Writing Macros

[Jeryhn]

As if it weren't clear from the outset, I have never used Windower. My exposure to this program is limited to the front page of windower.net and the actions of LSmates using the program. Please don't expect me to know a thing about the internal workings of this program... Anything I do appear to know is gratuitous.

You can't cite something as giving an unfair advantage to a select group of players without having a complete understanding as to what it can and cannot do.

For some reason I won't seek to explain, LSmates of mine that claim to use Windower have more often than others had to restart their games or even failed to show up at a post-maintenance camp after telling me their patch finished downloading. If that's not a Windower issue, I'd love to know why we lost claim to some small JP LS because our tanks could not even show.

It is because your tanks have no interest in camping your shitty NM.
Sorry to break it to you.

An update to the windower .dll is only worth a few K of data.

"Unfair advantage" is an ethical issue. "SE does not ban Windower users" is a deterrent issue. The two are not logically related. Heck, I agree with most of your assessment on why SE hasn't banned most Windower users. At the same time, it is still unfair.

I think perhaps you missed the point where I said Windower gives neither an unfair advantage nor does it constitute a malicious threat against SE or any of the users of their products. You got the latter certainly, but completely missed the former. Sure enough, you can argue about the former, certainly, but as you say... you have no firsthand knowledge of the program yourself, right?

"Nothing wrong" is different from "not worth pursuing." If Windower were absolutely "nothing wrong," why hasn't SE endorsed windower.net, like they have for other sites?

Same reason they don't endorse www.bluegartr.com?
Because SE doesn't endorse a community website that website is less legitimate to the actual player community?

"Speeding is only wrong if you get caught."

Or, if you drive fucking recklessly and hurt someone.
Speeding ≠ reckless driving, short stuff.

You could start using better analogies, by the way.

[Wrish]

Guess what? "They certainly have banned" means you're absolutely certain. You don't know shit. As I mentioned, those feats can be accomplished without Windower, and that's what this discussion is about.

Until you prove SE did not ban people for position hacking or fish botting despite STF reports specifically noting the two infractions, I'm holding those as certain.

On IME/chat hacking, I realize to you that may be hearsay/circumstantial, but there was a time when such hacking reached a level that I have no doubt some people were jailed for it. It may have required them doing something stupid, like shouting in JP with fake item names; regardless, some names never logged on again.

That these actions can be performed without Windower is irrelevant as I've indicated. They can also be performed with Windower, mind you. The slippery slope allegation is grounded in statistics. The logic is if you are already using a 3rd party program, you have less hesitation toward using another one.

Analogy: Marijuana is legal in some places where cocaine is not. Marijuana is labeled a "gateway drug" because its acquisition typically lowers the obstacles to acquiring coke. That does not say anything about marijuana being a requirement for acquiring coke... it does not say a thing about marijuana legality itself.

To recap: Simply because Windower is not a sanctioned 3rd party program, by installing it you are removing the obstacle against breaking the ToS. Your future thoughts regarding unsupported 3rd party programs turn into "screw the ToS" and "will I get caught for this?" An incorrect evaluation of the second question, of course, then results in bannings.

It's a text file, you motherfucking ignorant piece of garbage.

All source code is text files, you brazen foul-mouthed curmudgeon.

Clearly there is a different layer of complexity when people bind events and hotkeys to what I simply call macros. You may boil it down to minutes or seconds, but that's still time. If you choose to save time by not having any normal macro backups, then good luck low-manning something after maintenance when FFXI crashes under windower.

[Deader2818]

The only thing that usually crashes windower after a maintenance is recast. Its not like an update breaks the whole thing where you will be unable to use windower at all.

It takes the same amount of time to change a text file as it does to change a macro. Its not different you can just have more then 6 retarded lines per macro.


Really, if you are going to be against something and argue against, its better to learn what it is then spew out nothing but ignorance.

I don't care for religion but I don't blindly bash it without actually studying it so I can give people educated arguments as to why I don't agree with it.

[Pyree]

/p {Gather Together} {Protectra} {Shellra}
/target <st>
/ma "Protectra IV" <me>
/wait 8
/ma "Shellra V" <me>

I don't play FFXI anymore, but I'm pretty sure this is possible with something like the following:

//init.txt
alias warning exec warning.txt;
alias buff exec buff.txt;
bind !1 warning;

//warning.txt
input /p Gather Together, Protectra and Shellra;
bind !1 buff;

//buff.txt
input /ma "Protectra IV" <me>;
pause 8;
input /ma "Shellra V" <me>
bind !1 warning;

Press Alt+1 once and it should show your party the message, press it again and it'll cast the buffs. Just wrote this up, could have an error or something... someone that actually plays could let me know.

