Guild Wars 2

Wowa, this has nothing to do with my self-esteem :o .

I certainly get where macro users are coming from and I respect your opinion. I personally love listening to electronic music, and I’ve had the “electronic music is not real music”-argument thousands of times with friends. If you can entertain people with macro-music, that’s great. I do not dislike macro-users. But I do think this game would be a lot more fun if everyone who played was playing themselves.

If you want to hear a song, you could just open YouTube. Now, if those songs you hear are actually played by real people, live, that’s something special! And I think that would be more fun in the long run. At least for me and many others. There’s a lot of fun that macro-users are missing. But then again, that’s just my opinion. Yours may differ!

I do not want a ridiculous elitist best-in-show kitten contest (although kittens are awesome!). To stick to the analogy: I just want a kitten show without a winner, where every kitten is real and not some kitten doll you can buy on the internet.

And yes, it is a less fun to practice something yourself when some other person just presses one button. That’s why some people are quitting now, and why I am writing these posts. I will not stop doing what I do because of it, but I would prefer if Guild Wars 2 was entirely macro free, because I’d have more fun playing.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Because they do not give a player a gameplay advantage, Customer Support does not intend to take action on people who play instruments using macros. We don’t recommend any. We don’t support them. If a macro causes your refrigerator to explode, we’re not going to get involved. But they are not against the rules, because the rules pertain to gameplay advantages, such as faster kills or more effective defense.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros/first#post1532762

I really don’t know what to say.. first the maize exploit that apparently wasn’t an exploit and now this. You guys should give us a heads up when you refresh your own policies.

proteininja.5891:

I created gw2mb.com, so I feel a certain obligation to weigh in after reading the posts here.

I spent 6 months of my free time creating that website. I didn’t do it to undermine people who play manually. I did it because I love music.

I gotta give you +1 for that website. And here’s why, i’ll tell you my story.

I love music, always did. I’m 99% of my time listening to music, playing random arrangements in www.virtualpiano.net or playing my electric guitar. However i’m not talented enough to be good. I’m honest here and I accept the fact that after 6 years I improved very little because my brain is just that stupid and can’t coordinate both hands + other issues.

When I first saw the harp in-game I really knew that i had to get it. I love it’s sound and I love the way that I could play my favourite songs in-game to share it with the rest of my friends. But what happens? As expected i was unable to play anything remotely decent… and I wasted 700gems. So I did had the harp in my bank for months and then out of nowhere I heard someone in Divinity Reach playing really good. Asked how and he told me about macros and your website.

I did download some of my favourite ever songs from there (zelda <3 or yurima) and started playing in the Tequatls runs that I often command for my community. We are a group of 150 players that complete events like Tequatl on a Daily basis (and other events). I told them it was a macro and nobody really cared! The Teamspeak was silent at that times, the feels, the emotions, the memories… We all were mesmerized by the songs that my character was playing and it was GREAT!
We still do it often, there’s 10 minutes while we wait for Tequatl spawns after all defenses are assigned with nothing to do, music fits here very nice.

So… now we have a lot of players that want to remove my love for music just because i’m not talented enough… is not fair. In my opinnion that’s selfish and I will quote a passive-aggresive reddit comment that I saw yesterday from MrPhoenix_W.

Some people (that can play the instruments manually) want to be the only ones that can play them, since it’s something hard to do, they don’t want to share the acoustic space ingame with those filthy macro-players.

For those not familiar with the term, that’s called Elitism. I didn’t know I would see that outside dungeons or raids, but here it’s, one of the most toxic humans behaviours. I’m ashamed at this point of the thread.

Please stop with it and empathise with us. Me and lot of other players really love and enjoy to listen and share music with their communities. Just because we’re not talented enough shouldn’t be a reason to waste 700gems and break our hopes down.

I’d like to add my ideas about instruments and macros.

I don’t use instruments, because I’m really too bad to play a song ( :’[ ). But if I had one, I would be happy to be able to use macros with it, cause I know that without macros I would not be able to do anything good with the instrument I bought.

In my opinion, people saying “He’s using macro, he’s cheating” don’t take this into consideration. Some just can’t play music as easily as you can, don’t be silly and let them play music, even if they don’t play music like you.

