Nekyia

Continuing from the previous two articles (Basic Layout and LUI Customization), this last part deals specifically with the dual box configuration. Before switching to LUI, I attempted to use AutoHotkey as a free method to broadcast keystrokes to a second window. This worked, technically, but it was far from ideal; partly because AHK is a generic broadcaster with no built-in intelligence for games. I grabbed a basic configuration file from AutoHotkey’s own forums and modified it to support my hotkeys (my config). Although it supports key modifiers, it is obvious that macros are even less ideal when multi-boxing. It is difficult to see proc messages, time abilities, and generally keep up with anything but the most basic of action.

One major drawback was that without window management or maintaining two copies of the game folder, only one window was visible at a time. Often times, I would get wrapped up in questing and I would not realize that my second account was no longer following the main account. This also makes it impossible to see proc messages, aggro warnings, etc. It was also slightly surprising to see how difficult navigation is for followers and how important jumping is. Without setting a separate hotkey for follower jumping, it was difficult to get over some hurdles. Essentially, mere key broadcasting is not enough. Multi-boxing requires some flexibility and intelligence.

ISBoxer

Going back to WoW Wiki, I found and signed up for a week trial of ISBoxer. I strongly encourage anyone interesting in multi-boxing to at least take the trial. The application is weird and it does take some configuration to get it “just right,” but it is a great starting point even if you decide on another product. ISBoxer handles window management so that multiple instances of Warcraft can be displayed at once. It also allows for hot-swapping between instances to bring a slave to the primary monitor. It creates character specific Config.WTF files so that multiple accounts can be run from the same game folder without conflict. Some default hotkeys and game logic is included for Warcraft; including a slave jump combination.

ISBoxer can also broadcast mouse movement. This makes loot rolls and quests much easier to navigate. I am still having difficulty in getting AoE attacks to work without swapping windows, but it is supported once configured correctly. Now that I was able to handle characters getting feared and being able to swap and continue attacking among other tasks while I re-acquired my feared character (Alt-F), my next bottleneck become slaves breaking follow during combat. Originally, I was playing ranged classes and did not notice the problem. However, once I rolled melee Monks, the issue became a deal breaker. Each time a melee skill is used, follow is broken. This means that during combat, players will be constantly re-acquiring follow to reposition themselves better. Fortunately, this sounds worse than it really is and eventually becomes a graceful finger dance across a keyboard stage. We can ease this dance quite a bit (along with lessening Repeater toggling) below when we look at Jamba.

As far as configuration is concerned, read their Quick Start Guide and follow the wizards. Under Keymaps, I copied “DPS 1″ and changed the relevant areas to support my alpha keys. The two areas that must be changed are “Hotkey” when selecting “DPS 1″ and the “Key combination” under “Steps” and “1 -> all”. This sounds confusing, but it allows for a single WoW hotkey to issue different keystrokes to different windows. If using a consistent action bar as I do, then these two sections should be the same.

Aside from configuring Keymaps, the only two changes I have made is to reposition the Keymap and Repeater “click bar” so that it does not cover my buffs. While in-game, limber up your fingers and enter the default In-Game ISBoxer GUI with Ctrl-Shift-Alt-G (this can be changed via the ISBoxer Toolkit). When this window is open, all created click bars are unlocked. I dragged mine towards the minimap and far just low enough to avoid the drop-down micromenu. Press Ctrl-Shift-Alt-G again to hide the configuration window.

The FPS indicator sits right on top of LUI’s gold information text. Since LUI already displays FPS, I disabled this within the ISBoxer Toolkit. Select your Character Set and check “Hide FPS (framerate) indicator”. Export settings and enjoy. I have not experimented too much with the settings and that is good. It means that after informing ISBoxer of your hotkeys all that is left is to enjoy the game.

