Guild Wars 2

Sorry if this topic has been talked about many times before.
I got a very unpleasant comment today. Someone actually told me I was lazy and had no musical bone since I used script when I played music. I am fairly new to this game and coming from games that using scripts to play songs. I saw someone playing the harp the other day and I found a good site and followed a guide how to create songs from ASCII/ABC codes. I am a musican in RL (composer and performer) so I wanted to try to make a script of one of my songs. For me it feels not naturally for me to push the ingame music buttons. ( I do praise people doing it though, don’t get me wrong).
But I do like to play music ingame for the immersion and it’s a nice way to engage into conversation with other people socially.

What is the overall view on this? Is it considered a bad thing to play with Autohotscript? or is it accepted by many?
I guess I spoiled with that it was quite acceptable in other games, but the customs might be different here.

I wouldn’t worry too much about what someone else has to say, to be honest…

Thank you ShinjoNaomi. You are of course right

That rude person was trolling you. It is acceptable to play music with scripts.(and allowed by Anet as well)
I know that I appreciate character-played music more when it is played “by hand”. But I would never criticize someone for using a script.(Their choice of music maybe, but not the fact that they’re using a script)

Thanks Elden: I do agree with you. Even if I perform in RL, it is a skill to perform ingame on the buttons aswell (and I don’t do that so well):) I just got a little upset by the comment.. But I get over it Thanks

If you’re doing a script of one of your own RL compositions that jerk was extra-wrong. Keep on being creative!

The problem is that the annoying few that gets “offended” by script play is louder than the people that appreciate it.
Keep doing the good work, I have a new friends that are musicians and I know that compose a music is way harder and technical than just playing an instrument.

I’ve never tinkered with the GW2 music stuff, but a while back I decided to try the ABC thing over in LOTRO with one of my songs, so my minstrel could play it, and while I was able to work it all out in that format, it took a lot of trial and error, and I’ve thus far not felt inclined to repeat the process. So I salute anyone who can do that.

/e salute

The official response was in your favour. They want people to enjoy music, no matter how it is produced.

Absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest bit in what you did. Ignore the people who pm you in a hostile way or block and report them.

Thank you so much guys. Yes is my own song and I was a little proud I could make a script out of it..:) so I showed it to friends, and then I got this bad comment from someone.
Glad I am not doing something wrong. guess I should have just ignored. but is not always easy!

You gotta consider that some of the coolest songs are near impossible to play legitimately. Even with a 70 something ping, pressing buttons and not getting an instant response is confusing. Also, changing octaves and simultaneously playing bass notes while harmonizing in treble is impossible to do legitimately.

There is nothing wrong with using macros or scripts to play music in game. I think its slightly cooler if you can play it by hand. A live performance if you will.

Its why I wrote a midi keyboard interface for myself to play music better in game. The link is in the community creations section if you wanna try it (app’s fairly buggy, fair warning, but it works well). I want to add composing capability to it when I get time to (with recording). I just added multi box support so you can use the bass range on the keyboard to play a second character’s bass. (shameless plug, but its for the music).

It is true that a lot of the coolest songs are not playable in game. The recent instruments (harp, guitar, bass) give you C or Am keys. Anything else has to be transposed into those keys.

Any song that changes key can’t be played properly. When I do those songs I have to stop at the key change. This cuts short a lot of broadway stuff as the key changes are ways to indicate a change in a character’s mind during the piece.

Any song that uses accidentals can’t be played properly either. That leaves out quite a lot of Michael Jackson stuff. “I cant stop loving you” and “Thriller”, which would make you a rock god in GW2 if you could pull em off, can’t be played cause they start in one key but accidental into 2 others during the verse.

I’ve been posting here to get instruments with the “black keys” so we can perform proper music. Someday maybe… somewhere over the rainbow (which is playable in game).

