[1.Local] serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The big news of the week, of course, was the flurry of news about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion let loose at the Worldwide Invitational. Readers dogpiled dozens of news posts with speculation, QQs and cheering alike.

But there was plenty of talk on other topics this week, as well. Readers debated the drawbacks of spec-flopping with theorycrafter Lhivera and weighed whether or not upcoming changes such as easing the process of faction grinding is in fact "dumbing down" the game. Linux fans discussed technical matters, while readers battled over druids' getting a regular res and whether multiboxing in PvP constitutes unsportsmanlike behavior.

And finally, we close our look back at this week with an in-character comment exchange over -- of all things -- this month's regular Consortium gem disbursement.

Join us after the break for this week's meatiest reader comments here at WoW Insider. Be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread (not this one!) and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.

The four Elemental Shamans, Aelli, Aellei, Aellii, and Aellie, are joined in Team Bubbanaught by Resto Shaman Bubbajingles, controlled by another player. The Shamans are flying high on their freshly-acquired Nether Drakes. The original poster has less than humbly declared that he plans on an even better showing in season four.

Along with many words of congratulations, this thread has its fair share of negativity toward multiboxing. Multiboxers in PvP are often a source of contention. Now, I know that not everyone loves this style of play. But you've got to give credit where credit is due, and this is pretty cool. Congrats Aelli, and good luck!

Check after the break for some video footage of the team.

It looks like Blizzard is busting out the ban hammer in full force. Last week is was on point sellers (and buyers) in the arena this week they're bashing down Glider users. There was a lot of noise on the forums last week from folks that felt they were unjustly punished. I'm sure we'll hear similar stories as a fallout from the glider events.

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy all over when cheaters get their due. But it also makes me worry that the witch hunt might go too far. Here at WoW Insider we make it a point to be kind of hush hush about exploits, since we have no desire to lead anyone astray. (This is why we said very little about things like the Fire Nova Totem or Snake Trap exploits). The way I see it is if you don't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about. We've all repeatedly agreed to the terms of use.

Last Saturday on the weekly podcast, we used the whole show to take a look at multiboxing. We had multiboxer Xzin on, along with Adam Holisky from WoW Insider, Duncor of WoW Radio, and myself, and we chatted all about this strange and interesting way to play MMO games like World of Warcraft.

• We took a look first at the history of multiboxing, including how Xzin originally got interested in it.
• We examined how exactly it is done, including not only the equipment you need to make it work, but how much multiboxers pay in account fees.
• We talked with Xzin about the limits of PvE multiboxing, including class combinations and how far you can get running a raid group by yourself
• And in the second half of the show, we get into some of the controversy about multiboxing, including whether it's fair for multiboxers to take their characters into PvP, and whether Blizzard will ever change or reconsider their decision that multiboxing is legal
• And finally we talked about the future of multiboxing -- will any MMO game every actually embrace playing multiple accounts at a time as a gameplay mechanic?

Pretty interesting stuff -- not only did we talk objectively about a lot of what multiboxing is, but we were able to debate a little bit about whether it's fair, or whether the game is meant to be played in strange ways like this. The show is now available for a listen over on the WoW Radio website, and of course on iTunes as well.

If you have input on how the show went or anything else you'd like us to cover on the WoW Insider Show (especially any other guests you might like us to have on), leave a comment below or email us at theshow@wowinsider.com. Next week we'll be back to normal on the show (we're planning to finally have a nice hardcore PvP chat), so stay tuned this weekend for more about our weekly podcast.

Multiboxing -- we've mentioned it quite a few times here on WoW Insider, and it's always been a controversial subject. While the game is quite clearly not designed around players playing multiple characters at once, Blizzard has stated that they have no problem with it -- as long as people are paying for each account they use, and not using third-party programs to control their characters, Blizzard is fine with it.

But I, Mike Schramm, personally have always been quite against the idea of multiboxing. Lots of folks have used macros and programming to control multiple characters all the way up to level 70 and beyond, and some have even taken teams of characters into PvP areas to win battlegrounds and gain honor, or even win the arena seasons, and all the rewards that come with that victory. In my opinion, that's a horrible mockery of the way the game was designed -- this is a social game that is meant to be played with other players, and to pit one person with five computers against a real-life team of five people just isn't fair or interesting. Sure, you might be able to control the movements of five characters with skilled programming and control, but the other team has to coordinate five human minds all together, a much harder and more interesting act, in my personal opinion. I am firmly against multiboxing -- it's not the way this game is meant to be played at all, and while Blizzard may be content to make more money off of someone paying for many accounts, I'm not content to be stuck in a game with them.