Jamba

Now comes Jamba. This little addon is supported by ISBoxer and handles in-game team management, whisper forwarding, quest turn-in helpers, and much more. It also strobes follow commands so that characters are picked back up without a lot of manual tedium. Without strobing, Jamba does a noble job and greatly cuts down on manually acquiring follow. After configuring Jamba, it allows you to push settings to your entire team or load from a previous profile. Quest turn-ins are much quicker and my characters are able to stay on target better. Auto-accepting resurrections  auto-repairs, and auto-selling junk are all handy. There are a ton features packed into Jamba and I have only taken to a few surface changes. All of the settings will be preference as simply installing it will enable some auto-follow features.

Downloading Note: Download from WoW Curse, but ensure you are using the MoP beta version found under “Other Downloads.”

Below are the options that I have changed to give you an idea, but I highly suggest reading their Jamba website. They list everything and provide descriptions.

• Auto Accept Invites
• Auto Accept Friends Only
• Auto Repair
• Auto Sell Poor Quality Items
• Forward Whispers and Relay
• Take Master’s Taxi

I originally had “Warn if I stop following (slave)” enabled, but it will constantly ding on melee characters. With both WoW instances visible, I notice a lack of movement and respond accordingly. Health warnings are nice to have. In my case, my master character is the beefiest and holds any aggro. This protects my slave fairly well unless it is feared or I catch a roaming pack.

Now that Jamba is configured on a single character, go back to the main Jamba configuration page. Push settings to all members and get to playing.

Basic Tips

Window layout allows for easy window swapping. This will is great for changing masters, but it also allows for opening all the necessary dialogs so that Jamba can work properly or selling junk. For quests, it does not matter which character opens the first dialog. Typically, I will open on master, accept on slave, open second quest on slave, accept on master, rinse, and repeat. This makes it fairly efficient to accept multiple quests. If click-to-move is used, they may be accessible with repeater enabled, but my slave always seem to be out of position (inherent in following) and I dislike click-to-move.

After being feared, it has been rare (so far), that a simple Alt-F did not bring the character back. If my character is out of range, I swap windows and continue spamming my attacks while I stroll back into action. This keeps my slave engaging targets while the master window takes a break.

Monk rolling breaks follow. While rolling, tap Alt-F and keep cruising.

Breaking follow is sometimes necessary, such as when tight-rope walking, doing vehicle quests, etc. To achieve this, toggle off Keymaps and Jamba’s strobe, if enabled. Characters will still auto-follow after screen swapping. Now is the time to use the pre-configured follower jump (default keybind is Ctrl-Space). Any slave movement will work, but slave jumping is already configured.

Disable Jamba on un-teamed characters. Edit: This section about disabling Jamba was incorrect. It’s best to just manage the team through Jamba’s configuration. If the character is running solo, just remove all names from the team listing.

Remember to toggle Keymaps off if using alpha hotkeys. Using Ctrl-Shift-M (default binding) before chatting will prevent bad pulls, flying off of cliffs, and your chats from looking like a cat ran across the keyboard. Considering how often you find yourself toggling, it may be more efficient to change the toggle hotkeys to something more manageable.

Improvements and Troubleshooting

FPS: Shortly after MoP was released, I was suddenly getting atrocious FPS; around 10 FPS when dual-boxing. I spent a day going through settings and reading websites only to luck into a nVidia driver update.

Reloading ISBoxer changes: ISBoxer does not require WoW to be restarted before applying new changes. This means that while playing, changes can be made via the ISBoxer Toolkit. Simply perform the standard “Export All to Inner Space” and a message will appear on each instance of WoW stating that new changes have been applied.

Window Layout: Configuration is a matter of preference, but be sure to give ISBoxer enough time to load the windows before assuming that something is broken. I spent a week disappointed that I couldn’t hot-swap windows because after initiating my team, my slave window was not in its appropriate location. Knowing that ISBoxer keeps different Config.WTF for each character, I set out to “fix it” by changing the display options from “Primary” monitor to “Monitor 2.” Bad idea. If ISBoxer, after waiting, still is not displaying the layout correctly, go back and run the Window Layout Wizard again.

