Macros


Macros  

28 members have voted

  1. 1. Are they cheating?

    • Yes
      6
    • No
      22


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I was just curious as to what the Neowin PC gaming community feels about using macros in games, specifically online ones. Personally I feel that anything that uses external means of modifying a game in order to make managing and therefore playing it easier for the player is a form of cheating. Macros fall under this so I'm going to vote yes to the poll. Feel free to discuss it further.

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Macros are binding multiple keys/commands to one key and being able to perform multiple tasks by pressing that one key. Some games, like WoW, have them built in to an extent. Most games only support key binds (binding a command to a different key than it was originally mapped to).

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Nope. Macros are fine imo. Besides, if they were so bad we'd have devs implementing ways to detect and ban say.... g15 users from their games. Which i don't recall ever happening.

Next we'll have people saying using a widescreen monitor vs a 4:3/5:4 user will be 'unfair' cause the widescreen user can see more around them(in most modern competently coded games). Or perhaps they'll say the mice with more than 3 buttons(2 + wheel click) are a cheat cause one can quickly access more things than cheap mice users can.

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Nope. Macros are fine imo. Besides, if they were so bad we'd have devs implementing ways to detect and ban say.... g15 users from their games. Which i don't recall ever happening.

Next we'll have people saying using a widescreen monitor vs a 4:3/5:4 user will be 'unfair' cause the widescreen user can see more around them(in most modern competently coded games). Or perhaps they'll say the mice with more than 3 buttons(2 + wheel click) are a cheat cause one can quickly access more things than cheap mice users can.

A while back (on a different forum) I actually encountered a person who said that using any hardware devices that are built for gaming is cheating. Gamepads, gaming mice with extra buttons and macro capabilities, and keyboards and the like. Basically what it came down to is because this person couldn't afford then they said it's cheating and that people who used them in game should be banned.

If you cannot afford them, not that they should be required to play competitively, then perhaps you shouldn't be spending so much time playing games and in this case (the game was an mmo) paying to play them as well.

Anyhow, back on topic...I don't think it's cheating. Blizzard even supports the use of Logitech G keyboards and keypads in WoW.

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Nope. Macros are fine imo. Besides, if they were so bad we'd have devs implementing ways to detect and ban say.... g15 users from their games. Which i don't recall ever happening.

Next we'll have people saying using a widescreen monitor vs a 4:3/5:4 user will be 'unfair' cause the widescreen user can see more around them(in most modern competently coded games). Or perhaps they'll say the mice with more than 3 buttons(2 + wheel click) are a cheat cause one can quickly access more things than cheap mice users can.

Well, macroing in general can mean many kinds of things. Macros could be used in-game like WoW allows or be used externally (which is a breach of most any EULA). It really comes down to how you use them which is what I hope the discussion disects in the future. I'm pretty sure that macros can get extremely automated with additional macroing software and that is something Blizzard and most every MMO developer frowns on. Blizzard also explicitly hates delays in macros so there is another facet that is in their own terms cheating.

But this also comes down to sudo-macros through command glitches such as animation cancels and the like. I consider them in the same vein considering on a console or PC you can take advantage of such things through macros (think of the button glitches in Halo 2 on the original XBox).

I just feel that if you have to go out of your way (meaning beyond the game) in order to play on the same level as others then there is a problem. Having to pay $100+ for a decent macro-ready keyboard is definitely not something listed on the game's requirements so allowing the community to force such a requirement on other players is definitely wrong. Your example about multi-button mice is a decent one but also flawed. It is no different than a key bind which is inherent in ALL games already. You are merely taking one key command and placing it somewhere else. A macro is fundamentally different than that seeing as it can initiate a pattern of commands across several input devices (having several WoW characters do something simultaneously, for example). With today's macros, one player could fairly easily control two MMO toons with little trouble, or do command glitches in games that are normally physically impossible.

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I'll just say its a gray area and isn't ever going to be clear cut right or wrong. Take it case by case. Using them to do something manual that would otherwise take a few keys with no real consequence to others seems ok to me. Using them to exploit glitches in animations and the like or perform moves a user probably couldnt normally do without the binding starts to get a bit dodgy though IMHO.

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Meh, the way I see it is: whatever the game gives you access to by default isn't cheating. I've had people kick me from a HL Deathmatch for ducking while firing because it gave me an unfair advantage, despite the fact that it was smart and that everyone could do it. (bad hitboxes)

"Worst" I've done is perhaps lower my pitch (up/down) mouse movement, and set up a sort of script to automatically lower even further when I fire. This allowed me to aim, and keep my aim while firing. Much better than just lowering your mouse sensitivity which leaves you moving your mouse in strokes just to turn around. Overall though, everything I did was in limits of even the strictest servers.

