Multiboxing FAQ - Part 1

As promissed in my latest Youtube video ... here is the transcribe of the questions:

1
Are you rich or doesn’t it cost you A LOT to multibox?
This is by far the most commonly asked question I get. I usually reply that I easily spend more money during ONE night at the pub than one month worth of multiboxing, and that I can think of hundreds of more expensive hobies than multiboxing.
Also, I tend to pay pay for 3 or 6 month at the time and of course all my accounts I have been using the reffere-a-friend-program, in order to keep the cost down a bit. Not to forgett: I have a fairly well paid job.

2
Are you rich (in game)?
Depends on what you mean with rich. All my 5 chars have epic flyers, my main got the Reins of the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (16k gold mount) and I have well above 10k gold in hard cash on each char. But this does not come from the fact that I'm a multiboxer. It’s true that I can loot every item in every 5-man dungeon I'm running, but what people tend to forget is that I have to pay 5 repair bills, buy gems and enchants for all 5 chars. So I don’t earn more cache / char than anyone else does when running a 5-man. Of course I save a good amount of gold by cutting my own gems, creating my own glyphs and doing the enchants myself, but if you are in almost any guild with decent people, you would get this for free as well. There also exist some multiboxing friendly daily quests which could bring in some quick cache, but since Imp not in a need of money I don’t do them on a regular basis.
Here are my two best gold-making tips (for free): ALWAYS loot EVERYTHING and use the AH!


3
How come all you characters have the same gear?
One of the most common questions, and to be honest I don’t people think before they ask .Of course all chars do the same quest, which of course results in the same quest rewards, all chars have the same amount of emblems/justice points, which results in the same rewards ... and all have the same amount of reputation, which also results in the same rewards.
When I'm grinding a specific boss-drop, then they won’t have the exact same gear until Imp finished with the grind.

4
How fast do you level?
Most people think you can rush trough levels just because your multiboxing but that not the case ("referee a friend" is the exception, but I started multiboxing before that). Of course, doing quests that requires you to kill 20 mobs (when all your characters get credits for every kills) is done in seconds ... but doing a gather quest takes forever (since most of the time there are not enough mobs for five people to grind at the same time, and looting across 5 chars is just a pain (until 3.1 that is))). And since I don’t have a multiboxers-level-guide I tend to do a little bit of both.
You never have to wait to get a dungeon-group, but administrating macros across 5 characters every time you get a new spell can be quit painful and take up some precious level-time.

5
But, it’s illegal (read: Against the EULA) to multibox, I will report you.
A common misunderstanding is that "boxing" and "boting" is the same thing. Blizzard has nothing against multiBOXING and the EULA does not say anything about boxing. Also there are a lot of blues that have posted on the official forums about this, saying it’s ok ... as long as two basic rules are followed:
1) ONE key press should equal ONE action per account
2) No automation what so ever (that is: no additional program than runs in the background to somehow help the player (or that can play the game by itself. Or key macros (one key press does 2 things on the client)).
In fact I reported myself at level 20 to see what would happen. I had an interesting discussion with a GM and described my setup, and didnt have any issues with it. I have been reported many times since, but Blizzard has never taken any actions against the way I play the game.

6
Please boost me in Deadmines!!!
One of (many) reasons to multibox is to avoid PUGing. I love helping out, I often boost guild friends, but I don’t really see the point to kick one of my own level 80 characters just to let a random player tag along in a level 20 instance just because Imp a multiboxer. Also ... any level 80 can boost you in stockades.