Which is why, this Saturday on the WoW Insider Show over on WoW Radio (at 3:30pm EST), our guest will be Xzin, one of the most notorious (and popular) multiboxers the game has ever seen.

Multiboxing, the process of one person playing multiple characters on multiple accounts at one time, usually by the use of multiple computers (thus the term) and macros that can be activated on all accounts by the push of a single button, has most recently seen coverage here on WoW with our 2-man Karazhan report. The act of multiboxing is one that has been the subject of some debates, mostly centered around whether or not it violates the EULA. Those in favor of multiboxing can breathe easier today, as Blizzard poster Belfaire has stated in no uncertain terms that Blizzard has no problem with the practice in a post on the customer service forums.

In short, he says that the advantages of multiboxing are no different than the advantages offered by normal grouping. Since multiboxers can be damaged, feared and CC'd as easily as separate people playing separate accounts, and since they can't do anything the same amount of characters couldn't do when played by different people, there is no reason to consider it an unfair advantage in PvP or PvE. He also answers quite a few specific questions posed by thread starter and multiboxer Velath that clarify why Blizzard accepts Multiboxing and does not consider it an exploit or an unfair advantage.

Two players with five characters each, that is! Suvega, the man who brought us quite a nice DKP system a while back, appears to be running out of challenges, so he and his girlfriend decided to see if they could multibox their way through Karazhan. So far, they've beaten Attumen, Moroes, the Maiden, and the Wizard of Oz Opera event, which is pretty darn impressive if you ask me. Check out a trailer above (or in higher quality at Stage6), follow their progress on their blog, or check this thread for pictures of their hardware setups (drool-worthy, if you ask me). Their class breakdown: Suvega controlled a Holy priest, a Prot warrior, and three Fire/Arc mages, while Vyndree helmed a Resto shaman, a Prot pally, and three Elemental shamans. What do you all think of this accomplishment?

My favorite class of the day is the Hunter, mainly because I get to control both my main character and my pet at the same time. I love the dynamic of how these two entities fit together and do damage together so nicely. I have also played a warlock up to 30, but so far the dynamic of doing multiple things at once with demon master doesn't seem as interactive to me, though I suspect it may get better later on.

I love the multitasking involved with controlling two game entities with cooperative abilities at the same time, but some people hate it. One friend of mine wishes that hunters didn't have pets at all -- it feels too much to him.

One thing that I can't see myself getting into though, is multiboxing: running multiple WoW accounts on different computers and linking them up so you can control them at the same time. The prohibitive cost is the main reason I'm not interested, but also I like the sense behind the hunter class that the hunter and the pet were designed to work together as a single entity. I feel like multiboxing would only leave me doing less than would be possible if we actually had one real person playing each character.

What's your opinion on doing multiple things at once? Do you love such complexity, or do you prefer a simpler playstyle? Which class do you think has the most things going on at the same time?

Xzin, always ready to show off his multiboxing setups, sent us a video of movement tests for his 10 boxing group. Yeah.

I don't know-- I don't really find this exciting at all. I mean, sure, there's a little bit of skill in actually coding this stuff all out and hooking it all together, but after you do that, what's the point? Isn't this close enough to botting that Blizzard would frown on it? Sure, if you pull this off, you'll be able to win a whole BG by yourself, but if I had a couple grand in cash to waste on all this stuff, I'd just hire Pandemic to come and do it for me.

Are you guys interested in news about multiboxing or not? If there's a large group of you who finds this fascinating, I'm more than happy to post this stuff when we see it come through. But while I can see the skill in coordinating 10 computers to do your will, the results just don't thrill me that much.

Thanks, Xzin!

Xzin, certainly World of Warcraft's master of multiboxing and the only one we know of to have reached Warlord rank in PvP with five characters, has been working on a resource to answer all of the questions he receives about mutliboxing and his own setup. It's an excellent getting started guide, but before you get reading, you need to be aware that it's a pricey proposition. If you're wanting to upgrade your current setup to a 5-box configuration, here's what you should plan to spend, according to Xzin:

• $2000: Four more desktop computers.
  
