Multiboxing, round 2

Probably pretty obvious that I've been getting pretty bored with the game lately.  Yeah, there's a new patch and that's pretty cool.  But it really struck me as just 1 more set of dungeons to go run to basically get right back where I was a few months ago. 

T.L.D.R. - I've gotten pretty bored with WoW, so I'm going to focus on multiboxing for a while.   

Toward the end of 3.08 I felt like I had really accomplished about all I wanted to do in the game.  We pretty much had all of Naxx (10 and 25-man) on farm.  OS was pretty easy and we eventually got EoE down too (10 man only).  I wrote the guide on ElitistJerks for how to raid as a Frost Mage.  Sure there were plenty of more hardmodes to do, and the list of achievements to get is pretty much endless.  But I had seen all the high-end content the game had to offer.  For the first time since I had started playing WoW, I felt like I had "beat the game". 

3.1 came out and I was pretty excited to keep the momentum going.  It worked for a little while.  But our 25-mans quickly fizzled out completely and our 10-mans eventually hit a brick wall with the keepers.  (Although the progress this week looks very promising.)  Now 3.2 rolled out, and I feel like I'm back to farming heroics for badges again. 

Yeah, I understand that's the way the game goes.  It's just not a step I was looking forward too.  I can tell I'm not the only one - how many people have left the guild lately?  How many are still here, but don't really bother to log on anymore?  I guess to some extent I did it too.  After basically being AFK for a week or two I officially posted on the Farstriders forum that I was leaving the progression threads and the tradecrafting threads unsupported.  I haven’t been back since.  I did update the “Raiding as a Frost Mage” thread I had on EJ for 3.2 changes, but I’ll be leaving that one unsupported as well.  (If anyone wants to take them over – it’s all yours.)  Still, this was probably a good thing.  My "Honey-do" list around the house had been piling up, and I think I needed a break. 

But taking some time off did make me start looking around for something different, but I was missing WoW at the same time. 

Well, I think I found it – multiboxing (MB)  If you read my blogs, this is something that I played with a bit before.  But now I think I want to do it much more seriously.  After spending days reading up on it at dual-boxing.com, I’ve decided to take the plunge. 

Step 1 for me was buying a new PC.  My current rig handles WoW, even 25-man raiding, just fine – good frame rates with all the graphical bells and whistles turned all the way up at 1900x1200.  But as soon as I added 2 more chars I started having some issues.  Not so much that it was unplayable – but it did get annoying at times.  That and I want to run my own 5-man team for heroics and PvP – maybe even get them “raid capable” at some point. 

A good quad core CPU (i7), 12GB of RAM, a very fast hard drive (2x RAIDed Raptors, 5x RAIDed “standard” hard drives, or a good SSD), and some good video cards (GTX 275+ / 4850x2 or higher) are pretty much required if you don’t want to lag out in Wintergrasp or any other big raids.  That makes for a pretty spendy PC – probably $1500, not counting monitor(s).  As much as this is something I want to get into – paying the big bucks before you really get into it doesn’t seem worth it.  It’s like parents who buy their kids a baby grand piano for lessons only to discover a year or two later that jr. doesn’t have any musical talent whatsoever. 

So I went shopping for something cheaper.  Rather than spend lots of money on a single PC with multiple monitors hanging off it, my plan is to run 2 separate PCs at the same time.  Here’s what I have and what upgrades I’m still working on:

Rig1 – for running a single instance of WoW:

Core2Duo E6850 (Dual core 3.0GHz) – Need to upgrade from my current E6300

4GB RAM, DDR2

320GB 7200RPM hard drive for OS, swap file and programs

1TB 7200RPM hard drive for WoW and storage

NVidia 9600 GSO (384MB video RAM)

28” 1900x1200 monitor

Rig 2 – for running 4x “slave” accounts

Core2Quad Q6600 (Quad core 2.66GHz)

8GB RAM, DDR2 - Need to upgrade from current 4GB

500GB 7200RPM hard drive for OS, swap file and programs

32GB SSD for WoW – Need to purchase

NVidia 8800GT (512MB video RAM)

Twin 19” 1440x900 monitors (portrait mode, split screen) – Need to purchase 2^nd one.

Rig 1 is what I have now – that’s been my gaming rig for about a year now.  Although I am still working with someone for the CPU upgrade ($50 on craigslist).  Rig2 I just bought off ebay the other day.  Check out Item #150364154381 if you want.  Kinda bummed that the auction ended late night on the 6th (Thursday) and they didn't ship the stuff until the 11th (Tuesday).  I was really hoping to have it to play with by this weekend, but I think it'll have to wait another week.  Oh well, I still need to replace the RAM with 8GB and order a cheap 32GB SSD before I'm totally set.  I looked at what it would take to upgrade my current PC or to go buy a new i7 rig.  It just didn't seem worth it when I could get 90% of what I wanted at 1/3 to 1/2 the price. 

I also ordered 3 more copies of WoW (vanilla) and 1 more copy of the battlechest (included TBC upgrade) from ebay along with a few 60-day time cards.  I already have 2 accounts, one WOLK and one TBC.  This will actually give me a total of 6 accounts.  The plan is to have an entirely new 5-man team and 1 non-partied “helper”.  I’ll eventually drop the 6^th account once I no longer need a non-partied booster.

The first 5-man team I’ll do will be for running instances and eventually heroics.

1xBE Paly (Prot-tank)

1xTauren Druid (Balance – DPS)

1x Troll Shaman (Elemental – DPS)

1x Orc Mage (Frost – DPS)  (I think Orcs can be mages, right?  If not, how about priests?)

1x Undead Priest (Disc – Heals)

(I’ll also RAF level a warlock and off-spec the priest for shadow in case I ever need to join a raid as fully synergized ranged DPS team that all stand in 1 spot and nuke the boss.  )

The 2^nd group will be all Tauren Shaman team for some PvP fun.  I will level a DK (unholy tank) with this group in case I want to run some instances too.  Once I get past the level 60 RAF point I’ll alternate between the teams for rested exp. 

No plans for Hunter, Rogue or Warrior, but I may just RAF one of each to 60 so I have one of every class in case something changes in the future. 

I probably have another week until my 2^nd PC and new copies of WoW arrive.  So I’ll spend this weekend shopping for tradecrafting mats and crafting some entry level gear for a plethora of new alts.  Once I get set up, I’ll ask to have my new main char in each group join the guild.  I don’t think you’ll see much of Magechick anymore unless she’s helping the new Hordlings or camped at the AH. 

If anyone else is stalled in the level 1-60 range, give me a yell.  I plan on running lots of instances in that range in the next few months. 

So now the question is – if Magechick isn’t going to be my “main” anymore, or at least not my main focus – how do I sign my posts?