Well, I got banned today, good-bye 4 mages, and mains. (Non Dual-Boxing Ban)

[Skuggomann]

I acsidendly ignored teh Global CD at one point, it was an addon called AutoBuff.

It was rather cool actualy, it took the GCD off lifetap and bound it to the scroll button, so wen i scrooled i got insta 100% mana :S but then i deleted it of course
and wen i think of it the whole dam addon was rather on the gray side XD aouto buffed me :P well not literaly but wen i pressed enny key on my keybord and was not buffed id buff myself.


... still rather special ban, hope you can reverse it.

[tooboxinit]

My thoughts on reading this were that blizzard, or represenatives there of have decided that although Dual Boxing is ok, it is a violation of the global cooldown to have 5 mages blast 5 fireballs at a time when a PLAYER was meant to have to wait for the global cooldown (prolly like half a second in this case) before they cast a second dps spell like that. Now even though you didnt do this through hacks on multiple accounts you DID cast way more spells at a time then one player was meant to cast. This is just my speculation on what one or multiple reps of blizz may be thinking and prolly is wrong however if this was a new way of them thinking it would be a easy way for them to still allow multiboxing while dealing with the whiners who dont like taking 5 simoultanious fireballs to the head in BG's. for example, its ok to run around with a warrior and a priest and have the priest heal the warrior and help dps but its not ok to have 5 priests cast smite on the same target at the same time since ONE PLAYER is doing way too many actions IN A ONE SECOND TIME(what the global cooldown is basically to prevent).........again this is only my speculation on what may have gone through that GMS head, it makes sense to me that they would implement something like this eventually. I only share this because on the off chance that im on to something here, i hope no one else gets their accounts screwed before we find out about some new BS policy that wasnt made common knowlege.....(please dont flame me, i know this sounds 'out there')

[thinus]

I don't think so, Tooboxinit.

Getting around the GCD means that spells were probably cast within a split second of the GCD resetting or that spells were cast before the GCD reset.

To be completely honest, I don't think we are being told everything.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Let us not speculate on why this happened. You're operating on zero information here without the email the OP is waiting on. Furthermore, they probably won't even discuss why the account was banned as is their custom where purported "exploits" are concerned, outside of a line or two of vague text in a form mail.

[Vyndree]

Using a keyboard setup like what you're describing? Not automation.
Setting up a macro with said keyboard that would, for example, automatically press Fireball each time it was available? Automation.

Therefore, a macro that assists a character and casts a fireball is OK.

A macro that assist a character, casts fireball, waits 1.5 seconds (global cooldown), casts fireball, waits 1.5 seconds (global cooldown), casts fireball, etc. would be automation.


In the first example, you must press a key every time you want to cast fireball. In the second example, you can press a key, walk away from your computer and go make a sandwich, come back and the mob will be dead. Therefore, automation.


Furthermore...

Is it sending an identical signal to all client windows or switching between them to send commands? Not automation.
Is it playing the game for you, or rather, for one of your client windows? Automation.
All hardware is considered neutral as long as its commands and features are not being used to automate gameplay.

Sending a macro that presses the "assist <so-and-so>, cast fireball" button on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc... computers is OK.

Sending a macro that presses the "assist <so-and-so>, cast fireball, wait for GCD, and cast fireball again, repeat" on any of your computers is automation.



In the first case, you must press a key every time you want your characters to make an action. In the second case, you can walk away from your computer(s) and make a sandwich and come back and the mob will be dead. Automation.



You're welcome to post your question on this thread if you're curious, though. I'm sure one of the 3 blues reading the thread will answer appropriately if more clarity is needed.

[Anozireth]

I tend to spam the hell out of my nuke button when I'm playing a single character, let alone when multiboxing and I know that they aren't quite perfectly in sync. Manually spamming the button certainly does not get around the GCD, but I'm sure I'm within 200ms of it at most. I would think it would be difficult differentiate this from a cleverly programmed automated system. I know there is a way for applications to differentiate between keystokes raised by hardware and by software, but of course all the key presses keyclone sends to the clones are raised by software and those are considered legit, so that's not really a safe way to tell a bot.

Perhaps going into too much detail on how they detect bots isn't a good idea anyway, since it may give those with nefarious motives information to use to go undetected.

[thinus]

I tend to spam the hell out of my nuke button when I'm playing a single character, let alone when multiboxing and I know that they aren't quite perfectly in sync. Manually spamming the button certainly does not get around the GCD, but I'm sure I'm within 200ms of it at most. I would think it would be difficult differentiate this from a cleverly programmed automated system. I know there is a way for applications to differentiate between keystokes raised by hardware and by software, but of course all the key presses keyclone sends to the clones are raised by software and those are considered legit, so that's not really a safe way to tell a bot.

Perhaps going into too much detail on how they detect bots isn't a good idea anyway, since it may give those with nefarious motives information to use to go undetected.

I'm not sure how clever the automation tools are but I would assume that Warden has some basic pattern matching. If your WoW recieves a sequence of keypresses and the interval between keypresses is almost exactly the same to within a few milliseconds you can probably assume some kind of automation tool is at work.

One concern I have is the following which I first noticed when using AHK:

What happens when you hold down a key?

Now with AHK you can script it 2 ways. One way is to keep sending KeyDown, KeyUP messages, in other words, a keypress is spammed. The other way to script it in AHK is that a KeyDown message is sent and then it waits for the key to be released before a KeyUp message is sent.

I use the 1st way to handle my hotkeys and the 2nd to handle movement, I hold the key down for movement but never for my hotkeys.

Now the first way of spamming a key to a WoW session when the key is being held down can be seen as an exploit to get around the GCD. You will probably send 100s of keypresses to WoW in the 1.5s of the GCD.

I am not sure how KeyClone works but if you are able to configure it in such a way that if you hold a key down it spams the wow sessions with the keypress then I can see how Blizzard can classify it as GCD exploit.

OTOH: The GM may just have been clueless.

[Chorizotarian]

I tend to spam the hell out of my nuke button when I'm playing a single character, let alone when multiboxing and I know that they aren't quite perfectly in sync. Manually spamming the button certainly does not get around the GCD, but I'm sure I'm within 200ms of it at most. I would think it would be difficult differentiate this from a cleverly programmed automated system.

Your timing is a lot more random than an automated system would be, unless it was programmed to include a random delay. It would be pretty easy for Blizzard to monitor the timing of your keystrokes on the client side and buts you for botting if they don't look random enough. In fact, I'd be shocked if they're not doing this.

[Anozireth]

I think it will suffice to say it would be very simple to program a bot so that it doesn't produce keystrokes at exact intervals. I think I will leave it at that to avoid going too far into questionable territory.

[kllrwlf]

Here's what it comes down to... and it's pretty simple.

Do not use multiple accounts with different names. (Made-up names or not).
Solution: Be the original owners of ALL of your account... not your girlfriend, fiance, wife, husband, cartoon characters...have all the contact info the same across all the accounts.

Anything that adds a delay into a macro is bannable. (using G15, Nostromo n52 software so that you cast a fireball then wait 1.5 seconds then casting another one)
Solution: Only use macros within WoW, do not create macros using a 3rd party software.
Use those extra keys for shift-1, alt-1 instead.