Well then there is a massive conflict here. I think I understand the guidelines he's outlined just fine. However, BioWare and NAGA produced and marketed this mouse:

 

http://www.gamestop.com/star-wars-the-old-republic-gaming-mouse/98536

 

This mouse retails (or did retail) for $139.99 at GameStop, Amazon, NewEgg and others. It comes with software, branded with SWTOR that does just this. In fact, the product description clearly states:

 

"Instantly store and access your macros, key bindings, configurations and more from the cloud."

 

Terrible business practice folks. Absolutely terrible. They went out of their way to develop, brand and produce a product that they knew was illegal according to their TOS or EULA or whatever. Oh lemme guess, we the customers are supposed to know more about their game than they do. Oh, OK.

Not like it'll be enforced. Pretty sure you will be able to use your mouse at full capacity - I sincerely doubt that they'll track down and punish people for this, or make software blocks that prevent their usage in-game.

You should have read the ToS before buying it.

Why do u think they show you the terms before you do anything with the game. Legally they already told u and waived responsibility

I don't have a horse in this race but can't resist correcting people a/k/a offering my opinion. Y'all are correct about the TOS and software license. Bioware could decide to prohibit us from using vowels or shut down the servers or whatever they want and has essentially zero obligation with the software.

IANAL: But the mouse is a different thing. It is a physical item sold by a retailer and covered by many laws that existed decades before personal computers or shrink-wrap licenses existed. You have no responsibility for reading or agreeing to any TOS, or knowing it exists, before buying a physical, non-software item be it a hammer or a mouse. The original purchaser of the mouse may not even own SWTOR let alone be covered by its TOS. The Uniform Commercial Code talks about "Implied warranty of fitness arises when the seller knows the buyer is relying upon the seller's expertise in choosing goods" It seems like a very reasonable argument that a customer purchasing a mouse could reasonably rely that the seller of a Bioware/SWTOR branded mouse would provide a mouse suitable for playing SWTOR.

the thing is they cannot possibly track what people are doing with external stuff. A keyboard that runs macros simply looks like keystrokes to the game.

It might be against TOS but its also IMPOSSIBLE to enforce as they can never prove what is being done.

Well they do exist, in fact one of the members even streamed it several times. (Won't give the stream name). He's under the impression it is legal, as are the others. What I find to be sad is these players also talk a lot of trash, and when we found out they used programs a lot of their credibility went out the window, more so now that you guys are saying its against the TOS.

what server are you on?

Huttball clicking macro? tons of clicks but the game will only ever register one of them. allowed?

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

Since a huttball macro would involve pressing 1 button and getting multiple clicks it should be pretty clear that it's against the TOS according to this.

On the other hand Hizoka is right: it would be nearly impossible to enforce such a rule, so I'm not sure where that leaves us other than people continuing to abuse rules that can't be enforced.

What about the software that comes with the SWTOR Razer Mouse. That is specifically build for Macroing. I think this is a bit confusing for folks who forked over $100 for the hardware and software based on this exact feature set.

 

Now you're saying that it's illegal to use the features of a product, which is specifically co-branded with SWTOR, that you marketed for this purpose?????

Seriously, this. Talk about hypocrisy. Selling the same items that have software that ALLOW for macro programming.

Although to be fair, you can't do anything crazy with the logitech stuff. Most you can do is map multiple actions to a key click. You can't actually 'respec' in a warzone with it. As far as the OP claims, that part was the most outrageous to me. If people want to macro a couple actions I say let'em. I've tried it in the distant past, and honestly didn't like the results.

Then there's this:

This would be a non-issue if they actually implemented dual specs like they promised months ago, but we still don't have them yet.. What's so hard about implementing a dual spec system, so we can change specs on the run? WoW implemented it easily and so did Rift, so why hasn't Bioware been able to do it yet?

Why doesn't this game again?

Chiming in....

 

I'll be as clear as I can be.

 

Automation of the game in any way is against the ToS. This includes macro'ing in order to respec during Warzone matches.

 

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

 

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

Thanks for the response. Can you tell me who to contact to show the evidence of 3rd party programs to? I would also like to know specifically if the speed click mouse over for huttball falls under illegal actions? Just for the sake of clarification for those who do this and think its ok for some reason. Thanks.

Just drop a pyro grenade in there, then ready the popcorn.

I used to have that macroed but I had to get rid of it because of this thread.

Chiming in....

 

I'll be as clear as I can be.

 

Automation of the game in any way is against the ToS. This includes macro'ing in order to respec during Warzone matches.

