Entertainer Archive
Thread: Stopping recursive macros is not the answer!
JohnMarble
Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:34 am
#27
The problem with just removing /join is thatbots will still be able to buff people with a looping macro. They'lljustbe unable to do group buffs. It also does nothing about, say, guys setting themselves up around someone's vendor to help someoneexploit fast merchant experience, their macros refreshing the guy's vendor 23 hours a day. There are more than just buffbots targeted by the recurssive macro, far to many things to even begin removing individual commands.
Tiaga, mmog game developers have learned to be very resistant about putting any kind of controls for bad behavior in the client. Once it's in the client, it is that much more difficult to detect. I'm not trying to invalidate your idea, I'm just saying it makes it easier to cheat, once fixes are client-side. If they leave in recursive macros, but put timer controls in the client, it will be impossible to tell whether or not someone is actually exploiting. If recursive macros are gone, it will be readily apparent.
Tiaga
Fri Aug 06, 2004 6:47 am
#28
Kershakk wrote:
OckVofad wrote:Maybe you know the answer to this. What is the goal of this change? Is it to stop or reduce AFK play or is it to eliminate buffbots and spambots?As you mentioned all this can be achieved without recursive macros. The only way I can see this being achieved is if theymake certaincommands unusable by a macro such as: /say, /shout, or /join.Doing this would at least get rid of bots with minimal damage to other profs (except squad leader which is going to be revamped soon right/).People, this is the correct approach in my opinion, but this idea has been overlooked and/or ignored by followup posts!
First, identify what the this change is targetting.
Then, you can look at how to go about it.
Rather than coming up with elaborate timers or purges, simplymake/say, /shout, and any emotes unable to be used in a macro, andremove /join altogether.
If such things took place, what would be left over? Could a buff bot possible work of the only way to join a group was using the radial menu? Can you AFK spam in any way if you cannot use /say, /shout or any emotes in macros?
Identify the things macros are doing that we want stopped and take them out, rather than booting macros outright.
Okay, /shout, /say are gone.. People can still /yell, /recite, /sing, etc.
Take those out too? What about all the entertainers with songs macrod?
Take out /join? I've got 3 other ways to do a macro to group with you, and one to do a buff without grouping.
That's why that approach doesn't work. They've tried going after individual systems before, and people found a way around it. If you want them to take this approach they will continue to waste time making things harder and harder to do and in the end it will accomplish nothing but leave the macros in an unrecognizable state.
Tiaga
Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:44 am
#29
That can be done just as easily without recursive macros though.
That's my point.. Recursion on itslef does nothing. You can do all the same things without it.
That's my point.. Recursion on itslef does nothing. You can do all the same things without it.
Zilod
Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:11 am
#30
Zilod wrote:
Zilod wrote:
can you make me a real example of how the time limit will work?
up
up up
Tiaga
Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:55 am
#31
Eh?
Were you looking for something?
Seriously, not sure what you're looking for... The most basic is you stop doing anything on your computer and after, say, 15 minutes any running macros stop. Still inactive after another 15-20 minutes and the server's existing inactivity timer disconnects you.
Were you looking for something?
Seriously, not sure what you're looking for... The most basic is you stop doing anything on your computer and after, say, 15 minutes any running macros stop. Still inactive after another 15-20 minutes and the server's existing inactivity timer disconnects you.
Vorpaks
Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:13 am
#32
Tiaga,
I'll support your idea and I think many other ents will too. Most people just want AFK GONE, they don't care how it happens. If ending the recursive macro does it then GREAT, if this idea does the samething then also GREAT. Just get those weirdos out of the cantina! If your idea keeps griefers off the forums than it is much much better!
Its better than my idea: get rid of buffs all together lol.
My second idea is to just make afk a suspendable offence. Have a CSR jump through the cantinas a few times a night. Allow people to report bots. If the CSR can't get a response from the bot (but can get a buff) then boot them to 0,0 and give them a warning. Three warnings and you are suspended. Three suspensions and you are banned.
The hard-core people would probably still do it but not every Tom, **edit**, and Harry who wants to make a fast, easy, buck. The sheer VOLUME of bots is overwhelming. A little crack-down (without the neg connotations that now has) would clear up the situation I think.
Oh, and btw. Serious Kudos to all the Entertainer Corrs for the grace and courage they've shown under fire. You make us proud.
EDIT: Holy filter Batman!
Tooooo funny!
I'll support your idea and I think many other ents will too. Most people just want AFK GONE, they don't care how it happens. If ending the recursive macro does it then GREAT, if this idea does the samething then also GREAT. Just get those weirdos out of the cantina!
If your idea keeps griefers off the forums than it is much much better!Its better than my idea: get rid of buffs all together lol.
My second idea is to just make afk a suspendable offence. Have a CSR jump through the cantinas a few times a night. Allow people to report bots. If the CSR can't get a response from the bot (but can get a buff) then boot them to 0,0 and give them a warning. Three warnings and you are suspended. Three suspensions and you are banned.
The hard-core people would probably still do it but not every Tom, **edit**, and Harry who wants to make a fast, easy, buck. The sheer VOLUME of bots is overwhelming. A little crack-down (without the neg connotations that now has) would clear up the situation I think.
Oh, and btw. Serious Kudos to all the Entertainer Corrs for the grace and courage they've shown under fire. You make us proud.
EDIT: Holy filter Batman!
Tooooo funny!Message Edited by Vorpaks on 08-06-2004 01:15 PM
Kershakk
Fri Aug 06, 2004 12:08 pm
#33
OckVofad wrote:
Maybe you know the answer to this. What is the goal of this change? Is it to stop or reduce AFK play or is it to eliminate buffbots and spambots?
