Diablo 3

[Smithnweson]

Can anyone tell me how I can get 2 copies of Diablo 3 to work on the same computer? At the moment, whenever I try to open it up a 2nd time, it says it's already running. Thank you in advance.

[Drarkan]

Do you have two licenses for it?

[Ualaa]

I know you can run multiple copies with IS Boxer.

The game needs to be sandboxed, because by default only one copy of the game can run on a single PC.
You also need to copy a few specific folders, and rename them, with each instance of the game pointing at its specific set of folders/files, as those are written to in real-time and cannot be simultaneously accessed by multiple copies running at once.
Each instance of the game needs to think it is the foreground window, for the mouse to work in that window.

Lax specifically asked Blizzard is they were okay with the game being boxed.
Their response was that they will not officially say yes or no, and their stance is exactly the same as it is with World of Warcraft -- as long as you directly control everything that happens (no delays/botting), it's fine.

[Smithnweson]

Ahh damn, and I was thinking of buying a second copy, but I hadn't yet. I don't think I will at this point, sounds like a day of annoying "figuring out what's not working properly" that I don't really want to be bothered with.

[Ualaa]

There are issues with boxing Diablo 3.

The largest being no Follow command.
You need to use mouse broadcasting, to have your toons all move together.

Which means everyone has to move at the same speed.
Otherwise the synchronization of movement will break.

Also, anytime one of your characters suffers a knockback effect...
You have to approximate the positioning, to get them as close as possible to being stacked.

You can always sync their position, by getting them to run into a corner.
So they're all in exactly the same position.

When boxing, you're best with 2/3/4 of the same class.
And ranged classes seem to have had larger successes than melee classes.
Particularly if you can shoot at things off of the screen or at least onto the edges of it.

I've seen people post of boxing success with the Wizard and Demon Hunter classes.
Others have done fairly well with Witch Doctors.
One guy was doing Barbarians, but started to have issues in later acts.
I'm not really following D3 or D3 boxing that much, so cannot really get you specifics.

[Tim]

I've heard now from a contact inside Blizzard that, once the real money auction goes in, boxing will not be allowed. Further, anything that touches the D3 memory space (such as what Glider for WoW was sued into oblivion for, which Lax/ISBoxer was involved in) is going to get hammered by their legal team.

The issue with boxing D3 is that you have to do some small swapping in its internal allocation table to isolate it, which is touching the D3 memory space, which is going to be a big no. This essentially is a hack that Blizzard is going to fight.

So all in all, bad news for a boxer. With that said, there are creative ways around it, but just because something can be creatively worked around to bypass a companies intention, doesn't mean it is the right thing to do. Know what I mean?

Some may argue that this is Blizzard being overly protective of the game. But think about what they are doing with the introduction of a real money system. I agree with them that additional protective measures are really going to be required.

A thing to note though: Gold will have no value in D3. It already is being shown to have no value. The value is in exceptionally rare items.

[Ualaa]

Nothing is changed in the memory of the program.
You're just virtualizing files.

You have a cache folder.
Which the program needs exclusive access to.

Then you make another cache folder, which is renamed.
And virtualized, so the game thinks it is pointing to a folder named cache, but its actually pointing to cache-a, or whatever you name it.

The real money AH is already in the game.
And just going by the forum posts on the boxing sites, a few dozen different users are boxing the game without issues.

Warden detects everything that is running on a system.
Blizzard knows exactly what each of the boxing programs is doing, and since there is no modification of the game files, reading of the process, changes to the program, automation, etc... they're 100% fine with people boxing it.

Of course in time that could change.
Their stance is that all of their games will get the same treatment, as far as boxing goes.
Once they disallow it in one game, they will in every one of their games.
Until that time, it's allowed in every game they run.

[Smithnweson]

Actually my thought was to keep 1 account idle in the home base and when I got to a boss or elite pack I would teleport them to my main guy and just stack mf gear on them. This way I could have an account for just NV buff and get mad gear faster :P but in he end, I don't want to bother.

[SethLan]

Either if you go 2x mele class (barbarians let say) you can make 1 more hard to kill (more armor, shield) while you dps with the other, 2 range same class is also good since anything is far away you can get it down faster. IF it get closer you have to move, with barbarinas you can stand still and nuke.

I tried to box and its not bad at all. I was just power leveling my barbarian for about 30min, and got up to llevel 17. my witch doctor is 60, I may create another witch doctor to box, but really wanna play barbarian. :>

Real money AH right now is out of control, either prices are very high or very low. people dont know the stats I bought 1.2k dps 2h wpn for 30k in gold, and sold it for 10 bucks on real ah. (something to do in d3 and look for that gear to drop and sell on inferno mode)

you can also sell gold for real money, but that is down atm, i think.

I think when they Add pvp into d3 it's going to be awesome.

[Ualaa]

People are generally using the trickle-down approach.
... Boxing 2/3/4x of the same class.

The "main" gets the best gear, and as it gets upgrades, it passes the previous piece to the next character.

For anything that is very challenging, each toon is run through in a single player game, each time equipping the best gear of the entire group of toons.

For killing packs of mobs, especially the Elites that can drop nice stuff...
People seem to be running their toons grouped.
If you add three toons of the same class, but without the same level of gearing... you might have 325% of your normal firepower.
And the mobs might have 200% of their health and damage, so it is a net gain.

People seem to have the most Inferno success with Witch Doctors, Wizards and Demon Hunters... mainly ranged classes.
Until Inferno, both the Barbarian and Monk can tank it all; but they to have to kite in Inferno.