 

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

 

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

Does your system have tools (automated or not) that can detect a user macro'ing?

Chiming in....

 

I'll be as clear as I can be.

 

Automation of the game in any way is against the ToS. This includes macro'ing in order to respec during Warzone matches.

 

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

 

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

I am pretty sure every Ranked team that is semi-decent is doing this. Might want to look into that.

Does your system have tools (automated or not) that can detect a user macro'ing?

I wish...but I highly doubt they monitor it. They seem to not monitor quite a bit of stuff tbh.

I wish...but I highly doubt they monitor it. They seem to not monitor quite a bit of stuff tbh.

They monitor the cartel market though

So certain actions break the ToS, but being as they did get back to use we could assume they do not have the means of monitoring this. So what it boils down to is the those willing to follow the rules, will be a disadvantage, because we wish to respect the ToS?

That is a little depressing.

LOL..and all this time the trash talkers are telling me how good they are...at what...watching their computer sw play for them...considering I can still beat some of these douchebags I have to laugh. Basically though Im not sure how Bioware could catch them. Unless we allow scanning of our PCs I don't think it would be very easy to identify these skids.

In any event, thanks for catching this and exposing how sad some gamers have become. No matter what excuse someone gives, this is basically exploiting through and through.

They monitor the cartel market though

No kidding...I love the people upset because their Raven robes don't look EXACTLY like this fictional character, and Bioware replies to them..."but we paid RL $ for that"...well, my sub is RL $ as well...

Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

Yeah anyone holding their breath for this to be enforced, RIP!

Can anyone explain to me why respecting between matches or rounds in a WZ is considered cheating?

(I don't nor have I ever done this, just curious as to why it's considered 'unfair'.)

I wonder: if a macro is executing your priority list, what are you doing? You might as well watch another player's stream while arbitrarily hitting spacebar to 'win'.

One click respec does sound fantastic though. I don't respec often, but when I do, it's a PITA. (in truth, it's more like a minor inconvenience, but it often means 7 or more people are waiting for me to finish, and I'm clicking between the game window and a torhead skill tree bookmark).

Can anyone explain to me why respecting between matches or rounds in a WZ is considered cheating?

(I don't nor have I ever done this, just curious as to why it's considered 'unfair'.)

Respeccing isnt the issue; automating the process of respeccing is the issue.

Respeccing isnt the issue; automating the process of respeccing is the issue.

Why? It doesn't imbalance PVP. It doesn't deal damage or stun an enemy... There are games which have it already. I understand having 1 button perform 3 actions. That's like playing Mortal Kombat and having 1 button perform a 20-hit-combo. But why is speeding up your respect considered against the rules?

Why? It doesn't imbalance PVP. It doesn't deal damage or stun an enemy... There are games which have it already. I understand having 1 button perform 3 actions. That's like playing Mortal Kombat and having 1 button perform a 20-hit-combo. But why is speeding up your respect considered against the rules?

I'm curious about this as well...WHY? I can respec my skills in under a minute because I've done it so often, who really is hurt by someone doing it FASTER than that?

Why? It doesn't imbalance PVP. It doesn't deal damage or stun an enemy... There are games which have it already. I understand having 1 button perform 3 actions. That's like playing Mortal Kombat and having 1 button perform a 20-hit-combo. But why is speeding up your respect considered against the rules?

It is against the rules because the rule makers say so. Perhaps you mean to ask "is this a good rule that makes the game more interesting? Is how quickly a person can click the buttons to respec an interesting area of competition"?

BTW, I bet

I liked the person who suggested the the huttball grab should be a short channelled ability. I'm also interested in hearing back about whether lag is a significant factor in successfully grabbing the huttball. If it is, the channelled grab would be a good change.

This would be a non-issue if they actually implemented dual specs like they promised months ago, but we still don't have them yet.. What's so hard about implementing a dual spec system, so we can change specs on the run? WoW implemented it easily and so did Rift, so why hasn't Bioware been able to do it yet?

No one is hurt by having respecs on the run, WOW already has a dual spec system, Rift goes even further by having more than just dual specs (They have multiple role switching.), so I still don't understand why we don't have dual specs, when they were promised to us months ago (Like a year ago in an upcoming patch.). I guess Bioware just forgot about this broken promise, since people stopped reminding them about it.

No one is hurt by having respecs on the run

No. Currently 99% of the pvp population is hurt because they are obeying the ToS and do not have respec on the run capability while 1% of the pvp population does because they violate the ToS.

A level playing field would be for either all players have access to immediate field respec via dual-specs being enabled via in game code *OR* field respec is banned within a warzone.