As you mentioned all this can be achieved without recursive macros. The only way I can see this being achieved is if theymake certaincommands unusable by a macro such as: /say, /shout, or /join.
Doing this would at least get rid of bots with minimal damage to other profs (except squad leader which is going to be revamped soon right/).
People, this is the correct approach in my opinion, but this idea has been overlooked and/or ignored by followup posts!
First, identify what the this change is targetting.
Then, you can look at how to go about it.
Rather than coming up with elaborate timers or purges, simplymake/say, /shout, and any emotes unable to be used in a macro, andremove /join altogether.
If such things took place, what would be left over? Could a buff bot possible work of the only way to join a group was using the radial menu? Can you AFK spam in any way if you cannot use /say, /shout or any emotes in macros?
Identify the things macros are doing that we want stopped and take them out, rather than booting macros outright.
Vapebo
Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:41 am
#34
How about instead of changing the afk system you allow people who actually WANT to be entertainers and not grind out yet another profession on the "path to enlightenment" you giveussome decent xp so that we don't feel compelled to dance/play afk for as long as we can. Combat professions get so much more xp per hour than entertainers every dreamed of. Throw those of us who want to entertain a bone for crying out loud and stop the hologrind and up the given xp for entertainers.
PistolDance
Sat Aug 07, 2004 11:49 am
#35
I really dont think the entertainer professions take that long to master. I mastered a lot of professions and most of the elite combat's took longer than musician or dancer. And I was not afk (except for about an hour before server reboot), image designer is another story
Vapebo wrote:
How about instead of changing the afk system you allow people who actually WANT to be entertainers and not grind out yet another profession on the "path to enlightenment" you giveussome decent xp so that we don't feel compelled to dance/play afk for as long as we can. Combat professions get so much more xp per hour than entertainers every dreamed of. Throw those of us who want to entertain a bone for crying out loud and stop the hologrind and up the given xp for entertainers.
Vapebo
Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:51 am
#36
"I don't think" is just a wee bit vague don't you think? Can you come up with a better estimate? I don't know of anything that a dancer or a musician can do to get 3.5K xp aflourish do you?
PistolDance wrote:
I really dont think the entertainer professions take that long to master. I mastered a lot of professions and most of the elite combat's took longer than musician or dancer. And I was not afk (except for about an hour before server reboot), image designer is another story
Vapebo wrote:
How about instead of changing the afk system you allow people who actually WANT to be entertainers and not grind out yet another profession on the "path to enlightenment" you giveussome decent xp so that we don't feel compelled to dance/play afk for as long as we can. Combat professions get so much more xp per hour than entertainers every dreamed of. Throw those of us who want to entertain a bone for crying out loud and stop the hologrind and up the given xp for entertainers.
nvoigt
Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:02 pm
#37
I agree with you Tiaga, but I would go one step further and say that no technical solution will stop unattended gameplay forever.
We need a trained and competent CS staff that is activly looking to ban unattended gameplay. We need rules and we need enforcers. Real people, not software.
Given the current situation, it seems all we can expect is software, so lets look in this direction.
A good solution would be good AFK detection client side ( the current system seems to be serverside and unable to distinguish player and macro command ). Yes, the client is in the hands of the enemy, but that only counts if you have guards. Without CS staff, you won't find client hackers anyway, so you lost that battle before it even started.
Technical solution: All you need to do is send a bit to the server stating if the command was issued by a macro.
But as it seems, disabling macro recursion is the buzzword of the week. I'm fine with that, if it's correctly implemented. As I have seen the recursion guard that is implemented, I wonder why they didn't do it right in the first place. They are coders after all.
Technical solution: With every /macro command do a stackwalk and see if it has already executed in this context. If it has, /dump it, it is recursing. That's pretty easy because there are no conditionals, so this event would be 100% unlimited recursion. /ui action doesn't really matter as long as it doesn't call a macro ( another /ui action for example ). Everything that loops involves a macro to be called recursively. Stop that. No commands need to be removed.
Looking back to other fixes, I guess the devs are about to remove /ui action for the first 4 toolbars. Doesn't make sense, but hey, that's SOE 
hawkbatleader1
Sun Aug 08, 2004 5:13 pm
#38
giving csrs the ability to ban/lock afk'rs will open SOE up to all kinds of problems.
for instance... I've often alt-tabbed out to read forums while waiting for a shuttle....sometimes my afk tag goes on...
should I get banned?
What about having one character waiting in a cantina, on yavin, while I run over to my other character...and travel from our player city on tat, to bestine, to coronet, to yavin....this could take about 30 minutes.
should my primary character be banned?
What determines the line for the csrs whether afk is bannable or not? time?
I often spend time on TeamSpeak..., while i'm on there organizing a raid, I can often drop afk... yet i'm still actively playing the game... yet I dont watch spatial, or respond to communication at times....
What if a csr or player sends me a tell, and its lost in spatial or im overflow...does that qualify me for banning? What if i'm replacing the batteries on my wireless keyboard, and trying to get it re-synched. could be minutes without a response....
you can be sure that if csr's are given the power...it will be used improperly....
banning afk will cause more trouble than it is worth...
nvoigt
Sun Aug 08, 2004 9:10 pm
#39
To quote myself:
We need a trained and competent CS staff
And it's not being AFK that should be banned. Be AFK all you want. The system should kick you after a set time, thats all. And it's alredy implemented that way.
Unattended Gameplay should be bannable. And that's easy to spot. If someone is earning xp and playing and still not responding to a CSR... bye bye. Maybe a warning first, and limited time ban on the second offense, but if you do it repeatedly, you have no place in a MMOG.