Guild Wars 2

To cut a long story short, a while ago I wrote a keystroke macro for Guild Wars 2 using AutoHotkey. Not one that tries to play the game for me, though; it actually calls for the player to be more directly engaged.

• Basically, it’s a script that toggles a variable whenever SHIFT-SPACE is pressed.
  When this variable is active, it sends a signal that MOUSE2 is being pressed down even though physically it isn’t. In the case of Guild Wars 2 this basically gives me a toggleable way to lock the camera to the mouse without having to hold down a mouse button all the time.
• But then the script also reroutes the MOUSE1 and MOUSE2 buttons to keyboard keys 1 and 4, which means what while the camera is controlled by the mouse I can also use the left and right mouse buttons to attack with my primary and secondary weapons respectively.
• In short, I macroed the game to be an even more direct action experience. I was hoping this kind of functionality would be already present in the game, but since it doesn’t seem like it is I just wrote it myself.

But then I came to think, would this be permissible within the rules of conduct? I’d love to share the script with the rest of the GW2 community, but it wouldn’t be such a great idea to share something that could get anyone into any kind of trouble.

Effectively, this whole thing is done with a third-party program, but the rules of conduct specifically refers to third-party software used “in order to automate gameplay functions” – aka botting. This script doesn’t automate anything, everything it does requires hardware input from the user. Technically it doesn’t even directly interface with the game; it intercepts the keyboard and mouse input, rewrites it and sends it on to the system as something else, and could just as easily be used with any other game. In my eyes that sounds like something that could be safely used without breaking any rules, but I still want to be absolutely sure.

So, hotkey macro that makes the game think I’m holding down the right mouse button while pressing 1 and 4 when I’m actually clicking the left and right mouse buttons, safe to use?

Nope In all projects you’ll get same answer because it’s using same scripts as bot programs

I wouldn’t be so hasty to throw this into the same category as bots. What Folji is doing, as far as I understand it, is only re-routing some keybindings from mouse to keyboard, while retaining the golden rule of “one button pressed = one action done”, it doesn’t automate anything. I’d wait for official word on this, but I can’t see any issues with this personally. Forbidding this would be like forbidding different keyboard layouts, after all.

You may be interested in this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z5pq4/guild_wars_2_status_friday_august_31/c61oion?context=3

More specifically, this:

[–]Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet 30 points 5 days ago
If it’s just translating a key-click to a mouse-click, that’s fine. If it’s looping or automating gameplay, that’s not fine.
~ MO

Cellane.7683:

I wouldn’t be so hasty to throw this into the same category as bots. What Folji is doing, as far as I understand it, is only re-routing some keybindings from mouse to keyboard, while retaining the golden rule of “one button pressed = one action done”, it doesn’t automate anything. I’d wait for official word on this, but I can’t see any issues with this personally. Forbidding this would be like forbidding different keyboard layouts, after all.

Yep, but it’s using same scripts Allowing it will open wide door for bots Question was: is it safe? ; and answer always would be – no. Using such macro legal or not , – is absolutely another question only official can answer

Lwd.1264:

Cellane.7683:

I wouldn’t be so hasty to throw this into the same category as bots. What Folji is doing, as far as I understand it, is only re-routing some keybindings from mouse to keyboard, while retaining the golden rule of “one button pressed = one action done”, it doesn’t automate anything. I’d wait for official word on this, but I can’t see any issues with this personally. Forbidding this would be like forbidding different keyboard layouts, after all.

Yep, but it’s using same scripts Allowing it will open wide door for bots Question was: is it safe? ; and answer always would be – no. Using such macro legal or not , – is absolutely another question only official can answer

And the post above is an official response, by the founder no less.

Ok, than I’ll answer exactly about this situation:

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows. With it, you can:

Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write
a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.

Using such programs will get you banned, I hope you understood why

GaileGray.9587:

This isn’t an account issue, so please hold on until we have other forums up and you can ask there.

What kind of forums would that be then? It’s interesting though that Mike O’Brien over at Reddit said that translating key-clicks to mouse-clicks (and vice-versa, I bet) is okay as long as it’s not an action loop or anything that automates gameplay.

Lwd.1264:

Ok, than I’ll answer exactly about this situation:

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows. With it, you can:

Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write
a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.

Using such programs will get you banned, I hope you understood why

It’s funny that you say that whole deal is something only an official person can answer and then you go ahead and “exactly” answer it yourself. And saying that using a program will get you banned because you might use it to automate gameplay in any way, is like saying that driving a car will get you jailed because you might use it to run over someone.

… That analogy really sounded better in my head, but you get what I mean. I’m translating an action into another action without explicitly automating anything.

Lyralei.5920:

You may be interested in this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z5pq4/guild_wars_2_status_friday_august_31/c61oion?context=3

More specifically, this:

[–]Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet 30 points 5 days ago
If it’s just translating a key-click to a mouse-click, that’s fine. If it’s looping or automating gameplay, that’s not fine.
~ MO

Good to know, but still too vague.

What about a “looping” macro that consists of a single keypress being fired over and over while a physical mousebutton is being held down? Specifically the completely overloaded “F”-key? Looping? After all, it’s always the same key and it’s only fired as long as a physical key is held down.

Yes, I even opened a support ticket asking about this. No response, of course. Actually, I’d prefer them to unban hacked players before they answer to me.

I haven’t played for months since an ugly incident where I lost my account for two weeks because they said I was using a third party program. Recently, after changing the settings on my antivirus software to require approval for updates, I found out that I have something on my computer called Hotkey Utility by Gateway, that is apparently something that comes on the computer. I was curious if this, factory installed program was what got me terminated last year. I am not bringing this idea up for myself, I argued for 2 weeks and got my account back, but quit the game because of hard feelings on my part. If however, it is a possibility that your detection software is flagging people for a factory installed program, it would be nice if there was a more customer friendly way of dealing with it.

Mirah.2415:

I haven’t played for months since an ugly incident where I lost my account for two weeks because they said I was using a third party program. Recently, after changing the settings on my antivirus software to require approval for updates, I found out that I have something on my computer called Hotkey Utility by Gateway, that is apparently something that comes on the computer. I was curious if this, factory installed program was what got me terminated last year. I am not bringing this idea up for myself, I argued for 2 weeks and got my account back, but quit the game because of hard feelings on my part. If however, it is a possibility that your detection software is flagging people for a factory installed program, it would be nice if there was a more customer friendly way of dealing with it.

I strongly doubt it. The hotkey utility from Gateway would have no interaction with GW2 and is not a macro. You could program it to open GW2 by pressing a key on your keyboard, but that’s about it.