Musician Archive
Thread: Recursive macros are being removed!
Jenden wrote:
It has nothing to do with views of players (and afk bots do not constitute players anyway), it has to do with the health of the game.
I have to disagree with you here, The players or customers are paying for a service and there views should matter and be taken in to consideration. not just one point of view but all angles of it. The afk bot is a paying customer he/she just for some reason decided thats how he wanted to play the game.
Jenden wrote:
Here's an example for you.
New player bob comes into the game. As he loads in to Mos Eisley for the first time the very first thing he sees is a player spamming "Join such and such guild and city and we'll give you a free bike and house." He decides he might be interested and tries talking to the person... only they don't respond since they might as well be an NPC.
He then goes to the cantina since the cantina is the first place most people think to go. They get there and try to talk to some of the entertainers, only to find that they are most all AFK as well. All of a sudden this big world is very lonely.
He decides that maybe its just the time of day or place, so he goes and tests out his combat skills by killing some stuff. After a while he gets some wounds and heads to the med center (makes sense) and sees that luckily there's some people in there. He gets inside only to realize that the people consist of afk tumblers and people grinding doc.
Ok lets look at in another light.
So the monthly payment is not for the use of the SOE resources?
LyteFoot wrote:
Removing the ability for someone to have their character acting when the person is not playing the game is not forcing a play style on you. People aren't playing the game the computer is. Do you load up doom3 and set the character playing then go off to something else?
This "right to play their way" idea is not even an issue this is SOE's product not yours or mine.AFK characters aren't people playing the game it is a computer using SOE resources in a preplanned and un-altering form. It also completely destroys the demographics and utilization patterns of the game meaning that the population doesn't go up and down with peak times. All times become peak times causing some severe play issues like lag and server sizing issues. So all the people running their character 24/7 are impacting every other person on that server.
By killing mobs AFK you directly impact and limit the ability of a person trying to play the game. They can't use that resource because your robot took them. So no you don't have a right to have your computer running the application when you aren't playing the game. In fact your actions are stealing game resources from people who really do want to play SWG. That isn't the intent of the game, the intent of the game is to allow people to play the game along with other people in a massively multi-player environment.
If you absolutely must have a perfect template to even enjoy a game then you should play on TC2 and use the blue frog. That is a lot faster than grinding out a template and doesn't require you to write a single macro. After all the time spent debugging that macro and getting it functioning must distract from your real activities; the activities you really want to do when your robot is using SOE resources.
DemoRat wrote:
So the monthly payment is not for the use of the SOE resources?
Yes the computer is playing the game in excatly the fasion the paying customer instructed it to under the macro system.
And guess from the fact that x person went through all the trouble of setting up the macro I would guess thats the activity he wanted to do on the SOE resources he's paying to use.
No your fee is not for the use of SOE resources at all hours whether you are present or not. You really think $15 would cover the cost of the resources if allSWG subscribers stayed logged on all the time? Thats like saying that all you can eat buffets mean you can sit there all day and consume 3 meals or you can fill up a take out bag for 30 people for the cost of one meal.
So if you aren't actively present and playing the game you are in fact impacting and dimenishing the game time of the people who do actively play at that hour. Otherwise the universe would be endless and we wouldn't see periods when spawns are difficult to find, resources are totally covered with harvesters, and NPC/loot spots are constantly covered by AFK toons.
The computing resources, bandwidth, and game design all assume a time share situation. Yes we have 10,000 people registered on that server but only 1000 will be on at any peak time. Then along comes all these AFK players and suddenly there are 1200 or 1500 people on line with half of them not even playing the game. Suddenly the game can't generate enough mobs to satisfy all players, the system can't keep up with the computing calculations needed, and the bandwidth is too small.
Jenden wrote:
This is why using macros for unattended game play is against the EULA,
LyteFoot wrote:
No your fee is not for the use of SOE resources at all hours whether you are present or not. You really think $15 would cover the cost of the resources if allSWG subscribers stayed logged on all the time? Thats like saying that all you can eat buffets mean you can sit there all day and consume 3 meals or you can fill up a take out bag for 30 people for the cost of one meal.
So if you aren't actively present and playing the game you are in fact impacting and dimenishing the game time of the people who do actively play at that hour. Otherwise the universe would be endless and we wouldn't see periods when spawns are difficult to find, resources are totally covered with harvesters, and NPC/loot spots are constantly covered by AFK toons.
The computing resources, bandwidth, and game design all assume a time share situation. Yes we have 10,000 people registered on that server but only 1000 will be on at any peak time. Then along comes all these AFK players and suddenly there are 1200 or 1500 people on line with half of them not even playing the game. Suddenly the game can't generate enough mobs to satisfy all players, the system can't keep up with the computing calculations needed, and the bandwidth is too small.
LyteFoot wrote:
No DemoRat they have stated that the in game functionality is not a violation of the EULA so until it is removed there are no penalties for using it. They have also stated that they are working on removing the ability in the built in macro system.
Do you have a like to that statment please?
DemoRat wrote:
Ok lets look at in another light.
New player bob comes into the game. As he loads in to Mos Eisley for the first time the very first thing he sees is a player spamming "Join such and such guild and city and we'll give you a free bike and house." He decides he might be interested and tries talking to the person... only they don't respond since they might as well be an NPC.
Now I could be wrong here but ever time i've seen this type of msg they normaly have a name you can send tells to. Thislets a guild advertise its self with out forceing players to stand there shouting over and over.
Even if they do give the name, most of the time (in my experience at least), that person is either not on or AFK themselves.
He then goes to the cantina since the cantina is the first place most people think to go. They get there and try to talk to some of the entertainers, only to find that they are most all AFK as well. All of a sudden this big world is very lonely.
