Hero Control Center survey

Um, does this forum do anything to/with GW? Nope. Your program would be interacting with the game. HUGE difference there. They don't care if you make a program to hack their game and send viruses to everyone who logs on. They care if you use that program. The comparison of a forum, and software DESIGNED TO WORK WITH THE GAME, is completely idiotic. Until Guru makes it so these forums allow you to load builds posted into your game, there is no comparison.

What you are proposing is a program to play the game for you. It is far more basic than a 'bot' program may be, but it is allowing someone to do things not available by using a 3rd party program. It is botting.

Now, I understand YOU may not be making it in such away to do things not available to everyone else. But that doesn't mean someone won't adapt your program to do more than you intended. Even your limited use of it is more than what I believe Anet to allow, and if detected, people using it would be banned.

Hmm, an interesting idea. I've already thought of stuff like this. It wouldn't be a bad idea, but it would make the area of Hero Battles a bit unfair to those who have this program. Also not to mention, this program would basically be a set of macro keys that tell your mouse to push that skill and return to the original location, which basically means that this is the step before making a bot so I don't know about this.

Well the proposed program is alot more innocent than TextMod so i expect its fine.

Indeed!

While I already make high use of Hero Priority skilling, turning some off, and position flagging. But it bothers me that no matter what, they will stay inside the boundaries of an AoE and by the time I realize it, canceling my flags and repositioning them costs valuable time in some cases (depends on the AoE afterall).

Forgive me, I don't remember the name of the game, it was many years ago, but it had a similar property in the game like GW where you can group yourself with AI party members. It didn't have the customization GW has, but it did have a few Party Related actions such as all out attack, defensive stance, support, block, and a few others. One of the other ones was known as "Scatter".

It was a simple button on your party command interface that, when pressed, would call on your AI party to run about 10 steps in the opposite direction they were facing at the time you pressed it. After they ran the 10 steps, they would proceed with whatever action they were attempting prior to running.

I guess you could almost call it a "Run for your life!" command.

I would love, love, LOVE to have a similar action in Guild Wars. Considering we can call a target to charge our AI into a battle, it feels weird to not have the ease of ability to have them run out of, or retreat from danger at a "click" when needed.


Anyways, sorry to go a bit off-topic (I think), but I wanted to make that addition.

1. Input macro bots are definitely a bannable offense. (To me, this sounds like a pretty harmless macro bot -- maybe even a beneficial one -- but it's an input macro bot nonetheless.

2. Whenever a NEW forum member shows up and starts offering to provide game-related programs in their very first day here, I am ALWAYS suspicious that those programs might contain a keylogger or other nasty stuff.

FeroxC, it is mostly Java with C++ to recognize the key presses, and yes, that sort of automated play would definitely cross ANet's and, for what it's worth, my line.

Longasc, I see where you're coming from. However, there's a difference I can see: my tool would not add anything fundamentally new to the UI, like more info screens or target info or whatever. Unlike the WoW modding tools, I can only access what the client gives me in plain sight, and I cannot create new panels or whatever. Because of that, my tool can only act as an extension of the player's eyes and hands if you will; if a player is in principle unable to do something or see something because the client won't let him through the standard UI, then my tool will not enable him to do/see that. In that regard, texMod is actually more intrusive, because it gives players new info. I believe that is quite an important difference because the hard limits set by ANet still remain in place. Since the tool stays on the same mechanics level as the player using it, I also expect the issue of OH NO PATCH DAY to be non-existant and even more so when considering that GW1 is not likely to see many fundamental changes in the future.

That was, for me, the main reason that the tool is not a bad idea. There are also a couple of points that I believe make it a good idea:

More Hero builds: Better control of Heroes allows for more intricate Hero builds that require a little (or a lot) more situational thought than the current Hero AI can hope to provide. Currently, most players have more than enough to do with controlling their own play; to get anything out of their heroes, they have to give them a fire-and-forget build which typically performs at best mediocre when compared to a human player controlling the same build. GW has been solo-friendly from day 1, so this tool would not be out-of-character, speaking in RPG terms.

