Macro

A macro is an illegal third-party software that can give players an unfair advantage at the game. 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 also makes it much more detectable.

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

One example is macro tools are sometimes used for simple tasks as autotyping the same message repeatedly. This is often used by players in busy banks, where a trade offer quickly disappears in the volume of other messages.

Another task that a macro tools can perform is autobuying from shops. Right clicking buy 10 of an item loads of times is an example.

Some tasks involve more complicated tasks such as banking, selling to a shop, mining, woodcutting and picking flax. A RuneScape character controlled by a macro is commonly called a bot. Bots are still abound in both the f2p and p2p sections of the game. Most bots are created to amass coins by operating a large amount of bots and sell the coins for real world cash.

JaGex Update
On the first of May 2007 JaGex have started enforcing this rule even further and have begun tracking items that originally came from a macro's account. However, the true extent of the enforcement of this rule is decidedly dubious as crowds of bots continue to congregate (especially at yew trees) on F2P servers with impunity.

Macros' favourite spots
Note: Macroers had not until recently become prominent in members-only worlds, due to the cost required to maintain membership and the ease of making money free-to-play world (for instance, cutting yews or killing high-level monsters and players for their drops). With the better money making options in members, there is an increasing amount of autoing activity on the member servers. Some member money making activities implemented by bots are: The activities of bots are notable both in the game worlds and on the market forums, where sellers of bot-produced items will typically be selling cast amounts of an item at once. Increasingly difficult random events may be one of Jagex's methods to decrease the prevalence of macroers.
 * Willow trees behind the Port Sarim jail.
 * The mining guild, especially near the ladder entrance.
 * Willow trees near the bank in Draynor Village
 * Willow trees midway between Draynor and Lumbridge
 * Willow trees in Lumbridge, just outside the general store.
 * Virtually all Yew trees in existence in free worlds
 * The Mage Arena rune shop is crowded with them buying all the deaths, chaos, natures, and laws.
 * Aubury's Rune shop in Varrock, buying Chaos runes and Death runes
 * Betty's Rune shop in Port Sarim, buying Chaos and Death runes
 * Gerrant's fish shop in Port Sarim, buying feathers
 * Lowe's archery shop in Varrock, buying arrows
 * Catherby fishing spots.
 * Karamja fishing spots.
 * The Yew trees south of the flax field near Seers Village
 * Magic trees at Sorcerer's tower
 * Flax field south of Seer's Village.
 * Fishing guild
 * Pure essence mining
 * Blue dragon ranging in Ogre dungeon
 * Green dragon killing
 * Shark fishing
 * lobster fishing
 * plank making

Human powered bots
The money generated from real world money transfers makes it profitable to operate sweatshops in low wage countries where humans are required to play RuneScape for very long hours. Often, the characters play for extended periods of time and perform tasks that are hard for autoers to perform. Fighting Green dragons and Blue dragons and dealing with random events is not easily automated. The sweatshop persons can actually perform such tasks and still make money for the shop operators. These accounts may be in breach of rule 6 (which forbids more than one person using any one account), but a stricter enforcement of Rule 12 (real world trading) is the most important part in eliminating the sellers and buyers of this collected gold, as well as the collectors.

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. The sole aim of the malware is to obtain the RuneScape account details, (a.k.a Keyloggers which steal your username and password). Some malware is reputed to be capable of discovering the in-game bank PIN. In addition to the malware, using a macro program also is against Rule 7 (which states "You must not use other software to gain an unfair advantage in the game" ).

Reporting a Macro
Most Macros are on the f2p version of the game and either sell their logs to make real money or trade it to their main account. Nearly all Macros are level 3 characters with the default body type: male, bald, and dressed in yellow green shirt and green pants, although they recently have begun to diversify somewhat. Macroers normally have names made up of random letters and numbers (eg Fhlmno856), while human-powered bots often have Oriental names. They tend to stay around yew trees, chopping and banking.

On member world, macros tend to be more advanced players. Some elements that raise suspicion to macro operation:
 * A hard to remember name with lots of random numbers or letters
 * Highly uneven skills
 * Some strange high levels
 * A low cost outfit, randoms outfit (mostly camo or lederhosen), or no clothing at all
 * Unresponsive to chat and messaging
 * Strange navigation or task operation
 * unresponsive to randoms (that one can be tricky because some players can just be not paying attention.)

Players with a ridiculously high levels in certain skills compared to other skills are likely macros (although they could also be pure skillers).

It is not necessary to check that macroers are actually that before reporting them, as Jagex always checks to be sure a report is true before acting on it and innocent players will not be punished.

RuneScape Rules
All examples above break one or more rules. The main reason for the tools 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.



Arguments
Some players argue that macros contribute over half the raw materials in the game, this makes them useful, doing tasks that no person would want to do, like cutting yews constantly. Bots also will eventually be banned, so all the bot-money made leaves the game anyway so they don't damage the economy. However, macros greatly affect prices of raw materials, reducing the value of work put into collecting the materials (e.g. cutting yews). As macros gain capabilities, there are increasingly fewer options for honest players to generate money from raw material collection.

How Macros work
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.

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.

Script development
To develop a particular bot, a bot developer needs to cover all steps in a particular task including dealing with possible exceptions that may occur during normal gameplay for such a task. Some macro programs have tools to support script development for task specific bots. Scripts should be able to navigate maps, bank for items, deal with randoms and deal with variable environments. The development tools aid in formulating these sometimes complex programming assignments. Possible tools are:
 * Minimap pattern recognition.
 * Color pattern recognition.
 * Text recognition (move mouse over item and look at top right screen).
 * Add randomness to inputs to complicate detection.
 * Add artificial intelligence to enable simple conversations.