[re] Addons still able to execute remote /follow commands?

Community General Discussion
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This is a reply on: [Classic] Addons still able to execute remote /follow commands? - #12 by Pazorax-1880
As I can’t write in the Council forum, and do need to reply on something, I need to do it here instead.

Hey,

I am the developer of a WoW Classic blind accessibility addon (https://duugu.github.io/Sku/), which is supporting blind/visually impaired persons on playing the game without sighted help.

Sayed addon relies on the FollowUnit API function a lot.
An example:
In dungeons blind players need to follow sighted players, because the game is providing zero positional data in instanced areas, and thus the addon can’t lead blind players.
So, they do need to follow someone all the time. Unfortunately following means, that every cast with cast time of course will be interrupted if the sighted player is moving. That happens a lot, and basically is making a casting class in dungeons unplayable as a blind player.

To get over that, if the blind player is following someone, the addon is stopping follow if the blind player starts casting, and automatically starts following again, if the cast is finished or stopped.

Without FollowUnit that will be impossible. Blind players would have to press at least 3 keys on every single cast attempt. Unfollow, cast, and follow.
I guess it is easy to get what that means. Just try it for a few minutes, and tell me you don’t absolutely hate it and it isn’t degrading your gameplay a lot. :smiley:

And that is just one example on many, why an unrestricted FollowUnit is really important for accessibility and blind players.

Therefore making FollowUnit requireing a hardware event actually is an “attack on accessibility”. :confused:
Please do not restict it to hardware events. You will limit blind players even more with that.

Please take actions on the players (boosters, etc.) that are misusing tools. Not on the tools they are misusing and that are important for other audiences!

Thanks a lot!

Duugu

[e] My suggestion to avoid boosters using that remotely would just be as simple as to grant no xp/loot/etc. to players that are afk. :slight_smile:

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Hello ! Im the guild master of Inspired Crusaders on Pagle-Alliance. Several of my players are blind and not being able to follow sighted players (especially in dungeons) will make their game-time even more harder than it is now.

I want my guild-mates to be happy. They deserve it !

Thank you for reading !

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Chiming in to keep this post visible and to add support for this addon and the function. The follow features were among the first set of tools I learned to use as my vision loss progressed to the point which I could no longer play the game as a sighted person.

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It’s really tragic to me that blizzard is more focused on removing the word gender from character select than they are actually making the game accessible to disabled gamers…

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I mean… if your vision is so impaired that you need a /follow script to enter a dungeon, then the rest of the game will be unplayable.

This is just an excuse to keep AFK boosting in the game. Classic is horrid enough on its own to condone this kind of exploitation.

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That actually isn’t true. :slight_smile:
Just an example:

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While I think what you are trying to do is great, I doubt Blizzard would allow it as it would just be exploited by bots once again. It is interesting that this topic came up. I work for a small programming company and we have a couple of clients who have requested we review their applications to find issues for site impair users and to offer estimates on updating them.

Best of lucky, hopefully Blizzard can find some kind of middle ground.

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Yeah… “playing.”

Sorry. It’s still an exploit and Blizzard should ban those who use it. Classic is a joke because of stuff like this.

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Thanks for your input, one post forum alt. Blizzard is working on accessibility issues as well.

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I hope a solution is found. Maybe sounds based on leader movement so they know when to press follow as /follow assist.

Like a red light green light but with sounds.

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How awesome that you take your time to make addons that help folks like that!

I also realize that some well meaning things can be abused by bad actors. Finding a balance between the two is tough.

First, I suggest your friends or associates sign up for the Asscessblity testing. They might get a chance to offer direct input that can help make Blizz games more accessable to all. Info here. Note there is a deadline to submit info.

I do also have a question. Rather than follow, what if WoW had a built in Auto Nav system that can be unlocked like they have in Diablo Immortal?

It has footprints showing you where to go and auto nav that has your char auto follow those footprints to the boss destination. Not useable for botting, but quite useful for mobility or sight impaired folks. Also short term memory issues with finding quest objectives or navigating dungeons. I love it a lot! No more being lost. No need to follow someone else.

It actually addresses some of the issues I brought up here where I talked about a waypoint/footprint system for navigation. (my assumption is the footprint system can have audio ques too).

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Yeah its almost like one is a easy button press and the other would need more time

Go fig

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Chiming in here as this is a feature I use all the time in my game play. I don’t use it for accessibility reasons though. I am a multiboxer. I use a couple addons (M.A.M.A. and DynamicBoxer) to help make my play style more seamless (I am not breaking TOS by using external software/hardware). These addons allow me to send follow commands from one running instance of WoW to another.

Disabling /follow as is being discussed won’t break my gameplay but will make it significantly more tedious, especially on MacOS which lacks a focus-follows-mouse feature. I will have to activate each client to press a macro; effectively turning what I can currently do with 1 key-press into 2N-1 where N is the number of characters I am playing (usually 2 or 3). That is a huge number of extra key presses over the course of a gaming session.

This change is being sold as a step to harm boosting. While it may slightly inconvenience that community, it will have a huge negative impact on other communities.

Blizzard, please don’t make this change!

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Accessibility isn’t a zero sum game. This is just thinly veiled transphobia.

