Macro

A macro (variously referred to as a macroer, bot, auto or autobot) is an illegal third-party software that performs an automated task, such as Woodcutting or Mining. The terms macroer and autoer usually refers to players who use such programs. The use of such programs can actually allow the macroers to achieve surprisingly high skill levels in a short amount of time, if run 24/7. However, it is against the RuneScape rules (Jagex considers it cheating) and may result in action taken against that player's account, such as a permanent ban and possibly having that player's IP address blocked from the RuneScape website (usually only with gold farming bots). Another offence under the category of a macro is when a player trains away from keyboard, which has been dubbed by players as an abbreviation, AFKing. If a player is caught AFKing it is a "Macro Minor" ban, which expires one year after the issue and the ban itself can last up to ten days. AFKing entails manipulating the game engine where automatic tasks are operated providing the player no need to physically be at the computer of operation. However, it is legitimate in some cases, where the automatic engine tasks only last for a few moments such as chopping down a tree, or offering bones at an altar in a POH. Other legitimate cases in combat are Giants Spiders and Bandits after the Rune Tek 5 update, since the engine now logs the player out after a period of no activity regardless of whether or not the player is in combat. Some examples of illegitimate AFKing is trying to take advantage of a person who is not AFK.

A macro program operates by automating user input to the game. A simple macro may automatically move the cursor to a certain position and performs a click while a more advanced one may actually interact with the game client. This can make for a much more powerful macro, but can also make it much easier to detect. Use of a macro is against the rules, as it breaks the Honour rule.

The macroing tools are reputed to do lots of tasks. Some of these examples are given below.


 * Macro tools are sometimes used for simple tasks as autotyping the same message repeatedly. This is often used by players in the Grand Exchange, where a trade offer quickly disappears in the volume of other messages, or used to advertise a real world trading site. This can be a nuisance to other players, as with all the spam, and can also be reported under Honour.


 * Auto clickers are another kind of macro tool used to repeatedly click a desired spot. These can be set at a desired speed to click such as 10 clicks a second. Auto clickers are mostly used to put user input into the game in order to circumvent the auto-logout system.


 * Another task that a macro tool can perform is autobuying from shops. Right clicking buy 10 of an item loads of times is an example. This has been stopped with the personalized stock update. As a result, autobuying bots are very rare, and the ones that still exist buy and bank items for a profit of being sold at the Grand Exchange.


 * Some macros involve more complicated tasks such as banking, Mining, Woodcutting, Fishing, monster-killing, and more. A RuneScape character controlled by a macro is commonly called a bot. Bots can sometimes be very annoying because if one is trying to train a skill like Mining or Woodcutting, the bot may get to your target before you. Some bot programs even have built-in timers that tell the software which ore or tree will be respawning next. This can make it very frustrating for legitimate players to train skills. Server-hopping is a possible solution.

On 10 December of 2007, Jagex implemented an enormous amount of updates aimed at ending the use of macros in the game. Although these updates have been successful at drastically cutting down on the number of both macros and real-world traders, reactions among players who haven't used bots have been mixed concerning how well-implemented these updates were. It is also a common misconception that macroers have been totally removed or nearly abolished from the game since Jagex implemented this update. These updates mainly only stopped Gold Farmers since they were unable to sell gold due to updates such as the Trade Limit and the controversial removal of the Wilderness. Bots are still used by many players who want to make money or level up skills on their own accounts for their own use in game, this still breaks the rules of RuneScape.
 * See also: Real world trading

Gold farmers are also considered to be macros since they behave like them, and most of them are even automated via macroing programs. Fighting monsters and dealing with random events is not easily automated, as they can be very complicated to script. These accounts may be in breach of the Honour rule (which forbids more than one person using any one account), but a stricter enforcement of another part of the rule forbidding real world trading is the most important part in eliminating the sellers and buyers of this collected gold, as well as the collectors. Some gold farming still persists as part of a training service, where a gold farmer trains an arbitrary account in return for payment.

Because macros are not controlled by humans, it is possible to operate a large amount of them at once, allowing more gold and items to be collected quickly.

Most Gold Farming occur in websites where they offer services with skill level up that most in-game players advertise.

Common macro hotspots
This is a list of the common spots for macroing/gold farming activity, prior to the 10 December 2007 update, except where noted.

