Did I go too far? (Scripting)

EQAditu · #1 06-27-2008, 03:16 PM

I made a few UI mods that have no purpose except to script actions.
http://www.eq2interface.com/download...Scripting.html
http://www.eq2interface.com/download...Scripting.html
http://www.eq2interface.com/download...Scripting.html

Unlike traditional UI mods, their purpose had nothing to do with displaying information or making things pretty. They seem somewhat popular but have now seemingly raised some controversy. (Read some of the auto cure comments)

So... like the title asks... did I go too far? Did I break some rule in my attempts to be unique? Consciously I figured that since all of my actions were within the UI scripting engine so there shouldn't be any problems. I didn't think it could be considered 3rd party software either.

On the other hand, it is possible but not recommended to go AFK and the script would still sort of function. I could have implemented a dead-man's switch into the script but I didn't think of the need. I have heard that SoE grudgingly allows macroing programs as long as you are at the keyboard witnessing the actions. Personally I suffer mild RSI so I thought that was an enlightened stance to take. But apparently if you ask GMs they might not say anything like that.

So my scripts are not compiled 3rd party software, but if you think about it... a UI script is software of a sort not made by SoE. Of course that means that all UIs with any button event handlers would be against SoE's 3rd party policy if you took the idea of 3rd party software that far.

So how far do you take it to either match or be free of SoE's views of what is against their policy? One quote from a GM mentions they would be totally against something that automatically casts damaging spells. Obviously they don't know what I do with my G15 during Milyex Vioren. But the scripting techniques in my other mods could be used to do just that. I have in fact done just that... a script that casts 1-30 spells in rotating order either automatically or by a button press per cast. But would releasing it be going another step too far?

I obviously wasn't being intentionally malicious in releasing these mods. I think uploading them to a site like this displays that I didn't think what I was doing is wrong by making it public.

EQAditu · #2 06-27-2008, 04:47 PM

Go figure... apparently someone already made a post like this.
http://www.eq2flames.com/general-gam...utomation.html
And was apparently "sickened" by my actions, heh.

DjThaPimp · #3 06-27-2008, 05:15 PM

I guess the question would be, how would they find out. If you are indeed at the keyboard and playing the game as they want you too, how would they find out if you are using an auto-cure macro like this and if so, shouldnt they give you a warning since, as you mentioned, you achieved this all using the software they provide for UI modification?

I dont know, we all use the devices and technology available to us to make things simpler, its the nature of our species. The idea behind it would be to allow you to devote more attention to other things. I for one macro my heart casts I have four hotbuttons, Healers/Tanks&Others/Mages/Scouts for casting hearts. I dragged the spell ability command from the in game macro maker and typed in the appropriate names for each class for the target and spam those buttons when I know hearts are starting to run out. Could that be considered cheating, maybe but I think it all depends on how you use it.

If you are using something like this so that you can indeed go afk and reap in game rewards while you arent actually at the keyboard actively pursuing it, then yes I would say that is wrong. If you are using this to help you to make things go easier and more smoothly so you can play even better then I dont see it being a problem. If you have used this script, you will notice that in most circumstances where healing/curing is most crucial it is actually best to disable it and take over the control for yourself, so it isnt really helping you to win where you would be unable to do so otherwise. Its like a being on an aircraft, they engage autopilot and monitor the controls and are still "actively" flying the plane but if something out of the ordinary happens they need to resume control themselves. Do they still get a paycheck for flying the plane, sure they do.

/Shrug, I dont know, Im sure the purist will disagree and this will be batted back and forth but thats my take on it.

**Drumstix42** · #4 06-27-2008, 05:16 PM

I think the fact of making fairly boring/mundane tasks easier to do/bypass... they're are interesting tools.

I have to admit, that anything "automation wise" seems very close to infringing on the EULA. Mainly because it requires the user to not have to press anything on their computer to do an action caused by the game that would normally require it.

