request a tradewindow accepting without a keypress is not allowed.
/script AcceptTrade();

More macro's here.


This will basicly make it possible to easily go arround town with the other toon in your slipstream, nice for boosting a lower level alt or do some of those dailies which don't have drops.
Don't forget to put Loot on Free for all. You can also copy an existing toon of yours to your other account aswell by the way, costs € 20,- in Europe. Both accounts need to be on the same persons name however.

I wil continue in next post with more detailed info how i have/will setup things using my G11 keyboard and Keyclone, making your second toon pitch in aswelll.
For those who want more info already or info about multi pc boxing, check out www.dual-boxing.com.

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