That’s why I appreciated it when Cody said this :

For some, the barrier between having an instrument and making music is overly daunting, and there are other methods out there to simply play a song.

Respect the others and how they are playing music, even if they take the “easy way”, and remember what Gaile said : people using macros have a limited playlist, you don’t.

Night.2034:

I’d like to add my ideas about instruments and macros.

I don’t use instruments, because I’m really too bad to play a song ( :’[ ). But if I had one, I would be happy to be able to use macros with it, cause I know that without macros I would not be able to do anything good with the instrument I bought.

In my opinion, people saying “He’s using macro, he’s cheating” don’t take this into consideration. Some just can’t play music as easily as you can, don’t be silly and let them play music, even if they don’t play music like you.

That’s why I appreciated it when Cody said this :

For some, the barrier between having an instrument and making music is overly daunting, and there are other methods out there to simply play a song.

Respect the others and how they are playing music, even if they take the “easy way”, and remember what Gaile said : people using macros have a limited playlist, you don’t.

Macro user songs number far greater than what any single person can memorize so they can play a far greater variety of songs that what most musicians can play by hand without a sheet.

Players that play instruments by hand also usually don’t have an issue with respecting other musicians as they understand musical etiquette and how difficult it is to play a song by hand as well as how rude it is to interrupt someone, but those who interrupt our songs by pressing one key sitting back and watching how it messes up the player who actually needs to hear what he is playing in order to play. Basically, there is no way a person who is playing an instrument by hand can continue playing when a macro player interrupts them.

It is cheating when the macro player gets paid gold in donations for their macros when someone thinks they are playing by hand. It happens all the time. It’s basically free gold as you afk!

Encoded Rig.7903:

The reason I don’t like macro players is because they usually lie about playing it by hand and then get paid for it!(Over 80% of the macro players I encounter deny it being a macro and say that they are playing everything by hand without macros)

Encoded Rig.7903:

It is cheating when the macro player gets paid gold in donations for their macros when someone thinks they are playing by hand. It happens all the time. It’s basically free gold as you afk!

That’s called generalization, Most macro players don’t do it for money as said before there is ways to get way more money in game currently. And I think the macro players you encounter may deny it was a macro because it was not officialy clearly said if it was allowed or not.

Encoded Rig.7903:

and they almost always interrupt people playing instruments legitimately with their macros. (Around 90% of macro players just step in middle of a song you are playing and play something completely different!)

You know, i also saw the opposite normal musician trying to interrupt macro players.

Encoded Rig.7903:

If you want to hear a song played, why play it in game when you can play it online with a synthesizer?

That’s because we love the game and it’s community as much as we like music so why not sharing music in Guild wars 2 ?

Encoded Rig.7903:

It allows people who truly love music to play the same songs with each other and share private compositions.

So the macro musician can’t truly love music eh ? that’s Very closed minded.

Edit: Woah, my page didn’t refresh.

Hi, Aytanhi. What you describes seems less do to with macros, and more to do with people interrupting your songs. Which, I can assure you, happens to everyone unfortunately. Like many people in this thread, some people get jealous and envious of other’s playings, so they interrupt them. However, one thing in particular stuck out for me:

Or when someone who accuses you of using macros intentionally comes over to spam notes all off of the basis of trying to interrupt your macro song even though you are playing the instrument legitimately by hand, and this has happened numerous times.

I think you only have yourself to blame for this one, in both good and bads ways. It’s a compliment to be called a cheater, because your criticizers thinks you can’t be that skilled. On the other hand, you brought it upon yourself supporting the “Anti-Macro” campaign. You reap what you sow. You are against macro’s so vehemently and spread this air of… superiority and competitiveness that it literally came back to bite you as people accuse you of using them. Whoops.

We have had many members lose interest in making and writing music because of macros. We even made our guild’s music sheet private because of what happened to our sister guild Cmaj in the EU.

Again, I can’t see how this makes sense. How does macros affect your private affairs? And, again, I’ve said it many times here, and people keep dodging it: This game’s soundtrack was made by macros. Almost the entire thing. You bought a game, whose has a soundtrack, sold separately as well, that is living proof of my claim that the public does not care.