In the previous post, I discussed my transition from point-and-click to hotkeys and from creating my own layout to using a compilation pack. The compilation pack that I chose was LUI after browsing through Vranx. Its sleek look and feature set was the main appeal. I was much more impressed after installing. The built-in configuration menu and custom code instead of simply unpacking other addons was a pleasant surprise.

Before making any changes, I like to load all of my addons to make sure that at least work in a default state. Since LUI does a great job handling so many features, I have only added five addons: AuctionLite, Bagnon, BoP Remove, Postal, and Prat (all available on Curse). AuctionLite and Postal are quality of life enhancements that make dealing with the auction house bearable and being able to bulk process the mail inbox. BoP Remove disables the “Are you sure you want to loot this BoP item” message that is quite irritating on a single account, much less on two or more. Bagnon is handy for the added tooltip informing players which characters have the selected item and how many. LUI handles gold accumulations which is part of Bagnon, but it does not yet handle caching character’s bags. Prat is straight forward and can be customized to taste.

BoP Remove requires some minor configuration upon loading. Players can set the quality threshold and party size. Personally, I set mine to epics and 40-man raids to hide all BoP messages. After making the appropriate changes, click the “X” button to hide the frame. Bagnon can be modified to taste. I tend to scale bags to 70% and banks to 80%, remove the data broker frame, and hide the gold count (LUI does a better job). There is a sixth addon that I will discuss in the next article as it relates directly to multi-boxing; Jamba.

Configuring LUI (/lui)

I made minor changes to the default LUI configuration. Below they are itemized, but essentially I’m hiding the micromenu bar from being shown every login, turning off the bag and interrupt announcements, and enabling the Focus Target.

General -> Settings

1. Uncheck “Show micromenu”
2. Check “Hide Talent change spam”

Bags -> Bags

1. Uncheck “Show bag bar”
2. Check “Show item quality”

Bars

1. Right Bar 1
   1. Check to show
2. Left Bar 1
   1. Check to show

Modules

1. Disable Bags
2. Disable Interrupt Announcer

Tooltip -> Settings

1. Check “Anchor to cursor”

Unit Frames

1. Focus Target
   1. Check “Enable”

Configuring Bartender (/bt)

Once LUI has been configured, I set up my action bars. Based on the hotkeys mentioned previously, I place the appropriate skills in the slot and add the correct hotkey. I like having the hotkey characters displayed so I enable those. I use Bar 4 for hidden skills such as pet and mount summons. Bar 6 will actually be hidden behind LUI’s “Right Bar 1″ and Bar 9 will be “Left Bar 1.” These are hidden bars that are accessible as a pull-out menu. On the right bar, I like to have pet functions and buffs. On the left bar, I currently have potions and food, but I may get rid of this bar in the future and simply open my organized bags. My first row of bags follow the same outline as action bar 9.

Bar 1

1. Uncheck “Hide hotkey”

Configuring Skills

Action Bar 1

1. Basic attack (hotkey: 1)
2. Basic attack (hotkey: 2)
3. Instant cast (hotkey: 3)
4. Proc attack (hotkey: 4)
5. Nuke (hotkey: F)
6. Racial, CC break, or Trinket/Burn (hotkey: Mouse-Button-5)
7. AoE (hotkey: 5)
8. Curse, stun, or DoT (hotkey: C)
9. CC (hotkey: Q)
10. Silence of Fear (hotkey: E)
11. Proc attack (hotkey: R)
12. Situational (hotkey: T)

Action Bar 4

1. Temporarily disable “Always hide” under “Visibility”
2. mount (hotkey: F12)
3. Re-enable “Always hide”

Action Bar 6

1. Buffs / Pets

Action Bar 9

1. Bandage
2. Health potion
3. Mana potion
4. Healthstone
5. Food
6. Misc potion
7. Aspect / Auras

General LUI Tips

After the initial installation of LUI, some of the frames will probably overlap. To toggle all frames, click the sparkling ball in the top center of the screen. Unlock chat and party frames to drag them into place. Omen and Recount must be unlocked through their addon configuration menus. Once unlocked, drag them into place and re-lock.

