Starters guide to DAoC and HKN

This is a simple message I just sent to a guy on VN. Some day I’ll redo it and write a proper guide, but here it is:

Creating different scripts is actually quite easy ๐Ÿ™‚ The first thing to start out with, is to define the labels you’re going to be using. 1 label corresponds to 1 DAoC account. If you’re running 1 account per computer, you would have something like this:

<Label t0 local SendWin "Dark Age of Camelot">
<Label t1 192.168.1.150 SendWin "Dark Age of Camelot">
<Label t2 192.168.1.151 SendWin "Dark Age of Camelot">
<Label t3 192.168.1.152 SendWin "Dark Age of Camelot">

Where t1-t3 is the name of the label you’re defining. If you’re running more than 1 account per computer, you need to change the send mode from SendWin to SendWinSF:

<Label t1 192.168.1.151 SendWinSF DAoC1>
<Label t2 192.168.1.151 SendWinSF DAoC2>
<Label t3 192.168.1.151 SendWinSF DAoC3>

For this to work, you also need to rename the windows of DAoC. This is done in HKN by going to “Actions” and then “Rename a window”. In the example above, I’ve just used “DAoC1” to “DAoC3” as window names.
I would recommend only running one toon on your main computer. This is because of the way DAoC works with windows in the background. If you try to send hotkeys to accounts in the background, while playing the main toon aswell, some keys might “bleed through”. An example of this:

You’re running around with 2 (or more) toons logged on the main computer. You run around on the main toon, holding down W. You then want to do shields / something on the background accounts, and push a hotkey X, which is bound there. While doing this, you’re still holding down W (running), which causes the W to “bleed through” and hit the background accounts aswell, which will result in the other accounts unsticking.
If you take care when playing, and only push background-hotkeys and nothing else, you can play multiple accounts on one computer just fine. It just takes some time getting used to.
The way I’ve solved this, is to run the bot accounts in virtual machines, but that’s a bit advanced ๐Ÿ™‚
Anyway, now that you have your labels created, all you need to do is create your hotkeys. An example here:

<Hotkey 4>
<PassThrough>
<SendLabel t1, t2, t3>
<Key 9>

The first line (<Hotkey 4>) creates an action when you push the button 4 on your keyboard. <PassThrough> means that your focused window (the main account) will receive the key 4 as if you pressed it normally. You can take out this line, so it looks like this instead:

<Hotkey 4>
<SendLabel t1, t2, t3>
<Key 9>

Then once you press 4, nothing will happen on your main account / the window that has focus.
The next line, the <SendLabel t1, t2, t3> defines where to send the next commands. In our example, I have defined 3 labels: t1 to t3. You could have 10 labels, or 1 label. It doesn’t really matter ๐Ÿ™‚ The last line tells HKN to send the key 9 to the 3 labels.
All together, when you push 4 on your computer, HKN will then send 9 to all the bots.

That’s pretty much all you need to get started. After playing a while, and getting an advanced script up, you’ll have a lot of hotkeys that’re generally looking exactly the same, except for different keys. This can be solved with Templates. An example template:

<Template PressBots>
<HotKey %1%>
<SendLabel t1, t2, t3>
<Key %2%>
<EndTemplate>

Here the things to notice are the %1% and %2%. These are placeholders/variables, which can be replaced when using the template. To create a hotkey like in the previous example, you would then do this line:

<ApplyTemplate PressBots 4 9>

This will invoke the template and replace %1% with 4 and %2% with 9. You can then define a lot of other keys aswell:

<ApplyTemplate PressBots 1 1>
<ApplyTemplate PressBots X V>
<ApplyTemplate PressBots Tab 6>

Etc.
You can create as many different templates as you like – you just have to differentiate them with their names (In the example: PressBots).
If you have a lot of keys in common on all your accounts, like pressing 1 you want to push 1 on all toons, you can define a keylist:

<KeyList CommonKeys 0-9,V,E,Tab,F1-F5>

And create a single hotkey for all these keys:

<Hotkey CommonKeys>
<PassThrough>
<SendLabel t1,t2,t3>
<Key %Trigger%>

The keylist is named CommonKeys, but could be named anything. The %Trigger% is another placeholder, which simply refers to the actual button pressed.

All this should be enough to get you started ๐Ÿ™‚ Feel free to send me a message, or throw a comment on my site. I might copy this message I’ve written here and put it on my page as a starters-guide to DAoC and HKN.

