Thats just crazy. Teach them to use the tools available, not teach them to make tools.

Stop with the "This is why we can't: blah, blah, blah" and get with the "This is how we can: blah, blah, blah". That is the difference between staying part of the problem or being part of the solution.

Remember we are talking about players who come to this forum, play on public servers, not people playing on private servers. Make them feel welcome here, point them at the tools and the info to help them use those tools. Point them at beginning games, tell them how to choose a game on a public server to play. If they want to play by hand, there are games available for them to do so.
H

A toggle that disables TWX is no different from a toggle that puts a game into truce mode. It just seems like a simpler solution to me.

The difference is that a toggle to disable TWX can and would be circumvented on the client side.

There aren't many people who can write or fix scripts. There are even fewer who can write or fix entire helpers. And there's no guarantee that whoever circumvents the TWX toggle would share their work. You'd probably end up with some guru (and their buddies) using their super-TWX against players who can't use TWX at all.

Once again, it comes back to this: the ONLY way to level the playing field is with artificial delays that are longer than human reaction times.

I disagree, by his train of thought if I don't use any helper at all and I warp into a sector he's in... could I be sour if I type ay100* and by the time I pressed a I'm podded? Because it's happened, back before TWX telix and other terminal programs were king.

At that time I was just telneting, you linked JP's post but even JP is behind the times in allot of way's. This is shown by his reference to cim hunting which has been a way of finding people since before he bought the rights. Self admittedly JP is not a player and while he has the most intimate knowledge of the routines behind every nuance it doesn't mean he understands the dynamics of the game.

That's not to say I don't agree with him regarding the vast amount of knowledge available if you know what your looking for. Eitherway I digress, my point was to show the hypocracy of saying that you only use reactive scripts under certain circumstances.

I've said this before but all that will do is give the few the advantage. You make a toggle which changes the way TWX accepts data from the server side and someone takes the open source TWX and adapts it to work. Then you have a small group of people who still have access to TWX as it was designed to work.

Let me try to make this simple. TWX uses telnet. You cannot have a switch that disables TWX without moving the TWGS to a different protocol. You can try to spoof twx scripts with random characters but that would only affect the users of public scripts. Script writers would work around the spoof from the TWGS. The end result of which, new players cannot even use the currently available public tools where script writers would make the tools necessary to use twx anyway. So now script writers play they way they have always played and n00bs/retreads can only play by hand. The same spoofing that you might try on TWX would effect all of the other tools that are not TWX. SO basically you are asking to have a switch that screws everyone else BUT the scripters.

There is not going to be a "Truce" mode persay, that concept will be developed through BOTLINK (uh oh more TWX Scripting there)

H

Ex-actually, in fact it's already being worked on.

With those kind of delays, even I don't want to play.

Kav knows more about scripting and the differences between TWGS and HVS MBBS, and how TWX works or doesn't work in HVS MBBS.

Players will always have Swath, and TWX will work for the "chores" type scripts, such as hauling, trading and colonizing.

TWX is a very, VERY powerful "tool" when in the wrong hands, can hurt the game by chasing away players.

Please, don't forget it was I who asked the script writers to make their public scritps work with both 1.03 and 2.xx releases. I don't want to break the scripts for those who want to use them.

I do understand what you are saying, I really do.

What you're not hearing is the change that Kav is suggesting will NOT be an easy one for script writters to compensate for. Kav is an engineer and has been programming since the days of punch cards. I tend to beleive this man knows what he's taking about.

Is this not the removal of the abort display option? Didn't
we beat that one to death in another multi-page thread?
What is this mystical toggle of which you speak?
I'm sure there would be a new arms race to get twx working. The
only way it would end would be when EP released the official work-
around.

Oh, I still want that one. Kav has a different idea, and it was actualy an idea he came up with discussing TWX and HVS MBBS with Sing.

And you still dont get it. The only people you will be helping with this setting are scripters. Everyone else gets screwed.

What really gets me is that instead of helping add players to the player base your focus seems to be alienating the existing player base for some nebulous number of new or returning players.

Again, not part of the solution.

H

That.

@Cruncher, if you succeeded in completely removing twx from the equation I don't think you would like the results. Speaking only for myself, I would no longer play.. No real point.

Also I'd like you and Kav to name these scripts (or there actions) that so completely break the game. As Helix and I have allready addressed we believe Botlink is the solution. You may or may not be aware but were working with JP on ways to control players in a way that protects these retreads and noobies. One way would be to remap the a key to a message like "truce you can't do that yet".

If the issue all these new players or is the issue that you came back after 5+ years afk and are not the advanced player you were before TWX. As for Kav, I don't honestly know why hes upset if Salt does everything for him. Keep crusading you two, maybe JP will listen and you'll see the scripters who many of us also program in our spare time will benefit from your change. Leaving you both in the same situation, running your yappers about mechanics you can't figure out how to overcome.

What I would really like to see is JP's forum validation in action. Then when we turn it on, only players with forum accounts here can get in the game. Then if someone starts baby-seal clubbing we can just ban the user from those games. Conveniently you can point new or returning players to those games and we get them in the forums too.

Kaus, he/she are talking about pdrop scripts and photon scripts. Though my experience tells me that anyone who runs scripts like those AFK is going to be dead if anyone cares to take the time to kill them. (SG taught me that just by watching him in tourney's he loved those scripts. He even had xan make a script that would zdy the planet if anyone landed on it. We would look and he would be SD and the planet would be gone LOL)

H

Yes, that's the theory, anyway. If we could tie a members-only game account to a forum account and people know who's actually who (in theory), then the stated rules of a game would matter more and those who agree to a certain style of game can expect to play in a certain style of game. Almost every game suffers from the possibility that people can spoil the fun by cheating (cheating here is defined as playing in a way that is contrary to the stated rules, not the defined gameplay restrictions), but most games have more accountability. A game like TW has to be on the rock bottom of the accountability scale. That's a serious negative on a game.

Some other points I'd add to the conversation... I think it's easy to look at other less played games like HVS MBBS and older door versions and say there must be some reason why these kinds of tactics can't be used. But I think those games benefit from TWGS supporting these kinds of tactics so well, because if TWGS wasn't around, script writers would just focus their efforts on those other games, and your haven away from aggressive scripters would disappear. Personally, I believe there's a POSSIBILITY that having some options that discourage scripting in some games would create havens away from aggressive scripting on TWGS because those who like those games already have a place to play. Is it worth the extra effort just to get into these games and club the seals? Maybe. It's hard to get into the dark mind of some of these players ;)

I completely agree that scripters who want to will be able to overcome just about anything I do to stop them, though I'm still intrigued by the idea of the CAPTCHA question database. That seems to have some potential because I see how much wailing and gnashing of teeth there is every time I change a character of output. Again, I don't think it would be impossible to overcome such a feature, but it would be a pain in the arse, and would require constant effort to maintain. What would be the point? The vast majority of games would not employ that feature, so why go to so much effort to invade the few that do?

And my final point, these tactics are so powerful because the gameplay allows them to be. I see Botlink as a way to pit script against script and allow the community to strike the balance it finds most acceptable. I don't want to be involved in a years-long battle to protect one group of players from another.