Octopus Multibox

[Micol Cohn]

Doinga brief search it looks like all the popular free options are no longer supported for multiboxing so I was wondering what any casual boxers are doing these days?

Did you bite the bullet and buy keyclone software?

Did you Frankenstein one of the older free to use ones into working condition?

I actually have 2 monitors. I keep both wow windows open on one screen, staggered so the main one I play is on top, but with all the keybinds across the bottom and right sides of the windows. My other window holds non-wow stuff.

I did that in Everquest, as a last hurrah It was kind of fun; Started a second account and transferred my Dark Elf Cleric to it. Then the Dark elf Cleric could group with my Troll SK or Wood Elf Druid. It made the game fun, for a bit. I set it up so I had only to hit one key, to switch to the other one.

So pending on your mouse and keyboard if they are not cheap and have remote access control in your control panel you cb set them up so they respond to both instances or in my case 5 of wow that is running. No need to dl anything

Started using because my main was a holy priest and was very weak doing any quests. I leveled him with an arcane mage. The spells matched up well with holy nova/arcane explosion, smite/arcane missiles, etc.

Boxing with matching ranged classes is easiest and hunter are the most fun (fetch is great). I do not box melee because it is to hard to keep together, but I have a monk healer I drag behind them to heal when needed.

10404 Ocean's Bottom, with 579 pieces, is the second largest in a series of five LEGO Classic sets themed Building Bigger Thinking, released in 2018 in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the LEGO Brick patent. If you're not familiar with them, the five sets, in order from smallest to largest, are:

The reason I chose this particular set out of the five is the octopus chef that's featured on the front of the box. The octopus is my favorite marine animal and the moment I saw it on the box art I knew I had to pick this set up for myself as part of my first ever LEGO Certified Store haul breaking out of my 13-year-long Dark Ages. The fact that this set is called Ocean's Bottom is just icing on the cake!

I've always loved the creative building LEGO themes such as Basic, FreeStyle, Creator (both the original theme and the modern-day Creator 3-in-1), Bricks & More, and today's Classic, so I'm not getting this just for the octopus chef or because I'm returning to LEGO in time for the 60th anniversary of the patent (but make no mistake these are still two major factors). I've had so much fun exploring all the new parts and colors I've missed out on and getting my creative juices flowing again.

Comprehensive reviews of LEGO Classic sets are few and far between as they're not popular among AFOLs, which is why I'm kicking things off with a review of 10404 Ocean's Bottom as the first ever LEGO set review on my site. Let's dive in and discover what lies at the bottom of the ______!

These Building Bigger Thinking boxes are strikingly minimialistic, especially on the front which shows a brick pile, the models available to build with one standing in the foreground, the Building Bigger Thinking logo, set number and age range (plus piece count in the US) on the lower left corner, and a big red question mark on the right side with the LEGO logo as the dot, all on a plain background color. There is no other framing or embellishment to be seen like on other sets (and even other LEGO Classic sets!).

The top and left sides of the box display a creative prompt "what is at the bottom of the ______?" in several languages. I found it interesting that a blank is substituted for where I would have expected "ocean", but it looks like they really want you thinking about not just what lies at the bottom of the ocean, but elsewhere too. The promotional video here has some suggestions.

Right off the bat, the proportion of red elements and green elements in this set is dismal, to say the least. Despite the sizes of the bags, there are actually more pink and purple elements than green ones!

Although there are a significant number of specialized parts, the proportion of basic bricks and plates is still pretty decent, with 144 bricks and 64 plates. 208 of 579, or just shy of 36%, is not too shabby.

Interestingly, all but one of these bags have a QR code printed on them. The red, yellow, green and blue bags have the same QR code, the white a different one, and the black yet another. Scanning these codes turns up some 7-digit numbers whose meaning is not immediately clear. Perhaps these are meant for internal use and to be ignored by the consumer.

One thing that sets these Building Bigger Thinking sets apart is the inclusion of a 2x4 white tile with the "60 years" logo printed on with a nice shine to it. It's not shown here as I have a separate image of it a little further down.

Honorable mention goes to the yellow 1x6x2 curved arch and the blue wizard hat, both of which were common in 90s FreeStyle and Castle sets respectively but stopped appearing except in the odd set or two in the two decades since!