[Wrish]

You can't cite something as giving an unfair advantage to a select group of players without having a complete understanding as to what it can and cannot do.

As long as I understand just one thing that gives an unfair advantage, you're on the defensive.

I think perhaps you missed the point where I said Windower gives neither an unfair advantage nor does it constitute a malicious threat against SE or any of the users of their products. You got the latter certainly, but completely missed the former. Sure enough, you can argue about the former, certainly, but as you say... you have no firsthand knowledge of the program yourself, right?

I assume you use Windower and cannot fathom your oversight on this one. I have no firsthand knowledge but I might have a good deal of knowledge on some aspect.

You can use Windower very innocuously, accomplishing no more than the game already allows, plus cosmetic changes to the interface.

On the other hand, I'm aware Windower scripts allow for looping and conditional statements within macros, which opens the door to semi- or unattended botting. THAT is unfair.

Or, if you drive fucking recklessly and hurt someone.
Speeding ≠ reckless driving, short stuff.

I take it you'll agree that driving recklessly and hurting someone is fine so long as you cover up your license plate and wear a mask before the act?

[Feedmenow]

On the other hand, I'm aware Windower scripts allow for looping and conditional statements within macros, which opens the door to semi- or unattended botting. THAT is unfair.

You can accomplish that with a turbo button controller without windower, too.
Heard several stories about SMNs using this to essentially bot skillups while AFK before they added in skillup methods other than just summoning them.

Also, looping windower scripts only really let you perform actions that macros would normally let you make, so if you can find a way for something to repeatedly hit a button on your keyboard you can do the same actions as a windower "loop bot" without using windower. The biggest thing most people would abuse loops for is for skilling up, and that's only really useful for a handful of magic skills. Also read in windower scripting guide:

Keep in mind, Windower scripting is deliberately lacking some 'features' in order to help keep users from creating malicious botting scripts. Windower Scripting will not let you make the ultimate claim bot, sorry!

Also read this:
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/wanalogy.html

[Jeryhn]

As long as I understand just one thing that gives an unfair advantage, you're on the defensive.

You know nothing about the program, as evidenced:

I assume you use Windower and cannot fathom your oversight on this one. I have no firsthand knowledge but I might have a good deal of knowledge on some aspect.

My exposure to this program is limited to the front page of windower.net and the actions of LSmates using the program. Please don't expect me to know a thing about the internal workings of this program... Anything I do appear to know is gratuitous.

^ You can't have it both ways, cupcake.
Pick one or the other.

You can use Windower very innocuously, accomplishing no more than the game already allows, plus cosmetic changes to the interface.

On the other hand, I'm aware Windower scripts allow for looping and conditional statements within macros, which opens the door to semi- or unattended botting. THAT is unfair.

Name one task, besides creating a loop for increasing magic skills (who cares?), where creating a macro loop with Windower scripting leads to an unfair advantage over another player.

I take it you'll agree that driving recklessly and hurting someone is fine so long as you cover up your license plate and wear a mask before the act?

Of course not, but you sure can take an argument out of context, can't you?

[pex]

WRISH BOTS

[Wrish]

Name one task, besides creating a loop for increasing magic skills (who cares?), where creating a macro loop with Windower scripting leads to an unfair advantage over another player.

That you are trying to overlook skill-up botting shows that you have a problem distinguishing right from wrong.

Time factors into FFXI achievements. Common to all interactive progress-based MMORPGs (and most RL sports) is the concept of having every player start from a level playing field, where the only variables to affect achievement are the time they spend and the decisions they make on how to use that time, within the boundaries of allowed behavior.

Windower enhances your ability to play FFXI with the same limited amount of time and removes many of these time-efficiency dilemmas. It makes those without windower look worse. They'll average fewer gear swaps (statistically, out of laziness), resulting in diminished damage, cure potency, damage reduction, and you know what. They'll experience more fatal distance mistakes, require extra effort to SC, and be slower to react when beneficial JAs become available.

That's not a level playing field. People have to contravene the ToS and install a 3rd party program. They will have to overcome a moral obstacle of disregarding policy and a social obstacle of ignoring the wishes of the game designers.