If you wish to play any multiplayer, the fact of the matter is that you're going to have to abide by their rules. Of course, if their rules are stupid, then just leave. No sense playing on a lame server like that.

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Meh, the way I see it is: whatever the game gives you access to by default isn't cheating. I've had people kick me from a HL Deathmatch for ducking while firing because it gave me an unfair advantage, despite the fact that it was smart and that everyone could do it. (bad hitboxes)

"Worst" I've done is perhaps lower my pitch (up/down) mouse movement, and set up a sort of script to automatically lower even further when I fire. This allowed me to aim, and keep my aim while firing. Much better than just lowering your mouse sensitivity which leaves you moving your mouse in strokes just to turn around. Overall though, everything I did was in limits of even the strictest servers.

If you wish to play any multiplayer, the fact of the matter is that you're going to have to abide by their rules. Of course, if their rules are stupid, then just leave. No sense playing on a lame server like that.

That does sound somewhat like an exploit. This question will sound a bit harsh, but do you really think that playing the game the way it was intended is lame? I'm not saying playing the way the game tells you to, but playing within the rules of the game itself. What you are describing is breaking those rules in order to gain an advantage, however small it is. To me if I heard you talk about it that way I could easily compare it to a modder's claim on how easy it is to do yourself and/or how minimal a difference it makes. A mod is a mod, a cheat is a cheat, no matter the ease of use or the miniscule its effect on gameplay is. But that is my opinion

I am very surprised, however, that no one yet has come in claiming that they aren't cheating cause anyone can do them. At least not that argument specifically.

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The only macroing that should be considered cheating is what I used to do in EverQuest that MacroQuest provided.

Had macros set up to auto craft, sell to vendors, buy supplies from vendors, level noob characters, farm, etc while I was AFK.

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Actually, I openly told people what I did. Hell, I was one of the head admins of my clan, and trained a ton of people on our server (non clan members) to play better, improve their aim, and settings they could modify in their options. It was never a secret, and I really enjoyed helping others. Worst thing you can do as a clan member is run everyone off your server by not giving them a chance. Our server ended up gaining traffic as well as members to our clan simply because we had such an array of quality players. My script was only a modification based on my level of comfort, just as buying that Logitech G5 was out of comfort. Without the modification, moving my mouse up and down was too difficult, and would require me to manually change the settings each time I decided to switch to a fun weapon (panzerfaust) and shoot people. Jumping off a bridge to shoot people below you is kind of hard when it takes a full stroke just to aim down. :p

I know many people who would bind their sprint button to their attack/fire button, so they could always be sprinting in a firefight. (before games that didn't let you fire while sprinting, mind you) I didn't care for it personally though, but could certainly see the difficulty some of our older members had in being able to circle strafe while sprinting. (holding shift + WASD and R to reload)

Overall, I'd never consider any of the above to make someone "godly" or anything of the sort. Hell, if you want a tip on being better than many players out there, buy some headphones. Being able to hear someone a mile off will give you more of an advantage than a script designed to simply give a specific player more comfort. Remember that all players are different, and not everyone can use a script like that and have the same outcome. Hell, some players I knew couldn't even handle a sensitivity lower than 10, while I was at 1.0 - 1.15. Didn't mean he couldn't kick my ass though.

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Actually, I openly told people what I did. Hell, I was one of the head admins of my clan, and trained a ton of people on our server (non clan members) to play better, improve their aim, and settings they could modify in their options. It was never a secret, and I really enjoyed helping others. Worst thing you can do as a clan member is run everyone off your server by not giving them a chance. Our server ended up gaining traffic as well as members to our clan simply because we had such an array of quality players. My script was only a modification based on my level of comfort, just as buying that Logitech G5 was out of comfort. Without the modification, moving my mouse up and down was too difficult, and would require me to manually change the settings each time I decided to switch to a fun weapon (panzerfaust) and shoot people. Jumping off a bridge to shoot people below you is kind of hard when it takes a full stroke just to aim down. :p

I know many people who would bind their sprint button to their attack/fire button, so they could always be sprinting in a firefight. (before games that didn't let you fire while sprinting, mind you) I didn't care for it personally though, but could certainly see the difficulty some of our older members had in being able to circle strafe while sprinting. (holding shift + WASD and R to reload)

Overall, I'd never consider any of the above to make someone "godly" or anything of the sort. Hell, if you want a tip on being better than many players out there, buy some headphones. Being able to hear someone a mile off will give you more of an advantage than a script designed to simply give a specific player more comfort. Remember that all players are different, and not everyone can use a script like that and have the same outcome. Hell, some players I knew couldn't even handle a sensitivity lower than 10, while I was at 1.0 - 1.15. Didn't mean he couldn't kick my ass though.

Thanks for the clarification. Good to know some people can take some criticism without going off the deep end, hehe. The only other thing I would like to ask is this: Do you think macros are needed for games?