• $600: Four LCD monitors. Thank goodness they're cheap these days.
• $250: Monitor mounts, to get all of your new LCDs in a position where they're easily visible without needing to swing your head around.
• $400: Keyboard multicaster(s), which will send the output of one keyboard to multiple computers.
• $120: KVM, that allows you to swap which computer your keyboard and mouse are sending commands to. (You can get cheaper KVMs these days, but the one Zxin recommends is high quality.)
• $60: Y-mouse. Allows you to plug multiple keyboards/mice into a single machine.
• $120: X-keys. Programmable keyboard hotkeys.
• $400: Keyboard(s).
  
• $80: Mice.
• $200: Four copies of the game and expansion.

This gives you a total of $4280 in expenses before you consider the cost of monthly subscriptions, increased electricity costs, etc... But if multiboxing is something you're interested in trying out, this is the guide to help you get started.

In the wake of some of the crazy multiboxing stories going around recently, on the forums there's some interesting discussion on whether multiboxing should even be legal. On one hand, someone playing five characters at once (not to mention ten or twenty!) clearly has a power advantage against you. (Plus they never have to spend tedious hours in LFG trying to find people to join them for an instance run -- a huge boon in and of itself!) But on the other hand, that power comes at a cost. To play five characters (for example), you need five active accounts ($75/mo, plus the $95 initial cost for 5 game-boxes and the $175 initial cost for 5 expansion packs), plus five computers capable of running World of Warcraft, and a friendly internet connection or ISP that doesn't simply explode from the traffic you'd be causing with all of that. And, of course, the cost scales upwards with the more characters you try to play. But making multiboxing work is a matter of doing more than throwing money at the problem -- there's the entire issue of being able to control multiple characters at once, which in my mind, is really a matter of skill. But what do you fine folks think -- is there anything wrong with multiboxing?

Still, if multiboxing is your thing, then these pictures, sent to us by the great Xzin himself (whom we interviewed a little while ago), are right up your alley. Not only are there some c-c-c-crazy monitor setups (I especially like the guy who tilted his EQ monitors around himself, like a little MMORPG womb), but you also get some neat screenshots, like the all-Shammy run of SL that Xzin did above-- bonus points on the tanking Earth Elementals, but I'll bet cash that zero Shaman gear dropped.

Bobbo also sent us this Dual-Boxing.com forum thread, which gets just insane-- this guy runs 23 characters, and his girlfriend runs 23 sitting next to him for a total of 47 characters together (his picture actually shows 57 different WoW boxes, so that's at least $1000 right there, even without all the hardware). I can't imagine the amount of money and time going into something like that, but Blizzard nods vague approval to the whole thing, so more power to them, I guess. It seems like a completely different game than the one we know and love, but twinking is the same type of thing (a game of resources), and lots of us do that and have no problem with it. So multibox away, you crazy character-controlling overlords.

If you PVP on Alliance anywhere on Battlegroup Ruin (which includes Warsong, Argent Dawn, Lothar and Medivh, among others), you've probably run into Xzin. Most likely, you've seen him very briefly before your untimely death. You may have complained to your teammates about him. Perhaps you reported him to a GM. You could have even created one of the many "@Xzin" threads that litter the Magtheridon realm forums. You can do many, many things, but nothing will change the fact that you are dead. And the next time you see him, you will also be dead.

Xzin plays a team consisting of one undead priest and four undead mages on Magtheridon-US. He runs five separate WoW accounts on five separate computers, controlling the characters through coordinated wireless keyboards. All the arcane/fire-specced mages follow the priest around and do coordinated damage while the holy-specced priest heals them. Any single player who attempts to take on the Zins will be instantly killed.

The Zin Army reached Warlord status a couple months ago, and now Xzin, Azin, Bzin, Czin and Dzin are testing out PvP in the Burning Crusade Beta. WoW Insider caught up with Xzin between Arena bouts and asked him about his unique setup.

(Edited to add video links.)

A thought experiment, of sorts, over at the forums: could you control 40 characters at once, enough for endgame raids or PvP all by yourself?

Inspired by this video of a mage-heavy raid downing Ragnaros, player Xzin (who currently plays five characters at once) wonders about the logistics and feasibility of upping that to 40. Given the time it would take to level 35 more characters to 60 and gear them up for MC, I can only conclude that Xzin will have to really want this challenge in order to put the money and time in.

As Terra Nova debates, perhaps it's an issue of human-computer interface design and control; taking charge of 40 different characters is far more akin to a real-time strategy challenge than MMO play. Still, there are always people who want to beat the game in new and interesting directions; as he's planning to keep everything above-board, good luck to him.