Just wanted to be sure..

[Metalocalypse]

Hi all, I've been boxing for a while now, started with AHK and recently have fallen in love with the ease of hokeynet.

Up until now I used some code that I always thought was ok to use, since I found it on this site and never saw any negative posts in relation to it. However I was made aware of it being a 'grey area' way of doing things when reading into FTL setup.

Here's what I did/used to:

1) For formations I used one key, 2 toons strafe left/right, 2 toons strafe down and left/right (and other such combinations for formations).
2) For assisting I bound my assist macro to '=' and in my AHK script this button would be hit in conjunction with w/e other button I would hit.

It was suggested that my way of doing was 1 keypress resulting in 2 clientkeypresses. Which could be seen as form of automation. This got me worried, since I never saw it as such and had based my code on threads I read in these forums. I only used the above instances, movement and an assist, I don't use waits/sleeps or anything of the sort. I don't see the difference between modifier keys or normal keys since a window would need to be sent the pressing of the key to achieve the result you want.

I reread the wiki on AHK, it still mentions this:

Targeting is a major concern in any form of multi-boxing. AHK allows us to implement an auto-assist mechanism

relatively easily without the need to macro all of our abilities to include targeting.

The idea is to create a special key that you bind an assist macro to and to broadcast this key before

broadcasting the key that was pressed. An example assist macro can be:

/assist party1

/assist focus

Bind the assist macro to a key inside your WoW interface, for instance "=". Prepend all your broadcast keys

with "{= down}{= up}" effectively simulating an assist before using any commands.

Not only that, in the legal issues this is stated:

Currently Blizzard allows the use of 3rd party key-broadcasting software, see GM Conversations, however, automation is against the Terms of Use. Automation can be defined as any action taken by your character in-game that is not the direct result of a user action.
For AutoHotKey this means that any kind of delay introduced in your script between sending commands is classified as automation and will get you banned. Please avoid using any kind of delays in your scripts as not only will it get you banned but if Blizzard finds that people abuse AutoHotKey to achieve automation then they may decide to ban AutoHotKey altogether.
The rule of thumb is to ask yourself if what you do in your script can be achieve with an in-game macro. For example the auto-assist mechanism discussed below can be achieved in-game by macroing every ability and at the start of each macro adding an assist command.

So in lieu of this information, I would have to redo my formation buttons (or don't I?), but I could still use my assist button together with my cast button like:

 <Hotkey 2>
 <SendLabel wow1, wow2, wow3, wow4, wow5>
   <Key Plus><Key %Trigger%>

Where plus is bound to my assist macro and the %trigger% is the hotkey I hit.


Could somebody give me a yes/no on this please?

[Sam DeathWalker]

One key press can do multiple things ...

Thats kinda the definition of broadcasting.

You can have a key be bound to a keybinding, and also have that same key bound to a macro by the aciton bar.

Just the delay aspect looks a bit grey. What is the reason for not including the assist in the macro?

[Vyndree]

Just the delay aspect looks a bit grey. What is the reason for not including the assist in the macro?

Delays are never gray.

Out-of-game macros (including G15 keyboards, Nostromo N52's, AHK, etc) are bound by the general rule "if you can't do it with an in-game macro, don't do it". Furthermore, the second rules is "if it includes a delay of ANY sort, it is not OK".

Source: http://dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.ph...of-game_Macros

Broadcasting keys is OK, as per: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...&pageNo=17#334

There's no double standard. You press one button, you get one action per account. They press one button, they get one action per account.

and http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...&pageNo=18#346

As a soloist, you push a key and one thing happens on your account. As a multiboxer, you push a key and 1 thing happens on each of your accounts.

Automation would be timed macros, synced pathing, etc., not having the 1 key bound to Flash of Light on your Paladin and Fireball on your mage.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Thats true, delays are not allowed.

AHK allows us to implement an auto-assist mechanism

relatively easily without the need to macro all of our abilities to include targeting

But he is not doing something that cannot be done with in game macros.

They are using the = key to be an assist macro, which goes off prior to his movement key.

Legal:

/assist
/move left (is there such command?)

They suggest:

Press a key which sends = (run macro with /assist in it), then sends the key bound to "/move left"

You can use a programable keyboard to send multiple keys to the client on the same keypress: i.e. "/cast lightnight bolt" thats ummm thats sending 20 keypresses by pressing one key. And obviously the t in bolt is sent after a "delay" from sending the / first. No delay allowed does not mean you cannot send keypresses in order. You just cant send nothing for a period of time. As long as you send something to the server there is no delay.

I don't know it looks legal but sure is a lazy way to do it. Why not just put /assist in all yur macros? I really dont see the gain.

[Tasty]

If the signal is identical but you have a different keybinding for the signal is that automation.
Eg. If I push a button and one character moves left and another moves right.

"Fine. "

-Belfaire, Blizzard Poster [11]

For your first question.

[Sam DeathWalker]

That is definatly not automation. You can have different macros start on each client with the same keypress. Thats basically all I do all the time.

[Metalocalypse]

Thanks for the replies.

The reason why I didn't include the /assist macro had to do with me wanting to single box with some friends to rp sometime so that I didn't have to switch all my action bars or macros just cause I wasn't with my usual team.

So I conclude from this that the one key press sending an assist macro key and spell key together is ok.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well lets see what others say first, I wouldn't want you to get banned on my account ...

Post on the blizzard forums, if you get a blue reply you have something you can count on.

[Carnage]

From what i read your talking about:

You press = and then a AHK macro presses another key, lets take - as an example.

So you mean,

Press =, clones assist main & AHK presses -
then -, casts a spell?

Thats 1 keypress to two keypresses which is automation and is agaisnt ToS.

I dont acctually know AHK scripting (learning VB.NET at college) but i guess the following code:

<Hotkey 2>
<SendLabel wow1, wow2, wow3, wow4, wow5>
<Key Plus><Key %Trigger%>

Means that when you press =, it sends it to the 5 WoW windows open, then it presses another key.

There is a solution if you want to do solo without having to switch out all of your macros, use target & targettarget macros. This is what i use for multiboxing / solo, I could easily solo each of my charecters on Headless Horsemen yesterday, maybe i miss the downside (team only level 65 and havent started the PvP grind yet).

[Frosty]

1) For formations I used one key, 2 toons strafe left/right, 2 toons strafe down and left/right (and other such combinations for formations).

Ermm..I think you guys might have missed this part? Strafe/move down + strafe left/right.
Since you have to do 2 key presses normally to get this result in the game, wouldn't this be a bad thing for 1 key press to do?