Windower 3.4 Released.

[Phraust]

Yes, I was bored. While I don't agree that using parser or windower is wrong, Garvin (and Hellstorm in that thread) did bring up a valid point, in that they are breaking the rules according to SE. They are only considered OK because the community as a whole consider it OK. Hence my pirating/shoplifting analogy. It is hypocrisy, because whether we like it or not, it is breaking the rules set by SE, and according to SE, is cheating by giving an unfair advantage. They're OK because the community think so. There is a clear line drawn between Windower plugins, Parser and bots/hacks. For some, it is drawn after Parser/Windower, but before plugins. For some, it is drawn after plugins. For some (and SE is included in this group) it is drawn before all of them, meaning they consider all of them cheats. Just because the community see one thing as acceptable doesn't necessarily not make it a cheat, as that is decided by the people that made the game, not us.

And yes, I think Windower is OK as well, but it is a valid point. Like it or not.

Well by that logic.

None of us said it wasn't against the Terms of use.

 

[Daveman]

And I probably shouldn't say this here, But SE's windower is based on a leaked 2.x source of the 'unofficial' one. The reason the unofficial one is "better" is because it's properly supported by the people that made it originally.

Any sort of credible source? I very much doubt SE would be that incompetent, but who knows; I haven't been exactly keeping up with the state of things recently.

 

[Marajade]

You know what I didn't get? Why didn't SE just phone up the guys running windower and ask them how they got it to work so smoothly, and just DO THAT? Why can a game company that's been doing this for over a decade not able to do better than some programmers sitting in their basements doing this in their free time? My mind, it is boggled.

 

[Yurirem]

Yes, I was bored. While I don't agree that using parser or windower is wrong, Garvin (and Hellstorm in that thread) did bring up a valid point, in that they are breaking the rules according to SE. They are only considered OK because the community as a whole consider it OK. Hence my pirating/shoplifting analogy. It is hypocrisy, because whether we like it or not, it is breaking the rules set by SE, and according to SE, is cheating by giving an unfair advantage. They're OK because the community think so. There is a clear line drawn between Windower plugins, Parser and bots/hacks. For some, it is drawn after Parser/Windower, but before plugins. For some, it is drawn after plugins. For some (and SE is included in this group) it is drawn before all of them, meaning they consider all of them cheats. Just because the community see one thing as acceptable doesn't necessarily not make it a cheat, as that is decided by the people that made the game, not us.

And yes, I think Windower is OK as well, but it is a valid point. Like it or not.

To me, and probably many others, it's typically all about courtesy and good sportsmanship. The reason *I* deeply loathe anyone who directly hacks(the kinds that circumvent game mechanics/perform actions automatically. i.e. anything but "windower alone"), yet condone Windower, other than pride, is because I/we believe in a certain sanctity when it comes to online gaming...if that makes any sense.

It's basically the spirit you feel while playing the game. Feelings of fellowship with others, as well as senses of rivalry, healthy competition and senses of accomplishment are the elements which provide a valuable online gaming experience. These memories are precious to some, but fodder to others. Gilbuyers and hackers will destroy this sort of sanctity without a care, convincing themselves they're not doing anything wrong, thus destroying the game environment. This, to me, is what sets them apart from ordinary players.

Another thing that can destroy a game, although to a lesser extent, is an incompetent or completely indifferent game developer. In this case, Square Enix. This isn't based on a grudge or anything petty, it's just the fact that they cannot provide us with an adequate service. So, in that case, the rules being bent just a little (Windower) is hardly a crime in my eyes. I actually think it is because of the Windower developers, that FFXI is still playable in at all. When the day comes that they give people what they've been asking for: more macro lines, ability to see Alliance MP/TP, etc, I and probably many others will agree to stop using Windower. This is assuming they don't half-ass or fail at it, which they typically do.

Personally, I don't even need the plugins, and never use them. Those, to me, are a matter of preference and whoever wants to utilize them, can, it's their business. But six line macros are just retarded in this day and age. I don't really feel like waiting another five years for them to realize this and change things.

ANSWERS IN DA VIDEO GUYZ LULZ

ITZ TOO EARLY TO FIX HNM BOT CLAIMS, WAIT NUDDER 10 YEARS WHEN WE HAVE A COUPLE BILLION MOAR DOLLARS AND CARE MORE, LULZ

^----only a tiny portion of the reasons many people lack faith in SE. That is what it all boils down to, faith. To each his own.

 

[Uzor]

You know what I didn't get? Why didn't SE just phone up the guys running windower and ask them how they got it to work so smoothly, and just DO THAT? Why can a game company that's been doing this for over a decade not able to do better than some programmers sitting in their basements doing this in their free time? My mind, it is boggled.

