FFXI, windower and its plugins

Ruffyreborn

Ruffyreborn

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Ruffyreborn
Since its been several months since the release of the official windower, has there been any issues at all with the unofficial windower and SE? Including the use of some of the more popular plug-ins like party TP and equip macro's?
 
I've downloaded Windower 3.3 three separate times and cannot get it to work. "Hook.dll" crashes PoL every time it switches from the PoL screen to the FFXI Main Screen. I've disabled all plugins from loading on startup and I still can't get it to work.

Windower-Lite works just fine for me though.
 
i think i'm still on 3.26. working just fine with TParty.
 
3.3 is working just fine for me.
 
3.3 works just fine for me, and Spellcast is made of so much <3 (for anyone that gear swaps anything for any purpose) that it's not even funny.
 
Vilurum said:
3.3 works just fine for me, and Spellcast is made of so much <3 (for anyone that gear swaps anything for any purpose) that it's not even funny.
Click to expand...

Gotta love .xmls!
 
Information on the upcoming windower 3.4:

The devs have stated there are some bugs in windower 3.3's code that are leading to some minor behaviours of an unfavorable nature. There will be a number of fixes in 3.4, but nothign too outstanding that will be all that noticable, which if you read those words, you will rejoice in thier meaning. And for the dense folks: Windower 3.4 is stability fix.

Upcoming Pluggins:

Spellcast 2.11: Allows seemelss interaction with your game and will do what the game should do automatically. You want to cast cure fromt he menu and have all your "Cure Gear" on when you do so? Then Spellcast is your tool. The fully customizable config file you make will allow you to do anything as simple as "If I amcasting cure, put my noble's tunic on." to as complicated as: "If it's lights day, and it's light weather, and I have 50% MP, and I am casting Cure V, pop on all my nessesary obis, and mind gear as I will not be missing the MP that's already gone; and when you're done casting make sure you swap back my idle gear."

Spellcast 2.11 is adding the following operators for your scipting pleasure: AND, OR, IF, IFELSE, and ELSE, among others I have currently forgotten.

Cancel: (Currently a little buggy) will allow you to cancel buffs on demand. Wanna make a macro that cancels Utsusemi: Ni at the very last second so you can get Ichi up and minimize your "Vulnerable" time? You can now. Wanna sub nin to sam and cancel Saigen/Hasso just in time for Utsusemi as to not double the casting time of that spell? You can now.

those are just a few of the "minor" :D improvements and additions to look forward too very soon. Hell, some are available right now.
 
Cancel sounds like my sweet mistress of sensual pleasure.
 
I disapprove of "cancel." If you can't keep shadows up and learn to cancel certain things with key_enter and key_+ then you shouldn't tank. Just imho.
 
Phraust said:
Information on the upcoming windower 3.4:

The devs have stated there are some bugs in windower 3.3's code that are leading to some minor behaviours of an unfavorable nature. There will be a number of fixes in 3.4, but nothign too outstanding that will be all that noticable, which if you read those words, you will rejoice in thier meaning. And for the dense folks: Windower 3.4 is stability fix.

Upcoming Pluggins:

Spellcast 2.11: Allows seemelss interaction with your game and will do what the game should do automatically. You want to cast cure fromt he menu and have all your "Cure Gear" on when you do so? Then Spellcast is your tool. The fully customizable config file you make will allow you to do anything as simple as "If I amcasting cure, put my noble's tunic on." to as complicated as: "If it's lights day, and it's light weather, and I have 50% MP, and I am casting Cure V, pop on all my nessesary obis, and mind gear as I will not be missing the MP that's already gone; and when you're done casting make sure you swap back my idle gear."

Spellcast 2.11 is adding the following operators for your scipting pleasure: AND, OR, IF, IFELSE, and ELSE, among others I have currently forgotten.