Best regards
Adoweniih

20 replies on “Starters guide to DAoC and HKN”

Hi mate,

obviously you have quite some experience with multiboxing and HKN. I am looking to upgrade my computer to an i7 2600k. What I am most wondering about it the fact that you VMed your DaoC accounts. How did you manage that and what Processor do you need to run DAOC without GFX Card. Or is there a VM Box tool that already provides some GFX card pass through support?

Good luck,

Mox

Hey Mox.

I’m running an i7 2600k, a Point of View nVidia GTX 590 and 16gb of Corsair memory. Running 1 toon on my main computer, and then 3-5 virtual machines using VMWare Workstation. Didnt do any special setup or anything to get VMWare to work with DAoC; not sure you can do it with a crappy graphic card.

/Adoweniih

Hey,

I’m looking to bind buffs/shears to the same key – eg dex qui shear and dex qui buff both on key 1 etc. Would you be able to tell me the commands or how i would go about doing this?

Not looking to use more then 1 pc or anything special, just simply binding 2 spells to 1 key.

Thx

Hey dude, i really like the tutorial and it is really informative, but would it be possible for you to show a complete example of a script so i could perhaps have an idea of what a complete template would look like?
Just something simple so i can look at the picture as a whole and modify to my liking, since this is a beginner tutorial and all ๐Ÿ™‚
If u do consider making a mini template of a complete script just make it so it has u pressing 1 key, and it broadcasts to 3 other DAoC accounts on the same PC and then one with several PC’s.
Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to just copy / paste your scripts etc, but sometimes people learn better when u give them the entire puzzle hehe.
Anyways thanks for the info, sorry for failing at scripting :p

Hello Cody!

You can see an example script on the website under the tips and tricks menu.
I might add another few examples soon, so stay tuned ๐Ÿ™‚

/Adoweniih

hey I love your site but I am a noob at everything i wanna run 6 characters on one computer can u write a script i can just copy and paste into my HKN? i just wanna push one button heal on druids or clerics and as they heal i pbae. Thank u

Hello Michael.
You should be able to edit and use the example script I have put in the tips and tricks section for your purpose.

Hello, im currently trying This multiboxing out cause i thought it’d be fun. I have in my code the SF command for the multiple windows in the background but it seems to be very picky on when to work and when no to work. My HotKeyNet is telling me that the actions are being completed yet nothing happens. Any ideas?

Hey Tyler!
Sorry for the late response.
The problem could happen if you’re not running HKN as administrator (in Windows 7, rightclick the HKN shortcut and “Run as Administrator”). Usually that’s the problem, if HKN reports that everything went well.

Sounds like either you need to update your graphic drivers on your desktop, or if it’s another computer, then it probably doesn’t support DAoC.

well, the problem with details, on the compurter i log my main toon, perfect daoc launch, but when i launch daoc on a virtual machine created with VMW worsktation, i’ve an renderer creation failed :'(

Have problems to rename my Daoc Windows..
The script works perfectly but the windows didnยดt rename anymore ๐Ÿ™

any help?

Hello, I know this site is old and all I just hope you still watching the comments.
I have written a script for my daoc, about the way you described it… but when I hold down my right mouse button and press any action i wanna preform on the second window my character on main account spins around like crazy. Btw I am running 2 accounts on same computer… then there is another thing, when I try to do control more then 2 accounts then for some reason some of the characters just freez, I cannot move them or cast anything but I can jump on them, and I need to target each window to do it… so no broadcasting works when that happens.
To fix the freez problem I need to close them at processes on taskbar and restart them but if it try to run more then 2 account it freezes again.

So the question is if you do know how to fix the spinning problem and the freezing

ps. the game doesnt freez just the characters cannot preform any action except jumping. :S

Hi Blazer

I remember something about that “spinning” problem, but I’m actually not sure there’s a fix to it.
The reason why it spins, is because HKN will “very quickly” switch focus to the background window(s), when performing actions. This will cause DAoC to “bug out”, since you started out by having the “right click”-command on the main window.

When I multiboxed, I used to run multiple Virtual Machines. Since the VMs doesn’t need the “focus shift” (commands are sent using your network connection, to the VMs), the spinning doesn’t occur.

I’m afraid I cannot help with the freezing problem. It’s been like 2-3 years since I played DAoC ๐Ÿ™‚

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