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No Macros or Botting Allowed of any kind

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Jan 2, 2017.

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  1. ThunderSAJ

    ThunderSAJ Avatar

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    Before suspending accounts and banning for macro'ing. I ask that the criteria for macros has more then one way of being determined before action is taken.

    Such as timed repeated moves or movement that are recorded for final verification and proof for banning in addition the person was unresponsive to BOTH visual ways to alert them and verbal communication.

    If, for example you as an Admin say hello and the person does not respond, then BOOM you suspend them on crimes of macro. I think that would be a little unfair as half the time i dont even realize a person is speaking to me outside my chat program. If you're an ADMIN your attempts to communicate should not be a little text message in the bottom left corner of my 3 monitor set up that chances are i will never notice until much later since my primary view is my center monitor.

    I am worried that you will drive this point home and show enforcement and examples to scare most into compliance. And most should be worried about compliance as this is now a rule of the game.

    My worry will be the method that will be used to determine a suspect of macro who is accused and therefore punished. (This occurring prior to game play mechanics being truly at the final version meant to be.) As i have read, most are using these to cover mechanics that will eventually be in play but not there yet, or those trying to kill a repetitive movement while crafting due to pain in hands, in addition to those using it for wrong reasons such as making a fast buck in an up and coming game or abusing the system to collect mass amounts of resources.

    These are my concerns.

    Methods of Enforcement
    3 Strike system?
    Visual Communication attempts as well as text attempts in game?
    If the accused is a large donor will they get the same treatment as a person who has a $40 account? Should they? Will they?

    These are all heavy things to consider and contemplate. I hope this moves forward with serious forethought and attempts that real world players would see as right and fair for all involved. Without favoritism to the offences of those with deep pockets as opposed to those with shallow ones. We all comply by the same new rules of play and all have a full understanding of enforcement.

    Thank You
     
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  2. Stundorn

    Stundorn Avatar

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    But the damage to Eco is already done.
    Those who did that have to much money or ressources. They exploite the game and then go to legal Business with all what they got while exploiting, makroing, botting.
    When the game releases the whole Discussion about this concerns will rise again and again because people dont see how to ever come close to that what powergamers, exploiters and Makroers already have.
    And why are games going this abnormal grind route? Because most powergamers dont play, they work for effort and effectiveness and things like that.
    And devs from all mmo's create massive timesinks because people rush through games and dont play, and then people began to makro and botting...
     
  3. Jamist

    Jamist Avatar

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    We need a lot more clarification. Spooking people into not knowing if they are doing some wrong and then taking off is bit much, you think? While smelting and I click" Make 20", exactly how many seconds am I allowed to look away from my PC? If I stand in a spot with a sword and have auto swing enabled "T" and wait for a bad guy to approach me, is that an exploit? Exactly how many steps side to side must I take, must I always chase the enemy? If I'm standing there, can I take a bathroom break, or must I log out first? It seems just when we seem to be enjoying ourselves....
     
  4. Korim Rackham

    Korim Rackham Avatar

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    Awesome to see botting and 3rd part macroing cracked down on several months post final wipe. Really good stuff
     
  5. Yakamo LLTS

    Yakamo LLTS Avatar

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    Sweet, this is great to hear!
     
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  6. smack

    smack Avatar

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    What about macroing to take screenshots or videos (e.g. timelapses, etc)?
    What about macroing to create a series of choreographed movements or actions purely for RP (non-combat, non-crafting, non-skill use or gain that does not add to or draw from the relevant pools): e.g., emote chains with movement of the avatar, reciting poems, stories, speeches, instrument use, music, change costumes, etc.
    Also, assume this policy is only for the online modes, correct?

    Can we have a /macro mode such that the avatar cannot make trades, talk to NPCs, interact with certain world objects (e.g. containers, crafting stations, plants/plant beds, wells, etc), cannot use skills, force all tools unequipped, etc?
     
  7. Net

    Net Avatar

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    Ooops, I just realized I have used macro for this Timelapse/360°pan for the trailer, better get rid of that...

    I think we need better definition of macros in this case (at least soemthing like macros interacting with the game world i.e. gathering, crafting, stacking and casting glyphs).



    Other than that I am all for clear no macro policy at least it will be clear which parts of the game are so tedious unbearable timesinks they need more polish:) Processing thousands or tens of thousands of resources without macros is insane, and it is a bit sad to see some people use macros while playing another account.
     
  8. Black Tortoise

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    Im in support of no external macros, Port to (eventually) release an in game macro system, similar to the in-game system for the osi UO client. Port can then decide what features cant be macro'd, and what can. E.g., no macroing involving interacting with certain classes of objects, but allow macros for doing a sequence of emotes with some text.
     
  9. Dirk Hammerstrike

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    Damn I knew I should have been doing more water gathering ... it's the only thing I have used a macro to do. Yes I know sitting there hitting "e" isn't exactly hard. Its just boring as hell.
     
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  10. Lazarus Long

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    I gotta stand beside these statements.

    I Too use speech macros, Copy / Pastes, as well as a small utility Razer Synapse for th Razer Keyboard / Mouse for those odd repetitive tasks.

    Many players also have and we have been over this before... Physical handicaps that they NEED to have access to things the keyboard / mouse offer to help
    with things they otherwise could not.

    Now I gotta say if all this fancy keyboard and mouse are only good for some "Cool Lighting Effects" to play SOTA well I and MANY others just
    wasted a good $250. thanks to the Promotions of great hardware to play our game.


    Thanks.