Well, SE is a typical console company. Programing for consoles is very different from programing for PC. FFXI is mostly just ported from PS2 to PC. It is SE's first attempt at doing a port of a console game to PC. Thing is, due to the difference in code required, it takes times, which is the reason games for PC are generally released after a game for a console when its a console > PC port, as programing for PC is more complicated. My guess is that the Windower guys are more used to programing for the PC, and with how Vista/Windows work. The FFXI programmers, on the other hand, are used to console programming, and aren't used to it, and thus make a less effective one.

Quite honestly, programming for consoles, especially PS3, is a pain in the ass. PS3 in particular is hard to actually get things to work. Xbox uses similar mechanics to Windows (I wonder why...) and is much easier to get things to work on properly. It doesn't necessarily make them unskilled for making a worse Windower, one could simply blame it on them not being used to make things for PC, like Blizzard is.

 

[Faule]

I totally agree with Marajade. I'm not going to waste my time with SE's own windower if SE is so incapable of hiring someone competent to make them a windower that works fluid and doesn't rape your computer's memory. If someone can make a perfect (compared to SE's crapshoot attempt) windower in their spare time at home for FREE, there is no excuse for Square Enix. I'll make a better attempt to use SE's programs when SE makes a better attempt at satisfying their customers' needs and wants. It's everyone's own personal choice on whether to include the use of the plugins in their gameplay. By downloading the windower one is not forced to use them. It's an easy, quick erasure or addition of some // lines to add or retract the use of plugins. Things like seeing TP and MP of other players in alliances/parties create less lag and confusion by making mp and tp /party macros unneeded for most that use the windower. In addition, any dynamis leaders that need to lot currency appreciate light luggage so they don't lose track of coins. Even the gamma adjustment is a godsend just to be able to see! It's SE's own fault that 90% of its PC player base uses this product and if they expect the people paying them endless amounts of money each month to not use it, create something better. It's not a difficult thing to understand.

 

[Bajaratt]

Don't criticize one group, unless you intend to point the finger at ALL wrong doings Phraust.

(( No offense Bajaratt, you were just the first example I saw ))

None taken, but he's being stupid and I'm calling him out on it. He calls something a bot that clearly isn't, then he won't take insanely minor steps to fix an incredibly simple problem; instead he just says it doesn't work right. He's far from intelligent in general, but in this thread it's especially showing through.

I'm still not doing the level of harassment that phraust is talking about, with the derails and calling everyone who uses the windower a hacker/cheater. I'm just saying he's a moron while tearing apart his stupid arguments. It's not flamebaiting, it's not derailing(since it's on topic to the derail that THEY caused), and it's not harassment to point out how stupid an argument is and the fact that the same person keeps making them.

FFXI is mostly just ported from PS2 to PC. It is SE's first attempt at doing a port of a console game to PC.

Several of the later final fantasies have been ported to PC, and I'm pretty sure they came out before FFXI did(I'm positive FF7 did). Regardless, but this point, there is absolutely no excuse for their ports to suck this bad; they've had six years to figure out how to get this game to work correctly on the PC, and they still haven't got a clue when it comes to a proper windower.

 

[beeznuts]

None taken, but he's being stupid and I'm calling him out on it. He calls something a bot that clearly isn't, then he won't take insanely minor steps to fix an incredibly simple problem; instead he just says it doesn't work right. He's far from intelligent in general, but in this thread it's especially showing through.

I'm still not doing the level of harassment that phraust is talking about, with the derails and calling everyone who uses the windower a hacker/cheater. I'm just saying he's a moron while tearing apart his stupid arguments. It's not flamebaiting, it's not derailing(since it's on topic to the derail that THEY caused), and it's not harassment to point out how stupid an argument is and the fact that the same person keeps making them.

Calling into question the validity of a thread such as this is not a derail.
Calling someone who uses something Square-Enix has deemed to be cheating a cheater is not inaccurate.

The only difference between posting something like this, and posting any other different cheat, is that one is more popular than the other. "No promotion of unauthorized third-party tools on this site... except the ones people like, those are okay." Had this thread been regarding an unpopular cheat, I'd imagine this thread would be gone quickly.

You know what I didn't get? Why didn't SE just phone up the guys running windower and ask them how they got it to work so smoothly, and just DO THAT? Why can a game company that's been doing this for over a decade not able to do better than some programmers sitting in their basements doing this in their free time? My mind, it is boggled.

I'd imagine this would be a legal issues, many companies in general refuse to accept any sort of submissions or ideas, as it can lead to massive legal problems in the end. Not to mention the fact that SE is international, with most of the work being done on the Japan end.

