Hey there, this is Silverdisc, I’m one of the founders of [Cmaj]. We’re a macro-free musician guild on the EU servers. You might know us from our performances at the Aurora Glade Harvest Festival, The King And Queens Horrorween 2014 and some YouTube videos (including the Ocarina of Time Medley).
I personally don’t agree with this decision at all. Let me explain:
Many of us play Guild Wars 2, only because we enjoy making music together. We help each other get better, write tabs, perform at events and make videos. We do it because we enjoy it: it’s unique to be able to play music together with someone miles away, and it’s a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends playing music in Guild Wars 2.
We’re always trying to improve. We practice a lot, try to play with more and more players, and try to make our tabs sound better. And the fun thing is, you don’t need to be a gifted musician in real life to have fun playing in Guild Wars 2. I barely played piano before picking up the harp in GW2: it actually got me more motivated to learn playing piano.
The reason we dislike macro’s, is because when someone uses macro’s, it destroys our motivation to get better. It makes us feel bad, because all those hours we spent practicing start to feel like they were in vain. A macro users will always be able to play more complicated stuff then someone playing themselves (that’s because of the way octave switching works and because of the slight delay when playing a note). No matter how hard we try, we can’t reach their level.
Imagine this: you worked on a song for quite some time. You decide to publish the tabs on the internet for other people to enjoy. You’re in Divinity’s Reach and you play it. Someone tells you they really enjoyed it, and it makes you feel happy. That’s one of the reasons we play music: we don’t only enjoy it ourselves, other people enjoy it too.
Then, someone with a macro shows up, and plays your exact song, but with 100% perfect timing, and a bunch of chords added that are almost impossible to play by hand. Even though I know that the other person uses a macro, it still makes me feel.. I don’t know, disappointed? I worked really hard to play that song, and that other person pressed one button. Yet he is playing better than me, and people are enjoying his music more.
This happens almost daily. We actually had to lock our Google Doc with tabs, because, even though we asked people not to macro our songs, it kept happening. You publish a nice tab you’ve worked on for a long time? I guarantee you that it will be macro’ed within a couple of days. You do the work; other people steal the show. It doesn’t matter how much we practice: we will never be able to reach the level of macro players. And that makes you want to stop trying.
Now, some people have argued this: “Playing music is about having fun yourself! It’s not about impressing people!” Well, the thing is, it kind of is about impressing people, yeah. It’s fun to be able to play something, sure. But a large part of the fun is that people will enjoy hearing what you play. That’s a part of what music is about.
When macro’s are allowed, a large part of the fun is lost. The part where you go to DR, play what you have practiced for hours, and the part where people tell you they like it. And that’s one of the most fun parts: both for us, and for many people listening.
I once asked some musicians what they thought about macro’s. I recall that a member of the Traveling Bobo’s told me: “If everyone uses macro’s, then what is the point? Nobody will stop to listen.”
And that is exactly why we dislike macro’s. If everyone else in the world got a free Twilight, would you still grind for one? Many people wouldn’t. The process of getting Twilight might be fun, but it doesn’t feel like you accomplished something. Everyone else has it anyway. That’s how we feel when macro users play songs.
Another musician I know had just finished a duet tab. She had to record two takes: one of her playing the lower notes, and one of her playing the upper notes. Then she put them together and it sounded amazing. She worked on it for quite a while and put it on YouTube. Not very long after, someone had turned it into a one-player macro, and she ran into loads of people who played the entire thing simultaneously, solo. She has since quit playing music in GW2.
Macro’s were a daily annoyance to us before this post. I, honestly, would’ve preferred ArenaNet to remain silent on this subject. This post will create an enormous amount of macro players, which will, and has already, made people quit, including many of my friends. I am not planning to quit, and I’ll keep having fun playing myself, but it will not be the same.
On behalf of many members of [Cmaj], I ask you to reconsider.