Experience to next level is available for mouse hovers just under the player resource bar. Clicking on the information will print it to the current chat channel or directly to the chat frame (essentially, a private message only visible to you).

Follow on to Part 3 – Multiboxing.

I have been playing World of Warcraft on and off since 2006. Since the beginning, I have always been attracted to User Interface (“UI”) layouts. I want to introduce my layout as a preliminary article to my first experience with dual-boxing (playing two account simultaneously).

Firstly, I believe that new action bars, player frames, and bags are essential addons. A new chat window is really helpful to get it out of the way and to hide some of the bulk. My main desire for action bars and player frames is to be able to see more while creating a more minimalistic environment. Typically this involves bringing the player bars to center-bottom so that they sit close to my narrow focus. The center of the screen is a natural focal point with vertical paths being easier to view than horizontal; this is especially true on widescreens.

Aside from addons, I learned quickly that point-and-click did not work in Player-Vs-Player (“PvP”) environments. I left my WADS keyboard assignment, but A and D both strafe instead of turn and right-clicking drives the character with mouse look. This allows for quick 180 degree turns. I used to be heavily macro dependent which was great for keeping my action bar slimed, but macros are not ideal and tend to break. Fortunately, with the arrival of Mists of Pandaria (“MoP”), skills have been consolidated (at least for Warlocks) so there are far fewer skills to clutter action bars. That aside, I did develop a consistent action bar across characters. This was not done with any foresight, only to keep my confusion to a minimum which playing an alt. This will be critical when looking at multi-boxing.

To facilitate PvP, macros, and consistent skill placement, I began using hotkeys. For my primary bar, I utilize 1-5, Q, E, R, T, F, and C. These keys surround the WADS movement keys. Each corresponds a skill type. For example (3 and 4 are inappropriate):

Example action bar with hotkey text

• 1 basic attack (was ranged before MoP)
• 2 basic attack
• 3 instant cast
• 4 proc attack
• 5 AoE (“Area of Effect”)
• Mouse-5 Racial, CC break, or Trinket/Burn
• Q crowd control (“CC”)
• E silence or fear
• R proc attack
• T situational
• F main nuke
• C curse, stun, or DoT (“Damage Over Time”)

A handful of function keys are used for mount and pet summons, hide UI, and screenshot. The numpad is for menus.

• 0 Character sheet
• 1 Spell book
• 2 Talents
• 3 PvP
• 4 Quest log
• 5 Social windows
• 6 Mount and Pet journal
• 7 Achievements
• 8 Dungeon journal
• 9 LFD / LFR (“Looking for Dungeon” and “Looking for Raid”)

I typically use two four-slot action bars for potions, food, bandages, buffs, aspects/stances, etc. Below is an example of my old layout:

Dual boxing with old UI

Without any content, it would look like:

Old layout without game content

Everything is neatly centered and accessible. However, with every patch, it was cumbersome to update addons. Even after all the patching, I still had some glitches that I would work around. As I entered into multi-boxing (the above screenshot is actually me dual-boxing), I did not want to fight updates and I needed consistency across everything. Reflux was handling single account settings well enough, but it was not working for the second account.

In looking to streamline both the dual-boxing experience and the user interface, I ran across the addon compilation pack LUI. This included most everything I had before as a custom package; which meant fewer addon updates. After adding a few additional addons and some tweaking, my UI now looks like the following.

New layout using LUI

Without any content, it would look like:

New UI without game content

Although LUI uses more artwork, it still maintains a clean look while providing a lot of information. Since both the Threat and DPS Meters can be toggled from the top, there is quite a bit of whitespace present. Slide scaling down (default scaling shown) on the player frames and it creates a fairly tight vertical focus.

In the next article, I will explain the addons that I have picked to compliment LUI and some of the configuration changes that I made. Overall, I have gained a consistent, clean, and information interface that is easy to update and works across both accounts. It is really surprising at how lightweight LUI is given its features. Regardless of how you choose to configure your interface, keep in mind your focus area, ease of maintenance, and cross-account functionality.

Up next, Part 2 – LUI Customization.