 

[Marajade]

I'd imagine this would be a legal issues, many companies in general refuse to accept any sort of submissions or ideas, as it can lead to massive legal problems in the end. Not to mention the fact that SE is international, with most of the work being done on the Japan end.

What issues? They just need to walk over to windower.net and download it for themselves, see how it works, and then replicate it. They could probably even ask the devs if they could have the sourcecode for free and they'd say sure.

Its been proved that it can be done without having to fuck with your computer's processor, so the fact that they can't do it is laughable.

Also, just to answer to your entire tirade which has constituted your posts in this thread, you must be one of those people who always crosses the stret at a crosswalk, or comes to a full and complete stop at every stopsign, or doesn't even go one km/mile over the limit at any time ever. Some plugins are on the edge of cheating, but most of the time they're harmless. LightLuggage and BloodPace are good examples.

Oh, and also the entire userbase that plays on PS2 is cheating, because they can tab through alliance memebrs with a single button, wheras PC players can't. Go yell at them for cheating will you?

 

[Myrrh]

Everything Mara said and one more thing. It also depends on the person using it. There will always be people who use cars to break the law and the same can be said with the good Windower. Just because those people abuse it doesn't mean the rest of us do. Just because one person runs a man down while driving does that make all cars bad?

Hell, Distance, tp, LightLuggage, silence, and recast are a godsend. There is no reason SE shouldn't have asked/hired the people who made the good Windower.

Hell, SE should buy the .dats people make aswell. A lot of those are very well done and it beats the constant recolours.

Yes, Windower is against the TOS, no one is really fighting that. It's a matter of making the game fun and easy to use without spending 5000 dollars on a good computer to run SE's Windower.

Hell, I tried the SE windower. That shit made my computer loud as fuck and it shut down an hour in. I have a very basic knowledge on computers like most average people. SE shouldn't expect us to make a super computer in a cave with old missile parts.


I say hell a lot when I'm tired... I don't know why.

 

[Bajaratt]

Calling into question the validity of a thread such as this is not a derail.

Going on and on about how we're all cheaters IS a derail. Saying we should shut down the thread every single time there's a discussion on the windower is a constant attempt to derail the threads away from actual discussion. You're still going into the thread with the purpose of starting some shit, to drive people away from the original topic.

Calling someone who uses something Square-Enix has deemed to be cheating a cheater is not inaccurate.

It's not accurate. First off, they're not calling it a cheat, a hack, or a bot. They're saying it's against the terms of service. They're also only including it in there as a warning because you might get hacked if you download from the wrong place.

Second, like I said before, they only deemed it against the TOS, just so there wouldn't be any legal loopholes. They don't do a single thing to stop it, they could easily take steps to stop people from using the windower; but they don't because it's not a cheat. I used to have fraps long before I got the windower, so I guess that means I was "cheating" then too; since GM's were saying fraps was against the rules too.

All third party applications are against the TOS, but not all TOS violations are cheats.

The only difference between posting something like this, and posting any other different cheat, is that one is more popular than the other. "No promotion of unauthorized third-party tools on this site... except the ones people like, those are okay." Had this thread been regarding an unpopular cheat, I'd imagine this thread would be gone quickly.

No, the only difference is that this is a meaningless "cheat," and it really doesn't even qualify under cheat to begin with unless you hunt down an obscure definition that no one ever uses.

I'd imagine this would be a legal issues, many companies in general refuse to accept any sort of submissions or ideas, as it can lead to massive legal problems in the end. Not to mention the fact that SE is international, with most of the work being done on the Japan end.

Just borrowing the ideas, yes, that probably wouldn't work; but they could easily offer them a job. Isn't that what happened to the guys who made counter-strike? If they did that, they could easily adapt in many of the windower plugins to the GUI for the PS2/3 and 360 players; thus removing any minor advantages that the PC players have.

 

[Daveman]

They could probably even ask the devs if they could have the sourcecode for free and they'd say sure.

The problem with this is that it would cost more money in review, than making their own version (or asking for advice on how to make their own version). "Borrowing" source code is dangerous because SE has no way to insure the source code that the windower uses isn't stolen/copyrighted by yet another party.

For example, it's not unreasonable to think the windower used code from say an open source product with a GPL like license and never mentioned it. Giving the source code to SE who wouldn't know of such a thing, would potentially make SE liable for that infraction.

Now simply hiring them and telling them to build one from scratch, or to ask for their implementation and/or specifications rather than their code should be fine for a company like SE.

---

This goes back to Phrausts comment about how SE already used leaked windower source code to make theirs, I very highly doubt this would happen, if it did, as soon as SE's legal department found out (I doubt phraust is more privileged than them on this information), heads would roll in the programming departments, and SE would pour tons of resources into taking out all "stolen" code.

