What and Why:
Multi-boxing is at it’s most basic is controlling two or more game characters at once through a number of solutions. Many multiplayer games have some level of facility to allow this and some games it is frowned upon (by the devs/publishers/other players) or outright banned (or you can only do it in certain ways (for example World of Warcraft has new rules). I say devs/publishers because ultimately I don’t much care if other players don’t like multi-boxers. As long as we follow the same rules and play the game the way it was intended by the devs/publishers, what the “haters” hate is up to them.
You multi-box with a number of tools. At the most basic you have one or more PCs and you control each character with a keyboard/mouse. At the next level you use a software or hardware multiplexor to send physical keypresses to each client. And eventually you use specialist multi-boxing software to interpret keypresses on a per/client basis allowing Round-Robin (each key press goes to a single client at a time) or Key substitution (press a specific key on this client, press a different key on another client). (A very simplified introduction to multi-boxing from my perspective.)
I am not a recent convert to multi-boxing. I originally started in City of Heroes back in i6 or i7. Originally I used a fork of Synergy I think called Octopus. In those days my PC wasn’t capable of running more than a single client at once and Octopus/Synergy-Fork ran a server client model so you could send keystrokes to each client. I also had a trio of Belkin Nostromo keypads 2x N50 and 1x N52, the N52 was the basis for the first Razor Nostromo/Tarturus/etc. Plus a mouse for each PC. Though in the end I ditched the extra mice to work with Synergy1, making the process smoother.
I handled most keys and movement from my main PC sent power activation keystrokes through the multi-boxing software and then used the N50s for per/pc positioning, as they had a row less keys than the N52 and lacked some other features (and were old glued together from 3 distinct devices). After a while of dual/triple boxing CoH (this was still live and I couldn’t always afford all three subs) getting a couple of Fire/Kins to 50. I moved on to World of Warcraft. This would have been2 late Burning Crusade early Lich King (if memory serves). These were the days when lots of people were doing PvP with 5x Shaman… etc
But once again I couldn’t afford 5 subs, so I triple boxed WoW for a bit, using Octopus and Keyclone (to name two), I tried other software here and there but generally never found one that was both cheap/free and worked well. Especially bearing in mind I’m not the type of person who likes to play the same game for years on end. I multi-boxed at least at some level in GW1 (not fun), GW2 (nigh impossible and against the rules), EvE (easy enough to do but ultimately a boring game for someone who doesn’t much enjoy PvP), Auto Assault (NCSoft beta for a driving MMORPG, don’t recall the MBing potential as being anything to write home about) and Dungeons ad Dragons Online (enjoyed the game, but not multi-boxing it). And a number of older MMOs: EQ & EQ2, Runescape, Lineage II… and probably some others. The only two games after all of this that stick in my head (other than EvE3) would be CoH and WoW.
So obviously time moves on, I got out of MMOs mostly as the people I played with moved on and I lost the sense of community that made me play them for any length of time in the first place. After Lich King (I played and raided in Cataclysm, but most of my friends by this point had left) I personally think WoW lost it’s way. I tended to sub for a few months every couple of years and then quit in disgust and very few of my friends who I used to enjoy playing with either still play or if they do still play on the same realm/shard/server/etc that I do. (Same happened in GW2 but I didn’t MB it so it’s neither here nor there.) CoH got killed by NCSoft and while there were many “successor” projects being worked on none appeared to be close to fruition, and as even on live many thought Multi-boxing was at best exploitive and at worst outright cheating. So even if a “successor” came along and I could play there was no certainty that I would be even allowed to Multi-Box it.
Allow? Most educated server operators (IMO) allow some level of Multi-boxing or don’t actively prevent people from doing it. With subscription model games it’s in the publisher’s best interests to allow it as it encourages people to spend more time playing the game, and one person paying 5 or 8 (or more) subs is much better than one person paying for one sub. Many games seem to take the line that they don’t care for it, and make the client as unfriendly to it as possible but don’t actively ban it. Some outright ban it and will ban your accounts if you’re caught. So from my perspective I try and avoid Multi-boxing in games that make it hard to do so, or games that outright ban the activity. And if I don’t manage to avoid them, perhaps find them irresistible to play, which leads to Multi-boxing I then try and minimise my exposure to hopefully avoid notice until I have scratched that particular itch.
Why do I Multi-box? Couple of reasons for me. The challenge of playing 2/3/5/8 characters at once as a single entity. It’s challenging both at the gameplay level, how do I approach this encounter? How do I deal with this boss? But also how do I “program” these two characters to work with these 4 characters that use different powers. How do I naviage through this maze without half my team getting stuck in doorways (Oranbega or the Crystal Caves (CoH) I’m looking at you here…). What powers work really well in groups, what powers are meh in groups even if fine solo and what do I want to avoid like the plague. Then there is the ability to always have a team of like minded individuals who want to play with you and play at your pace whenever you want to. I don’t do well with real friendships (autism), and my game time is often at odd times for my time-zone, I tend to go to bed early (8-10pm) and get up at ~4-6am, so when I play often doesn’t coincide with the majority in my time zone (made WoW raiding a bitch). Lastly, I think, I enjoy putting together combinations of powers (classes in WoW) and seeing how they perform. Is a team with 8 buffer/de-buffer characters all using Radiation better than a mixture of buff/de-buff styles (so far edging on better to have a mixture). You used to be able to theory craft this with one of the build planners… how many Accelerate Metabolism (CoH) would it take to make it perma (3 with 2x level 50 IOs, or 1x with hasten and a fully IOed level 50 Incarnate).
