Archi didn't want us posting here because, I think, he wanted to avoid any acrimony between the admins and the players, and to stop from any he-said she-said finger pointing. That's not why I'm putting this here. I could very well make a brand new topic for it, and I will if you want me to Archi, but this is very related to the discussion at hand and I felt like throwing my $0.02 in. (If you are really intent on deleting it, Archi, at least just hide it so I can use it later. It took me like half an hour to formulate and write this out).
Blockscripts. I'm 100% against most forms of scripting in NS. I have a little story about this first...
I played Tribes 2 up until it began to stagnate and players became disinterested. Tribes 2 had a very open, very advanced, and very in-depth scripting engine. While not only did this scripting access open a new level of customization never before seen (How many games do you know of that allows you to implement your very own F-16-style fighter HUD that WORKS?), but it also opened it to exploits.
One of the most popular scripts for T2 was Automissile and Autoflare. For those that don't know, missile launchers worked like this:
You acquire the target on the launcher, and wait for a full-on lock on the vehicle or player. The player that you're targeting, or everyone in the vehicle, would then get an audible alert that roughly meant 'You're boned'. Upon a full lock, the fired missile would track into the target. The target then had to throw a flare grenade. This meant that only vehicles with free-firing player mounts could throw flares. Vehicles like tanks, where players couldn't fire their own weapons out, couldn't throw flares unless a player jumped out. One of the biggest threats was the Bomber. Bombers had a tailgunner, a heavilly armed and armored player who would fight off interceptors and toss flares. Good tailgunning was an art. You had to have very steady aim, concentration, and coordination. In a large fight against skilled players, tailgunning could be an overwhelming task.
Enter Autoflare. Autoflare took away half the job of tailgunning. Your player would, upon getting locked on, toss a flare grenade for you. Just like that. The task of flaring then took less concentration and you could focus more on important tasks like shooting other players. Further adaptations of autoflare would level your interceptor, hop you out and toss a flare (Since interceptors weren't free-firing platforms) and get you back in. Pretty soon nearly 75% of the community was using autoflare, and it was impossible to accomplish anything with missiles, since even the slightest lock would cause fireworks to shoot all over the place.
Scripting in Tribes 2 was entirely about 'customization', but it was also open to exploits like that. There were scripts that would automatically rangefind on heavy weapons for you and adjust the angle for pinpoint precision. The highly skilled players (Myself, for one) never needed these scripts, and could manually rangefind a mortar without even a crosshair. Scripting, in a way, bridged the gap between the highly skilled and the unskilled, allowing the stupidest newbie to automate half the processes in the game and instantly up their precieved skill level. While I loved many scripts in Tribes 2 (VectorHUD for one, the F-16 cockpit HUD I mentioned earlier) I also felt that they were far too easy, almost playing the game for you.
Then move to NS. I can bunnyhop with some degree of success, for a time. I've never used a 3jump script in my life. The saddest part? I can't bunnyhop as fast as someone using 3jump, but I do it on timing and skill. Now who's the better bunnyhopper? How about the pistol? Emptying the pistol in a couple of seconds takes a high degree of mouse control and one hell of a twitchy finger. The players that were truely skilled could fire their pistol insanely fast and still keep aim on the target. I could never do this. Every time I fired my pistol quickly my aim suffered quite a bit. I could theoretically use a pistol script and compensate, but you know what? That is tantamount to cheating for me. I wasn't capable of using the pistol like that. Why should I rely on the computer to do it for me? Next thing you know, I'm using an aimbot to 'assist my aim'. But then there's the customization part of me.
I had Tribes 2 tweaked so much, the game hardly looked like the core game itself. My vehicle hud had a prioritization system based on the map making it easy for me to chose my favorite vehicle and purchase it right away without risking getting shot while fumbling with the mouse. I had nearly tripled my favorites, and had every key on the keyboard mapped to something, and even more alt-, ctrl-, alt+ctrl- mapped as well. I had various indicators that would pop up and show me more clearly what the situation was.
Back to NS - Scripters attempt to justify that scripting is only about customization and nothing more. Bull^^ to that I say. The Half-Life scripting engine isn't CAPABLE of displaying informational popup HUDs to tell me who has the enemy flag and how fast they're going. THAT is customization. A script that drops a Defense Chamber and then tells your team that there's another DC active? That is customization. A button you can push that asks for a medpack and gives a text alert for the commander? Customization. A button that will switch you to leap, attack, then switch to bite in a thousandth of a second? That is NOT CUSTOMIZATION.
Firing your pistol very quickly without your aim suffering is a SKILL.
Bunnyhopping somewhat successfully despite frame rates and ping is a SKILL.
Blinking into a marine, cutting through him, blinking above his teammate and slicing him in half at nearly an inhuman blur is a lesson in timing, and ultimately SKILL.
Scripts that automate these processes aren't customizing anything for you. I've seen firsthand what these things do to a good game when everyone is using them. The unskilled become unnaturally skilled. The truely good players are... 'cheated' in a way. The only possible reason, just like Tribes 2, that people use these scripts is because they simply aren't good enough to do them themselves. The three most popular scripts - 3jump, pistol scripting, and leap/bite blink/slash, aren't customizing. They are COMPENSATING. All three of the skills they emulate require training to accomplish. And if you can't play the game without your autoskill script, then you may as well load your aimbot and wallhack, since it's tantamount to the same thing to me. THIS is why I am against scripting. Scripting begets cheating - except instead of using a 3rd party program, one uses the game engine itself to perform tasks for them. I have SEEN these things in action, and what they do to a game. I quit Tribes 2 for a time chiefly because I was disgusted with players who were only playing half the game, and the game was playing the other half for them.
When I heard of an option in NS to sacrifice customization in lieu of stopping people who are faking their real skill, I was, and still am, completely for it. Until a more advanced version comes along and bans people who are skill compensating while still allowing customization, then turn that one on instead I say.
As for those of you who used to use those skill-compensating scripts, you should be ashamed of yourself, and I frankly would not be surprised in the least that some of you die-hard scripters are basically exploiting on our server just to get your scripts back in and compensate. Shame on you, shame on you all.
