More on this multiboxing thing...

I have now managed to get my raf dual-boxed toons up to 20 and have even managed to figure out a few neat things. Since someone asked, I shall share them with you.

1. A druid/priest pair is ridiculous fun. The druid bear-tanks and kitty-dpses, and the priest dpses and heals. It's a nice combo. (and yes, I have forsaken the warrior in favor of the druid. What can I say, I had way too much fun with swift flight form on the ptr.)

2. Hotkeynet is a really powerful program that is capable of many awesome things, and thankfully its web page has scripts for most of them. I had to do some tinkering (my keyboard lacks a scroll lock key and I use different movement keys then the default), but it wasn't too hard. I even got picture-in-picture to work (which makes life so much easier). Plus, it's a free program. Yay free.

3. Macros are key. Seriously. They don't have to be anything complicated, and in fact most of mine are things like...
/target Monera
/cast Heal

or /assist Monera
/cast Shadow Word: Pain

Nice and simple, but it means that I can just hit a button for the priest to heal the druid or to target whatever the druid's targeting and cast Shadow Word: Pain at it.

4. Professions. Well, I've already outleveled my herbalism on the druid, and the less said about the priest's mining, the better. It might actually be easier to just go back once you hit 60. But if you're going to do professions, do ones that offer your toons armor upgrades. The priest is also a tailor, and most of her gear is stuff she made herself. Fewer quests and kills means your gear is not going to be as good, so making stuff yourself saves gold.

So far I have thoroughly enjoyed multiboxing, but there are a few caveats....

One, having someone try to talk to you while you're doing it (especially if you're using hotkeynet or another keycloning program) is a bit of a nightmare.

Two, without macros and addons (I suggest Jamba), you will be switching back and forth a lot.

Three, you will generally not learn as much about each class as if you were playing them individually.

Four, it gets expensive. My toons are certainly not self-supported, and if you're doing this on a new realm, roll a DK first for the cash.

Five, it's far easier to have all the gathering professions on one toon. Less switching back and forth.

And Six, you need to have a decent PC to do it. Mine is not a top of the line, but it is a dual core with 2 gigs of RAM, and an okay video card.

Ooh, lookie what I can do! Yup, that is two instances of wow running, and two characters being controlled at the same time. Or rather one character being controlled and one on follow. It's a warrior and priest pair, and so far it's going pretty well. The warrior's a skinner/herbalist, and the main one I'm controlling. The priest just follows along, and occasionally I switch over to her to heal the warrior. She has no professions as of yet, but I'm thinking Inscription/Tailoring. I'm not using any fancy software or macros or anything atm, but I need to find some. I know there's an addon for multiboxing that I need to go looking for, and I have the key cloning software, just haven't figured out how to use it yet. So for the moment, it's the primitive, but effective, window switch.

Quite a change from yesterday when I couldn't log on at all. Of course, I ran the repair tool which removed all my addons, but I've decided to use that opportunity to pare down my addon collection. I think instead of the crapton I have now, I'll stick with the following.
XPerl for unit frames and general pretty
Bartender because if it isn't on a bar I'm going to forget I have the ability
Questhelper cause I like being told where to go
Sexy Map for the pretty
Power Auras Classic to tell me important stuff like Demon armor has fallen off the warlock. I suspect it'll be even more useful with the dualboxing to remind me to keep both characters buffed.
Auctioneer because cash is good
Recount because I need to know my dps. NEED.
Omen, because otherwise how will I know if I'm winning the minigame or not? And yes, I routinely do win despite not being top dps. Stupid bursty mm spec, why can't I quit you?
Deadly Boss Mods because otherwise I will stand in the fire. (okay, so I generally don't, but still good to have)
Altaholic because I am firmly convinced this is the greatest addon EVER. I love being able to see what my alts have and don't have, where their profession skills are and what they can learn, as well as being able to select a recipe and know instantly what alts don't know it yet. Great addon for anyone with alts.

I'll let you guys know more about this multiboxing thing as I figure out more, and
HAPPY 4th of July!

Multiboxing and 10 coins on a level 10

So I've been considering multiboxing (once I have a job so I can pay for two accounts). I've been looking for info on and off, and I found these posts over at Amara Knows Aggro.
Part 1, the basics (or having your own pet healer
Part 2->Using a high level toon to boost lowbies
Part 3-> actually playing two toons at once

She's got an interesting blog, and I'd recommend checking out some of her other posts.

In other news, I'm pushing to get Linaev all the Lunar Festival patterns. I need 30 coins (35 if I want to get her a dress), and I'm at 19. It's giving me a chance to see the Horde areas in places like Ashenvale, where Garetia spent her early 20s.

And in a last little bit of Lunar Festival stuff, I figured since I did the ten coins on level ten toons for both the Horde and the Alliance, I'd list what I think are the easiest to get.
Alliance...
1. Darnassus
2. Dolonnar (just go inland from Darnassus)
3. Darkshore
4. Astraanar
5. Ratchett, the Barrens (you will die getting here, but you'll want the fp later),
6. Booty Bay
7. Stormwind
8. Goldshire
9. Ironforge
10. Kharanos
If you don't want to do the Barrens and Booty Bay, try Westfall and Loch Modan.

Horde
1. Undercity
2. Brill
3. Thunderbluff
4. Bloodhoof Village
5. Camp Taurajo, Barrens
6. Crossroads, Barrens
7. Org
8. Razor Hill
9. Ratchett
10. Astranaar (you'll die, but it's an easy run from the Barrens. Just swim around the city and you'll see the elder. Nicely water-accessible)
another option is Booty Bay if you're not comfortable with Ashenvale.

I managed to do possibly the oddest route possible on my horde, involving running from Grom'grol to Booty Bay. As you may have noticed, I occasionally fail on the thinking things through bit. But I think this should be pretty easy for any level 10. For my alliance toon, it was a piece of cake, and my only deaths were on the trip from Astranaar to the Barrens. And let's face it, you'll want the flight points later, so you might as well get them now.