Hot-spots marked "still ongoing" are hot-spots that macros/gold farmers can still be found at, even after 10 December. Hot-spots marked "obsolete" are those which are still possible to use effectively, yet there is no gain in doing so thanks to a shop update.

Common free-to-play hotspots

 * Mining coal ore at the hidden mine in the Dwarven Mines
 * Chopping willow trees near the bank in various places.
 * Chopping most yew trees.
 * Chopping normal trees behind Lumbridge Castle.
 * Chopping oak trees behind Lumbridge general store, forest between Draynor and Lumbridge, and north of Port Sarim Bar.
 * Fishing in Gunnarsgrunn.
 * Fishing in Draynor Village. These are usually fishing bots training their levels up.
 * Fishing lobsters in Karamja.
 * Killing chickens south of Falador.
 * Mining coal at the mining guild and in Gunnarsgrunn.
 * Mining gold at the Crafting Guild.
 * Mining rune essence at Varrock.
 * Standing around in various banks, Lumbridge, and the Grand Exchange advertising Real World Item Trading websites (rare but still ongoing).
 * Standing in the Grand Exchange advertising price manipulation clans (debatably the most common).
 * Mining iron ore in the mine north-east of Rimmington.
 * Mining Iron ore in the Dwarven Mines.
 * Killing cows outside the Crafting Guild (often with little or no weapons and armour).
 * Monsters (e.g. Guards) in all worlds.
 * Advertising Dungeoneering clans at Daemonheim.

Common pay-to-play hotspots
With the better money making options in Member's only worlds, there is an increasing amount of autoing activity on the member servers. Jagex has also claimed that gold farmers pay for their membership using stolen credit card numbers. Some Members money making activities done by macros/gold farmers include:


 * Chopping ivy everywhere.
 * Chopping magic trees at Sorcerer's Tower.
 * Chopping yew trees and ivy at Varrock Castle.
 * Chopping yew trees west of Catherby (rare)
 * Chopping various trees around Seers' Village. (ongoing, was very popular before trade limits)
 * Fishing in the river near Rasolo.
 * Fishing sharks and lobsters in Catherby and at the Fishing Guild.
 * Killing experiments in the Experiment Cave
 * Killing chaos druids in the Chaos Druid Tower and banking herbs.
 * Killing flesh crawlers in the Stronghold of Security.
 * Killing green dragons in the Wilderness and the Chaos Tunnels (still ongoing, especially at the area east of Clan Wars).
 * Killing Yaks outside the gates of Neitiznot.
 * Killing Ghouls infront of the Slayer Tower near Canifis.
 * Killing goats in south west of Nardah.
 * Hunting red chinchompas at areas south west/south east of the Hunter expert's house in Feldip Hills
 * Making planks at the sawmill near Varrock.
 * Mining rune essence in Varrock.
 * Mining iron north-east of Ardougne
 * Teleporting to Camelot, when already there.
 * Picking flax in Seers' Village.
 * Picking swamp toads in Gnome Stronghold.
 * Playing the Soul Wars and the Pest Control activity.
 * Ranging blue dragons in Ogre Enclave (rare).
 * Ranging Targets in Ranging Guild Activity.
 * Runecrafting nature runes in Karamja and the Abyss.
 * Spinning flax into bow strings in Lumbridge Castle.
 * Standing in the Grand Exchange advertising price manipulation clans -- debatably the most common.
 * Fletching headless arrows in the Grand Exchange
 * Mining in Living Rock Caverns
 * Fishing Rocktail in the Living Rock Caverns
 * Superheating in Grand Exchange
 * High Alching in the Void Knight Boats (common in almost every world).
 * Alching at Soul Wars bank chest

The selling of items obtained by gold farmers are notable both in the game worlds and on the market forums, where they will typically be selling vast amounts of an item at once (such as 50k Willow logs or 20k Lobsters).

Macro program risks
Many programs claim to be a macro program of some sort. Often such programs originate from dubious sources and merely infect the computers that they are installed on with spyware and/or other malware. Because the "bots" can be downloaded from the internet, there can be viruses or key logging software attached to the file. These types of software can slow down your computer and your internet. The sole aim of the malware is to obtain the RuneScape account details, (i.e. Key loggers which steal players usernames and passwords not only to RuneScape, but to everything on a player's computer). Some malware is reputed to be capable of discovering the in-game bank PIN, usually by taking screenshots of a players computer every time the player clicks. In addition to the malware, using a macro program also is against the Honour rule, (which states "You must not use other software to gain an unfair advantage in the game").

