oFollow Discussion

[MiRai]

So they basically charge for a self-extracting exe file, but the one purchasing can legally spread the actual addon around?

Zygor's guide is strictly an add-on, but they're charging for the guide portion of it. If you know someone who has access to the Zygor add-on, then yes you can just install it and go. Whether that's "legal" or not, I have no idea and I won't pretend that I know the answer to that.

As for oFollow, it obviously looks like it relies on an external program to do some type of calculation for you, so I doubt you could just install the add-on and be able to use /follow as usual.

As per whether oFollow breaks the TOS is unknown at this point, so I have no issues discussing it until we find out more about it; but as the oFollow site states: Use at your own risk.

[Peri Helion]

Considering you have to run another program for this functionality to work, I would not use this.

I'm no lawyer or game ToS/EULA expert, but I am with you.

Even if this doesn't violate the ToS doesn't any method that restores a /follow like behavior have the potential to allow the same types of basic bots that they targeted by removing /follow in the first place? In which case you get banned for attempting to circumvent their changes, or they further nerf the macro/lua functionality to break this work around and who knows what else.

[Jafula]

As per whether oFollow breaks the TOS is unknown at this point, so I have no issues discussing it until we find out more about it; but as the oFollow site states: Use at your own risk.

As far as I am concerned it breaks TOS;

It is replicating something Blizzard removed. That's generally not a good idea.
It has to read game/screen memory (hence instructions for setting scale). That's what bots do.
It has to send movement keys that are not initiated by a human. Goes against Blizzard blue posts of what key presses are ok / not ok.

I wouldn't recommend anyone use this.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I am not sure you can change key strokes based upon real time information. I am wild guessing that the program reads where the master and slave are and then as someone stated adds turns to keep them in a /follow type of situation.

So you press "move" and the program changes that to move right or move left based upon real time information.

I am sure that an addon that allows you to face your enemy automatically would violate tos and I dont see a lot of different here.

As would an addon that ground targets automatically.

One of our disadvantages is that our macros are made days in advance and we cannot change them based upon real time information.

On the other hand one could argue it restores functionality that the devs did not wish to take out for boxers, and of course none has been banned for using it yet and no blue has stated it is illegal yet.


As I think about it what can be done is to preprogram 1000s of "move forward" "move left" "move right" in a spicific sequence that would for example take you from the Grave Yard in AV to the top of a spicific tower. As long as you press the button 1000 times or whatever and as long as its a static sequence that is programed prior to battle it should be legal, of course the amount of work that would take is insane but if one person did one route and another did another route .....

You have to start with a known faceing and you have to not touch your guys during the 1000 button movement and you have to have a way to make sure each press moves you the same each time. The grave yards will have a known facing and the hearth will but that about it. But all your guys would be in one bunch (no leader) which is kinda nice.

[Owltoid]

If the program gets data from WoW and reacts accordingly, it's automation. For comparison, ISBoxer doesn't have a clue what's going on in WoW - bot programs do.

[Palee]

You guys are threading on thin ice with this oFollow
The the way it sounds I'm pretty sure it falls into the category of botting.

[MiRai]

I broke apart the oFollow posts from the /follow thread since we were getting off topic. This makes it easier to keep the two discussions separate from each other.

EDIT:
To add...

I'm not saying that oFollow is safe to use and until I know more about it I personally wouldn't use it myself, but unless someone breaks down to purchase a $30 license then it's purely speculation at how it operates. The chances that Keyclone (Rob) himself will come here to let us know how 'safe' it is to use are close to zero.

Yes, Blizzard removed /follow from battlegrounds, but the community has found numerous workarounds -- some more "legit" than others -- but who's is to say that the current workarounds we have in place are safe to use? The mere fact that those who use said workarounds haven't been banned or suspended yet?

People bot for weeks, months, or years before they ever see a ban, but that doesn't mean it wasn't against the rules or "against the spirit of the game" to begin with. It's good to see the community come together and react to such a topic, but it's impossible to know exactly what is going on here without knowing all the facts.

[smalltanker]

I think we should all calm down a bit. I am sure many arguements could be said for Keyclone, Pwnboxer, and ISBoxer doing pseudo botting like functions by programming key translation, treating keys strokes as two or more different one when pressed, released, or pressed and released, etc... I am well aware that we all operate in the one keystroke = one action world as we are always under the microscope for being looked at for any automation of gameplay or references to botting, which I have never done in my WOW experience which has been going on almost non-stop since open-Beta. I was posting the info as I am previewing it only as an alternative to continually adjust my camera angle, popping between screens for a micro adjustment, etc... I still do a preponderance of broadcast straff, forward, backward and my ISBoxer hotkey broadcast for /IWT, and /IWT to my druid with glyph of stag which if you read my blog I have been leveling my butt off on for the last week or so, which as we are all well aware of is currently totally allowed functions. If there is a concern that I am by any way trying to automate my play or spread a potentially greyish bot program I would ask a mod to quickly remove my last 2-3 inputs to this thread and the following replys and will move on.

Thanks team and if required /apologies.

BTW thank MiRai for the awesome admining/moderating and moving this out of the other thread.

[Mosg2]

@Mod/Admin folks:

I'm really surprised you're letting this stay on the site. This is *exactly* how bot programs handle moving around in game except instead of running a pre-determined route it is getting the information from an addon. You don't even allow people to *name* botting software on this website, but you'll allow people to market a program that obviously is interfacing with the game in unintended ways to circumvent a feature that that was intentionally removed from the game.

This is the literal definition of what we should be policing off of the site.

/appalled

[Owltoid]

Mosg2 - do you know that's how oFollow works? I thought peeps were just throwing around ways that it could work, but nobody yet knows if that's actually how it works.