What parts of mouse broadcasting are allowed

[Sajuuk]

Why are you looking past it - that is a point that is integral to any discussion of automation.

Currently, using pre-recorded x,y coordinates (a function not supported by the default UI at all), to target or cast a spell is functionality outside of our Terms of Use.

I would strongly advise shying away from this program, if it is causing mouse moves (even simulated mouse moves) to occur in response to user inputs.

Mouse moves are the purview of the user, not a program.

I still believe mouse broadcasting is okay, as long as you're actually moving the main mouse, no pre-recording. The whole one action equals one action idea comes to mind here.
Although "user inputs" could be anything.

The biggest thing for me is not having mouse movements be pre-recorded.

[Tonuss]

.......I think the real question would be- is it legal to use a program that would auto-locate the mouse in order to have it track the primary mouse faithfully? I am thinking that it would not be, since you'd need an external program that would be doing almost the same thing as Mouseclone, only doing it on the fly.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

What I am thinking is this, let me use an example of a person 5-boxing on five separate computers.

He has a program that tracks mouse movement on box 1 and transmits that to boxes 2-5. If you move the mouse on box 1, it moves on boxes 2-5. If you click the mouse on box 1, it clicks it on boxes 2-5. I think that Blizzard would say "this is legit" because it's like keyclone, just passing basic input to multiple clients.

One problem with this is that over time, your mouse isn't going to be in the same spot on all five systems. You would get "drift" and after a while, moving the main mouse to a spot on the screen moves it to slightly different spots on the clients. Kind of like what happens when you simply broadcast the movement keys to your clients and use those instead of /follow. No matter how hard you try to keep them identically oriented, they will start to wander apart.

Thus, lets say that this program that broadcasts your mouse movements and button presses also does something else-- every 1 second, it checks the location of the mouse on the primary system with the location of the mouse on the clients, and adjusts the clients to be in the exact same spot. This eliminates "drift" and guarantees that wherever you move the mouse on box 1, it'll be in the exact same location in boxes 2-5. The user still needs to account for camera angles and obstructions, and still needs to go through the proper sequence of click spell--> move to location--> click mouse to activate spell. The only thing the program does is adjust for a drifting cursor.

Would that be considered 'automation' by Blizzard, or at least something grey enough to advise against it?

I'm just considering a hypothetical, as I don't expect to either design or use software that does this.

[Septimous]

I still believe mouse broadcasting is okay, as long as you're actually moving the main mouse, no pre-recording. The whole one action equals one action idea comes to mind here.
Although "user inputs" could be anything.

The biggest thing for me is not having mouse movements be pre-recorded.

Yeah, I've been kind of leaning this way too. I've been thinking if it can be done via hardware methods, a software alternative should be acceptable provided it has the right limitations in place and/or you don't abuse it.

What really happens is that I initially place my mouse where I want the target to be (on my master). I try to set my camera view on my slaves so that when I click on the master it's approximately the correct place on my slaves. Then I start spamming shift-t. Due to delays they may not all cast at once, but since I have the toggle system it doesn't matter as long as I keep spamming it.

The way Owltoid uses mouse broadcasting is along the lines of what I'm thinking. It seems to me to be in the spirit of one action per user initiated action (especially in hardware), but unfortunately the software implementation is limited by the fact that you can't have 5 cursors tracking on the same pc.

[Septimous]

I use HKN and currently have my "Force of Nature" spell keybound to shift-t (FoN is the treant spell for druids). With Hotkeynet I have my shift-t set up as a toggle. The first time I push shift-t my FoN is cast (bringing up the AoE target). The second time I push shift-t, HKN broadcasts my current mouse position to the WoW windows and clicks the mouse button (identcial to hitting my left click buttons on the mouse). The third time I push shift-t it sends ctrl-8 (I think) to each WoW window which puts the treants in aggressive mode.

So, you can do this type of functionality with HKN on a single pc? Owltoid, just out of curiosity, how long have you been using mouse broadcasting via HKN?

[Freddie]

One problem with this is that over time, your mouse isn't going to be in the same spot on all five systems. You would get "drift" and after a while, moving the main mouse to a spot on the screen moves it to slightly different spots on the clients.

That's right, and for that reason, the programmer would implement this software in a different way. Here's one way it could be implemented. Every time you move the mouse on the local PC, the software on the local PC would compute the cursor's position as a percentage of the distance across the screen vertically and horizontally. Then it would send that info to the copy of the software on the other PCs. The software on the other machines would move their cursors to the corresponding spots. That way the motion is always sync'd.