@Xilo - that is borderline botting, not macroing.

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that is borderline botting, not macroing.

There is a very thin line between botting and macroing. Sometimes, it's hard to tell between the two. Is botting being AFK? Would running these scripts while you are at the keyboard be okay? These would all be things you could manually do yourself. Some games have allowed this kind of stuff as long as you weren't AFK while others disallow it completely.

In WoW, I had a whole system setup so I could dual box. I would be main tank and a range dd in instances with people. A lot of times, they didn't even know it was me playing both characters. I controlled the second character from the first with macros and addons.

Blizzard provides all the tools to do it. The only thing extra is a program to clone keystrokes to send to multiple instances of WoW running. It's even sanctioned by Blizzard, yet there's a lot of people that feel it's cheating. Probably because they can't afford to do something like that or they get owned in PVP too bad.

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There is a very thin line between botting and macroing. Sometimes, it's hard to tell between the two. Is botting being AFK? Would running these scripts while you are at the keyboard be okay? These would all be things you could manually do yourself. Some games have allowed this kind of stuff as long as you weren't AFK while others disallow it completely.

In WoW, I had a whole system setup so I could dual box. I would be main tank and a range dd in instances with people. A lot of times, they didn't even know it was me playing both characters. I controlled the second character from the first with macros and addons.

Blizzard provides all the tools to do it. The only thing extra is a program to clone keystrokes to send to multiple instances of WoW running. It's even sanctioned by Blizzard, yet there's a lot of people that feel it's cheating. Probably because they can't afford to do something like that or they get owned in PVP too bad.

Technically everything you described is automating game play and that is cheating. If you're sitting there watching your character go about it's business from a single button push that you performed 5 hours ago that is cheating. Even if you're not afk, you haven't interacted with your character for a long time and it is basically playing itself through macros.

I don't have issues with macros improving small things that are just annoying. For example, you're crafting away in your mmo of choice and run out of vendor goods to craft with, you steer your character to the vendor that sells the goods you need then you have a macro to buy 1000 of each item you need from the vendor. That's fine, you're still involved in the process. But once your macro completely removes any interaction you have with your character/game that is cheating.

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There is a very thin line between botting and macroing. Sometimes, it's hard to tell between the two. Is botting being AFK? Would running these scripts while you are at the keyboard be okay? These would all be things you could manually do yourself. Some games have allowed this kind of stuff as long as you weren't AFK while others disallow it completely.

Yes, being at the keyboard at least means you are playing the game. Any AFK gameplay can be considered botting because it is automated. I'm sure that WoW and most every other game doesn't uphold automation of that nature AT ALL.

In WoW, I had a whole system setup so I could dual box. I would be main tank and a range dd in instances with people. A lot of times, they didn't even know it was me playing both characters. I controlled the second character from the first with macros and addons.

WoW does not support automated scripts nor does it support multi-character macros. That is also a breach of their TOS and EULA and is considered by them cheating.

Blizzard provides all the tools to do it. The only thing extra is a program to clone keystrokes to send to multiple instances of WoW running. It's even sanctioned by Blizzard, yet there's a lot of people that feel it's cheating. Probably because they can't afford to do something like that or they get owned in PVP too bad.

So, your are telling me you are running both characters from within the game's GUI? You are using NO external scripts or binds? This is definitely not sanctioned by Blizzard.

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Yes, being at the keyboard at least means you are playing the game. Any AFK gameplay can be considered botting because it is automated. I'm sure that WoW and most every other game doesn't uphold automation of that nature AT ALL.

WoW does not support automated scripts nor does it support multi-character macros. That is also a breach of their TOS and EULA and is considered by them cheating.

So, your are telling me you are running both characters from within the game's GUI? You are using NO external scripts or binds? This is definitely not sanctioned by Blizzard.

It IS sanctioned by Blizzard. Dual boxing and multiboxing like that uses a few things.

1) Some addons that will automate some stuff such as setting autofollow after every fight ends. These are addons written with Blizzard's addon API.

2) Some very carefully constructed macros written with Blizzard's macros API that do some fancy stuff with focus and such.

3) Running multiple copies of WoW on the same computer. You need to have a pretty decent machine to do this.

4) A program that will send your keystrokes to both copies of WoW running.

With the exception of 4, everything is done with the tools Blizzard has provided. Blizzard has flat out stated on their forums they allow this and don't mind people doing it with the way I described.

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Thanks for the clarification. Good to know some people can take some criticism without going off the deep end, hehe. The only other thing I would like to ask is this: Do you think macros are needed for games?

No problem. As for them being needed, no. Definitely not. I was a great shot (not to brag either btw) in a number of FPS games on my $20 wireless mouse with little to no modifications at all to the game. They're simply nice to have in some cases, provided they do not perform actions that would be deemed inappropriate by the game developers and/or server administrators. Everything I did was in-line according to some of the most strict of server admins.