Game changing though? I wouldn't say so at all. I'd say it's more prone to cause things to happen that you wouldn't want anyhow. I think some people get their panties way too much in a bunch over it, to be honest.

And for the last thing that I can think of... EQAditu: I don't think you went "too far" at all. The rule of "if you can do it via the UI it is ok" is pushing it... but I dunno.

The only thing that ever urks me is when it's something specifically to beat certain parts of the game. Kinda like Rays of Disintegration...

Narzoo · #5 06-27-2008, 10:10 PM

I will go ahead and admit that I use the Auto-Cure script.

I have always considered myself a damn good healer and I enjoy the challange of keeping everyone alive.

SoE changed the cures so that there was just one Cure. With my already existing Click to Cure on profit, where I clicked a picture that lit up, this only makes things a little bit more easier.

What your script doesn't do is Cure the tank first....and a lot of the time it is curing things that don't need curing and makes me have to wait a second to cast a heal because it decided to cure

I don't think the Auto-Cure is a bad thing. It has good points and it has flaws.

I still have to be at my computer to play the game...I use it to help me, but I won't rely on it.

And I think it is an excelent example of fantastic coding. So a big WELL DONE to you

Taking it further, tho.....using what you know to give complete automation....That I think would be taking it too far.

There are people I know who would benifit from having many of EQ2's functions automated for them. A very good friend of mine often leaves her computer to tend to her kids at a moments notice. A button that she could click before she left so her character continued to heal her group would let her deal with her kids in peace without worrying about coming back to a dead group.

But there are people that would abuse it. Botters for one.....Power levellers that just want to get to 80.....I wouldn't want to see this kind of automation being opened up to people like this.

Seeing as you have no control on who would use such scripts, I think it best that mods that auto heal, auto cast spells or auto tradeskill be kept locked away and not released. Anything else, I think would be fine

An Auto-Buffer would be cool...to buff after death

nluerdarea · #6 06-28-2008, 02:17 AM

I personally use the Potion Scripting, not for the auto potion, but for the one button clicking to cure myself (in PvP, if I use a potion, it engages me and I like to choose when to fight and when to flee). I say keep it up, you are doing a great job. Sony can't say "Don't add this to your XML interface mods", I mean seriousley. If SoE gets in on it, then fine, but they will really need to redo the way their games interface works then. If they give you the tools, and you aren't abusing them, so be it. Just keep it to simple things like potions and curing so people can't abuse them.

Also, what is rays of disintegration and why would you want to auto cancel it?

EQAditu · #7 06-28-2008, 03:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narzoo

<...>
There are people I know who would benifit from having many of EQ2's functions automated for them. A very good friend of mine often leaves her computer to tend to her kids at a moments notice. A button that she could click before she left so her character continued to heal her group would let her deal with her kids in peace without worrying about coming back to a dead group.
<...>
An Auto-Buffer would be cool...to buff after death

I suppose an auto-healer is possible though somewhat hard to custom tailor to a specific priest class. Comparing player health to prioritize healing isn't hard either. Despite that, I don't think I ever would create such a thing. Even for fun. Even as a proof of concept, it would only be expanding upon one area of scripting logic and very tedious to do.

I wouldn't mind the auto-buffing script though. I certainly don't enjoy clicking 12 buffs every time I die. Technically I already have the GUI and scripting needed to complete it done in another mod I no longer plan on releasing. The only problem is that someone able to figure out what I've done would easily be able to convert it into say, an auto-nuking script (which is what it does now). The auto-buffing script would actually be a few steps more complicated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nluerdarea

Also, what is rays of disintegration and why would you want to auto cancel it?

It's a level 80 wizard spell that picks up to 3 or 4 mages in your raid, interrupts their casting an casts a 3 second spell on their behalf. I'm not a mage so I couldn't say if that 3 sec spell is worth being forced upon them. But as I said in my preface, it was worth someone asking if there was a way to cancel it.

