In response to our latest product review there were some fairly concerned folks in the thread which is completely reasonable given the gravity of their questions.  We thought we could give a reasonable answer to these and it’s probably something everyone should know.  So in the thread concerning the Logitech G13 Game Pad we got these responses:

Koho reports – Been using the G15 for a couple years now and it has the same capability for macro’s etc. There was once a concern, and numerous postings about the delay function and if it violated the ToS. This was one of the reasons Blizz added the global CD’s, and no delay feature in there macro’s. I do remember several conversations w/GM’s etc- and there was no concern with this keyboard.

Indy states – From what I recall reading, Blizzard considers some of the uses of that G13 software automation and a bannable offense. The hardware itself is fine, but keep in mind that using their ‘macro’ software could get you banned.

Tzigon says – One word of warning, though. Blizzard has stated that using macro’s that include timed delays is a bannable offense, as this constitutes “botting”.

Lawbringer replies:

Unfortunately Blizzard is pretty bizzarre when it comes to account bans and their customer service couldn’t be any worse.  Honestly I have no clue why 180 million dollars a month can’t buy you a team of CS reps that can at least pretend to be friendly.  I have no idea where they spend that much money and have some parts of their business that suck so bad – but this is not a diatribe about that (well sort of not).

From everything I can tell the posters above could be right, but more than likely this would never happen.  The things I have read concerning this issue are summed up in a segment of an explanation from Blizz about an account closure.

“…closed for unattended game play…”

That’s the best we can do.  The whole process was some guy writing 1,000 words in explanation and getting 25 words back.  But in the end what he got busted for was not the keypad for sure, and not the macros – BUT the fact that he had made some sort of script that would run the macros for hours while he watched TV.

That is definately botting.  Using a macro, even a timed one in live gameplay could hardly be termed botting unless you’ve made one that does 400 keystrokes or something.  It’s pretty obvious that such a beast would be worthless for the most part since something almost always changes in PvP combat every 3 seconds or so.

Macros on game pads would needs to be probably short and sweet.  Lke maybe combining Faerie Fire/Insect Swarm/Moonfire as an opening combo.  But even then you probably wouldn’t use it EVERY single time.  Macros would be very situational and definately personally flavored.

So if you are programming these things to run instances, script fishing overnight, or grind mobs in an infinite loop while you go to the movies, you’re going to get banned.  If you are running little combo cast sequences as you move like a chicken with your head cut off in order to survive – probably not.

Blizzard has far too much to worry about with gold farmers and other pests to worry about  the guy who went from winning 50% of his matches to 60% of them because of a couple of macros that are almost impossible to detect.

With that being said, if you’re a careful Karen you might want to just skip using the macro functions on the pads.  They are still an awesome option without them and will certainly speed up your game play enough even without the most advanced programability.

I think the thing that will get you in the most trouble is the UNNATENDED word.  If it’s obvious you’re afk and your toon is doing anything you’re probably in trouble.  If it’s obvious the toon is being controlled by a human you’re probably not ever going to hear about it.

Honestly Blizz has a ToS that is basically incomprehensible and they like it that way.  They want it to be as arbitrary as possible.  What they really want is unchallengable ban rights for anything they want, and that’s what they’ve got.  In other words you could get banned tomorrow for just about anything anyway – the game pads don’t really raise your chances all that much.

So use at your own risk, but I’m not worried about it myself.

Lawbringer