    Laz
     
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  11. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    To help clarify, we will be paying particular attention to those that specifically seek to gain an unfair advantage when botting. This includes but is not limited to XP gain, gold farming, skipping or speeding up the client in any way to gain advantage. Think of what tools and resources you use in that way. If it's an advantage over another player, don't do it.
     
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  12. Cinder Sear

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    I use a macro to enable the Autoattack 'T' key, after unsheathing my weapon 'X'... is this not allowable? If not, can you please enable autoattack to stay on once chosen, and not always default to off?
     
  13. Onyx

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    Yep, that's what I use my Razor for @Fister Magee. Hit one key. it presses Z then T and I'm ready to go. I think it would be great if we went back to the method we had before where auto attack was always activated when I unsheathed my weapon.
     
  14. Kevin2437

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    I use my Belkin N52 to do the same thing. It's the only macro I use - to Unsheathe then Auto Attack.
     
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  15. Weins201

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    Ok This has been gone over before you can not prevent players from using a Razor Mouse or other Keyboards and stuff that make key strokes for them or are you saying you have to play with a plain mouse and keyboard.

    I know what you are getting at but your blanket statement can not be enforced.

    Perhaps you should actually address the issue that is player taking some kind of advantage which is being exploited.

    Obviously there is actually something being done that is on some way a violation of some TOS which you have already once said" any play done that give advantages is a violation".

    All you are doing here is giving all the violators another warning - do the right thing, do the hard thing ,remove them now as you should be.

    Again you can not in any way be serious if you are going to try and tell players That I cannot use my multi button mouse to hit action key "10" to heal myself, if your are saying this, then you might as well fold the game up now.

    Deal with violators who obviously are already in violation instead of another ineffective "warning".

    Honestly they have an issue - there is something that was done, that is / was clearly and exploit that gave players some advantage (if it is PvP then it is an even bigger joke) - instead of just dealing with those players, they are give them ANOTHER warning and as a result being so obtuse on "Macoring/Botting" it is almost laughable.

    I have said over and over there is nothing you can do about Keyboard and Mice that have multiple keys programming options - and like I will say again if those are what you are looking at (Hope not) then just shut the servers down - game over. These cannot be stopped.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2017
  16. Asbury Baker

    Asbury Baker Avatar

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    Disclaimer: I am a programmer who has extensive automation experience, but has no interest in scripting in Shroud of the Avatar.

    The primary goals of preventing some or all scripting should be apparent to all: First and foremost, to prevent a handful of skilled programmers to control the economy, and to a lesser extent, prevent the use of nearly unbeatable combat bots. Anyone who disagrees is someone using those techniques. What the users of the community are currently doing should be taken into consideration, as should the general expectations of the unwashed masses who will be arriving when the game goes live.

    This isn't rocket surgery, and the devs are smart folks. This is also not a new problem. One of the older case studies of the macro/automation argument is with a game called Tradewars 2002, a multiplayer text-based game which clearly lent itself to automation. Universe-trading scripts, hunter-killer bots, etc - it was a scripters' paradise. That said, the behavior of worst (best?) of the script authors, myself included, made it impossible for anyone to play by hand. In these generally short lived games (a week to a year), the scripters would both dominate the market and create Terminator-style killing machines, and Sara Conner didn't stand a chance. I may have used the phrase, "evolve or die" more than once, but I also ran a web page dedicated to getting *all* players into script-land. Unsurprisingly, not everyone wanted to run automatons. Segregating the automatons and the humans was necessary - otherwise the human-only players would all quit. If someone wanted to compete with other humans, that's fantastic. If someone like myself wanted to see if my creation could dominate the universe, that, likewise, is super. In the case of Tradewars 2002, short fixed string macros were generally permissible, but the game dev allowed the option to neuter their use through 100ms delays between commands. In the end, most servers settled on either full-scripting or macro-only with no delay. So, even in this automation-friendly environment, human users were given sanctuary. SotA is not an automaton-friendly environment, and both real and funny-money dollars are at stake, so it can be expected for the rules to lean the other direction. If there are enough automatons to warrant their own server, so be it. But for a few to ruin the experience for the many is not in the best interest of Portalarium, nor most of the users who supported the development.

    Taking these concepts forward 20 years, the devs have more resources at their disposal. They can:

    1. Identify who is running software which provide macro support (e.g. processes importing SetWindowsHookEx, Kernel filter drivers in the USB stack). [client side]
    2. Who is running hardware which provides macro capabilities (e.g. keyboard/mouse that loads massstorage.inf). [client side]
    3. Behaviorally identify hardware-enabled macros (server side math). While software-enabled macros with delay are harder to detect, the fact that a keyboard hook is present and in use during the came should be discernible from the client side.
    4. Provide internal macro capability.
    5. Consider ADA requirements.
    6. Consider the Razor marketing, and allow a subset of fixed string macros.
    7. Take into consideration the percent of users using simple macros. What does the user-base want?
    8. Consider an automaton-allowed server for those who want to see how their creations fair against those of others. There are probably not enough full-fledged scripters to warrant this, and those scripters may only be interested in dominating humans (or the financial market), not creations of other scriptuers.

    Asbury
     
  17. Brass Knuckles

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    Aye how many lines in the sand do we need?
     
  18. Womby

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    I do exactly the same thing because the game doesn't provide an option to do it for me.
     
  19. Yakamo LLTS

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    The Macro Mouseing is a very big problem. Without a macro mouse you are sub par in pvp. Its not fair
     
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  20. Brass Knuckles

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    The problem, I seriously doubt they can stop mouse or keyboard macroing unless they are doing stuff over and over via a script.
     
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