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Gamer Plays Over 30 Warcraft Characters
If your significant other complains that you play too much World of Warcraft, just show them this article about a user named "Prepared." He plays an amazing 36 World of Warcraft accounts on 11 different computers at the same time. He is his own raid group. "It costs me exactly $5711 in subscription costs per year with 36 accounts on the 6 month pay schedule," he writes. "Not bad considering I'm looking at it like it's a hobby and there are more expensive hobbies out there than World of Warcraft."
He's the biggest nerd in the world
*DrugCheese rants*
which leads me to conclude....he lives with his parents.
or hes rolling in cash?
that he managed to get all that hardware into his parent's basement.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Look at this way: your typical MMO fan will never breed anyway, but this just guarantees it. Good news for normal people.
It always amazes me how much time/effort/money people will put into their hobbies. However, I'm curious why he stopped at 36. A WoW raid can be up to 40 and in the still current expansion, it's 25 (generally). If you're going to run 36 and pay _thousands_ of dollars for it, why not tack on 4 more and have a full raid? Technical limitation? Ran out of funds?
Then again, maybe he actually wanted 4 slots open to "show off"? If I was crazy enough to do something like this, I know I wouldn't want to keep it all to myself, friends/enemies would have to partake!
I hope he does not have comcast cable or the download cap may hit hard 11 systems = a lot of bandwidth.
Dude, I know by simply reading this you qualify as a nerd beyond typical nerdom. But, seriously...what the hell kinda anti-social behavior is this? better yet, what is this guy doing to afford a $5000 dollar a month hobby that only limits the already nil chance of him getting laid? Dude, I must say....stop. Stop it right now! Go buy some cars or maybe buy a life.
ACORN paid him $1 apiece to register his characters to vote.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
But then I imagined this guy also having multiple personality syndrom; And doing a real raid there :)
He plays with himself! I play WoW, but I thought one of the basics of the game was player interaction. I personally enjoy talking to other players and getting to know my guildies. The social interaction combined with play is what keeps me around. It would be funny to whisper a random character of his every ten seconds, see if he keeps up. Nahh, he probably runs around /dnd.
Note his NT4 MCSE books underneath the console. Is this Billy Gates' gaming rig?
But keeping 11 systems update can does he have a WSUS sever to keep the windows update bandwidth down.
Part of me wants to say "Wow, what an impressive accomplishment!" Another part of me wants to get him some serious psychiatric help.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Because how can you kill that which hath no life? Or doesn't have 36 lives for that matter...
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
/. links to Yahoo as source.
Yahoo links to Joystiq
Joystiq links to gamepolitics.com
gamepolitics.com links to gizmodo
gizmodo links to crunchgear.com
crunchgear.com links to ripten.com
ripten.com links to the actual forum post: http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=14611&pageNo=1
The picture of all the kit gives an idea of how crazy this is. Reminds me of teh masterer from this: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TuiDJvBSsHg purepwnage
Actually the title should read 30 WOW characters, not Warcraft characters.
Warcraft don't mean WOW.
Yeah, sure, buddy. You're only looking at it as a hobby. There are worse hobbies than what you're doing, right? Try to convince yourself that it's totally normal.
If you are going to take a game like WoW to it's extreme, then do it in style!
I can see the attraction - PUGs (pick up groups) can be very annoying as it takes just one muppet to ruin the quest/dungeon/raid for everybody else.
That said, I doubt I would go past the more standard 5 that multi-boxers (http://www.wowwiki.com/Multiboxing) seem to go for as a standard group is 5 and that makes a bit more sense...
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
these guys were relying on elemental shaman's wrath of air totem, which gave 3% crit chance. crit chance gives the chance to do double damage. prior to patch 3.0.2, all totems' buffs for a group stacked. 5 wrath of air totem was dropped, it would increase the crit chance by an additional 15%, for all group members for example. therefore all the shamans he plays in that group had very high crit rates, and when they all shot at something they all did massive double damage.
patch 3.0.2 made it so that buffs do not stack. so if 30 shamans drop wrath of air totems each, the group wide bonus will be only 3%. this will reduce their power approx to half in terms of firepower.
he is called a multiboxer, and this activity was called multiboxing. now they wont be able to do it like before anymore.
Read radical news here
This is nothing new.
I recall a player trying to 40 box molten core back a year or two ago. I don't know if he ever did it or not but it was possible to do back then even though he needed a single PC per account. Now, 4 or even 5 accounts per computer is possible thanks to quad cores.
http://www.sirlin.net/archive/the-man-who-would-solo-a-40-man-raid/
This guy 50 boxes (althogh he was botting / farming them and not multiboxing).
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=498
Looking at the mess of keyboards and mice, could he use Synergy http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ or does it not work with WoW? -armus
The forum that this originated from is a well known if not THE best source of multiboxing information, http://www.dual-boxing.com
The forums are located here: http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php
There is a beginner guide to multiboxing here: http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Board&boardID=11
Compared to the drivel that is the common Warcraft General Forums, this one is very elegant, polite and helpful. It has a plethora of free and useful information to help new boxers get started as well as the depth needed for people who have moved on to as many as 5 or 10 accounts (and sometimes quite a few more). There are custom addons and programs that people have written and shared with the community as well. If you are thinking about multiboxing, take a look and learn more about it - it probably isn't what you might think - or this being the Slashdot crowd, maybe it is.