**gm9** · #8 06-28-2008, 07:13 AM

I admit I was surprised that someone would release the mod you did (I'm referring to the auto-cure and auto-potion mods). It's not that we did not know how to mod this, it's just that we consciously stayed away from doing any full automation mods. Even though many of the available mods here offer quite a lot of automation, all of the gameplay relevant things are usually nothing that you could not achieve via macros, and the user usually has to take an action like clicking a button. Just because I know how to fully automate combat does not mean that I will ever create let alone release a mod like that.

Now whether this goes against SOE's policy or not I cannot decide, you should probably /petition yourself and ask the question to get a definitive answer. To me it does seem to fall in the unattended gameplay category. Whether it's only using the scripting engine or not does not appear to me to be the deciding question. There are a lot of things you can do in game that go against the EULA even though you might argue that you are just using the tools provided to you.

Personally I wouldn't release a mod like yours. I don't like unattended gameplay, I'm not supporting it. I'm making mods to improve the accessibility of the game to increase the fun people have while playing, not to play the game for them. Again, that's my personal opinion, but I assume that is what you asked for.

PS: The post above was written yesterday when only the OP existed, but then my Internet broke down. Posting it now and reading the thread afterwards...

nluerdarea · #9 06-28-2008, 08:28 AM

I understand GM9's concern and categorization in "unattended gameplay" and I too am a firm believer that people should play the game and not have it played for them.

The tools in question that have been released are not really automated game play as much as they are an automated task. I fully believe that through UI scripting, you could automate a wizard or templar and keep them on /follow, and I would hate to see this done, but unfortunately, I do see this being done.

On my primary play server (Crushbone) there are around 5 known botters that are always there. They are running a script to run around the entire zone killing named and their PH's over and over again. This is cheating at it's highest level in my opinion. I would hate to see someone get reported for "Auto-Potioning" while these botters and gold farmers are running rampant.

The UI mods in question when being used by the average user are harmless and very useful for honest people, it's the people that would abuse them that causes the red flag to go up, but let's face it... they will cheat with our without this and future UI scripting, should we really take it away from those whom it could help because of that?

**Landiin** · #10 06-28-2008, 11:12 AM

lol you people are on crack.. I've been using auto cure from way back in the day on my personal UI. The only reason I didn't go public with it is because people seem to get a hair up there arse when you say the words bot or macroing.

They the devs have said time and time again, if it can be done with the means they supply then its OK. Most GM's are not very knowledgeable of the game or its rules. They are just people that volunteer (fan boys if you will) to help people get unstuck and basic things. You need to talk to a Dev or CS for real issues.

Personally I think its cool you did this for the public Let people complain, I say F'em if they don't' like it and keep it live. :P

**gm9** · #11 06-28-2008, 01:22 PM

Frankly Landiin I would be surprised if the devs are ok with players practically completely negating a combat requirement (curing) that the devs put in on purpose, because at that point they could just as well remove it from the game. On the other hand we know that our UI dev Rothgar is crazy about the G15 keyboard, so who knows. I let him know about this thread.

**lordebon** · #12 06-28-2008, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Landiin

lol you people are on crack.. I've been using auto cure from way back in the day on my personal UI. The only reason I didn't go public with it is because people seem to get a hair up there arse when you say the words bot or macroing.

They the devs have said time and time again, if it can be done with the means they supply then its OK. Most GM's are not very knowledgeable of the game or its rules. They are just people that volunteer (fan boys if you will) to help people get unstuck and basic things. You need to talk to a Dev or CS for real issues.

Personally I think its cool you did this for the public Let people complain, I say F'em if they don't' like it and keep it live. :P

Slow down there... GMs ARE SOE customer service. I think you're talking about guides, which are volunteers (not SOE employees) and have nothing to do with CS.

GMs are less knowledgeable compared to Devs of course... because they're CS, not people that write the code.

