Get better macro protection..?

[sabinati]

I have a suspicion many of your are just talking out of their asses.

This.

as much as people are talking out of their asses here, this is a very real problem and there are very real macros.

[theTrav]

the resolution is so gosh darn easy to implement.

WoW has bots and macros.
ALL MMO's have bots and macros.


I don't like them, I don't use them, but I don't really want the devs to waste time on them because
1 - It would take time away from content
but more importantly
2 - It would sap their motivation to make the game. Creating is fun, policing is not.

[sabinati]

easy solution, give forum mods police powers

[theTrav]

I'm still waiting for an actual rule that says don't macro it's evil

http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2206&p=24950&hilit=macro#p24950

Specifically:

If this shit gets in my face I might decide to stop it. I do not support macroing.

Additionally:

I grind my bricks and potatoes by hand, I believe that was how the game was meant to be played. And if you macro, you do so at your own risk. I'm not out there looking for it, but I do play the game, you know.

Clear sign that Jorb at the least, does not like macro-ing and will take some actions to stop it, when it's impacting his experience directly, but is not interested in going hard after it.

[theTrav]

easy solution, give forum mods police powers

Better yet, give me access to statistics to analyse.

Actions taken at time and location by character -> account.

I'll find you them macro-ers, and kill em good! (and never abuse the privilege ever, promise, cept when I feel like it)

[ViciousGamer04]

So you'd rather the devs spend their time trying to make their game as macro-impossible as they can, or actually bringing out new content?

No game can ever be fully devoid of hacks, you just bring it to a point where people don't see the reason to try and get through it, and usually that means weekly updates to stop the new macro they just got working.

There are plenty of software/hardware macros that are COMPLETELY undetectable in any game short of the game looking to see if the DLLs/EXEs that are needed are running, and you can change that if the program is good enough.

I'd like to see macros gone, then I wouldn't feel as if I need to to stay caught up with certain other stronger players near me, but with or without there will be people who will get stronger faster, whether by means of sharing an account to keep the character strong, macroing, or hacking.

Look at any game with a lot of protection and tell me who loses out more, players, or cheaters?

Perhaps the fact that the player is on for five days straight might be an indication. Haaa. It's an especially big indication if their character hasn't logged off for longer then that.

I can think of a few simple quick fix five minute things(and i'm only an ok to good coder.). But uhhh as a few others mentioned. If LP was and seems to be planned on getting completely ditched & replaced with something fresh it may be feasible that it'll help to weed out macroers.

Lol. Uh. Comparing people that play the game a lot to someone that runs a macro 24 hours a day for even just a week straight will already be crazy levels ahead of you. "yeah, I just got done with four hours of hard work." "Ha, nub. I macroed the last 24 hours and my stats make yours look like a pudding cake."

I think macro protection is IMPERATIVE to a fair playing situation. I play a few hours a day, if someone can get done what I do in 5 minutes of actual gameplay a day then there is a serious problem. I know to many of you it's 'Oh I'll just cheat too!' but to allow something like botters to run rampant, cutting down hundreds of acres of forest for LP, is personally unacceptable.

Provide macro protection or new content? I pick macro protection hands down. Right now all my work, and any work anyone does with their actual mouse and hands, is for utterly and completely nothing. I hate thinking about how I'm wasting my time. While I grind 10 unarmed combat, a macro-er has grinded 100. Every night I go to sleep, any work I've done is out-done times a million by someone having their character running around chopping down trees.


Hacking/Macro-ing/Botting should be the number one issue of any and all MMOs.
My suggestion? A simple window that pops up every now and then that has four different colored buttons, like a simon says, and some text that says "Push Green" or "Push Red" It would take a mili-second for a real player to click and continue playing, but extremely difficult for a bot. And if you don't do it, you either can't move or get logged out or something along those lines.

Haaa, agree. On the fact that macro protection is a bit more important then more new content. This might not be QUITE necessary yet but each day that passes I know a bunch of people that quit because of unreasonably strong people getting attacked by macroers

You could add the "push a button" thing, as well as perhaps just dc'ing someone once every 5 hours. Just for a minute. Although that might be annoying to some it'll sort of cut down on the macroer issue. Especially those that run the macro over-night. I also generally even when I played a lot never really for most days even came close to 5 hours so for most non-bot normal people this wouldn't be a problem and for other's it'll be like a "oh, I just got dc'ed for a minute big whoop."

The other solution i thought of was to get haven(although this might piss some people off..) to scan your computer and close haven out if it detects you running a certain list of commonly used macro programs. Or if it detects some sort of pattern of similar clicks/movements(As generally me as a farmer I never farm EXACTLY the same with the exact same motions as i farmed the day before.) where as macro programs would basically run the same thing over and over again. Although there are more advanced one that might work on a different concept. I guess it depends on the macro program you use.

My last idea was to simply remove the absurdly high-statted members from the game.

Such as let's say the average stats of someone was 90+ in each stat. But someone had 450+ in all of them. Obviously they were macro'ing or have absolutely no life. Then they could go defend themselves on the forum to explain how they got to such high stats. Most people that i find out about macro'ing in-game and mentions on the forum seem to think that macro'ing and grieving is perfectly alright. Perhaps more enforcement of it might be a good idea?