I wonder if that air conditioner unit high on the side wall is enough to cool that room?
Sadly, according to this link on the same site, he may need help in pill form too.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Doesn't he realize he can virtualize his 36 accounts and 11 computers into a single WoWoW account.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
And it costs me $13.99/month.
rooooar
A co-worker is trying to convince me to play WOW. I keep telling him "No." He's like oh, it looks awesome! It's fun! "I'm sure you're right. That's exactly why I'm not trying it." Damn, it's like working alongside the pusher man, goddamn the pusher man.
I'm not thinking he's wrong about the game, I'm sure he's right. And I need a gaming jones just like I need to get hooked on crack.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I know what you mean about expensive hobbies. I thought I was spending a lot at $100 a quarter ounce. I mean a month. Oh fkit.
`nuff said.
I have three Station Access accounts and play EverQuest2 exclusively. I three box fairly frequently to just level up characters.
I have a total of 12 character slots on each account, but only have 32 out of those 36 total slots filled.
Costs me, roughly, $100 a month.
This guy pwns me.
for a year
Picked up from Digg, from Yahoo, from Joystiq, from a bullshit photoshop with a bullshit story.
But you know Blizzard is going to have to take some action against multi-boxing now. Five-boxers were bad enough, with 32 you can dominate any BG. With 15 shaman in a typical battleground, he can literally kill 2-4 players instantly.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I don't get it, does that make you a nerd or a geek?
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Correct me if I'm wrong but...couldn't he just have a few virtual machines running on a few dedicated PCs, rig one with enough monitors, and connect that one to the dedicated PCs over something like, dunno, VNC? Its cheaper, reduces clutter, reduces costs of hardware and electricity, and probably is easier to control. He could even handle a few more accounts.
Man, I shouldn't even be motivating the guy. Reminds me of a South Park episode...
More players in the game means better item drops, better voting privileges, and excellent cybersexing!
Beam. Me. Up. (-James Trafficant)
The difference between his hobby and others is that his hobby doesn't amount to anything. In a few years when WoW is superseded by another game, he'll have absolutely nothing to show for his $5000 a year.
The only redeeming value of his hobby would be he can get the best possible gear for all his characters and have a high resale value. The longer he waits though, the less he'll get on his return and he may already be in the negative anyway.
On the other hand, if he's enjoying his life and it's not hurting in any way, then it doesn't really matter does it. He doesn't necessarily play more than anyone else, and since he can raid by himself, he probably ends up playing less.
Hi, I'm Johny. I'm in first grade. Here is a picture of my teacher, we're married bold marker, because the teacher wants to see that I can do it to. Here I go!
That wasn't so hard. Tomorrow, the the teacher teaches me how to squeeze my hard poo-poos out of my butt-butt using Vaseline. She says she wants to help, and will be touching me also. I'm happy we're married! 3 :-)
He needs to invest in some keyboard mouse sharing apps. Synergy still works...
omg guys, think of all that good l00t he will drop, when he dies!!!! L0L
In case you don't read the subject lines of the comments (which I don't either a lot of the time,) I'll start by restating it: The geekiest part of it is...that people around here give this kind of discourse enough thought to mark the above Insightful. (And it was) but, pots... meet kettles. I suppose my having noticed means that I'm not excluded.
Speak for yourself.
Here is his set up. check out picks 2-5.
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=498
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
"Working as intended."
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Would he have to mark out days? I'm thinkin' that he's running into the "47 hour straight exhaustion cap".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I thought this over way back. I retired from video games after MK3, just before the height of the advent of MMOs. The effort/reward ratios were changing.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Actually, as far as I can tell, he has too many for a raid. All the 40 man raids I remember offhand are level 60 raids from before the expansion.
However, you have to also keep in mind that:
1. The loot you get in MC or AQ40 is less than what you get for random FedEx quests in the Hellfire Peninsula at level 58 after the expansion pack. So there's no need whatsoever to actually make them at level 60 with a 40 man group.
2. If you're going to do them just for nostalgia or curiosity sake, you can just leave it for when you're level 70 and well equipped. IIRC a well equipped 5-man level-70 group can down Onyxia, and a 7 man group can do MC. I haven't tried it after the latest patch, but that used to be the case at least.
So, really, I can't think of any situations where he'd actually need 40 characters nowadays. He can do just about anything imaginable with 25.
So, well, my question would be from the exact opposite direction: why a whole 36? Why not stop at 25?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Every one of those loading screens shows the same character. So either he's faking the screens or he's generated level 1 orc warriors for the photo.
still no sig
I thought this over way back. I retired from video games after MK3, just before the height of the advent of MMOs. The effort/reward ratios were changing.
single player is still fun, I'm enjoying the hell out of GTA4. I've tried multiplayer there and, while fun, I obviously still suck at it. That's the kind of multiplayer I'll do, the kind I can sit down for a few months and pick up and nothing's different. MMO's are too much like work.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
has 36 Slashdot accounts.
He utterly failed to make friends or find a guild that didn't kick him out? Is that why he can't just join a group, but has to multi-box his own party?
PA
THET
IC!
You'd think a guy who could afford that many accounts/ computers would have central air
it has to be a ranged character that is easy to use and can heal. it would be too hard to run around people with enh shammies while multiboxing.
Read radical news here
Surely he would get bored of doing the same quests in the same zones on account after account... it's bad enough if you want a Gnome and Dwarf....