Heck, I’m listening to Through the Arbor right now because I’m about to play it. And guess what? I’m listening to the macro’d Synthesia version because it’s superior to the noisy live version.

The only specific reason I have heard in opposition to macros in this thread that is in any way valid is that some musicians are competitive and don’t want to be up-staged by superior quality music in the public sector. And you have none of my sympathy. In fact, you’re actually bringing out my wrath because these pedantic and juvenile calls for change basically amount to nothing more than jealousy.

I don’t speak for Anet, they run the show. But, it’d be a little hypocritical of them to ban macro music in a game, in which the soundtrack is macro music. Again, you’re on a forum of a game made of the thing you’re criticizing so harshly. You’re poisoning the well you’re drinking from.

Encoded Rig.7903:

Or even worse, when people start heckling you because you accuse a macro music player who lies about playing their music by hand and their nearby listeners and donors say that you are jealous because you’re not as good as a musician as the macro user.

If I was there, and someone was insulting someone else’s music, I would certainly be on the accusers case as well. Who the heck are you to insult someone else’s music? Again, the public’s concern about macro and live is only superficial, they are really only interested in the audio quality. For you to insult someone else’s music is rude. Just as rude as someone interrupting your songs. You’re the problem you complain about; you’re part of the group of people you’re here citing as “ruining it for you.” You contribute to that toxic aura you’re complaining about.

And just to clarify something and probably really get under your skin, people who make macros are musicians, like this game’s composer(s).

Encoded Rig.7903:

Needless to say, if you think macros convey no advantage in this game, you need to reconsider your policy even when it comes to musical instruments.

So far, this entire discussion seems to be stemming from two different things:

#1: People aren’t respecting other people and their music.

#2: People are being competitive in an environment that does not support that.

I’ll augment what I said in my last post: If you played GW2 Instruments with the goals of improving your skills and/or providing entertainment to others, you would not care about whether music came from macros, or sheets, or tabs, or otherwise.

Silverdisc.1305:

But I do think this game would be a lot more fun if everyone who played was playing themselves.

When it comes to music, I don’t.

If you want to hear a song, you could just open YouTube. Now, if those songs you hear are actually played by real people, live, that’s something special! And I think that would be more fun in the long run. At least for me and many others. There’s a lot of fun that macro-users are missing. But then again, that’s just my opinion. Yours may differ

I understand what you’re saying about fun for the player. But right now, I’m too busy listening to the GW1 and GW2 soundtracks, which, if I recall correctly, only a few songs on my playlist are actually instrumental.

I do not want a ridiculous elitist best-in-show kitten contest (although kittens are awesome!). To stick to the analogy: I just want a kitten show without a winner, where every kitten is real and not some kitten doll you can buy on the internet.

Then you’d also take this criticism, erroneously so, to the composer of the game you’re playing. I DARE you, to compare his(/her) work to an analogy that it’s “not real and some kitten doll you can buy on the internet.”

And yes, it is a less fun to practice something yourself when some other person just presses one button. That’s why some people are quitting now, and why I am writing these posts.

I can not see the train of through process behind this. I can not see it at all. Please, connect “less fun to practice something yourself” to “some other person does it easier.”

I will not stop doing what I do because of it, but I would prefer if Guild Wars 2 was entirely macro free, because I’d have more fun playing.

Again, we’d have no soundtrack if that was the case. The macro music of the soundtrack is detracting from your music playing so much that “people are quitting.” That’s… something special.

Encoded Rig, by the end of my post, I will demonstrate exactly how not-kitten your arguments are:

The reason I don’t like macro players is because they usually lie about playing it by hand and then get paid for it!

Well, first, up until 24 hours ago, it was against the rules. And secondly, people pay for music they enjoy.

If you want to hear a song played, why play it in game when you can play it online with a synthesizer?

Let me turn the tables:

If you want to hear a live song, why play it in a game when you should play it with a real instrument?

This IS the elitism I was speaking of. This IS the problem right here. And it just goes on:

It allows people who truly love music to play the same songs with each other and share private compositions.

As opposed to people who don’t truly love music? And who are they? From my perspective, it seems there are three camps: People who play music for entertainment, people who play music for competition, and people who are rude. Based on what you say here, you sit squarely in the latter two.

