World of Warcraft recently rolled out a new recruitment initiative, which gives some very significant new bonuses when two accounts are "linked" (via one recruiting the other).  When I saw "triple quest XP", that got my attention.  I enjoy the leveling game a lot more than the high-end game in WoW, but I'm trying to get a new character up to 70 before the expansion so I can effectively change class.  So the idea of getting to level 60 at least (where the bonus stops) at triple speed was too good to pass up.

Thus, my new adventures in "dual boxing" in WoW, playing two accounts at the same time.  This is old hat for a lot of people but a new experience for me, and I have to say it is pretty darn fun.  It has totally re-energized my interest in the game.

Here are some details on the mechanics I posted over at QT3:

I've been trying two different setups, one at home and one for a little lunchtime play at work. 

My two main goals:

1. Be able to actually *play* two characters, not just have one follow mindlessly while I otherwise solo.

2. Do not use any external applications of any kind, for maximum "keep it clean" factor, preferably no mods at all that might in any way smack of "botting".

It's working pretty well.  Basically I have a primary (Warrior) and a secondary (Shaman).  The secondary has a bunch of macros that target the primary for healing, assist the primary for combat and for enemy targeting.

At home, I play with a laptop and my main gaming machine.  So basically this gives me two keyboards.  At work, I play by running two instances of the game, both in windowed mode.  The primary one takes up maybe 60% of the screen, while the secondary is like about 33% of the screen, up in a corner.

Typically the Shaman follows the Warrior around.  I charge something with the Warrior, then while building up a bit of rage I'm casting some opening spells and dropping totems with the Shaman.  Then I'm cycling between some combat abilities on the Warrior and follow up DPS spells or heals from the Shaman.

It's a very different, and more intense experience than soloing.  So far I am enjoying it immensely.  Not only are the rewards crazy good with the triple XP, it means if I pull several enemies (not uncommon when using that fire totem from the Shaman), I actually can handle it with a little more skill.  It certainly maps the region of possible encounters to something which has a larger skill component than just a stats component.

Honestly, the hardest thing about it is just situational awareness -- it can get tricky when you are mentally flipping between two different points of view.

I'm no power leveler, but the biggest weakness in the system seems to be whenever I have to do any traveling.  XP is crazy good when actually adventuring, good enough I think I will be able to entirely skip a lot of zones I usually do when leveling and just stay focused on zones with good quest hubs.