Of Pirates and Macros – Shortcuts Revisited

[WizardHawk]

The short version:
Advances in hardware for gamers have reached a point where anyone can create and use macros for automating just about anything in a game. Game designers need to be aware of this and be proactive in preventing abuse. Players need to decide for themselves why they play a game in the first place and figure out what they feel is going too far.

Just because you can create macros, doesn’t mean you should and the question for each of us is where exactly is the line between acceptable shortcuts and cheating? At what point does it not matter whether or not it is cheating, but takes away the fun of the game anyway? My recent trip into these questions has left me with the opinion that each of us will have different answers. What just about everyone agrees with is any kind of macro that allows you to play a game and advance in it without even being in front of the keyboard is crossing the line and should be dealt with by game devs.

Disney could easily stop the unattended macro user by looking for precise patterns in user input and simply kicking anyone offline who shows a repeated pattern over say a 5 minute period. Macros allow you to have gaps in time that are measured in the thousandths of a second which no human can duplicate and gives an easy way to test.

Share your thoughts on this, or feel free to read my full article on this topic below:
In the early 80’s the common video game machine had a joystick and 1-4 buttons. You slapped those buttons as fast as you could and often those who could crank them faster were the better gamers of the day. Today we call that ‘mashing’ and has become something that is used as a derogatory term to denote a less skilled player as in “He is a button masher, not a real gamer”. While mashing still exists in modern games, most games try to have more skill and timing based key strokes and favor a gamer who can master those timing moves. Mashing can lead to all kinds of repetitive strain injuries which is one of the reasons game makers have reduced the use of this kind of game interaction.

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean Online allows for both mashing and skill moves, however they reward the masher by often giving more exp for the use than the shorter kill time the skill moves provide. Crank the Ctrl key and you won’t rack up combo points on your cutlass, but you will get good exp. There are a few elements of the game that allow for skill shooting or mashing with about the same result. For example you can learn the rate your pistol can fire and only push the buttons in about that time frame, or mash away and know you will shoot at full speed. The same holds true for the cannon.

Going back to my past, this time to the mid/late 90’s and the early birth of what is now the gaming site called Pogo. They offered a variety of different games each of which you could earn coins and convert them into entries into drawings among other things. I had seen a few people who managed to rack up just insane amounts of coins in what seemed an impossibly short amount of time. I learned that the secret was unattended gaming. There was a piece of software back then that once setup would allow you to create macros that would do mouse clicks and key strokes in any order with time delays. Those folks with high coin counts where setting up their computers to run all day/night playing roulette making the same bets and taking advantage of the fact that pogo rigged that game with its bonus payouts to favor the players over the long run. I installed the program and set it up to put my favorite bets on roulette and went to bed. When I got up I indeed did have more coin than I started with. What did I do after that? I sent a detailed report to the dev team and within a matter of a week or two they changed things to give more randomness to it. The game screens and even button locations would change and the average cheater was out of luck. Of course those who were really bent on cheating probably kept right on trying to find ways of exploiting the new measures.

The cat and mouse game of closing holes and patching exploits to help prevent the common use of them is something every online game has to deal with today. The bigger the hole and the more even average folks can take advantage of it, the faster the development team has to address it. Most will not place more complex or little used exploits high on their to-do lists and the hard core hackers and cheaters take advantage of it. Add newer hardware that replaces the old macro software that was difficult and time consuming to setup and today’s game teams have more to worry about than just basic security. I call it “user automation”.

So there I was heading into Kingshead when I came across a player at my same level who was casting his staff wither spell on the big veteran group when I came to realize the player was using an auto play macro and the user was not actually there. I was angry and wanted to do something about it. I also read on the forums about the use of newer gaming keyboards so I went and got one of my own and played a bit with the power of the macro keys.

Most gamers want to immerse themselves into an alternate reality and enjoy the journey as they explore this different world. Others could care less about the trip, but will do anything to get as high as possible as fast as they can. There is often room for both gaming philosophies as long as the speedsters can’t profit from reaching the end first. People play games for different reasons and because of it what one sees as unfair play another will see as perfectly fine. As long as the rules are not directly violated those who use such shortcuts are really not doing anything wrong per say.

Just as I used those macros in the late 90’s to run up some coins to see how it was done, I created several very powerful macros on POTCO to figure out for myself where the lines are drawn for me. I created a key that would take out anything up to a level 30 with ease. Just walk up to it and press the button. A few moments later you have exp and coin and no wrist strain. I also played around with more subtle and basic keys. I now have a button that as long as I hold it down simulates mashing the Ctrl key and that works well to reduce game strain. For me the adventure is made more mechanical and the fun reduced by complete automation. I can’t see me doing more than an auto mash and a few buttons that can select a weapon and set the skill/ammo I want. When I reach the end of something I want to have been able to enjoy the ride and feel like I accomplished something and the more drastic use of macros doesn’t give that to me.

What limits should Disney put on the acceptable use of macros and how far should they go to stop unwanted use? In this current form there doesn’t seem to be any clear advantage to being a level 40 so no real harm is done by those cheating their way up, but that doesn’t mean the devs should turn a blind eye either. They should consider changing the code to allow you to earn more exp for using skill moves versus mashing and put in checks to see if they are getting repeat code from any user where the gaps are identical down to the thousandth of a second and simply knock them offline if it happens for more than say five minutes.

More mainstream availability must make us take a look at the morality and ethics of the use of macros. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, but where are the lines of what is acceptable use and what is cheating? It doesn’t seem so clear cut to me and I wonder what others think. Many games out there already either have some kind of auto fire (or auto mashing if you prefer) or remove the need for this kind of play as you get to higher levels so I see no real issues with creating an auto mashing button in POTCO. I’d say there isn’t anything wrong with creating a button that selects say your gun and automatically selects your hex bullets so you are ready to take on those pesky doll using undead. But what about a button that does those skill moves to create full combos on your cutlass? Or even a button that would select your cutlass and unleash a torrent of skills and attacks and then change to your dagger (while the skills refill) and unleash more hits, all from just one button click? Are these unethical?