When were macros added into the game?

[Packetdancer]

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

With the minor caveat that using them to position ground-targeted markers around something automatically can still be faster than positioning them by hand, even with all the many, many flaws that the macro system has when used in combat (and the fact that you can kiss any GCD alignment goodbye). The only things I have combat macros for (now that DRK's Salted Earth has changed) are Asylum, Earthly Star, and Sacred Soil, because placing them by hand is still going to skew my GCD and is going to take longer than the macro would besides.