So I get it, you like listening to music, so please listen to music on your own outside of the game.

Couldn’t I say THE EXACT same thing to you? Actually, if I recall correctly, people were criticizing the “waste of development” on the instruments by saying this exact same thing.

Players that play instruments by hand also usually don’t have an issue with respecting other musicians as they understand musical etiquette and how difficult it is to play a song by hand as well as how rude it is to interrupt someone,

I beg to differ. If this thread is a demonstration of anything. It’s that live-music players in music-oriented guilds are extremely pompous and insulting. You yourself admitted to getting flak over insulting someone’s music, in public, which you found that music to be insulting. And, rightfully so, people rebutted you and your insults.

I play instruments by hand. As in, a flute in real life, and hopefully adding a piano to that soon. So, as a “real-life musician,” I think I understand “musical etiquette.” Which basically is: Be respectful. I know how difficult it is to play by hand, AND, I know how difficult it is to construct music macros (might as well say it since it’s legal now). I can do both, and I do both. I do what I think is fun. And yet, I respect people for whatever choices they make. You lack that respect. You’re so caught up in this whirlwind of elitism, this storm of superiority that you can’t even practice what you preach.

It’s still very special to me that people are comparing composing using instrument samples to using macros ingame to play music. Since were comparing it to real music now lets give an example what macro playing in the real world would look like:

Here we have band A eating their favorite dinner on stage during a live performance while their producer bob perfected and autotuned their song back in the studio wich is now blasting through the speakers during a live concert.

Then here we have band B, they also had producer bob, but instead of letting him play their music during a live concert they took the time to learn the instruments and learn to play as a band together.

I’m pretty sure people would rather see band B over band A live, now in guildwars the public can’t see the difference between a piece being played from a macro or human since the live performance is from an avatar ingame.

Melvin.3295:

It’s still very special to me that people are comparing composing using instrument samples to using macros ingame to play music. Since were comparing it to real music now lets give an example what macro playing in the real world would look like:

Here we have band A eating their favorite dinner on stage during a live performance while their producer bob perfected and autotuned their song back in the studio wich is now blasting through the speakers during a live concert.

Then here we have band B, they also had producer bob, but instead of letting him play their music during a live concert they took the time to learn the instruments and learn to play as a band together.

I’m pretty sure people would rather see band B over band A live, now in guildwars the public can’t see the difference between a piece being played from a macro or human since the live performance is from an avatar ingame.

And because music is about audio, let’s take your post and care about what matters:

Bob and Band B play the same song.

And you yourself admitted you can’t tell the difference in game, so… your entire point is mute?

My point is that there is a clear difference in time put into songs, people are saying making macros is hard because of timing and all sorts of other things while in the end both sources get their music from the same person, either an online sheet or a midi file wich they transcribe for ingame play. Where one had to just play the macro the other has to actually put time into the instrument. And since there is not a clear difference to see wich user is using what there is a clear disadvantage for people that actually want to learn how to play the ingame instruments.

Encoded Rig.7903:

I had a macro player interrupt a duet with a friend and then continuously brag to me that he earned over 100 gold in donations simply by afking and playing instruments with macros all while calling the people who donated him gold gullible fools. Do you really think that macros for music give no unfair advantage to people playing the game legitimately?

But that’s not the worse part. It’s worse when some macro player comes and interrupt what we are playing with a full blown macro simply because we can no longer play legitimate music with other players because someone’s macro is interrupting our cues and tempos and they can keep on continuing to play without making a mistake.

Or when someone who accuses you of using macros intentionally comes over to spam notes all off of the basis of trying to interrupt your macro song even though you are playing the instrument legitimately by hand, and this has happened numerous times.

We have had many members lose interest in making and writing music because of macros. We even made our guild’s music sheet private because of what happened to our sister guild Cmaj in the EU.

Or even worse, when people start heckling you because you accuse a macro music player who lies about playing their music by hand and their nearby listeners and donors say that you are jealous because you’re not as good as a musician as the macro user.

Needless to say, if you think macros convey no advantage in this game, you need to reconsider your policy even when it comes to musical instruments.