These companies may make shoddy products, but usually their finest work, is with their legal departments.

 

[Marajade]

They still fail then because they couldn't figure out how to do it when basement programmers could. They just fail slightly less than they did before.

 

[Faule]

So, is there any way to stop the whole num lock not working thing? It's making me really mad. ; ;

 

[Bajaratt]

So, is there any way to stop the whole num lock not working thing? It's making me really mad. ; ;

Just delete those lines from the init.txt file or // them out.

 

[Redshift]

For people that are against the use plugins from unofficial windower because SE says not to. Alliance TP/MP, party TP, recast timers, chat logs, etc are on your memory and not displayed to you directly. All the plugins are doing is displaying what SE is sending you. Would it make you feel better if people used the laggy, glitchy, awful official windower and made separate programs (instead of plugins) to access the memory on your PC (I don't believe there's anything wrong with viewing information on your own PC) and give you an overlaying display of this information without effecting the game in any way. If that's fine, then leave the poor plugins alone. If I'm wrong, and I might be since I'm not a programmer, then show me how and I'll apologize.

 

[Dowzer]

So, is there any way to stop the whole num lock not working thing? It's making me really mad. ; ;

The part you want to delete is in the spoiler. ^^

One thing I found annoying about 3.4 is this little script in the init.txt file.

It's also the reason why I couldn't press F9 for Fraps to record Dark Rider popping on my exp party. I also like to move and chat, for some odd reason they made it so you could not move while typing with the numpad in chat.

Even the description is retarded, "when typing numbers into chat with the numpad," what the hell else am I going to type. B-+/., please! Using the forward slash key to run/walk, the hyphen key for the main menu, etc, will also not work with this script.

lol

Spoiler:

// *** ALLIANCE TARGET KEYS ***
// This lets you push Alt+F1-6 and Ctrl+F1-6 to to target Alliance members.
bind ^f1 input /ta <a10>
bind ^f2 input /ta <a11>
bind ^f3 input /ta <a12>
bind ^f4 input /ta <a13>
bind ^f5 input /ta <a14>
bind ^f6 input /ta <a15>
bind !f1 input /ta <a20>
bind !f2 input /ta <a21>
bind !f3 input /ta <a22>
bind !f4 input /ta <a23>
bind !f5 input /ta <a24>
bind !f6 input /ta <a25>

// *** Numpad Movement Keys ***
// These will make it so you do not move when typing numbers into chat with the numpad.
bind $numpad1 type 1
bind $numpad2 type 2
bind $numpad3 type 3
bind $numpad4 type 4
bind $numpad5 type 5
bind $numpad6 type 6
bind $numpad7 type 7
bind $numpad8 type 8
bind $numpad9 type 9

A blessing for some, annoying for me.

I also prefer my screenshots in chronological order. All in all, I kept my original setup by deleting the bind keys and ssorganizer. Unless you're experiencing plugins crashing, screenshot lag or disorganization, there's no real reason to upgrade to 3.4.

 

[Phraust]

The problem with this is that it would cost more money in review, than making their own version (or asking for advice on how to make their own version). "Borrowing" source code is dangerous because SE has no way to insure the source code that the windower uses isn't stolen/copyrighted by yet another party.

For example, it's not unreasonable to think the windower used code from say an open source product with a GPL like license and never mentioned it. Giving the source code to SE who wouldn't know of such a thing, would potentially make SE liable for that infraction.

This is correct. Add in how many devs were added, quit, and kicked form the project, and that all of them were working for free. When you throw a monitary value on something that has been free... "Issues" arise.

Now simply hiring them and telling them to build one from scratch, or to ask for their implementation and/or specifications rather than their code should be fine for a company like SE.

Excpet for thier strict employment guidelines, otherwise you're right. But that means basically creating a sub-branch of the Dev team on a game that is already 1 year past the expected life.

This goes back to Phrausts comment about how SE already used leaked windower source code to make theirs, I very highly doubt this would happen, if it did, as soon as SE's legal department found out (I doubt phraust is more privileged than them on this information), heads would roll in the programming departments, and SE would pour tons of resources into taking out all "stolen" code.

These companies may make shoddy products, but usually their finest work, is with their legal departments.

1+2 = 3

1+2 = 3

Unfortunately unlike literature, which typically is pretty original, it's really hard to argue about stolen code, which is not.

I cannot comment on this more than that, mainly because I don't know as much as I'd like. And If I did; I've already said too much.

 

[Davion]

I'm sure this has been said:

I <3 the Screenshot update. I like how it categorizes my screenshots in folders.

Example:

Windower Folder >> Screenshots >> Davion >> Bastok Markets >> [year.month.day]

 

[Faule]

Thanks for the answers. It'd probably help if I'd learn how to read.