I brought up botting only as a way of getting onto the same page as you. But I suppose it wouldn't matter if I gave examples of killing mobs in a lowbie area with /targetnpc /ma Thunder <t> (and low-MP-triggered resting), turning in moss to an NPC for fame/gil, advertising teleports or item sales on a secondary account, and auto-assisting the targeter in a dynamis run with /ta Player /as /a on /ws <t> (bonus points for BlinkMeNot so you never lose the initial /follow Player). It's the fact that you could let these processes run with SpellCast while you afk, whereas a legitimate player would have to be at the keyboard or be unable to repeatedly hit the macros.

And speeding, while statutorily different from reckless driving (so what?), is still morally wrong. The chance of an accident never goes down to zero. Speeding imparts greater kinetic energy to whatever accident occurs; thus, property damage gets amplified, whatever injuries sustained, exacerbated. Of course, with fixed reaction times and limited sideways acceleration, the chance of an accident naturally increases. If speeding were harmless to others, there wouldn't be a social policy basis to maintain laws about it all over the world.

I'm sure the advantage of speeding, however, is obvious to you and deserves none of the elaboration I've given to the potential advantages of using Windower.

Would like to finish this with a well-articulated quote from "DJM" of ffxiclopedia forums:

There's a cause and effect for everything and you can't enhance your game experience using illegal 3rd party applications without ultimately degrading the game experience for others who aren't. And basically by using Windower you're taking a stand and saying "Well, too bad. I just don't care.". Whether this game should have improved UI functionality or not is beyond the point. Coming from many other MMOs I certainly notice the features the UI lacks but it doesn't change the fact that this is the way the game was designed to be played, it's balanced upon that design, and a portion of the playerbase can not get around those limitations whether they want to or not. You either play the game on the same level playing field as those people or you make the decision that your time and dime are more important than theirs and you cheat.

...I would say that the largest negative effect Windower has had on this game is the fact that it created a gray area in the minds of so many players in terms of what is and isn't cheating. When SE clearly states modifying your gameplay is against the rules, what is and isn't cheating should be black and white. But Windower started off by introducing minor modifications, and then a little more, and a little more, until eventually some players couldn't see the difference between using it to run the game in window mode and using another application to walk through friggin' walls. From point A to Z it's an insane leap in logic but not when the road is peppered with one slightly worse "gameplay enhancement" after another. Except for a handful of them, I think I have spent some time nearly every MMO to date, and I have never, ever seen such widespread cheating in a game as there is here in FFXI. And, even worse, such a large acceptance by the community to the point where the people who aren't cheating begin to suspect they make up the minority.

What he mentions in the second paragraph is what I was trying to summarize with the term "slippery slope."

[Deader2818]

You can accomplish that with a turbo button controller without windower, too.

So its morally wrong if someone uses that too with SE windower right?

[Wrish]

Absolutely, if you're botting or doing something otherwise impractical with the turbo. Morality is about what you do, not what you have. So just owning that controller or just having Windower in a zip file on your disk isn't immoral.

You can use Windower morally, but the gameplay changes from an FFXI designed to make it hard to play unfairly so that you can pretty much be as creative as you want in how to play the game, to an FFXI where you have to ask yourself whether the way you're playing is moral. And if this thread is any indication, much of the playerbase doesn't know what's moral to begin with.

[Deader2818]

http://n3t.net/humor/motivation/high_horse.jpg

[Wrish]

Make me! ~

This high-horse attitude is just that, an attitude. I feel there are more serious issues at stake.

Where I went to school, they had an entire course devoted to professional ethics. Philosophy classes in HS/college accomplish much the same on the way. I wish there were a more rigorous requirement for such classes starting early.

Remember salvage bannings? I saw some top players get censured... many in their mid-20's. Some otherwise pretty decent and accomplished people, too. If only they'd have some morals to round out their training...

[Mojo]

You're applying morals to a video game where you seem to have boiled it down to how much time players should spend repeating a certain task. If anybody's ethics should be questioned, it's yours.

[Sylvrdragon]

The world isn't Fair. Morals are subjective, yada yada yada.

The bottom line is, you're on the wrong fucking forum if you're here to bitch about how "unfair" windower is. Not to mention, the subject has been debated to fucking death already both here and on probably every other FFXI forum. The end result tends to be something along the lines of my opening line in this post, which is the correct answer.