Identifying and reporting macros
Many macros/gold farmers are on the F2P version of the game chopping trees, or fishing lobsters, though they're also quite common on the P2P version as well. They will sell their collected items for RuneScape gold, which they then sell for real world cash. See the hotspots section above for a list of common areas that macros hang around at.

Elements that raise suspicion to macroing/gold farming are:
 * A hard to remember name with lots of random numbers or letters, often from different parts of the keyboard (e.g.: 1Ili5l w1fil)
 * Only one skill trained (usually woodcutting, fishing, mining, or melee combat) This can be checked by looking up the name on the hiscores, Adventure Logs (P2P only) or casting Stat Spy on a suspected bot.
 * Are level 3, though most are higher levels (higher level macroers are more common in members worlds).
 * Can be a higher level with Rune chainbody, Rune legs, Adamant full helm, an abyssal whip or dragon dagger, and an anti dragon shield. These are commonly found at the Green Dragons east of Clan Wars or in the Chaos Tunnels.
 * Be aware of skillers. Some accounts which aren't bots may belong to skillers and are thus non-botting level 3 accounts.


 * Might have the default look (male, bald, and a dark brown goatee), although they have recently been known to diversify somewhat due to the new tutorial that does not start out with the old default look.
 * Are dressed in the default outfit (khaki shirt and forest green pants), or random event clothing. (With the advent of RuneScape HD, however, macroers have been found in various random colours, typically bright ones.)
 * May exert strange behaviour such as not being able to fish in certain spots and thus running backwards and forwards from the fishing spot (or just not interacting at all with certain spots).
 * Gets stuck after a door is closed, as is the case when going to mine rune essence at Aubury's in Varrock (bots run around attempting to get Aubury to teleport them, but cannot as the door is closed).
 * Do not respond to chat. Most bots will not respond if you say something to them. However, players who have their chat off, can only use quick chat, or who are simply not looking at it might also not respond.
 * Some botting scripts have an auto-talker included, but they are easily manipulated and can be used against them to determine if they're botting.
 * In the Mining Guild, anyone that mines the same coal spawn as a player may be a bot. Because of the space between coal spawns, a higher level doesn't guarantee the player will get the coal over someone else, so it is common practice to always go for open coal spawns. Only macros and inexperienced coal miners will continually begin mining an ore even if someone else is already mining it. Macros here will most commonly be higher combat level wearing assorted expensive gear to throw off other players.
 * Will act oddly if a player, follower, item, or NPC is on or near the spot they are working on or moving to. Note that a player should not report other players for accidentally clicking on the players pet or following the player once, as that may be a legitimate player who made a mistake. If it happens once, try saying something to them to see if they reply, as this may mean they are not a bot.
 * Another good way to identify a bot is to use a teleother spell on them, as most bots do not have the ability to close the teleother screen off. The only drawback, however, is that the bot needs to be accepting aid. 74 Magic is a requirement before you are able to exploit bots through this method.
 * Woodcutting Bots are usually easy to find because they usually start to chop a tree, then run away from it then come back and do that several times until they finally start normally chopping the tree. Also, if they are around Magic or Yew trees with Oak Trees and normal trees surrounding them they will occasionally chop the oak and normal trees by accident. Another normal reaction is if a bot accidentally attacks an NPC (usually a low level foe) and runs away and comes back.

It is necessary for a player to check that players are actually using a macro before reporting them, as Jagex checks to be sure a report is correct before acting on it, and a player falsely reporting a legit player may cause themselves to receive a warning, so if the player sees any of the above behaviour or any other suspicious behaviours, the player should check before reporting the suspected macro. Keep in mind that if a player doesn't respond or talk, it DOES NOT mean that they're a bot, you need to confirm some steps above and confirm that they are actually a bot before reporting an abuse.

If an advertising bot is found, in addition to reporting it, a player can alert a player moderator to come and deal with them.

RuneScape Rules
All examples above break one or more rules. The main reason for the rules is to increase the game entertainment factor for all players. There are several mechanisms in the game that are reputed to deter and detect rule abuse, in particular the use of bots. Some examples are random events, periodic shifts in map orientation and changes to the game. No information is available about the macro detecting facilities that operate on the game servers. There is some debate regarding random events as unfortunately many botting communities boast of being able to bypass random events. This causes many players (mostly high leveled ones) to complain about how randoms waste their time and don't get bots caught.