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Another blind player here. For those that are skeptical about actually being able to play WoW Classic using this addon that have not checked out the website and/or the YouTube videos of people actually doing so, I hope you reconsider. While certain information is naturally unable to be conveyed due to the fact that, well, we can’t see, this addon is an amazing bit of work and enables most of the game to be played completely alone. But this is where we run into the issue this topic talks about. Right now, the best we can do is to automatically manage the following and refollowing automatically since if you give it a shot, you realize that especially in large groups, and even more so if you are not just following one person but have a group that are aware and can help dynamically, you quickly realize that this is very distracting and limits your usability in large groups, which would otherwise be completely possible and fun.
For those that were addressing alternate features, we have made several inquiries for different, arguably much smaller issues, like missing bell sounds from certain transportation like elevators or ships, which went completely unaddressed. I truly hope that Blizzard themselves are working on features that make this game, as well as retail WoW, more playable, but I hope you forgive my very cautiously optimistic, or perhaps slightly pessimistic, view on this issue. Hearthstone is being made accessible by a mod developer, WoW classic as well as retail are being made more and more accessible by mod developers, and until Blizzard can tell us what accessibility features are actually being planned this is the best we have, and most of us are happy enough to finally at least be able to experience the same thing you do, even if not on the exact same level.
It’s easy to dismiss these things especially if you don’t have a disability or don’t know anyone with one, but I’d like you to consider that a disability is never far away and that the only thing standing between your perfect vision and you being one of us is an unfortunate accident, or even just age.
Maybe a bit dramatic, but these things are important and people are putting in the work to help. We shouldn’t dismiss that just because bad actors are misusing a feature, the removal of which doesn’t even guarantee that this is no longer an issue.
Thanks

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Yep, they would have to actually press buttons to control their character’s movement, just like literally every other player playing this game. And no, it wouldn’t be every single cast. When they want to stop moving, they would press one button. Then they cast one or more spells. Then when it’s time to move again they press another button. This could be further simplified with an addon that follows when a given button bind is pushed down and unfollows when it’s let up.

Another simple way of making this easier is to simply macro the following line into all casted spells:
/run FollowUnit("player")
This will stop following your current /follow target. It will still require 2 button presses to actually start casting a spell on the current TBC client, but it could still be useful for some players.

I tried it with the macro I just mentioned, and I think you’re really overselling how much of an additional burden it would be.

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Providing my input as a non-blind player that really wants this boosting functionality gone.

Please find a solution so those that use it for accessibility reasons don’t have their gameplay ruined. This game is infinitely better when it’s filled with players who want to actively play. But holy hell, please expunge this entitled boosting culture from all games. Hypocritical classic players wanting a more real mmorpg but they want to dance around all the downsides that don’t groove with modern ideologies. Leveling is meant by actively playing not being afk at the instance.

Just really surprised blizz didn’t put in the patch 7.3.5 anti-high level xp boosting measures for classic at the onset. You cannot blame people for acting like water taking the path of least resistance to most benefit themselves.

I cannot imagine how much more enjoyable classic would have been had all the fixes/changes done since launch were anachronistically in place for launch back in Aug 2019.

In summation, I hope blizz provides more baked in native functionality (meaning no weakauras) to replicate the things needed for players needing accessibility.

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As a reminder:

Multiboxing is not against the Terms of Service.

I’ve been multiboxing WoW since TBC original release. In all that time, I’ve never gotten a ban, because I never violate the Terms of Service. Since the changes to policy regarding key broadcasting, I have utilized the follow-command weakaura here:

https://wago.io/KIVs1t-Ni

Until Blizzard’s policy changes to “Multiboxing is not allowed” then I will continue to multibox and follow any strictures that are in place.

With regard to the upcoming changes that will “break” this /follow weakaura addon - it isn’t going to stop me (or others) from multiboxing. All that we’ll do is to change our macros to include a /follow command. The only real effect these changes will have (on me personally) is to aggravate my RSI (repetitive stress injury) by forcing me to click from one windowed WoW client to another more quickly and spam my macros faster.

I’ll be sure to be thinking of the devs while my hands are hurting. If the devs REALLY don’t want people to multibox - then just change your policy for god’s sake to “NO MULTIBOXING ALLOWED”. Don’t make it so we’re just in more physical pain to match the actions per second required of the playstyle that you’re just hampering, not stopping.

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so the person they follow has to worry about 2 people when the ground gets nasty?

seems a bit tedious.

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I have a friend who previously played WoW in late TBC and then Wrath the first time around. Since that time, he fully lost his eyesight about a decade ago. We’ve played a few games over the years that are somewhat accessible⁠—at least with verbal guidance⁠—with couch co-op Diablo 3 in the console ports being one of the better experiences; however, he hadn’t tried to get back into MMOs.

That is until he came across this add-on for Classic a few months ago. Though we had to put plans of playing together mostly to the side for a bit here while he was busy, I think he was more excited by the prospect of using your add-on to replay parts of this game than basically any other game in the last few years.

Personally, I hope they do what is suggested by Waah and find a way to punish the boosters misusing the tool instead of actually hurting the accessibility functionality. But, whatever the eventual outcome, I just want to say how important and precious having truly-usable accessibility options like this add-on is to at least one my best friends. And, with that, I’d like to thank you and anyone else out there making add-ons or mods that extend accessible access to this and other games.

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