Cancel: (Currently a little buggy) will allow you to cancel buffs on demand. Wanna make a macro that cancels Utsusemi: Ni at the very last second so you can get Ichi up and minimize your "Vulnerable" time? You can now. Wanna sub nin to sam and cancel Saigen/Hasso just in time for Utsusemi as to not double the casting time of that spell? You can now.

those are just a few of the "minor" :D improvements and additions to look forward too very soon. Hell, some are available right now.
Click to expand...

The windower itself was always harmless, DrawDistance also, Tparty did grant an advantage but nothing to go crazy about. Range and extended macros were even worse in this regard, but the current batch of plugins listed here really are just plain cheating. If you want specialty macros for weather and whatnot, you should have to do the work like everyone else. Autocancelling utsusemi is little better. Forget windower altogether and just kidnap a slave from some third world country and make him play XI for you. Clearly "playing" FFXI isn't what everyone is interested in. I wonder at what point the windower plugins will cross the line of public oppinion into fleehack territory? I've never liked the idea of effort saving plugins, but the public has tended to disagree, drawing the line and readjusting it to whereever windower stops. Everything is ok if it's a windower plugin. How far will plugins go?
 
Pompidou said:
The windower itself was always harmless, DrawDistance also, Tparty did grant an advantage but nothing to go crazy about. Range and extended macros were even worse in this regard, but the current batch of plugins listed here really are just plain cheating. If you want specialty macros for weather and whatnot, you should have to do the work like everyone else. Autocancelling utsusemi is little better. Forget windower altogether and just kidnap a slave from some third world country and make him play XI for you. Clearly "playing" FFXI isn't what everyone is interested in. I wonder at what point the windower plugins will cross the line of public oppinion into fleehack territory? I've never liked the idea of effort saving plugins, but the public has tended to disagree, drawing the line and readjusting it to whereever windower stops. Everything is ok if it's a windower plugin. How far will plugins go?
Click to expand...

I think that since SE has admitted to trying to put the equivalent features that the plugins provide into the game itself and failing at it, that it's perfectly ok to do what EVERY SINGLE OTHER MMO lets you do. Complicated hotkeys and customizable UIs to view the data that is already in the game for you to see is exactly what every successful MMO except FFXI has had. If it wasn't information available on our end, then yes, you're hacking, but the data is right there ready to be accessed. SE just chose to not include a large portion of it because it would clutter the PS2's already shitty display ability. I love that we have PS2 players, but they limited the game so much over the years that sometimes you wonder what the game would be like if they just released a PC version.
 
Yeah, I no longer care about plugins and whatnot, in that I simply don't care what anyone else but me is doing. I really just log into FFXI to chat with my friends these days- a 13 dollar a month MSN messenger really. At this point I'm more just curious how much the community will support. You have to admit, these plugins are doing a large part to remove what little "skill" FFXI ever had. I'd argue FFXI isn't a skillbased game, but some jobs like Nin, Rdm and Brd pushed the envelope a little in that regard, requiring more skill than the rest. The Distance, Spellcheater and Utsusemi-for-retards plugins take all this away. We always talk on the forums here about how even errant posts by some less popular members could sway people towards noobdome. This is little better. I never did beat super mario bros 1, but I don't count the time I gamesharked it. I dunno. I no longer hold any of this against anyone, but I do think it cheapens the prestige of being a good player. The ninja with perfect timing who was invincible through practice was a nerd badge of honor. So was the rdm who juggled a few dozen macros and kept everything running smoothly. What's left?
 
While I am personally starting to wonder about the blurred line of cheats. I still hold the following line solidly drawn between me and cheats:

If its something I can do within the scope of my abilities, but have a button that woudl do it just as well, then it's not a cheat. If it's something that does an action outside the scope of gameplay and gives an unfair advantage, it's a cheat.

Can I organize my inventory on my own?
Should I be penalized for not doing so?
Is it ok to autosort my inventory?
Does auto sorting give me an unfair advantage to anyone who does not?

No.

= Light Luggage ok.

Is it unfair to be able to lot or pass on items in the treasure pool while dead?

Yes

=Autopass/Lot feature on LL is a cheat.


Is it ok to move at 200% speed on demand at any time I wish?

No.

= Flee Hacking bad.