Human Nature, learn it.

[tonystigma]

That marijuana analogy was fucking hilarious bro, well done.

For some reason I won't seek to explain, LSmates of mine that claim to use Windower have more often than others had to restart their games or even failed to show up at a post-maintenance camp after telling me their patch finished downloading. If that's not a Windower issue, I'd love to know why we lost claim to some small JP LS because our tanks could not even show.

It's not a Windower issue. You can still run your precious non-windowed SE-approved program with Windower installed.

[Mohit]

Wrish used speeding as an example:

"And speeding, while statutorily different from reckless driving (so what?), is still morally wrong."

So he has sped in his life. Unless he's like 14 or something with no license. Wrish is Morally wrong in his own definition.

Then the Morally wrong tells others how they are morally wrong.

[Kohan]

It's a text file, you motherfucking ignorant piece of garbage.

All source code is text files, you brazen foul-mouthed curmudgeon.

Only someone incredibly desperate to maintain their evidently weak stance would grasp so fruitlessly at semantics. You were already sad, and with this, you've proven yourself downright pitiful.

Furthermore, you've once more proven yourself the master of making erroneous assumptions. I've worked in the videogame industry for years, both in development and -- nowadays -- mass media. Do you really think I don't fucking know where a program starts and ends? Shit, even if someone crafts a game using a pre-existing editor, that application itself had to get its start somewhere.

Really, it's phenomenal how successfully you make a complete and utter ass out of yourself. To be honest, however, I admire your ability to argue incessantly when you fail so terribly at representing yourself in an even remotely convincing manner. It's like a bird that repeatedly slams itself into a pane of glass, certain they'll not only get through, but that they're doing the right thing.

As the abundance of arguments against your laughable statements and worthless stance have implied, no one gives two shits about your supposed morals. If you were truly an upstanding individual with greater universal understanding than anyone in your presence, not only would you modestly refrain from blathering on and on about your apparent superior judgment, but you would likely have the mental clarity required to realize that only fools strictly follow the letter of the law.

There is far more to be said for following the spirit of the law in society than there is for direct interpretation of whatever written rules exist, as this is what exemplifies inner strength and the ability to function as an individual. Anything less -- and it is less -- is to be a drone, the sort which goes through life not living.

If you truly believe in self-discipline, and so on, so forth, know that your arguing against Windower usage is a complete contradiction of that stance. If you're too much of a dipshit to realize why, it's because you yourself do not use it, and therefore do not understand what it is like to respect the spirit of the law rather than the letter in this situation -- to adhere to the expectation that the individual and, by extension, the entire society can self-govern themselves to a reasonable extent. What you're essentially painting is the expectation that nothing outside of a police state would be acceptable.

To summarize all that shit -- take note, as you ought to learn how to compact your own statements, you fucking hot air balloon -- the GMs have better fucking shit to do than ban someone for mentioning they've used Windower, or Distance (AKA "DrawDistance," in your know-nothing world), or some other garbage like that. They're going to go after the fucks they can actually convict of meaningful shit, just like the majority of individuals involved with policing in any sane branch of any disciplinary force related to anything in the entire Goddamn world. I've implied this in the past as well when I invited you to report people you were absolutely certain were using something like Distance, and would inevitably get flagged -- your own words, fucker -- and I'll laugh at your sad ass when nothing whatsoever happens to them.

Your prideful ignorance, abundance of arrogance, and general unwillingness to provide anything more than a poor study of "How to Increase Your Post Count With Pseudo-Intelligence" is wasting space on BG's servers, and melting the brains of anyone and everyone with fucking common sense.

There's your pretty words, cunt. Now shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. Us adults who aren't bound by excessive and unnecessary interpretation of society's restrictions don't have the time for your small-minded, worthless verbal meandering. Why don't you get off your ass, wait next to a busy street, and flag down a cop the next time you see someone jaywalking when there's no traffic, you fucking bed-wetting crybaby? I bet they'll really fucking appreciate it.

[Drunknmunky]

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...y/NerdRage.jpg

OK.

[Kohan]

OK.

I've partaken in plenty of infuriated, nerd rage postings in my time, but I wouldn't say that was one of them. I'd ask if you'd bothered to read Wrish's posts, but really, if you haven't, don't subject yourself to the misery. You're better off thinking I'm nuts.