Now:
When I learned that there was a “pirate” server for City of Heroes floating around, I pretty much immediately ran off to find out what and where. I’d loved CoH in the past, it was still the measuring stick by which I rated other MMOs (and communities) by and I was desperate to scratch that itch once more. Because of the way that the new server(s) were created and from where many of the more knowlegeable server hosts had come from back at the start of City of Heroes reawakening there was quite a lot of rancour between the devs/hosts of what has become the largest of the servers Homecoming and many of the other smaller servers.
In a nutshell (as I understand it anyway). Back in the final days of NCSoft run Paragon Studios (the then developers of City of Heroes) an un-named person took all the server files and unreleased updates (i25 & i26) which were in development at that point and archived them somewhere outside of the company. Moving forward a few months/years he or she set up a small private server that ran City of Heroes as it was on live, I think it even had the original player database. This remained live for about 7 years but someone who had been given access finally decided to let the general population. Who had until then thought CoH dead and gone and who were mostly looking at one or other of the successor projects.
Some of the devs who went on to create HomeComing were among those who had been playing it for 7 years. Many of those who set up other servers felt let down by these devs so there was much angst and drama between the many servers. For the most part that seems to have gone now (or it’s not as visible). For myself I was just happy to have a game I loved once again available.
It has led to a division between the servers though. The official unofficial version of CoH is run by the Ouroboros Devs4, they maintain a wiki and repository so that anyone can create their own server. But different dev teams have created different flavours of CoH. HomeComing is the most advanced (some say) it has the most new content (things to do) a lot of QoL changes but is also the easiest to get anywhere with. Cake seems to be a grab bag of features that people have asked for, but that don’t necessarily work well together (in my experience) and Thunderspy seems to have remained close to the original Live experience with a lot of customisation options added but little content. (All in my experience.)
To find out more. The best place is to look on the City of Heroes reddit page, it has a list of launchers (required for downloading/updating the game) and where to find out more about each server. https://www.reddit.com/r/Cityofheroes/
I play triple box (and solo) on HomeComing (one of the largest servers), it’s much too easy to get anywhere and I somewhat wish it were more like live without everything being given to you right off the bat. On the other hand the rules limit you to at most 3 characters at once and while I will admit to playing four briefly now and then I hope they never notice. Personally I wish they’d remove the limit on low population servers, or allow me to pay something monthly to facilitate me playing 6-8 accounts. I can understand their reasoning, and I love most of the additional content and QoL additions.
I play 6-8 (Hex or Octo-boxing) on Thunderspy. Currently levelling (mostly through street sweeping) 8 defenders (6x Rad/Elec & 2x Sonic/Elec). I plan on adding at least one team of controllers and one of corruptors. I’m told that Masterminds are great, but as whenever I have tried them in the past I haven’t enjoyed them much, I’m not sure when/if I will attempt an all MM team. I’d also like to try a mixed team, something like a tank/brute with something/kin followers. A brute to hold agro and protect the squishies with the squishies doing all the damage. And after typing that I have an idea I want to try (both powers and looks).
These days I exclusively use Inner Space5 (bit that multiplexes) and ISBoxer5 (utility to set it up). I have 4 clients per screen and two screens (a 4k and a 1080p), currently running an Ryzen 1600, 16Gb RAM & a 1060 6Gb. I only have a single client installed mostly as CoH client settings are held in the registry so it’s not easy to add a per/client setup to set window locations/sizes and account details. (Not impossible, but not easy either. Originally when I first played on HC I managed this through a batch file that launched all my clients and loaded registry entries for each client as I loaded them in, I suspect that if I dig further the same can be done natively within ISBoxer, but I haven’t got that far yet. (See part 2 for a more in depth setup guide.)
In game I generally run a primary account and all my alternative accounts follow that primary. I have a key the initiates follow (actually still use the default ‘F’) however the Inner Space Software (ISS here on in) only sends the ‘F’ to the characters I’m not directly playing. I use the numpad keys to select which character to follow. This is needed so that if my team leader changes, especially while doing missions. I can follow a character that isn’t on ‘team_select 1’. A good understanding of how the various slash commands in CoH work is useful. It’s also useful to be fairly confident in what abilities to pick and when.
In game macros are useful too, taking my current Radiation & Sonic/Electric defender team as an example. I have a macro that invites all the other members to the team, a macro that turns on all of the toggles that all of the team members have and a further macro to just turn on specific Radiation or Sonic abilities. I also have a macro for the debuff toggles.
This post has gone long so I plan on writing another post in which I’ll detail my exact setup in greater detail. Hopefully making it easier to follow what I have done. I tried to do so as a video/stream but it’s very difficult to show 8 clients across 2 monitors on a single 1920×1080 video… 😀
So Multi-boxing Part 2 soon…