When were macros added into the game?

[Hiragawa]

Yeah, macros were in the game from the start. People were just not talking about them because they are useless for any combat class.

Pretty much this. Unless you were a crafter, they were fairly niche. Like waaaaaaay back when early dungeons had aggro issues and it was a group effort, a macro to mark your target that you hit with Shield Lob or Tomahawk with a 1 could be handy. The only thing I ever use them for is resetting my Mudra with a quick hide on/off macro and two little on/off /bfx macros. They're quite useless in combat in this game.