So I play some games that have some redundant grinding and instead of having to man the computer to grind the virtual materials such as metal in this case to craft gear and weapons on a Facebook Flash Game that is designed to be hours of farming materials daily to craft, I generally study the gameplay and look for redundant patterns in the game that can be automated and then code up a macro to have the computer farm the materials for me so that when i am actually playing the game I can just enjoy having the needed materials and play for like 20 minutes of the actual 4 hours of game play that is non grinding to make decisions and perform non redundant processes.
I coded up a macro this morning and had it triggered to start by a batch file which would give me 10 seconds after launching the batch from desktop to make sure that the browser window was brought back into position maximized and my fingers away from mouse and keyboard before it would run.
My flaw in my batch file was that I thought that it would wait until the macro instance ended before going to the goto routine that would run the 10 second time delay and run the macro over again and this time the browser is already maximized and the game is back at the starting point to run the same tasks of grinding for materials over and over again.
I walked away from the computer to get a water bottle and when i came back to the computer the mouse pointer was going crazy. At first I thought the macro was glitched. But when I brought up task manager I saw that I had over 20 instances of the macro running and within less than a minute after CTRL + ALT + DELETE to get to task manager, now the keyboard controls were completely locked out as for more instances of the macro were starting every 10 seconds and each macro would run for about 4 minutes, so as that 1 macro took 4 minutes to run, 24 other instances of the same macro were started and running before that 1 instance would come to an end.
I ended up having to push the power button on the computer to force the shutdown as for it was out of control. Before shutdown i decided to take a short video of it with camera to show friends of how bad a macro malfunction could get when not really cheating in the game, but making your computer perform the time wasting grind in games that are designed with redundant grinding that most people waste their time physically grinding it out and wondering where 4 hours of their day went etc. When the macros are coded to start and end correctly its a sweet thing to have the computer handle the no brainer point and click work that doesnt require any real smarts but by which the game designers added to slow down users progress and leech hours of the life away from the game players. In the meantime while these macros run i am able to take care of stuff around my house etc and this way dishes get done, trash gets taken out which = a Happy Wife and Life and I can play the game for the enjoyable 20 minutes of the 4 hour daily grind to accomplish all the goals that the game has for dailys and the computer can play the boring 3 hours and 40 minutes of no brainer redundancy.
btw I fixed this typo in the batch file so now it behaves and doesnt start another instance until the first is done..
Also for anyone wondering what program I am using for the keyboard/mouse macro it is called Macro Recorder - Pro Edition by Jitbit . I have used this for years and for all sorts of automation tasks.
https://www.jitbit.com/macro-recorder/ I bought Pro Edition because it allows you to create stand alone EXE's that work on other systems without the Jitbit software having to be installed on those systems. Also I was using this for commercial use at the time when I bought it, but have since found benefits for it in gaming.
Here is a youtube link to the video of the malfunction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoBwIAtoRiY&feature=youtu.be***Warning about Macro use in Games***
Some game clients and/or game servers have algorithms that look for ( bot like ) repetition. If caught you can be banned from the games permanently. This can be drastic consequences if its a paid for game and you have many many hours of your life sunken into the game progress. I only use the macros on free online games were if I get caught and locked out... oh well I will find another free online game to play. I had yet to be banned by any game providers and I havent used the macros for any real cheats. Its mainly just to remove the time wasting grind from games so I can enjoy the decision making and character building processes since running a dungeon for example over and over again for material drops is just plain boring. I dont have any special abilities that others dont possess in game who actually put all the many hours into the gameplay.
One game I have NOT used the automation on is World of Warcraft because their game client has memory sniffers that look for bots and automation routines in your systems physical memory locally and Blizzards game servers have scripts that are constantly monitoring for bots/ macros and they catch people through the fact that time intervals between sequences of movements and command instructions in the game repeat at an interval too precise to be that of a human controlling the computer with the game client running.