Hey lioka ! that sounds great.. I havent really investigated all the possibilites in this game, but I will when I get used to Gw2 and what you can do

Elden Arnaas.4870:

That rude person was trolling you. It is acceptable to play music with scripts.(and allowed by Anet as well)
I know that I appreciate character-played music more when it is played “by hand”. But I would never criticize someone for using a script.(Their choice of music maybe, but not the fact that they’re using a script)

Careful, that post might be taken to assume you like it when people mash a single key repeatedly as if it was…. well, masturbatory.

Why would anyone like that? It’s trolling. Or are you referring to the terminology? With “by hand” I mean “manually” as in “without using a script”. I thought context would make that clear.

I enjoy hearing the music folk play in game and if it was something you wrote yourself, even better! There will always one whining tin ear in the crowd as well, lol….

Don’t let one comment upset you. Some folk will always try to push buttons to get a reaction – most likely that person was jealous. Creating the script out of your music was hard work that you did to translate your music into this virtual medium for others to enjoy. That in itself is quite the achievement! Keep it up. Maybe you will write the next theme Anet will use!

Thank you Aerinndis) I shall ignore such comments in future! I use lot of time with my music indeed, but I also love playing games.. so when I heard is a musicsystem I couldnt resist trying But I will continue and have fun with it. Thanks for encouraging feedback <3

haters gonna hate, that guy was probably jealous of your amazing abilities

Being a musician as well (singer/songwriter), I understand the “unnatural” feeling in regards to the instruments. I have too much trouble with the latency to actually play my harp, even just for S&G.

You’ll get trolled/hate from unexpected places online, but Arenanet have stated that it is ok to use macros in regards to playing instruments, as stated above. Just /block and keep on playing.

While it’s considered acceptable to use a script to playing music in the game, you have to understand the point of view of the people who play music without scripts. These people put in a lot of time to learn how to play the instruments in game and also a lot of time converting music to tabs for those instruments. While it’s nice that everyone has the ability to play their instruments well, even if not everyone is musically inclined, it’s still somewhat insulting to the people who genuinely learned how to play when you use a script.

It’s like you’re playing an instrument with a group of people at a party, and people are gathering around you to enjoy what you’re playing. Maybe you make a mistake here and there, but overall it’s a nice experience. Then a stranger walks up to the group, pulls out his iphone, and starts playing some mp3s of recordings to everyone (most of these recordings he didn’t even make himself). And then everyone starts gathering around him. It’s insulting to the person who put out actual effort.

I tried using some scripts to play some songs in game for a day. While it was really cool to see what crazy stuff the in game instruments could do, it got boring quickly. It felt no different from listening to a recording, and made me question why I was even on playing at all. It is so much more entertaining to put out the effort and play it yourself. As a musician, I feel you should think the same way.

I want to iterate that I do think the scripts are pretty cool. But it’s all in how they are used. In many scenarios I’ve seen, people use the scrips to 1-up people who are playing in game, and I’ve seen people try to claim their scripted songs were them legitimately playing as well.

You should be playing the game for one purpose: to have fun. And you should be able to have fun as you like. But when your idea of fun steps and spits on others’ idea of fun, that’s when I have a problem. And people who use scripts for in-game songs tend to stray into that territory.

Miss Lana.5276:

Being a musician as well (singer/songwriter), I understand the “unnatural” feeling in regards to the instruments. I have too much trouble with the latency to actually play my harp, even just for S&G.

You’ll get trolled/hate from unexpected places online, but Arenanet have stated that it is ok to use macros in regards to playing instruments, as stated above. Just /block and keep on playing.

Thank you Lana !! I will continue play indeed) Aye, I figured out his hatred may not have anything to do with me or whether I was playing my own song by script. But a overall view that he dislike people doing macros

Loki.8793:

While it’s considered acceptable to use a script to playing music in the game, you have to understand the point of view of the people who play music without scripts. These people put in a lot of time to learn how to play the instruments in game and also a lot of time converting music to tabs for those instruments. While it’s nice that everyone has the ability to play their instruments well, even if not everyone is musically inclined, it’s still somewhat insulting to the people who genuinely learned how to play when you use a script.
You should be playing the game for one purpose: to have fun. And you should be able to have fun as you like. But when your idea of fun steps and spits on others’ idea of fun, that’s when I have a problem. And people who use scripts for in-game songs tend to stray into that territory.