Despite their irony (which I actually couldn't care less about), I'm a really big fan of LEGO brickwork bricks because their texture adds a lot of visual interest to otherwise plain walls. That's why every one of my reviews of sets containing them has a subsection dedicated to them.

Being a 60th anniversary set, the included booklet starts off not with the instructions, but with a message about imagination, creativity, and how the LEGO brick has facilitated these in young minds over the years.

Anyway, the booklet includes instructions for 4 models: a trumpet, an octopus chef, a rocket car, and a dragon. Instructions for a castle and a spaceship can be downloaded from LEGO.com. The booklet also features a total of 6 inspirational models and 3 more creative prompts between sets of instructions.

For some reason, the dragon is rated as advanced building despite being the smallest model and using the fewest pieces, and minifigure building instructions are placed at the very end which is itself already very unusual, but what's even more bizarre is that only the female minifigure is shown. At least the placement can be explained by LEGO wanting to encourage kids to build the models first. The latter? I got nothin'.

This set includes two minifigures with plain but brightly colored torsos and legs, as well as the classic smiley face from the 80s and 90s (that have also been seen in Modular Buildings until 10255 Assembly Square, before the switch to modern faces in 10260 Downtown Diner).

As a testament to the quality and consistency of LEGO's manufacturing process over the generations, these minifigures' faces are completely indistinguishable from those of the minifigures that came in 4162 FreeStyle Multibox, a set that I bought in 1997 when I was 5 and remains one of my favorite sets to this day. This includes the size and position of the face print on the head, not just the use of the classic face at all (some 2000s sets have the faces printed a little differently).

A wide range of accessories includes the aforementioned blue wizard hat; a broom; two coffee mugs; a hammer and spanner; a motorbike helmet and visor; a scuba diving mask and flippers; a pearl silver nasal helmet, pearl gold longsword and pearl silver shield (not shown, used as a platter by the octopus chef); a chef's hat, frying pan and cleaver.

Before getting started on any of the instructions, the first thing I wanted to build was the "60 years" tile display from 40290 60 Years of the LEGO Brick. Note that only the printed tile and four red 2x4 bricks are included in this set; everything else is from my existing collection.

The second thing I built was the little creature that represents the dot of the big red brick-built question mark in the promotional videos for these Building Bigger Thinking sets. Oddly, none of these sets gives you all the pieces you need to build it, but 10404 Ocean's Bottom happens to have two red 1x1 bricks with studs on opposite sides that substitute for a red 1x2 brick with studs on 1 side for mounting the eyes.

The first model they have you build is a trumpet. It's rated as easy building, and it is (for the suggested age range, not just for me), but what's really impressive about it is that the entire thing is built around sideways building techniques, from all four sides. There's even a 180 attachment at the very end of the bell with the flame yellowish orange 4x4 parasol!

This is actually my second favorite build out of all of them besides the octopus chef, for that reason plus that it looks absolutely charming. Kudos to the set designer for pulling off such an impressive yet actually (as in not deceptively) easy build!

It's pink, magenta, lavender and purple, it's got great personality, all eight of its arms can be moved up and down, and there is a bit of variety in the build so you don't just build the same thing eight times, but rather two sets of four.

The structure for the arms is identical to 40245 Octopus, July 2017's Monthly Mini Build (coincidentally, a year ago this review!), with a black plate with octagonal bar frame to which eight 1x1 plates with horizontal clips attach. Just the arms themselves are built differently, and even then curved elements are used in both models.

The octopus chef is seen holding a pie, a carrot, a turkey drumstick, a frying pan, and a cleaver. You can make it hold anything else, or even nothing at all, of course. This octopus can be anything you want it to be!

Because I love marine life so much, I've included a size comparison between the octopus chef and each of the main models of one of my favorite LEGO Designer Sets, 4506 Deep Sea Predators, which my parents surprised me with on my 13th birthday in 2005.

The third model is the rocket car. The rear thruster spins which looks pretty rad (the nose doesn't, but it doesn't need to), and the inside has space for a driver minifigure. The orange and white color scheme seems conventional for a rocket, but appropriate, and these are pretty bright colors after all.

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