Just some stuff. I have about 1000 other ideas to add to this as I have to deal with macro protection for clients and businesses. More websites then games but I have helped with games in the past. XD.

Why you guys think that macro protection is really time consuming is beyond me. You can weed out about 80-90% from simple rule enforcement & simple fixes of things I mentioned above among thousands of other things just to bring it to the point where if someone wanted to macro they would generally not want to go through the hassle of finding the precise macro program that would allow them to play through Haven to cheat like the pathetic nubs they are lol

the resolution is so gosh darn easy to implement.

WoW has bots and macros.
ALL MMO's have bots and macros.


I don't like them, I don't use them, but I don't really want the devs to waste time on them because
1 - It would take time away from content
but more importantly
2 - It would sap their motivation to make the game. Creating is fun, policing is not.

A lot do have macros and bots, but 90% of the time a lot them are caught or simply blocked out or banned within a week. Where as here people could be macro'ing without any worries of someone booting them from their game and basically blacklisting them from playing again.

Yeah, but policing is necessary otherwise the game will get taken over like i've seen many other games before it. Anarchy is fun for a while but then games just get stupid after too long. It might be still early now but scaring away the game's original following is never a good idea. It's like breaking a building's main foundation and then it'll just kind of crumble.

[jorb]

I have a suspicion many of your are just talking out of their asses.

This.

as much as people are talking out of their asses here, this is a very real problem and there are very real macros.

As much as that may be the case, people are still talking out of their asses here, and that deserves to be pointed out. As long as my character can't ride a horse, however, it is, quite simply, not a priority. Creating is fun, policing sucks balls.

[DatOneGuy]

I'd find an actual problem in macroing if it wasn't for the fact that I know the people who live near me are also doing it and were doing it way before me thus are already way ahead.

I think more people would stop if they knew that the people who have already been doing it for long amounts of time were actually being punished.

I don't want to risk my character to being banned/killed for macroing, however I also don't want to risk him to the whim of those who macro.

With that said I'm assuming this is also why the people who do macro keep it to themselves as well as their script to themselves (perhaps their village).

Seeing a few larger powers who are known to have done so being punished for it. The problem is that straight up deleting accounts would mean people actually know it's wrong. Considering the posts I've read (I'm not going to go back and read EVERY post for the past year or so however, so since I've been here actively) it seemed like it was fine as so many people did it. While I understand that it's seen as cheating, the general thought given was 'it's bad because i think it's bad, but it's allowed'. Going after people who macro directly and abruptly would probably send off a bad message and have whole villages simply quit.

With that said, I don't think macroing is okay, I do however macro simply because from what I've read the majority do it, and most threads made it seem acceptable, now that I see you specifically don't condone it and int he future it'll be punishable, I plan on stopping, and have everyone I know stop.


If it will help in stopping macroing, I can send you the script I created.


With that said, if it's not going to be punishable now (assuming not since you said not until at least when you can ride a horse), can I assume that the stronger people won't be punished?

EDIT: I should further state, no I don't macro because I don't like the game, I love the game. 16 hours a day or so I play the game, if I have to do something in real life for some reason I may use it, and even then not all the time. I do feel as if I'm cheapening the experience for myself a bit, however after our first time being attacked by people who have been 24/7 ahead of us at least a month, I felt it was needed to protect myself to some extent from them.

[DatOneGuy]

I think macro protection is IMPERATIVE to a fair playing situation. I play a few hours a day, if someone can get done what I do in 5 minutes of actual gameplay a day then there is a serious problem. I know to many of you it's 'Oh I'll just cheat too!' but to allow something like botters to run rampant, cutting down hundreds of acres of forest for LP, is personally unacceptable.

Provide macro protection or new content? I pick macro protection hands down. Right now all my work, and any work anyone does with their actual mouse and hands, is for utterly and completely nothing. I hate thinking about how I'm wasting my time. While I grind 10 unarmed combat, a macro-er has grinded 100. Every night I go to sleep, any work I've done is out-done times a million by someone having their character running around chopping down trees.


Hacking/Macro-ing/Botting should be the number one issue of any and all MMOs.
My suggestion? A simple window that pops up every now and then that has four different colored buttons, like a simon says, and some text that says "Push Green" or "Push Red" It would take a mili-second for a real player to click and continue playing, but extremely difficult for a bot. And if you don't do it, you either can't move or get logged out or something along those lines.

Ever wonder why big MMOs push one update every 6 months or so that seems like they could have done itin 2 weeks? Because they spend all their time stopping hackers/botters.

P.S. Show me one of these tree cutting macros lol. Also tell me how exactly do they deal with bears and boars... I have a suspicion many of your are just talking out of their asses.

It honestly wouldn't be hard to do. It's very simple to do just about anything detecting images onscreen, I've dealt with macros in several MMOs.

[jorb]

Feel free to send me anything you feel I could be interested in, assuming my ambition was to stop it. Honestly I'd be most interested in a simple breakdown of what, more precisely, is being macroed, what the gains are, what the risks (if any) are. A little bit about your philosophy when writing a macro would be interesting as well, I am sure.