With that cleared up, to the OP... My personal belief is that an 'auto cure' and such does fall into un attended gameplay and technically should be against the EULA. Click-to-Cure requires you to still actively participate in the curing action... automatic curing takes you out of the loop entirely. So in short, "Yes," I do think it is too far. I've read your description and it certainly has some limitations that make it so I wouldn't really want to use it (all else aside) especially in a group or anything, but it seems to me like it could make multi-boxing easier (ie just run a tank or whatever, and have a auto-curing auto-healing priest).

I admire what you've done -- you've definitely taken the scripting engine beyond the bounds of what I thought possible hehe, but I can't help but think now that some things are going to change to 'break' the automation of your code that could have negative effects on other, normally perfectly acceptable code.

dragowulf · #13 06-28-2008, 05:51 PM

I have mixed feelings on this. I believe that Auto-Potions and Auto-Cure Ailments are fine, but when it comes to Auto-Heal or Auto-DmgSpell it goes beyond what is intended. With Auto-Heal you could 2-box and do stuff easily without needing to really moderate what's going on and I believe that is completely wrong. With Auto-DmgSpell it's the same thing. They are almost 100% automated whereas when you Auto-Cure or Auto-Potion the whole Combat mechanics aren't automated, but simpler like Click-To-Cure.

So for me:

Auto-Potion/Cure = fine

Auto-DmgSpell/Heal = nono

EQAditu · #14 06-28-2008, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gm9

I admit I was surprised that someone would release the mod you did (I'm referring to the auto-cure and auto-potion mods). It's not that we did not know how to mod this, it's just that we consciously stayed away from doing any full automation mods. Even though many of the available mods here offer quite a lot of automation, all of the gameplay relevant things are usually nothing that you could not achieve via macros, and the user usually has to take an action like clicking a button. Just because I know how to fully automate combat does not mean that I will ever create let alone release a mod like that.
<...>

I guess I have no choice but to take this as 'I went too far'.

As far as I could see, I was the first to release a raid mod with healing buttons on them... then I even added priest detection scripting. I was proud at the thanks I got for my first real foray into UI modding. I didn't really know why no one else had released such a thing, so I thought I was being "clever".

As I mentioned before, I am a newcomer to UI modding so I had never really read much of the forums or looked at many of the pieces. (I use mostly default myself with some custom things) I thought with my more heavily scripted mods, I was again doing something "clever" that no one thought to do. I didn't think that there was some sort of secret understanding of modders to never attempt something like this. (Don't give me that face, you know what I mean.) I feel sort of stupid for having passed that line where there was an understanding somewhere to not pass.

I don't really know what to do anymore. I could care less what random users think as I've been dealing with people thinking ACT makes the game too easy for years. But I guess crossing the lines that modders think are safe kinda is different.

I suppose I can add the dead-mans-switch logic I already planned out and delete the old archived version. But it's making me wonder about releasing any other mods though. Even if I add abuse protection, someone with a tiny bit of knowledge could probably remove it.

dragowulf · #15 06-28-2008, 11:14 PM

Best advice we could give you is make your scripting UIs limited. Don't go any farther then what you did with Auto-Potion and Auto-Cure. If anything what you should do for future UIs is go one step back from your latest additions and that should be acceptable by most everyone. If you have doubts P.M. some of us active modders/forums users and ask if they think that is acceptable to release.

We do look forward to any future modifications you might have in store for us, but try to keep some of the scripting on the down low.

**gm9** · #16 06-29-2008, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EQAditu

As far as I could see, I was the first to release a raid mod with healing buttons on them... then I even added priest detection scripting. I was proud at the thanks I got for my first real foray into UI modding. I didn't really know why no one else had released such a thing, so I thought I was being "clever".

I guess that was being clever insofar as seeing the need for it.

