Kill decal, i want to see AC close up shop, even if it's to make ibn and others jobless. AC deserves to die under it's current crop of devs.

Just to clarify on a few things, especially for mary


1) Elgarl was not the first to make acm/ucm functionality into a plugin, there were tons of private plugins around looooooong before he tossed that into tank, not to mention a few that leaked but not to the point that everyone used them


2) Mary, admit it, you used decal but then realised after becoming an icon of anti-macro zealotry that you had to quit that all together before people fingered you as being the rediculous hypocrit that you are.


3) Macros, and more specifically ucm/acm were around way before decal made it popular, I remember writing more than 1 combat macro before they were illegal in 1999 with tool and later skunkworks.


4) 3rd party apps have been around as long as ac has essentially, once tool came out, people made scripts to do just about anything, including running around and picking up plants as well as making applesauce for money (I created my own and modified quite a few variations of both as well).


5) Macros, by definition are actually anything that allows any other task or group of tasks to be completed by a single action. So essentially you're wrong when you say macros are the devil, it's macros which allow you to attack autonomously that are "the devil" in you opinion (another poster clarified this earlier as well but it seemed to be ignored so ill do it again).


6)Mary, please just give up, it's pretty obvious that most people think you're a zealot who takes things to far, and in fact is more of a grievance to the game itself than the dozens of characters holes away in dungeons that nobody ever finds.


For the record, I used to be a huge supporter of macroing, when it was legal, the day they said you could be banned for it, I gave up on it. It was a passion mainly for scripting in ACtool (i'm a programmer, go figure) that a lot of us tended to follow. At first it had nothing to do with the greed of leveling or wealth in game, it was merely to try and use the tools we had to make the best possible automation just for the sake of doing it (I know I even worked on mine calculating avg kills per hour, hourly xp, xp per kill and xp per minute at one point and even included auto chat responses and coords options in the last version of my bot before it was banned, some of you might remember the script as 3M or Mortus' Melee Macro). In any case, eventually it WAS turned to greed and some people developed it for their own means (i'm mainly referring to the private plugins here), eventually Elgarl released tank which brought the functionality to the public. But I think it's pretty safe to say that irregardless of how much you'd like to demonize him, he's really not that much of a factor, sure the man brought it to the public, but if he hadn't someone else would have, I assure you that much. And not to disrespect you at all Elgarl, I do think tank is a pretty good plugin and i'm sure it would be hailed as the holy grail of decal had it not incorperated acm/ucm functionality, but irregardless of that it's still a damn good piece of work, programming wise.


Anyways, i've had my little rant so i'll finish it off by saying that of all people here, the person who least deserves to be trashed is Gouru. I've known the man personally and was in his guild for quite awhile on MT and I can say that he is an excellent guy and player in game and what he does is very much appreciated, as with everything the decal devs do. Anyone who has the slightest notion of bashing the decal devs should think twice because they've put more hours of work into something for literally nothing but the trill of doing so than I bet some of you have spent actually playing the game. With that said, give them the respect they deserve and hold your tongue before making any brash statements.


Also, I'd atleast hope that if you no longer wished to work on decal, gouru and crew (lol) that you would release decal and the source to the public as i'm sure there are others who would take up the task.


Edit: Korrigan also makes an excellent point, the in-game api needs to be looked at again at some point, if not for ac, then maybe for ac3

In order for Decal to survive a long time there needs to be some solid link between AC and the Plugins that is supported by Turbine.


I have always wanted the API to come out but I know that alot of those who break the rules and use Illegal plugins that break the COC don't want the API because it could easily be turned against them.


I don't know where SM comes from anymore havn't for a while but treating anyone in as a dispicable way as they Treat you makes you no more better


Decal will be down for a while and I have no problem playing without it. (I miss Dual client though) I would suggest supporting Turbine in the API if its at all possible because that is the only way we are going to Keep Decal Around for sure


Few words from a Concerned Player

I got banned for a year for portal spamming

 

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QUOTE: Over the years, Decal has made this game. Without it, it would have died years ago.


Its quite probable that Decal is what drove the playerbase away from this game, and stoped it from growing further.

 

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Quite the opposite, AC has a lot of tasks that are very repetitive. DEcal progs make it possible to do those things without killing your body..


Other games have come out that don't make things so repetitive AND don't require any external progs to do them.. (such as the built in trade bots in DAOC).. The other games have MUCH better graphics due to being newer etc.. People leave for other games.


Sure, a few Holier than though individuals have left because they didn't like people doig this or that but that's not what has killed off the player base..


I can tell you that I had to take at least 2 years off from this game because I ended up with a repetitive stress injury in my shoulder from all of the repition in the early dyas before decal and the plug-ins came out.. Without Decal I CAN'T play...


People just need to learn to chill out and stop LOOKING for something to cry foul about. MOst of the people who cry about Decal plug-ins probably use some themselves but as long as the plugin suits them it's fine. It's just not fine when it suits someone else and NOT them.


Decal didn't make this game.. DECAL MADE IT BETTER!!!

An anti-macroer who ran a buff bot, which was owned by someone else (a violation of the CoC), evades a board ban and calls people "dirt bags", etc.


Oh god, that is just too funny.


You know, I could almost respect you SM as a "purist", but you're just another two-faced hypocrite.

Magi she says not but I am pretty sure that was a eBay acct also

Update on Last nights Harvestgain Poll:


Poll Question: If Gouru cancelled the Decal project ...

Total Votes: 126


Current Poll Results:

69% I'd quit AC for good. (87 votes)

10% I'd keep playing, but be looking for another game. (13 votes)

14% I'd jump for joy and keep playing. (18 votes)

0% I'd do a backflip and buy another account. (1 votes)

5% Take a bow -Gol- (7 votes)

I don't understand what prompted Gouru to make this post in the first place.


From the decal code of ethics...


"Everyone has their own opinions on what a 'cheat' consists of. I myself despise combat macroing, because I feel it detracts from the purpose of the game. It's a massively multiplayer game, where every single persons actions affect everyone else's - We've seen time and time again in any system where people interact, power must be earned. Macroing provides power to precisely the people who do not deserve it - the people who have not worked for it. But this is my opinion, and no one can say whether I'm right or wrong.


There are, however, some areas which we think any sane person will agree are well over the bounds of tools and into the bounds of cheats. The best classification (and sadly, the most ambiguous) is "Anything that adversely affects the game of others". A few examples, to clarify then - Some are currently hypothetical, some sadly are not...


Skim Macros in populated dungeons

PK Tracking/selection/automated killing

Anything designed to damage/crash the server


There are many, many more, and most are not covered by the Code of Conduct. We have no power to enforce a CoC ourselves - The genie is out of the bottle as they say. However, we state our purpose here: to create, by consensus, a set of tools that will allow people to expand their enjoyment of AC without detracting from other people's. Anything that falls outside of this, we cannot condone nor support. But to stop the good things that have come out of these because of the few bad ones would be, in our opinion, a terrible waste."


Given the above attitude, I don't see how a change in the CoC like what was (apparently unintentionally) put in for ToD should have any bearing on decal development. The decal devs specifically state they have no intention or ability to police the CoC. Up until a few days ago, there were already plugins which allowed people to violate the CoC. If the CoC were expanded to include things like Buffbots and Tradebots, sure that would suck but it doesn't invalidate the numerous other useful plugins available (as others have already mentioned). The list of what you could due with existing plugins while still attending the computer is quite extensive. I will repeat and add my agreement to the last line of my quote from above: "to stop the good things that have come out of these because of the few bad ones would be, in our opinion, a terrible waste"