Thus, lets say that this program that broadcasts your mouse movements and button presses also does something else-- every 1 second, it checks the location of the mouse on the primary system with the location of the mouse on the clients, and adjusts the clients to be in the exact same spot. This eliminates "drift" and guarantees that wherever you move the mouse on box 1, it'll be in the exact same location in boxes 2-5. The user still needs to account for camera angles and obstructions, and still needs to go through the proper sequence of click spell--> move to location--> click mouse to activate spell. The only thing the program does is adjust for a drifting cursor.

Would that be considered 'automation' by Blizzard, or at least something grey enough to advise against it?

I don't think very many programmers would choose to implement this feature in this way, because it's not a good implementation, but if they did, it's not automation.

I think Blizzard's rules have to do with the relationship between what people do with their hands and what happens in the game. The rules have to do with actions. It doesn't matter how exactly the software computes things. What matters is what the user's hands do and what in-game actions result.

The question is, can the user perform a certain action in one WoW with a certain input using just the client by itself? IF the answer is yes, then you're allowed to do the same exact thing in multiple windows with 3rd party software.

Can you move the mouse in one WoW, using the client by itself, and click and do a certain thing? If so, then you're allowed to move the mouse in multiple WoW windows and click and do that same thing, using third party software. The fact that the third party software has to do a lot of arithmetic doesn't help us decide whether it's legit.

(Edited to change a few words to make the ideas more clear.)

[zanthor]

I'm going to cry, a lot, if blizzard answers this in a negative fashion...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...715986&sid=1#0

A discussion has began based on the input received:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=7

I would like to clarify legitimate methods to broadcast mice for multiboxing purposes, as my primary concern is to continue enjoying the game without breaking any rules.

There are multiple methods to broadcast mice that I would like to clarify as within TOS/outside TOS. Hardware, Software Broadcast and Software Emulated. These three are defined as follows:

Hardware - Hardware broadcasting is accomplished by utilizing hardware to pass one signal to N computers all running their own WoW client. Mouse position is broadcast to all clients all the time, as are clicks. Commonly hardware mouse broadcasters use two mice, one only connected to the current machine and one setup to broadcast.

Software Broadcast to Fixed Locations - This is similar to Software Broadcast but woudl send the click to a fixed X,Y location on the screen - as per the previously linked thread this is not advised and considered outside the TOS. I list this here only because it shares a similarity to Software Broadcast (listed next).

Software Broadcast - Using a number of different software solutions you can broadcast your current mouse position and desired click when you press a hotkey. This differs from Hardware in that you only need one mouse and have hotkeys to broadcast the current position to the other clients and click where you moved the pointer to. Additionally the software isn't updating the mouse position on the other clients realtime - thus a mouse movement is actioned by the software AFTER you duplicate said mouse movement physically (one physical action replicated to multiple clients.) Unlike the previous version this is not fixed locations and is based only on user input to move the mouse.

Sofware Emulated - Using a number of different software solutions you can broadcast your current mouse position to all clients realtime. This is nearly identical to hardware with the exception that instead of broadcasting all clicks you simply bind hotkeys to broadcast clicks. It removes the need for a 2nd mouse but still rigidly maintains a 1 action = 1 action per client rule.

So the goal of this posting is to clarify if Hardware, Software Broadcast and/or Software Emulated mouse broadcasting are legitimate and inside the TOS. A blue response would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Zanthor
http://www.botbh.com
aka: Aeacus, Aazan, Bazan, Cazan, Gnusmas
Samam, Samarn, Sarnam, Sarnarn, Samarri

[Owltoid]

I use HKN and currently have my "Force of Nature" spell keybound to shift-t (FoN is the treant spell for druids). With Hotkeynet I have my shift-t set up as a toggle. The first time I push shift-t my FoN is cast (bringing up the AoE target). The second time I push shift-t, HKN broadcasts my current mouse position to the WoW windows and clicks the mouse button (identcial to hitting my left click buttons on the mouse). The third time I push shift-t it sends ctrl-8 (I think) to each WoW window which puts the treants in aggressive mode.

So, you can do this type of functionality with HKN on a single pc? Owltoid, just out of curiosity, how long have you been using mouse broadcasting via HKN?

