Guild Wars 2

I feel like I’ve been given a whole new part of the game now that I can easily play my flute! This is so awesome!

I just wanted to say “THANK YOU ANET!” for allowing us to use macros for music. This is quite possibly the most fun I’ve had doing anything with my flute.

But if a bot is playing for you, you’re not actually doing anything…

The policy on Macro’s is clear, you can’t use macro’s that give you an advantage in completing content or an advantage in PvP.

They’ve also said that if your macro’s have 1 action per click then they are always fine.

The grey area is when you have multiple actions per click that is not related to gaining an advantage in completing content or PvP.

For in game musical instruments, since that falls in the grey area, an ANet rep clearly communicated that they do not ban people for macro’s that play musical instruments.

That’s all the relevant information related to this.

There is truth in that. I haven’t even gone looking yet for a macro site and have no idea how easy they are to use for this.

But … I have no musical talent. Really, I have negative musical talent. I cause san loss in others if I try anything musical, I can’t even clap to a beat. Fortunately I’m not tone deaf, I can enjoy music. I simply can’t make it. Even with a “music sheet” for the game instruments telling me the key sequences, nothing remarkable comes out.

So all my instruments have languished even though I RP musical characters now and then. I wouldn’t mind having some macros of tunes they’d play, to use in RP situations (and would loudly proclaim to anyone thinking it was RL skill that it’s only a macro, as I did with downloaded .abc’s in LotRO). I’d use it for IC flavor, not to pretend I personally had the slightest skill in it.

Donari.5237:

There is truth in that. I haven’t even gone looking yet for a macro site and have no idea how easy they are to use for this.

But … I have no musical talent. Really, I have negative musical talent. I cause san loss in others if I try anything musical, I can’t even clap to a beat. Fortunately I’m not tone deaf, I can enjoy music. I simply can’t make it. Even with a “music sheet” for the game instruments telling me the key sequences, nothing remarkable comes out.

So all my instruments have languished even though I RP musical characters now and then. I wouldn’t mind having some macros of tunes they’d play, to use in RP situations (and would loudly proclaim to anyone thinking it was RL skill that it’s only a macro, as I did with downloaded .abc’s in LotRO). I’d use it for IC flavor, not to pretend I personally had the slightest skill in it.

That’s mostly how I’ve been doing it.

Sitting in DR and LA, playing Bad Apple, Tetris,etc.

If anyone comes up to listen, that’s awesome. If they complement me, I tell them what I’m doing and that it’s awesome that Anet allows it.

However, I haven’t quite figured out how I feel about accepting tips yet. So far, I’ve been returning them to sender, but I may start replying to the mails and telling them I’m using Macros. (I’ll also ask if they want their coin back)

I don’t really know if accepting tips would be considered gaining an advantage through macros, so I’ve been sending them back.

I still find the reasoning behind “not gaining any in-game advantage” by using macros to play music to be very moot.

Let’s face it: a large part of online games is bragging. You can be a clerk in a small company in a small town of Far Newyourkpeaks in real life, but a leader of a large guild with thousands of gold and a full set of legendaries in the game – and you play the game to have other people admire you and be jealous.

• If you’re using a macro to automate mystic forging of precursors to get gold to buy a legendary and make people jealous, you “gain an advantage” and get banned.
• If you’re using a macro to automate playing music and make people jealous (even without accepting tips), you’re “not gaining an advantage” and it’s legit.

So it looks like the real reasoning behind these macro restrictions is economical: if a macro can affect the rate at which a player acquires gold, it is bannable; if it is not, even if it provides clear advantage in other, non-monetary aspects, it is not bannable.

Lishtenbird.2814:

I still find the reasoning behind “not gaining any in-game advantage” by using macros to play music to be very moot.

Let’s face it: a large part of online games is bragging. You can be a clerk in a small company in a small town of Far Newyourkpeaks in real life, but a leader of a large guild with thousands of gold and a full set of legendaries in the game – and you play the game to have other people admire you and be jealous.

• If you’re using a macro to automate mystic forging of precursors to get gold to buy a legendary and make people jealous, you “gain an advantage” and get banned.
• If you’re using a macro to automate playing music and make people jealous (even without accepting tips), you’re “not gaining an advantage” and it’s legit.

So it looks like the real reasoning behind these macro restrictions is economical: if a macro can affect the rate at which a player acquires gold, it is bannable; if it is not, even if it provides clear advantage in other, non-monetary aspects, it is not bannable.

The problem here is that you assume all of us “Terrible Horrible Hacker Elite Macro Users” use these music macros to brag/make people envy us.

I tell anyone that asks that I’m using macros. The only thing I brag about is how awesome this stuff is.

InfernoHero.5687:

The problem here is that you assume all of us “Terrible Horrible Hacker Elite Macro Users” use these music macros to brag/make people envy us.

I tell anyone that asks that I’m using macros. The only thing I brag about is how awesome this stuff is.

I’m not talking about you, I actually thumbed up your post for being really honest about playing with macros. But you should agree that you cannot tell everyone you’re playing with a macro, and people will eventually assume things – that is the ultimate truth.

I remember asking about music macros myself a long time ago – playing stuff was godlike skills for me back then, while writing in Autohotkey wasn’t. Slowly, I learned to play something with sheets – and what I can do now (still not much though) feels really good; even with Bad Apple being beyond my reach, playing Dango Daikazoku and having people recognize it is great. Having someone next to you just run a macro silently – doesn’t. I’m a creator myself, and it feels like making and editing a great photo by hand, and then someone taking a picture of a postcard with an Instagram effect and getting wows.

I would prefer ANet to put in a macro recording function into instruments instead – you start recording, play, and then the sequence is saved (probably in a local file). Then you can play the file back without external utilities and clearly showing that it is a recording. That might also remove some severe lag issues which go along with playing.

Lishtenbird.2814:

I would prefer ANet to put in a macro recording function into instruments instead – you start recording, play, and then the sequence is saved (probably in a local file). Then you can play the file back without external utilities and clearly showing that it is a recording. That might also remove some severe lag issues which go along with playing.

This would be awesome

Lishtenbird.2814:

InfernoHero.5687:

The problem here is that you assume all of us “Terrible Horrible Hacker Elite Macro Users” use these music macros to brag/make people envy us.

I tell anyone that asks that I’m using macros. The only thing I brag about is how awesome this stuff is.

I’m not talking about you, I actually thumbed up your post for being really honest about playing with macros. But you should agree that you cannot tell everyone you’re playing with a macro, and people will eventually assume things – that is the ultimate truth.

I remember asking about music macros myself a long time ago – playing stuff was godlike skills for me back then, while writing in Autohotkey wasn’t. Slowly, I learned to play something with sheets – and what I can do now (still not much though) feels really good; even with Bad Apple being beyond my reach, playing Dango Daikazoku and having people recognize it is great. Having someone next to you just run a macro silently – doesn’t. I’m a creator myself, and it feels like making and editing a great photo by hand, and then someone taking a picture of a postcard with an Instagram effect and getting wows.

I would prefer ANet to put in a macro recording function into instruments instead – you start recording, play, and then the sequence is saved (probably in a local file). Then you can play the file back without external utilities and clearly showing that it is a recording. That might also remove some severe lag issues which go along with playing.

Or allow the use of .abc oh man that would be great..