Earlier this year I started porting my 15 year old, unreleased helper called FirstMate to a WPF/.net application. Then I started reading this forum, realized the current state of automation and STOPPED working on FirstMate. I felt that the last thing we needed was a more powerful scripting engine. I have started working on FirstMate again with a focus on smaller private games. I’m working on a peer-to-peer chat interface that will help casual players find other casual players and join private games by invitation. I have removed the ability to distribute compiled script libraries to prevent script hording. I’m not sure how, but I want to make sure the scripting is kept under control. JP, would you be willing to add a setting in TWGS that would indicate the level of scripting allowed by the GameOp?

Scripting Class A: Limited Scripting (Haggling and PPT only)
Scripting Class B: Standard Scripting (basic scripting, but no AFK scripts)
Scripting Class C: Advanced Scripting (Everything except AFK/reactive attack scripts)
Scripting Class D: Elite Scripting (All scripts allowed)

I did not include a “no scripting” class, because I don’t think there is any interest in that. This should be Displayed as a warning right before the “Would you like to start a new character in this game? (Type Y or N)” prompt, perhaps with a text captcha to make sure they read it.

Firstmate would be willing to honor this setting, and perhaps Swath and other helpers would too…

I think anything that helps gameops get their wishes across to players in a clear way is a good thing. But the fact remains that many players don't care what an op wants and will do whatever they want if they can get away with it. So even if there are well-behaved clients like Firstmate, that just means that those who don't care about rules will be at an advantage in those games, and will probably even seek them out in order to get that advantage. It's sad that there are people like that, but there are.

Maybe such an approach would work if the game could specify a particular helper or group of helpers that could be used to play the game. Of course, then you get into the question of whether or not it's possible to spoof a helper and get around the limitation. How could a helper declare itself in a way that can't be spoofed by a scripter?

I guess you could use an SSL certificate to identify the client.