While I had click to cure, I didn't have the raid window buttons before because it was nothing I personally was missing from my UI (and I actually never used the buttons I added to ProfitUI when I was still playing, but people love them, so clearly it was clever).

Quote:

Originally Posted by EQAditu

I didn't think that there was some sort of secret understanding of modders to never attempt something like this. (Don't give me that face, you know what I mean.) I feel sort of stupid for having passed that line where there was an understanding somewhere to not pass.

Nothing secret about it, it's just that most of us saw the problem with it. I discussed the topic in PMs with several of the modders during my time here, in particular when I was new. I know that there are some mods on here that could have gone much further in their coding but the author chose not to. Or, as you heard from Landiin above, while he personally doesn't mind, he didn't want to face the public reaction and did not release it for that reason alone. However, back in the day I even caught heat from some people for the click to cure buttons on the group window, you will always get that.

I release the stuff I am ok with, the rest I won't, that's my personal decision on which tools I want to make available to my users (e.g. I won't even add auto-loot because I don't want tens of thousands of my users potentially going around ninja looting no-trade loot and making lame excuses that they forgot to turn the function off in their UI - but again that's just me, several people have released it). Unless there is an official response that using auto-cure is against the EULA it will remain your decision alone what you want to release/what you want people using.

I wouldn't want to worry too much about botters however. I don't think they need your interface mods to automate their gameplay.

nluerdarea · #17 06-29-2008, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gm9

I wouldn't want to worry too much about botters however. I don't think they need your interface mods to automate their gameplay.

My thoughts exactly

**Drumstix42** · #18 06-29-2008, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gm9

I wouldn't want to worry too much about botters however. I don't think they need your interface mods to automate their gameplay.

Quoted For Truth.

And that's probably one of the biggest reasons that I don't think it's a big deal.

***Dolby*** · #19 06-30-2008, 12:51 PM

Word has come directly from SOE that these interfaces do in fact break the EULA. I was under the impression that anything that could be made with the interface xml would be ok but I was wrong. I know EQAditu only made these interfaces with the best intentions so it saddens me to have to pull the work from our site.

For the future anything that automates game play is against the EULA even if it uses EQ2's own modifiable interface. So if you've downloaded these interfaces I suggest you remove them or you may face consequences of banishment from the game if they ever find out.

Thundolfe · #20 06-30-2008, 04:45 PM

How silly.

**Drumstix42** · #21 06-30-2008, 05:09 PM

Couldn't you just create a "master" button which essentially does the same exact thing as this, but you have to press it to cast cures appropriately? And then click it again afterward for remaining cures?

This would be totally user-dependent, not Auto, and would be like a smarter click-to-cure....

Problem solved. Don't let the game play for you!

Retnaburn · #22 06-30-2008, 10:41 PM

Typical SoE.

This is not unattended play. It doesn't break any rules directly but they have this archaic way of thinking so they'll rearrange the already hazy ToS to stop it.

**Drumstix42** · #23 06-30-2008, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retnaburn

This is not unattended play.

You can't really argue that if you're not sitting at your computer, that it will still function.

Retnaburn · #24 07-01-2008, 04:43 AM

Auto run works when you're in the bathroom too. So does auto follow, pets, buffs, and auto attack. They're all about as useful while afk as auto cure is. If you're (they're) going to draw a line somewhere, look to see what's behind it.

Remember when you had to be online and in your apartment to sell on the broker? Until they dropped their archaic thinking about that you could have lumped it into the unattended play pile as well.

nluerdarea · #25 07-01-2008, 09:10 AM

Those things are Sony controlled. If they wanted you to auto-cure while on auto-follow, they would have implemented it. Since they have declared this against the EULA and the files have been pulled, we have no choice but to adhere to the rules (or I suppose you could break them, but that's just too risky for me). I would ask that we get the cure button and potion button that was mentioned earlier. Remove the auto scripting, but give us the single click potion button as that wouldn't break the EULA.

It saddens me to see such great work and talent go to waste.