Danger...topk and farming...

Utterly ridiculous, I've been reporting REAL bots and was told time and again that support couldnt find evidence to ban them.

Yup, I heard that it has happened to other people now. There are 1 or 2 people who are in similiar situations like myself who didn't use a bot and got banned in TOPK. I have a friend of mine that against my advice has started to form TOPK tonight and someone else there was complaining of being banned like I was. The bad thing is that he hasn't had a response from Anet for a week.

Oh well.

I find it a bit ridiculous that macros that simplify manipulating the interface WHILE ATTENDED is treated as such. What's wrong with a programmable key that hits ; and then space very quickly, you are performing the action under your own power, the keyboard is just typing a few things for you but you still have to come up with the decision on that yourself, you still need to react to the environment around you.

Anet, please make a login announcement on WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE and WHAT ISN'T in clear plain english.

Attended non assisted
Programable key assisted
automated macros
fully aware bots.

Where is the line drawn?

The problem with allowing simple macros that perform multiple keystrokes comes when people start chaining complex skill chains and multiple weapon swaps into a single keystoke, it becomes an unfair advantage... attended or not is irrelevant.

Pretty hard for Anet to make a clear and concise list of what is and isn't allowed... and even if they did, someone would find a way to exploit it and then cry foul when they get slapped with a temp ban.

Nonsense.

A clear list would rule out whatever isn't clearly listed. BTW, we already have one: 3rd party programs that automate the game or portions of the game aren't allowed. Packet interception/manipulation isn't allowed. Bug exploit* is bannable offense. 3rd Party Programs are not supported and used at your own risk. That's as clear as they can get, you can't expect them to review every program

Each situation in this grey area must be reviewed separately and measures taken accordingly.



* "Bug" is often used by the playerbase as a derogative term to describe whichever behaviour of the game looks unattended, wrong or improper. "Bug" in EULAs is strictly a term to describe coding errors, not game/design flaws. Design flaws might lead to game exploits, which are usually fixed with no particular measure against the players, like by redesigning parts of the game, altering the environment or the scripting of missions, etc...

Yeah like people using macro's to play BB wars

QFT!

Some folks need to listen a little bit more than they flap their jaws.

Yes because people should shut up and stop flapping their jaws because Anet are always consistant and never spread misinformation in regards to their rules.

/sarcasm

Gray areas and 'Use at your own risk' does NOT make a clear and concise list of things that are and are not acceptable...

Yeah, and there also aren't any Mini Polar bears...

First response.

What I have written thus far:

I'd like to mention that there have been more people than myself that appear to have been inappropriately banned for third party programs/bots that we just do not have or have not run.

Since my macro that I use on my razer mouse is for running, I never used it in TOPK farming. So there was nothing that I had on my system active that was a 3rd party program other than mouse drivers and hardware drivers, which I really can't uninstall just for guildwars. I use my g13 for spreadsheet macro's for work related stuff as well.

I have had a lengthy discussion with several players and I applaud your aggressive stance against finding and removing bots, but I can assure you that you are banning legitimate players in the process. Your net or criteria for TOPK is too broad and getting innocent players.

On my computer, I have razer mouse and a logitech g13. My razer mouse has a macro for running if I need it, which obviously requires me to assess the situation to push the button. The macro is a simple dash and pious haste. My logitech g13, which is like the g15 keyboard, which doesn't have any macros that I have used on it recently, which had some buffing macros from heroes, but I haven't used it in a long time.

I really do feel that I have been wrongfully banned. I have not used _ANY_ bot whatsoever. The macro's that I have used require active imput from me and last less then a few seconds at most. I do not understand why I got banned. The account you banned was farming ectos in Tombs of the primeval kings. I am sure there are bots there, but I am not one of them.

I JUST started farming there 2 days ago. Look at my account, my items, I am a rule-following player. Please do not ban me for something that appears to be completely off base. Out of all the things I can think about, would be macro's and I have read the forums about them on multiple sites and the understanding is that simple macros that are require presence to start is permitted. The one macro I actively use is 3 keystrokes. Lasting less than a second.

I'm pretty sure I've seen mention of macros that perform more than a single action (ie chaining multiple skills, or tying weapon switching to skills) were on the shady side of that nebulous gray area... I think it might have been on Gail Gray's talk pages...

Either way, best of luck dealing with support, hope things work out well for you.

looking at my support ticket they added:

violation report.

So, I _THINK_ I was reported and probably have a screen short of me in TOPK running around like the other people farming at that time, which I'm sure some were bots.

Just kinda sad to think going to lunch with my family, being afk (on my anniversary day, 8 years married), to come back and get a you were disconnected for inappropriate behavior and finding yourself banned rather whimsically.

It will be even more sad if I don't get unbanned.

LOL.

Crossing my fingers.

No offence, hopefully you dont.

These macros clearly give you the unfair advantage that they warned about and that you agreed to not use. Anything that will allow you to make more than 1 action with a single keystroke is an unfair advantage by using external hardware.

Let's get a couple things clear.

1st and foremost, my "macros" were not even involved with farming in TOPK.

2nd if you think all macros beyond 1 key reassignment should be a PERMANENT ban-able offense, instead of a gray area issue, perhaps you should email support about it.

Light and Peace.

I will continue to email them in hopes I get unbanned. Maybe we could work together, and hopefully we will be able to convince them we're innocent. I just got another response now after another full-begging-please-explanation what has happened:

Hello Rok,

As previously explained we will not be reversing our decision. We will keep your account banned.

Regards,

GM Amaury
Guild Wars Customer Support

Maybe if we mention our names on our emails, maybe they will realise they made a mistake.

~Rokzor

Edit: They wouldn't even suggest me after I politely asked them if something can be done to work this out, like recommend a scanning program so I could delete this none-existing bot from my computer ... -.-

Macros have always been a no go in GW.

Sure it's a shade of grey, other MMO's allow or even promote macro use.

GW doesn't.....never has.

Stop whining.

I think they need to explain their decision making process and what they uncovered and the evidence they have.

I used to play a lot of starcraft before GW2 and in matches, we had weird clicks and things that you couldn't explain outside of using a maphack or something along those lines. But every once in a while even the best players had a few suspicious clicks time to time, but they didn't have a maphack.

The only thing I'm learning from all of this is:
1) Discussing macro's is like discussion politics and religious, should be avoided at all costs whenever possible .
2) Farming in general where there are any bots, is not a good idea. Not sure if there are raptor, vaettir bots also, but I am not going anywhere near those places, nor farming smites in UW, or ToPK. I'm going to stick to running and just doing missions/dungeons.

The quotes and posts from GM reponses do speak otherwise.

Horses for courses.

I've seen thread after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, after thread, from squires whining about this issue.

Hardly rocket science.

Good luck to you I guess.

If I ever get my account back, I would never farm at popular places again. I'm satisfied with amount of gold and rare items that I have now. I would use them to buy myself Chaos Gloves and a new armor set to match them. That is if I will have a chance to log in into my account again... Then I would do missions and dungeons just as you said. I hope they realise they made a mistake. But there's one thing that bothers me. They said they can confirm that I was using an illegal 3rd party program (which I obviously did not).

~ Rokzor