This actually triggered a question…not directly about the quote, but similar.
HOW do people duobox? Not technologically, I understand that part, but playing-wise? I have enough trouble keeping track of what ONE toon is supposed to be doing in combat let alone two separate toons. Add in different class roles and it just seems impossible. I’ve healed a few times (low-level) and I can’t imagine being able to heal AND dps/tank at the same time.
Simplification and software that allows keypresses to affect two clients at once. Thus, say, if you’re running a Paladin/Priest duo, you might have a key set up that throws the Paladin’s Judgment and casts the Priest’s Heal on the Paladin simultaneously.
Like **BT **said, the people who do it seriously have programs that replicate their keypresses across all of the running instances of WoW. People who aren’t that fancy, like me, who just do it for things like running lowbie alts through instances using friends accounts, just tab back and forth.
You don’t have any friends/guildies who can roll a level-1 rogue for you?
I remember last year going to SW and there were a couple of Roques just dancing around the tables, letting people shoot them with the turkey guns.
The combo I saw the most, back in the day, was 5 elemental shamans. 5 simultaneous chain lightnings will explode most mobs in an instance pack almost in one shot. And when the fighting gets close, shocks are good for cleanup; and since fights are so short, 4 or 5 simultaneous small heals will bring almost anyone back up to full.
Yeah, last night I rolled a Belf Rogue for a guildie who couldn’t find one. I named him Boykisses, gave him fabulous flowing hair, and made him dance around in nothing but his boots. 
Guildie came to meet me at Farstrider Retreat, we had a dance party, and he left his pets on Defensive so when I kept attacking him I got one-shot in a variety of amusing ways as he swapped out different ones.
My guildies are (A) not really friends IRL, and generally not especially amenable to odd requests, and (B) barely playing anymore anyways.
It’s odd. I’ve always been prepared to play my own way. I have alts on the same realm with every trade skill I need up to 450 and with all the recipes I need. Ditto for weird skills, except for lockpicking (the rogue isn’t up to 80 yet).
I’ve always had the bad luck of becoming an auxiliary member of a guild full of IRL mutual friends (but strangers to me). It’s been enough to become a “casual raider”, but that’s the extent of my success.
What server are you on? Someone here would probably be willing to roll a rogue for you, too. I would except I don’t think I’m going to be able to play until Saturday night at the earliest, because I’m going out of town tomorrow.
That sounds perilously close to botting.
Even if you’re duplicating the keypresses, there’s still a person at the computer hitting keys. It’s not automated.
There’s a huge multiboxing how-to writeup on WoWwiki, so I doubt Blizzard has a problem with it.
I appreciate that, but I think our schedules aren’t going to mesh. If I don’t get this done tonight, it isn’t happening, because my Beloved’s honey-do list is about to explode on me. Between preparations for the Thanksgiving festivities and the shopping/cleaning/decorating insanity of Christmas, I don’t think I’ll be able to even touch the computer until… January? Maybe? 
I wish I was exaggerating. I’m sure I’m not.
Tool-assisted gameplay is cheating. Hitting the keys don’t matter. It’s the tool-assisted co-ordination. See how long Blizzard’s stance lasts if a multiboxer goes tournament Glad.
WoW forum post with blue responses. I think this is the one mentioned above.
Official position: “Automation bad. Beer good.” 
Blizzard has repeatedly said they have no problem whatsoever with multiboxing. I doubt they’ll change that stance anytime soon.
I’m looking forward to doing it for Cata, since I have two “mains” I want to level as fast as possible. I figure I’ll set my DK tank as the primary and my mage as the secondary–then the DK can get aggro on things and the mage can blow them away. It’ll be very simple since I don’t have (and don’t want) the multiboxing software but I just bought a new monitor and it’s much easier with dual monitors to keep track of everything.
Congrats to **SFG **on the new drake!
In the last minute department–I finally got “All You Can Eat” 10 man on my DK. Which means he’s only one more achievement (the LK one) away from his skeledraggy! And that’s a piece of cake compared to AYCE, which, if it isn’t the most annoying and evil achievement in the game, is certainly in the top 10! So by next week, I’ll almost certainly have a replacement for my blue proto.
Deadly Boss Mods is a tool assisting gameplay. Ventrilo is a tool, completely outside of the WoW client, assisting gameplay. Clearly, “tool-assisted gameplay” is not a meaningful or consistent criterion.
Read the blue post. If you disagree, understand that the actual arbiters of WoW reality think you’re wrong.
AFAIK, all these tools do is make it so that if you, say, hit “1” in the active window, you also hit “1” in the other WoW windows. They’re not *automating *anything–simply allowing you to make the same input in several places at once. It doesn’t do any of the work for you, e.g., decide what to cast–you still have to decide what to keybind to 1 for each character.
Oh yeah, AYCE was a pain. If you get a good group, it’s pretty cake, but even one bad player, or one good player zoning out for two seconds, fucks you hard. Been Waiting a Long Time will be easy-peasy.
Good link, thanks.
A program that sends a keypress to two windows seems to be pretty clearly allowable, at least as of March 13, 2008.
Just because noboday cares that it’s cheating doesn’t change that it is. People respond differently to cheating outside of a competitive environment. That’s why I expected their stance to change as soon as someone tried to use it in their serious business competitive environment. Consider the different responses to maphacking between the Warcraft 3 community and the Diablo 2 community. A Warcraft 3 maphacker did everything to keep it secret and was hated if discovered. In Diablo 2, player would say “I have maphack!” after joining a game and be met with “Sweet! Lead the way.” Do you care if someone is multiboxing to one-shot Druids of the Fang? I know I don’t.
Ventrilo doesn’t directly assist gameplay.
I’d definitely say that DBM – like most addons – is a cheat, but nobody cares. A DotA remake had a similar addon that was plugged up. Why? See above. Even Blizzard doesn’t like these things that much. Remember that move-out-of-the-circle thing a few months back?
Hitting the keys doesn’t matter. It’s the tool-assisted co-ordination.
TLDR: Multiboxing is just Diablo 2’s maphack all over again.
Oh for goodness’ sake. A cheat is something not allowed by the rules. If the rules say it’s okay, it’s by definition not a cheat.
And Blizzard will never do anything about it, because as far as they’re concerned two accounts is two accounts. It doesn’t matter if it’s two people playing two accounts or one person playing two accounts, just so long as neither account is being automated.
It’s not cheating any more than DBM or DXE or Omen or any of the other legal WoW addons are cheating. Since it’s Blizzard’s game and they control what is and isn’t allowed, and they say it’s allowed, then it’s not cheating. Simple as that.
Some addons, like AVR, were deemed to be too powerful, and Blizz broke them. Some addons/hacks like the one that allows people to mine underground, are exploits and Blizz will ban you if they catch you using them.
I doubt that a multiboxer will ever be as effective in competitive PvP as a group of characters all run by skilled players. It would require a level of coordination that’s nearly impossible. Yeah, multiboxers raid–because raid content is known and relatively predictable. Usually they don’t do it with fresh content, and I doubt anybody has multi-boxed their way to a LK hard mode kill.