Macros and the economy
Some players argued that macros used to contribute over half the raw materials in the game, thus making them useful, doing tasks that no person would want to do, like cutting yews constantly. Bots also will eventually be banned, so most of the bot-made money leaves the game anyway so it doesn't damage the economy.

However, macros greatly affect prices of raw materials, reducing the prices of items due to many of them being released into the economy at once (prices of sharks plummeted from 800 each to 400 each at one point), and the converse also occurs where players buy huge supplies of pure essence for example, then use a runecrafting macro in order to reach level 99. As macros gain capabilities, there are decreasing options for honest players to generate money from raw material collection.

Furthermore, macros affect the price of higher valued items. By running a macro while sleeping or at work, a player can earn millions of gold coins with minimal effort, and so can easily afford to pay any price for items they want to buy, resulting in the price of those items increasing.

Internal workings
Like normal players, a macro tool needs to control the game by giving the appropriate inputs. These controls result in some game reaction that the macro needs to observe and interpret to plan the next action. Typically, a macro tool is split into several components that are described below.

Gaming engine
The gaming engine is the part of the macro that interacts with the game and that analyses the responses. A software program running on the game playing computer usually has the capability to generate mouse input (move, click, drag, etc.) and to generate keyboard input (key down, key up). Analysing the response from the game can be done by capturing the entire game image. Some image processing might be required to obtain information about the game response. The gaming engine provides the basic mechanisms to play the game, but it requires task specific knowledge to actually perform the macro operation. Some basic ones click colours on the screen. Others hack the RuneScape canvas to make the colour bots minimisable and to be able to run many. Bytecode bots use ASM or BCEL to inject accessor methods into the runescape client, whereas reflection bots use the reflection api to get the values of fields of the runescape client at runtime and use them in the same way that they would be used in a bytecode bot.

Task script engine
In order to create a bot, a macro tool contains a task script engine to implement a sequence of steps to perform a particular task. A single purpose bot is not particularly useful, so task script engines have the capability to load and execute scripts containing the programming instructions for a particular bot task. Common tasks such as random event detection are supported in default scripts that any bot will need to use.

The most effective bot on the market currently is a Reflections Bot. It doesn't use your mouse, and is virtually undetectable. While Jagex claims to be able to detect them, it takes several weeks, if not months for Jagex to actually ban these accounts. In that amount of time, mass amounts of raw material can be introduced to the game, and if the owner decides to buy Saradomin armour, and they get banned, 1 set of saradomin armour is out. Given the rarity of it, that would make the price rise.

Jagex responses
Jagex have now changed back to their permanent bans without warning and chance to appeal since August 4th 2010, after the massive wave of bans August 3rd and 4th. Jagex's strategy for stopping macros was changed in June 2010 from permanently banning users to a system of "second/third chances" where players who were caught cheating by Jagex moderators patrolling or the Jagex automated system and then dealt with by their support team. The new system is that Jagex's staff will ban users from the game for 14 days if this were their first offence to do with macroing, also the user would receive a message in their Jagex message centre telling them that their second macroing offence will result in a extra amount of five days being added to the ban they would receive. If a user were caught for a second time cheating, they would be banned for a period of 21 days, as aforementioned, and be send a message via their message centre warning them that this is the second time that they have committed a macroing offence and that another offence will result in a ban for a extra period of four days. If another macroing offence were to be committed, the user would be banned for 28 days, along with a "last chance" warning. Another offence would result in a permanent ban from the game.

Jagex's first major action against macro users was on 29 May 2002, in which around 2,000 players were reset for using RuneBot. In 2003, Jagex added the "fatigue" system to combat macroing. It is believed this system does not deter the more advanced macros in RuneScape Classic. On 12 December 2003, Jagex banned around 400 players for macro use. On 2 January 2004, Jagex banned nearly 1,000 more players. A ban of about 3,000 players happened in RuneScape Classic on 24 October 2004.

On 12 January 2006, 3,000 RuneScape Classic players were banned (while closing the game to new players) with 15,000 RS2 players banned one week later for macroing.

On 26 April 2006, Jagex tried to devalue rune essence on purpose, although it is debatable whether this was achieved.

On the first of May 2007, Jagex started enforcing Rule 7 and Rule 12 even further and began tracking items that originally came from a macro's account, and have claimed they ban about 8,000 macro accounts a week. They have also updated the punishment for attempting this type of cheating. The number of blackmarks given for macroing was moved from 7 to 90 (which would permanently ban the player 9 times over) because some macro users were selling the coins they would get for real life money.