Can I make 5 macros to accomplish what 1 windower macro can accomplish?
Can I hit 5 macros for gear then open the menu to use the spell I geared for?

Yes and Yes.

= Windower macros and spellcast = No cheat.


Can I cancell shadows and buffs willingly?

yes

= Cancel is ok.


Etc....


There's stuff that obvoiusly gives you an advantage, and the arguement really blurrs when you talk about the cumulative mass of pluggins being used in cinjunction of one another. I.E. is any one pluggin a cheat? Or is the total collective of them "automating" the game a cheat? Does dumbing down Utsusemi really make players worse? Or does it remove in a tedious rediculous process that should have never been in the game in the first place?

If you want to argue swapping in the right gear manually is what the game is about then I will tellyou to sit in your Moghouse and just change gear all day. I personally think the game is supposed to eb played and the game should be about strategies, and what spell you cast and what action you take on the mob, and how you do quests and missions; not how good you are at swapping in gear...
 
That summary is a little more lax than the one I hold, but in this day and age, it's as fair and realistic as we're going to get. If everyone holds those ideals and doesn't slack, I think FFXI will at least be ok.
 
Pompidou said:
That summary is a little more lax than the one I hold, but in this day and age, it's as fair and realistic as we're going to get. If everyone holds those ideals and doesn't slack, I think FFXI will at least be ok.
Click to expand...
Wishful thinking.
 
Phraust said:
Wise things
Click to expand...

That's my view on Windower and plugins as well. If they're presenting information that is sent to the client unencrypted, such as party member TP, alliance member TP/MP, distance from target, then it's nothing more than a UI improvement. All SE would have to do to clearly say "look, we do *not* want you seeing this data, don't push us by digging it out again" is to encrypt the data. Simple as that, and encryption is so commonplace these days that it wouldn't be any remotely big hassle for them - well under a day's work for one person, in other words not any big concern for a corporation. Yet they don't. As an exercise to the reader, consider possible reasons why this may be.

And if things like Spellcast allow me to do something in an efficient non-annoying manner that I could do more clunkily without them, then again it's not cheating. Convenient, yes. The way a good UI for the game (again getting back to SE not really making one in the first place) should work, yes. Allowing me to do something I couldn't otherwise do, no.

I do not approve of claim tools. I do not approve of movement tools. I do not approve of lotting/passing (or really, doing anything except pissing and moaning and waiting for a raise/hp) while dead. I do not approve of completely automated actions for farming or fishing or claiming or skilling up or crafting or what have you. Reducing five keystrokes to one, yes - reducing one keystroke to zero, no.

There is a pretty damn clear distinction in my mind, between streamlining what I can do anyway, and allowing me to do what I otherwise simply *can't*. My morals have no problem with the former, and every problem (at least in a multiplayer game) with the latter. I have bigger fish to fry, though, than getting my morals all outraged over niggling little details that don't really matter in the big picture of the overall perspective of the game, let alone the big picture of life as a whole.
 
I was just thinking about Phraust's rules, particularly his little summary:

"If its something I can do within the scope of my abilities, but have a button that woudl do it just as well, then it's not a cheat. If it's something that does an action outside the scope of gameplay and gives an unfair advantage, it's a cheat."

By that summary, I don't think half the plugins should be considered legit, that you do. Let's face it, Phraust is definitely a tier 1 player. If Phraust can manage his macros that's all fine and dandy but most people can't. Phraust can manage his utsusemi but we all know most people can't. I don't think windower plugins should be a crutch for the crappy. If people who are already top grade players use them, then so what, but in an ideal world, there should be a test or something.
 
Face it, most new players probably don't even know how to utilize windower plugins.
 
If people can't manage their gear swaps in the first place, they generally aren't going to take the time to figure out how to set up an XML file that fully specifies exactly when and when not to equip what. Or if they do, chances are that they won't get it right, it'll be equipping the things they don't want, and they'll get frustrated and throw it out rather than figuring it out.

Crappy players have their ways of remaining crappy no matter what tools you give them.
 
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