How is the macro the problem in any of these cases? As far as I can tell, the problem in all cases are immature trolls.

Melvin.3295:

My point is that there is a clear difference in time put into songs, people are saying making macros is hard because of timing and all sorts of other things while in the end both sources get their music from the same person, either an online sheet or a midi file wich they transcribe for ingame play. Where one had to just play the macro the other has to actually put time into the instrument. And since there is not a clear difference to see wich user is using what there is a clear disadvantage for people that actually want to learn how to play the ingame instruments.

I said it a thousand times, so I’ll ask again:

Why does the effort of Person A doing XYZ affect Person B in any way? And why should the public care?

Every anti-macro person is just connecting those two dots without any cited reason.

Toroxus.9256:

And why should the public care?

That’s exactly that, it’s not a concert, macro music players didn’t sell entrance tickets or something they do it for free. Don’t sum up all the macro musicians to one random troll , money could have been claimed by a live performer too.

Toroxus.9256:

Melvin.3295:

My point is that there is a clear difference in time put into songs, people are saying making macros is hard because of timing and all sorts of other things while in the end both sources get their music from the same person, either an online sheet or a midi file wich they transcribe for ingame play. Where one had to just play the macro the other has to actually put time into the instrument. And since there is not a clear difference to see wich user is using what there is a clear disadvantage for people that actually want to learn how to play the ingame instruments.

I said it a thousand times, so I’ll ask again:

Why does the effort of Person A doing XYZ affect Person B in any way? And why should the public care?

Every anti-macro person is just connecting those two dots without any cited reason.

I’m sorry, is it really that hard for you to connect two dots where people want to be recognised for time put into the game? If everyone got a free legendary, would the people that actually spend work for their own legendary still feel proud for walking around with it?

Melvin.3295:

I’m sorry, is it really that hard for you to connect two dots where people want to be recognised for time put into the game? If everyone got a free legendary, would the people that actually spend work for their own legendary still feel proud for walking around with it?

Yes, it is, because I’m not egocentric. The recognition I get for playing music is people enjoying it. Not because I’m “better” than other players. I don’t have legendaries because I “want to feel proud for walking around with it.” I have them because I like their appearance. I don’t have tens of thousands of gold because I want to be the richest person, I just want to see how much money I can make.

Not everything is a contest. Is that so hard for you to understand? You get none of my sympathy when you’re just simply envious.

Most of the reasons to go against macro players is because “people interrupt us and get payed”. Well, if that’s your best hit, then you really have a problem. That issue is caused by inmature trolls (like proteininja said) and people that wants to make fun out of you. Or even by scammers that will try to make profit at any cost, which is reportable as far as i know. Will that change if they can’t play songs with a macro? NO. They will just find the most annoying item and spam 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 to still annoy you (believe me, i’ve seen it before in my previous MMOs).

At first I could tolerate reasons like “it took me a lot of time to master, should had some recognition”, but then again if you are doing it for a “reward” you took the short stick. GW2 has a rewarding system based in items and dungeons. You decided to spent 20 hours learning a song instead of doing 20 dungeons? That’s ok, but you shouldn’t complain about something that you did choose on purpose.

To summarize it, this thread did gave me this 3 thoughs.*

• Seems like macro players like me just play macro songs because we love music and we like to share it with an specific community that already knows that it’s a macro (friends, teamspeak, guild, party or community map). We don’t ask for money, ever.
• Seems like the actual non-macro players want to feel rewarded by all it’s effort, trying to get money out of concerts and not tolerating other players.
• There will be trolls in both sides, either using a macro or not. They will try to corrupt our songs playing other instruments, different chords or just randomly using skills.

