Not sure if this has been brought up before, quick search didn't show anything at least, but something always seemed funny about macro keys.
Most gaming keyboards these days have a macro key or 8, yet most of the games that could make good use of macro keys all say "use at your own risk, you might get banned.
Starcraft 2 probably runs off with the cake on this one; I fully understand why macros are sort of icky in SC2 so that's not the issue, the issue is that they put macro keys on the SC2 keyboard.
Mapping your macro keys to a single keystroke won't get you in trouble, that's pretty much confirmed, but that's not really using the macro keys to the fullest. Unless the macro keys are laid out in the same shape as the build grid in SC2. I remember the G15 macro keys having a very similar layout to the build menu of C&C3 and the macro keys were mapped to the build hotkeys by default so that was actually really useful. You don't really see that many macro keys on more recent keyboards and they're usually just put in a strip.
Still useful for mapping hard-to-reach keys and whatnot, but I can't really see how the macro function can be used in most games without risking a warning or even a ban in online games. As for offline games; I couldn't really come up with any where macro keys would be useful off the top of my head so feel free to enlighten me.
I do know there are many uses for macro keys outside of gaming, but I'm curious how people here use macro keys in gaming as I frequently see people wanting macro keys when looking for keyboard advice.
Personally the most use I could find for my macro keys when I used my old G15 was for quickly typing emotes in Guild Wars..