I take it bob's heavy in to role playing? I cant speak for all the servers sence I mainly stick to Flurry. But i cant seem to recall any one that rp'd. Maybe there out there in which case a server for rp like in eq would go a long way.
I know quite a few people that RP, but thats not the point. This is a multiplayer game, I can't speak for you but everyone I know joined this game to play with other people. If they wanted to sit there playing with themself they would have picked up a single player game.
He decides that maybe its just the time of day or place, so he goes and tests out his combat skills by killing some stuff.
Good place to add he notices a lot of the people hunting are also AFK. Again poor bob has no one to talk to. Does this keep bob form hunting and advanceing his toon? no. If the others were not afk does this mean they would be there to intertain bob? Who knows /shrug.
Does it keep him from hunting, quite possibly. I've seen it to the point where as soon as a creature spawned it was killed, a new player with a CDEF pistol isn't going to be able to get mroe than a shot in before the creature drops to someone else. Its not the fact that the players aren't there to "entertain" him, its that they put forth the impression that people think the game isn't worth playing.
After a while he gets some wounds and heads to the med center (makes sense) and sees that luckily there's some people in there. He gets inside only to realize that the people consist of afk tumblers and people grinding doc.
Again your assuming that if you can just get rid of AFK all will be right in the world. More that likely if the afk tumbler was not there the soon to be Doc would not be there as well. He would be at some camp trying to heal every thing that moved in hopes that some year he could finaly finish the XXXXXX amount of xp it takes to get to Doc. And poor bob would be sitting in an empty med center.
But the afk tumbler has a soon to be doc there and now its up to that player to decide if he wants to heal bob.
I don't know why people are convinced that its so hard to get xp the old fashioned way in this game... I think I did master medic in something like a week without doing anything that even resembled grinding. I went along with my friends on hunts and healed them up, or I healed them up afterwords. I know that part of this problem is the fact that buffs and armor are so out of wack, but its still definately doable.
As far as there not being a doctor there, maybe bob would decide that since there's a shortage of doctors he'll try out the profession. Its a naturally balancing system.
I don't know about you, but if this kind of thing was going on when I joined I seriously doubt I would have stayed long. Knowing that not only do people not think the game is worth playing (otherwise they might actually be playing it) but that advancing in the game is a joke and won't provide any challenge (challenge being part of the entertainment in a game).
Yes this kind of thing was going on when I started. Did it make me quit the game? No I relized they pay for there account and its there choice to play how ever they want. if that means they are leveling while afk and spending time with there family or workingor sleeping thenso be it.
Every person brings to the game a diffrent mind set and way of doing things. If they wish to pay to afk more power to them.
Different mind sets are fine, but not when one is destructive to other players. Thats like saying someone who likes going around scamming people is ok, because thats how he wants to play the game. Or someone who enjoys using credit dupes is ok, because he's paying is $15 a month just like everyone else.
This is why using macros for unattended game play is against the EULA, this is why no other game has provided suchan advanced macro system, and this is why it needs to stop. I don't mean that macros need to go away, I think the macro system of this game is increadible, it just needs to have some limits placed on it.
I belive the macro system was added to level the playing field sence 3rd party macros will alwasy be there.. Again I could be wrong.
For me it all comes down to fact that people will play a game in the manner that best suits them, This is not a bad thing its just true to life not every ones style will mesh. What worries me is being forced in to a single style of play and watching things I liked about the game removed.
Nobody is forcing a different play style here, they are just requiring that you actually play.
So the monthly payment is not for the use of the SOE resources?
You pay to use them, but that doens't mean you can use them however you want. For instance, say we were talking about a gym. You pay your membership every month. Should you have the right to do stretching exercises on the treadmills for hours on end?Even if someone is waiting to walk or run and can't til you get off?
Right now, the rules don't forbidAFK but only because SOE finds it hard to draw the line between afk for a few minutes and afk forever as a way to "play". I know you may think that setting up a macro takes some effort, but then, this isn't just about effort. Stretching takes effort, but treadmills were put in gyms to let people walk or run. Maybe over time games will change to a more programming focus rather than "twitch" or whatever we call what is currently in the game now, but right now, macro wars wasn't the product SOE wanted to market. I say that because the developers say they "don't like" the AFK. If they had intended to market a game like that, then they would say "We believe that using the AFK and macrosystem to replace live player reactionsis an equally valid playstyle and are happy to offer our customers the variety." They don't. They said they want to move the game to a state where people actually play.
Why is duping not allowed? If you don't understand why duping isn't allowed, then you really aren't going to understand what is wrong with allowing people to afk through the game.The principle behind why duping isn't allowed is that in order to have the game seem meaningful, we need "earn" things in it. That allows for the player run economythat is the backbone of all the crafting professions and yes, the service oriented ones too. Yes, I know afk for profit is allowed at this time, but try to understand that SOE didn't anticipate that people would use the afk system as heavily as they are. And as I said, they don't have an easy fix for it because the ability to be afk and to use macros both have ways of supporting live play not just replacing it. There is effort to afkmacro through the game, but it is far less than the effort involved othewrise would be in terms of the hours each player spends on the game.After all, macros can be shared, so that each player after the first who works it out, spends less and less time, and invests less of themselves to the game. From SOE's point of view, that isn't a good game to sell. From most players's perspectives, macro wars isn't a good game to play either.
DemoRat wrote:
LyteFoot wrote:
No DemoRat they have stated that the in game functionality is not a violation of the EULA so until it is removed there are no penalties for using it. They have also stated that they are working on removing the ability in the built in macro system.
Do you have a like to that statment please?
Check out my post 'Gotta love CSRs...' on the Entertainer board.
Then check out Thunderheart's opening post in 'Recursive Macros are Going Away, Part 2' on the In Development board.
That gives you both of SOE's views on the matter.