Since I stopped boosting my druids at level 60 and enabled the treants (my main reason for rolling druids). I'd guess about 2-3 months ago, though it seems like longer! Currently I have some lag on my system so it doesn't work perfectly, but I think that's due to my system being bogged down and I think it will work extremely well with my new rig.

[Owltoid]

Software Broadcast to Fixed Locations - This is similar to Software Broadcast but woudl send the click to a fixed X,Y location on the screen - as per the previously linked thread this is not advised and considered outside the TOS. I list this here only because it shares a similarity to Software Broadcast (listed next).

Software Broadcast - Using a number of different software solutions you can broadcast your current mouse position and desired click when you press a hotkey. This differs from Hardware in that you only need one mouse and have hotkeys to broadcast the current position to the other clients and click where you moved the pointer to. Additionally the software isn't updating the mouse position on the other clients realtime - thus a mouse movement is actioned by the software AFTER you duplicate said mouse movement physically (one physical action replicated to multiple clients.) Unlike the previous version this is not fixed locations and is based only on user input to move the mouse.

Sofware Emulated - Using a number of different software solutions you can broadcast your current mouse position to all clients realtime. This is nearly identical to hardware with the exception that instead of broadcasting all clicks you simply bind hotkeys to broadcast clicks. It removes the need for a 2nd mouse but still rigidly maintains a 1 action = 1 action per client rule.

Personally I think the difference between the two software solutions are difficult to understand, especially by a non-multiboxing blue who is trying to decipher what this crazy MB community is doing.

I see it as two different issues:
1.) is it ok if a multiboxer clicks the letter "c" if it sends a signal to click the left mouse button
2.) is it ok if a multiboxer clicks on one WoW window and a software clicks on different WoW windows in the same relative position

Trying to mix the two together will likely lead to confusion or an unclear answer.

[Vyndree]

when I do ctrl->alt->mouse click to broadcast that click to relative positions

This sounds good -- I see mouse movement as two user-initiated decisions:
1) The mouse key click -- the user initiates the Keyup/Keydown events, which are replicated to additional clients. Nothing fancy here, same as keyboard replication.
2) The mouse movement -- the user's form of instruction here is a deliberate continuous action -- mouse movement happens on two axis (x and y), whereas keyboard movement happens on one (up/down). Therefore, as long as your program were simply replicating the user-generated continuous action, I see no automation.

based on resolution to all the other instances.

This I'm not so sure about.

Granted, there's differing opinions on this, but when opinions differ it's best to get Blizzard's opinion to clarify things.

Having software make the decision to modify the user-generated continuous mouse movement action (even if it is a simple mathematical formula to determine the relative resolutions) means that your software is intercepting user input, modifying it based on an algorithm, and spitting the altered version to one or more specific (but not always all) clients. Granted, the reason is innocent enough, and you can argue that it is similar to keymappings for keyboards, but don't forget that user input with a mouse isn't a simple toggle. Since mouse movement isn't necessarily a singular event but a combination of duration, direction, and speed.

If you allow programs to alter the duration, that can easily be seen as automation because it's similar to keyboard looping and delays.
If you allow programs to alter the direction absolutely (i.e. "move positively on the x axis" always transmits to "move negatively on the y axis") you can see that as abstract keymapping and I'd consider it "gray area"; However, if you allow programs to alter the direction dynamically over time, that fusses with the duration and turns into automation.
If you alter the speed of the mouse absolutely (i.e. "movements occur at full force" always transmits to "movements occur at half force") you can also see that as abstract "gray area" keymapping; However, if you allow programs to dynamically alter the speed over time, that fusses with the duration and turns into automation.

So, in short -- mouse movements, direction, and force are all part of the singular "mouse movement" user-initiated action. Blizzard hasn't made 100% clear what exactly is "allowable" in this area, so it is always best to get their perspective on things before proceeding with any "gray area" material.

[Bigfish]

Personally I think the difference between the two software solutions are difficult to understand, especially by a non-multiboxing blue who is trying to decipher what this crazy MB community is doing.

I see it as two different issues:
1.) is it ok if a multiboxer clicks the letter "c" if it sends a signal to click the left mouse button
2.) is it ok if a multiboxer clicks on one WoW window and a software clicks on different WoW windows in the same relative position

Trying to mix the two together will likely lead to confusion or an unclear answer.

1.) you can do with the base WoW UI.

2.) Sending a click to multiple clients is the same as what keyboard broadcasting does.

The only thing in doubt is how the mouse position is determined on that click.