Official statement on 3rd party damage meter?
Here you go:
I believe you can find policy on 3rd party programs in the UA, as well.
Good luck.
Most MMOs dont like 3rd party programs that read memory, simply because this is a favourite method used to make bots.
If you can use one of the supplied game APIs do read the damage then I would think thats OK, as long as you only read your own chars damage.
Damage meters are generally controversial if you start reading the damage of other players.
Likewise an ingame line parser I would think would also be OK, provided that no memory reading is needed.
I’m not sure but you can just read the TOS. I think it already said you can’t do it.
From memory, I think they even said something like anything which provide analysis to provide unfair advantage is against the TOS. So even if the damage meter don’t read memory, but get the information from directly parsing your damage log is probably against the TOS.
I didn’t read the TOS in detail but if you are unsure basically read the TOS.
Someone has written a damage meter that reads the chat output of the in-game damage tool, using OCR to interpret the text, and then collating the results. It works as an overlay, which means it doesn’t interact directly with GW2.exe — it just looks at whatever window happens to be in the forefront (although, of course, it’s useless with any other program). I believe it’s also published as open source, which means (in theory) that anyone can see the code and determine if it doesn’t anything that it shouldn’t.
I don’t remember the name of the software or who originally wrote it. I believe someone recently asked about it on Reddit, so you might search there.
I can’t seem to find any statements on 3rd party damage meters.
Or any info on the stance on memory reading.
Memory reading is not allowed. As well as any form of intercepting the data stream.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
To me, the safest way to go about it is: if you have to ask, it’s not allowed.
ANet will only point you to the TOS and EULA and their thread on the matter. They will not come out and explicitly rule on a particular mod.
If you’re unsure go with one of those overlay types that read and parse your combat log. I don’t think it’s against the TOS but even if it is, they have no way of knowing.
Anything that reads memory is against the TOS I believe.
I can’t seem to find any statements on 3rd party damage meters.
Or any info on the stance on memory reading.
Or info on parcing.
I don’t use any and I’d much much prefer an in-game method, but I’d Anet has given the green light anywhere, I might just go that route myself.
I want my data, especially for raids. But I also don’t want teh banz0r.
Tampering with game files and/or memory locations, or anything else the game is communicating with is grounds for being banned. If you want a damage meter, break out a pen and paper at the end of your fight.
I believe it’s also published as open source, which means (in theory) that anyone can see the code and determine if it doesn’t anything that it shouldn’t.
All the more reason to NOT use it. Anything open-source may sound like a good idea, but it can also carry some shifty-kitten on it like say… a keylogger that can steal your account information.
I believe it’s also published as open source, which means (in theory) that anyone can see the code and determine if it doesn’t anything that it shouldn’t.
All the more reason to NOT use it. Anything open-source may sound like a good idea, but it can also carry some shifty-kitten on it like say… a keylogger that can steal your account information.
Um, no, no it can’t. Or rather, in theory, that could happen; in practice, it never will happen to an active or popular project.
Open source doesn’t mean that any shifty-kitten can change the final executable — at worst, they might try to include the code without the project owner noticing. And that’s not going to happen with everyone’s eyes on on the actual code.
Perhaps you are confusing “free ware” sites with open source projects. If you download programs from a warez site, then sure, you could get some malware disguised as other software (or maliciously modified versions of legit programs). To DL open source, you go to, um, the source and you can see how long it’s been since it was last updated and by whom. Even if you can’t read the code, you can look to see the history of changes
tl;dr open source less risky these days than downloading something from downloads.com — you get to avoid all the adware and bloatware such sites include and you can see who contributes, who vets, and who maintains the code.
Unless it just uses the api and no memory or interfering with the game then it may be allowed, but arena net won’t let you use it to whip people out of groups. That happens all the time in mmos.
The best method to calculate damage ingame currently is to check the combat log (chat window) and add up all the damage dealt, then divide it by the number of seconds that happened between the first damage and the last.
As mentioned above there’s a program that does that for you by simply processing the screenshots in real time. It is windowed and doesn’t interact with the game…
For information purposes the name is jaxnX, use at your own risk.