Increasingly difficult random events have also been one of Jagex's methods to decrease the prevalence of macroers, although it hasn't been considered very effective as most macros have been able to solve them via special scripts or human input.

On 10 December 2007, Jagex furthered their crackdown on Real world trading by making all drops, stakes, and trades for new accounts to have a max net worth of 3,000 coins, as well as altering the wilderness. A player can change the max number of coins they trade by obtaining more Quest points. The changed wilderness sparked controversy and riots, most notably the Pay to Pk Riot. On the other hand, real world trading is now more difficult, as the wealth they gather cannot be transferred to buyer accounts as quickly or as easily. Therefore, seeing a macroer is now rare, as unbalanced trading made gold farming fairly worthless. But it is still possible to see them doing any of the activities mentioned above (mostly killing Green Dragons). On the 2nd of January 2008, Jagex eliminated unbalanced trades for all accounts, with additional coins being able to be gained or lost proportionate to the player's Quest Points (with a minimum of 3,000 coins and a maximum of 30,000 coins).With the 30 September trade margin update,the minimum is now 5000 and the maximum is 60000, assuming the player has at least 270 quest points.

In the early days, the use of a macro constituted a temporary ban for the first offence and a permanent ban for the second. However, after a clan leader told members to macro since they had an extra chance, Jagex changed the policy such that all macro-related offences resulted in a permanent ban.

However, after several changes in the appeal system, some macro-related offences (such as Real World Trading) were downgraded back to a temporary ban.

It is often reported that free players get banned permanently while members get a fourteen-day ban, although many other players claim otherwise.

It is also debatable if Jagex give much attention to this issue any more as numerous reports from players suggest that after reporting suspected macroers no punishment seems to occur to the rule breaker(s) even days/weeks after the report was filed.

On 11 June 2009, Jagex strengthened their macro-detection system. Players caught for macroing don't receive a warning, or a chance to appeal. Updates from 10 December 2007 forced players that macro with throw away account to macro on their main accounts. This is because transfer of a large amount of wealth is no longer possible. Thousands have been banned for macroing, high levels and member's accounts were not immune, or given an extra chance.

On 1 February 2010 Jagex released a Friends-to-Friends trading system that will increase the wealth of money a player can trade over through accounts. Example. 1 Month of friendship, double trade limit, 2 Months of friendship, triple trade limit and so go on. Quest Points does affect this trade limit and the most any player could possibly trade over is 240,000 per 15 minutes if the player has 270 Questpoints.

On 4 March 2010 Jagex filed a lawsuit against several macro sites, which were shut down, but then they were put back up again because they are now under new ownership.

Jagex have successfully sued to stop real world sales of gp and other in-game currencies, though RWT still occurs illegally.

Ways to stop macros
Bots now usually have scripts to stop these tricks from working such as "Close all interfaces" and "random event completers" but some old methods commonly used to catch or stop bots were throwing gnomeballs at them, luring them to aggressive monsters or into a separate area then closing a door or gate trapping them. Another commonly used method was to take a follower, such as a fully grown cat and placing it over a collected resource such as snape grass or flax and the bot would keep clicking the follower. However bot makers quickly caught onto these methods as they surfaced and the ones described here are now obsolete and will not work. There will always be things that trip up bots, though they are usually detected and fixed fairly quickly, examples include lighting fires or dropping box traps over the red chinchompa hunting areas, which would confuse and stop the bots. There also was a way to stop a bot that chopped wood or mined ores; the player would get some of the ores or logs and drop them in a line and the bot would pick them up luring the bots to an aggressive monster which would kill the bot. Neither of those work anymore. Unfortunately most bots now have a fail safe in place where if they encounter a situation where the bot has stopped functioning and cannot be corrected it will just log out the player and shutdown along with sending an error report to the bot maker, usually resulting in a fix.

In addition, with some luck, and if the macro has Accept Aid on, it may be possible to teleport the macro using Tele-other spells if they are clicking in the same place the accept teleport button would be right as the player casts it, though this may not work all the time. A player can also close any doors that the macros need to get through to go to where they need to be, though doing this can aggravate rule-abiding players who want to get to that location. Though the best way to try and deter accounts using macros is by using the Report Abuse system, rather than trying to solve it yourself.