Aye I understand:) I would never claim I was realtime playing when I am not.. Perhaps the game should add some differences in the animations (when the scores is visually showing) Like have hollow scores when you use Macro and whole scores when you realtime playing.. Then it would be more obvious who is doing what.. I don’t know.

In my case I was open about I was using script; I thought I provided something else as I used some time transcribing an original song that I have, which I have used much time to create and make it work with a script. But this person were fixed on the fact I was using script and said I was lazy and had no musical bone. I do come from games were scripts are acceptable, hence I was quickly thinkin that I did something wrong as I haven’t been in this game for a long time I do not wanna step on anyones toes. Thats why I wanted to hear here to get an overall impression what people think
I like it when a game have many social tools (like musicsystem) I use it more as an dooropener to get to know people:)

Please continue with your scripted music, lots of us around who like to listen to that.

Try to ignore the ones complaining about it. The hand playing music community just is one of the most hostile communities in game towards anyone using a script.

Some people just have to point out that you are using macros, everybody could do that, etc…. to make themselves feel better.

Since most music that we listen to today is recorded, i have to agree with the posts here. Keep on playing music whichever way you feel like playing and know it is appreciated by more people than frowned upon by some less friendly individuals.

I don’t like macros but I’ve come to accept that they’re here and people are going to use them, and it sucks that you were harassed.

It makes me a bit sad though that this thread is filled with people being snide towards people who learnt to play by hand, and I think that in turn just makes the people you’re talking about more bitter… it goes both ways! People were playing the instruments long before the music box became popular, so I can completely sympathize with those who are frustrated and feel like they’ve sunk a lot of time into nothing. I know I felt like that at one point, and my solution was to find friends to play duets and band songs with, and that made it fun and rewarding for me again.

It’s not exclusively people who are playing by hand. Most of the negative comments come from people who don’t know how to play by hand and are too bad/lazy to macro it.

I would rather hear a script than someone attempting to play with button mashing. The difference is a piece that people want to stand around and listen too vs one they don’t.

One thing you have to know is there will be people that will troll(deliberately) try to get under your skin. Saying what they say without knowing the facts.

It’s definitely impressive to play by hand, but I’m actually more impressed with the scripts musicians come up with. In fact, I wish there was a request forum, to request a song scripted for those of us that really don’t have a musical bone but like to enjoy. In fact, some of the versions created using the scripts and gw instruments I enjoyed more than original and I like to share the music. I always tell them where I get it and it’s not mines. I’m trying to learn some music just to try to create from my tunes, but I have no interest in trying to mash buttons as you stated.

Hm, to each their own. I’m not at all impressed by the transcriptions that most of the macros are, but I do like hearing the occasional original song that comes up!

I’m perfectly happy with both. Playing these instruments manually and making it sound good is kitten ed impressive. At the same time, there are some really complex and beautiful compositions you can only really do with a macro. I don’t see either one as superior to the other.

This whole conflict reminds me of middle school, when many of my peers complained that electronic music artists weren’t really musicians because they weren’t playing any instruments. Quit worrying about how you can make yourself feel superior and just enjoy the music, even if it’s from some talentless schmuck who pulls out some speakers and plays a recording he downloaded somewhere.

And lets all direct our anger where it really belongs: at all the jerks who just spam random buttons on their instruments. Now most of my friends have disabled player instrument sounds, and that’s rather tragic for both the macro and manual players.

Thanks guys for all the response !! I will continue what I do:)
Should be room for everyone I suppose. Love music! and I truly like the game