Modability: There are only few classic games lasting till today that are not moddable, because almost no game has such lasting appeal out of the box (plus official patches) as to survive the combined onslaught of new games/game mechanics and improving graphics (no counter-examples please, I know they exist). Regarding the state of GW1 in 5 years or so, that's mere speculation of course, but it's my conviction that a thriving mod community does not hurt a game more than it helps. Additionally, ANet has clearly stated that the company's focus has mostly shifted to GW2, so I consider this tool a contribution to this game's modding community and to the game itself.

Last but not least, if the tool is in fact ok with ANet and should it find acceptance, then it might be a hint to the game designers what people want and what could be included in future installments of the series (yes, I'm dreaming a little here, but it COULD happen). ANet's vision of the GW series is not set in stone; to the best extent possible, they will adapt to what they believe players want, which they have proven more often than many other game developers in the past.

Well I'm not very active here, no, so that's a valid objection from your point. To dispel such worries, I would reveal every single line of code used in the project, so you are free to check out the code or even compile it yourself if you like. If both are not realistic options for you, you can wait for feedback from more trusted members who did either.

Im happy to check his source if any1 wants, ive had experiance with c++ & java .

MagmaRed, please cut down on the harsh language, calling my comparison idiotic and such. You made a blanket statement that every software not released by ANet may not be used with GW, and that is simply not true. You mentioned using TexMod is a potentially bannable offense. I provided evidence that this is not the case according to Gaile Gray and Emily Diehl, so I'm not sure why you insist on your point. As you can see in this thread, there is no clear opinion voting either for or against the legality of my proposed tool, and neither am I sure, but you speak with a certainty as if you represented ANet.

I'm not sure why you are here then. All you're going to get here is opinions. Nobody here can say for sure. All you're giving is your opinion also. Theres no reason to get upset, its all opinions, and until you go to the right place, thats all you're going to get here.

Have you even sent anything about this to support or are you just relying on Gaile's talk page?

In my opinion, if you use this, you will be banned. What you are suggesting is pratically a bot program.

Mhh, would have to read the EULA, but, ehm, how about when you're using a drawing pad rather then a mouse? Should one consider it's driver and software to be a third party program? And, otoh, what if someone modified and compiled an automation tool, a bot, for their own use? That wouldn't be a third party program, strictly speaking.


And that's bad how or why? Even if it did, that is not sufficient reason to allow ANet toforbid specific interfaces.

Chthon
Join Date: Apr 2007

Roland of Gilead
Join Date: Aug 2005

Someone can't read?

I'm glad you didn't take that the wrong way (like a certain flamer who posted below you did...). Being able to inspect and compile your code for myself would adequately dispel my concerns about your macro containing anything malicious. (Then, if only it weren't a bannable offense, I might even consider using it. )

Join date means nothing if there's no postings and forum presence to back it up with.

OK, I've submitted a support ticket and at least they didn't reject the idea outright. Instead it got escalated to a "Senior Customer Support Representative", so it appears to be a tricky question at least.

All I ask for is a Spread Out!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@ button

QFT. I remember in Myth: TFL, besides having a bunch of formations for your team, you could press X and they all scattered in random directions.

You can't ignore my comments, but you'll ignore those of a mod? How come you haven't commented on someone else saying virtually the same thing I said?

I don't use third-party anything, and I never will.

MagmaRed, I am grateful for your and vilaptca's and everyone else's input on the matter. The reason why I don't respond to opinions about the tool's legality is simply that it leads nowhere unless the contributor is someone who is fully able and authorized to speak on ANet's/NCSoft's behalf regarding this matter, which I suppose nobody in this thread so far is. I have repeatedly expressed that position at the beginning of the thread, I refer you to my first 3 posts in this thread. All I ask for is if there is interest in the tool at all, assuming for the sake of the argument that it was legal. I will keep this thread updated with what Gaile and Customer Support have to say about it; other than that, I would rather discuss the tool itself.

I understand that. I don't think you understand your biggest mistake however. This is a forum, where people DISCUSS things. If you didn't want a discussion, you should have never posted here. The only people who CAN comment on its legality OFFICIALLY are Anet employees, and not even all of them can.

Since nobody here CAN comment OFFICIALLY, all you have is discussion. Considering many of the people who post messages here are well versed in the EULA, Anet policies, and the law, you may find some good info in such a discussion.