As for World of Warcraft, automated gameplay and dual boxing is a bit different. Blizzard appears to be totally fine with dual boxing, as it doesn't really provide any advantages other than you being your own army. Sure, the obvious advantages are there, but there are certainly drawbacks to doing it, especially when you consider the amount of money required. WoW + Expansions + $15 * X amount of accounts = too much money... especially if you have friends. Obviously, Blizzard wouldn't have an issue with people paying multiple amounts for the game, and I've yet to hear of anyone being banned for anything of this matter. I do recall reporting some players though once before, thinking they were hacking or something. :p

As for the third party macros through Logitech and various other things, I believe I've read some Blizzard staff saying some negative things about it. I've never really looked too far into the details of third party macros / scripts as it's never interested me, but I can certainly understand Blizzard being concerned if it's being used to do things beyond what they'd like you too.

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1) Some addons that will automate some stuff such as setting autofollow after every fight ends. These are addons written with Blizzard's addon API.

So your saying that just because it is using the released software to be created makes it not cheating? I bet Blizzard has a list of legal and illegal addons. For example, this topic: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4311161961&sid=1 or this: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=442927843&sid=1

2) Some very carefully constructed macros written with Blizzard's macros API that do some fancy stuff with focus and such.

3) Running multiple copies of WoW on the same computer. You need to have a pretty decent machine to do this.

These do seem fine, controlling two characters isn't really that big of a deal, especially if you are paying for both accounts. I just always though it strange to be more than one character in a game where you are supposed to be part of a world. It seems rather counterproductive and, well at odds with the purpose of the game. But that is me.

4) A program that will send your keystrokes to both copies of WoW running.

With the exception of 4, everything is done with the tools Blizzard has provided. Blizzard has flat out stated on their forums they allow this and don't mind people doing it with the way I described.

What happens when using 3rd party software, especially automated software (IE botting): http://www.infernix.net/wowban/

Quote from the above worldofwarcraft.com rules post for addons and third part software:

-> To the difference of a personalized interface, these are autonomous programs, which are not concerned by the API defined by the developers since they do not use the current system but rather other procedures and modify game files. In this case, we no longer speak of game play alteration but of cheating, and sanctions will follow.

I'm pretty sure that ANY automation in gameplay is frowned upon (IE you don't have to press anything for several seconds).

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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.

For example, he clarifies that using one keyboard to trigger macros on multiple accounts is not exploiting, but using that same keyboard to make a Fireball spell go off whenever it is availible is. Switching between windows or boxes to issue commands? Not exploitation. Using a bot program to make those windows run automatically? Exploit. In short, just like with people running one account, automation of a character via a third party program is Illegal. Setting up shortcuts to use macros or using gaming mice or keyboards (such as those in Adam Holisky's recent series of articles)is legal, and something that has always been fine with Blizzard no matter how many accounts the person in question is playing.

I certainly applaud this stance by Blizzard, even if I don't quite see myself doing the whole multiple rig setup. Admittedly, I am somewhat biased, as back in my Everquest days, I was about the only member of my small guild that didn't multibox, and was always greatly appreciative when someone when bring out their tank and healer multibox team so we didn't have to worry about who was going to fill those roles. Either way, it looks like Multiboxing is here to stay. So the next time you curse that 5-box Elemental Shaman arena team that just Chain Lightning'd you into next week, just remember that you can't call them illegal. However, you can still thank your lucky stars that they weren't Restoration Druids.

http://www.wow.com/2008/03/13/blue-poster-belfaire-explains-blizzards-stance-on-multiboxing/

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I have to say that owning a G11 Keyboard has been a godsend for me.

I'm not REALLY old yet, but I also do not posses the twitch reflexes or

hand->eye coordination of a 19 year old any longer.

So sure, the 19 years old will bitch and moan that I'm "cheating" because

they can no longer rake in the easy kills on me... but too bad. Who the

hell wants to play a game they have no role in exept to die? It's like

volunteering to be Ensign In The Red Uniform for a Star Trek Away

Mission. Where the hell is the fun in that?

Not to mention, we're not talking about the Olympic Games or

something. We're talking about an entertainment service that

I'M paying for. If I'm paying the money, I could care less if YOU'RE

having a good time, I'm paying for MY fun factor. If that means

running 6 accounts simultaniously, or playing with my $200 Keyboard

and $150 mouse, then so be it; and you don't get to bitch about

it just because you're stuck using a chessy $20 mouse and bargain

bin keyboard from the 80's.

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I use them in Aion Online. Why wouldn't I? Do you think I want to cast buffs on myself all day before a fight, being sure to wait the appropriate amount of time? I just create a macro, hit the button, and watch it do what you usually do yourself. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.

Intelligent bots and such that play games for you are what I do not support.

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