Good job and /slow clap. I was a defender of the non-macro players since i know how hard it’s to become good at it, but after reading some of the posts in this thread, this is the picture that i’m getting and i don’t think it’s accurate (but i could say it’s 90% to invalidate replies like someone did above. Man, that was a little bit desperate and lame, honestly xD)

Hi i am one of the people who publish music on gw2mb.
I never used a sheet from a gw2 player to compose the music, i always take offical sheets or (if there are none) i try to figure them out by ear.
It is hard to do this because of the timing, it takes hours for some songs.
I play the instruments ingame manually because in real life i play many instruments myself but i also use macros sometimes.
So I just do both and try to get better and better with the manually part.
Why is that? I could use macros all the time.
Well i know my songs and how to play them, and when i play i might add some highlights (extra notes) or differ the timing and spacing!
With a macro that is not possible to do.
This is “live performance” and not trying to play the exact same notes every time again and again and again and..
I call this a “cover” of a song.
Also if u check the website there are MANY songs that simply don’t work with 1 player, even macroed.
But people enjoy music (and both is music!) and I am very happy when i hear someone playing MY songs I composed on that website!

I have so much fun with the surrounding audience, we make jokes and sometimes we just chat before i start playing the next song and just having fun!
This is what a true musican (for me) is.

Ah and i have to make more advertisement because this thread now gets so much clicks and mine hasn’t yet^^:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/audio/Enhancement-of-music-instruments/first#post4537043

As a creator of some of those macros I DO understand the effort you musicians put in your plays and I respect that.

I never learnt music at school. Then on Wintersday 2012 came the first Bell Choir. Spent hours in there, doing something I enjoyed very much but never experienced before. Then an Asura came around and started playing the Tetris tune (which I didn’t know at the time) really really fast and was awestruck.

Then I learnt more and more about music from some simple tunes on the forums. Then started transcribing tabs myself with the help of Synthesia. Now I have learnt Canon in C. My tempo is abysmal but I can play it with chords (except the last bit where every note alternates up and down octaves). Other songs are just out of reach, like the Turkish March, or Aqua Vitae. So I make them with Music Box.

Many are not musically inclined or suffer from latency problems. They resort to automation, maybe even creating these automation themselves.
If the system was a bit more intuitive and easier to use for the end user, I ensure you, many would enjoy playing manually more often.

But please, you look so selfish with these posts. Thinking you are the only ones worthy of standing in Divinity’s Reach and play instruments. You are generalising an entire group by the few toxic players that come up and annoy you. What should I feel like knowing that some people extort gold and are a bad influence by the things I made available? I do not nor did I ever get a dime for the music I shared.

However to me it seems like you feel entitled to some form of compensation. Yeah, do not expect any. If someone can’t tell the difference between a macro playing and decides to donate, bad for them.

But at least I shared in my way without having a musical background. And found wonderful people on Music Box who share their creations for all to enjoy.

All of you, part of musicians’ guilds in the different tyrian servers, what did you share? One or two Youtube videos. You are part of the problem, you see? I had to learn things more or less all by myself. Did you ever find someone playing an automated song you took time effort to learn and play manually and ask them whether they would like some tips on how to play it like you do? You are closed off in your own envy, whether someone is playing a macro or is better at playing an instrument than yourself. Because these music guilds are closed off only to people who know how to play a real life instrument.

We now have to resort to Music Box because you do not share. On this forum the only user that deserves praise is MidnightX. Those are complex tabs.

In conclusion, to those of you stomping your feet and saying you’ll quit the game etc. You are elitist. This is a game and we are all here to have fun, whatever the medium.
If you are really quitting then this is not the only reason.

Continue playing with your musician friends and ignore macro players. Play with your guild. Have fun. If I see you around playing a wonderful piece, I’ll stop and listen for a while. But for the love of Dwayna, stop generalising.

TLDR: Musicians guild? See someone playing a macro? Invite them over, teach them how to play it manually. Want only professionals as guild members? Then play with your guild and have fun. Let us have fun too.

Encoded Rig.7903:

Maeried.6458:

Because these music guilds are closed off only to people who know how to play a real life instrument.

Not at all, we have received requests to join from people that have never picked up an instrument in real life. As a matter of fact, one of our regulars, Wasabi is an amazing player whom has never picked up an instrument in real life and learned to play with members our of guild!

Pardom me then, your guild might be different. My memory is hazy but I do remember reading the comments of a particular GW2 youtube video. If people wanted to join that guild, they’d have to pass an application, consisting of a test in instrument skill and knowledge of music. It did sound a bit over the top but hey, it was a music guild, it was fair.

I think the matter is that those you encountered and stopped you playing were rude and toxic. It happened to me a couple of times, I just moved somewhere else…