Addon discussion

[UBERHAXED]

I like how they say "PlayStation". It's pretty clear it's not the PS3 in particular when it comes down to UI additions. It's consoles in general.

They couls not even add tp bars without "deleting" (party stat buffs) somethting from the UI. I wonder how they will phrase it next time.

They say "playstation" because they are talking about add-on distribution. Because sony does not allow users to modify their system and run arbitrary software on the playstation (likely to prevent running non-purchased copies of games) the only distribution of add-on sources are those which are passed through the playstation store, Because the process is not the same for distributing add-ons on PC (click this link to download and run the program!) there will be a difference between the add-ons between the systems, reason either being that the distribution process is too difficult (pretty sure sony also requires access to the source to distribute) or the lack of technical skill to even replicate the desktop application for both sony platforms.

What will really happen is with-in 3 months of add-on support, PC will have thousands of UI add-on and hundreds of utility add-ons, PS4 will have 2 UI add-on and nothing else, and nothing will be on the PS3 playstation store. Hence the widening gap between players and people will now completely shun PS players for not having access to "core required" features for high level gameplay.

Also the guy talking about the battle log... It might be worth mentioning that parsers do not read the battle log (or pretty much anything in the game). It speaks directly to Direct X (outside the game) and your PC's network traffic (also outside the game). So excluding access to the battle log is completely useless. That said, since the current software does not interact with the game, it is not possible to tell if you are using an add-on with the usage of the sanctioned API or not.

[raelgun]

Also the guy talking about the battle log... It might be worth mentioning that parsers do not read the battle log (or pretty much anything in the game). It speaks directly to Direct X (outside the game) and your PC's network traffic (also outside the game). So excluding access to the battle log is completely useless. That said, since the current software does not interact with the game, it is not possible to tell if you are using an add-on with the usage of the sanctioned API or not.

Are you refering to how ACT works or how other games like WoW have implemented their dps meters?

The one in Wow does read the battle log, that game is very very client side which is why its so responsive in its gameplay.

Also looking at http://mods.curse.com/ which holds a large amount of addons for other mmos, unless its WoW which has had over 10 years behind it, other mmos do not have thousands of addons.

[UBERHAXED]

Are you refering to how ACT works or how other games like WoW have implemented their dps meters?

The one in Wow does read the battle log, that game is very very client side which is why its so responsive in its gameplay.

ACT specifically. In FFXIV, the battle log omits important information, so it cannot be use as a reliable source. Specifically, server side information (e.g. DoT damage) is not displayed in the battle log.


That said, because the client displays DoT damage (example) on the UI, this information is still sent over the network from the server to the client and can be accessed by reading the network traffic.

Edit: Technically the historical name (parser) is actually an artifact from methods used to determine dps in older games, because "parsing" the battle log is no longer done. That said, as SE correctly specified in their post, the correct term to call these programs are DPS meters.

[UBERHAXED]

Also looking at http://mods.curse.com/ which holds a large amount of addons for other mmos, unless its WoW which has had over 10 years behind it, other mmos do not have thousands of addons.

It was a hyperbole... Thousands of add-ons would mean that there are thousands of software developers playing the game. I would wager that there are certainly less than 100 software developers (real developers, not hobbyists) with skill on the windows platform (windows is a monster to develop on due to a lot of non-standard stuff that MS does) who also active enough players of the game to even warrant making changes in their free time. Even then, software developers have a secret oath to not reinvent the wheel, so duplication of other work is discouraged. There's only some much unique things one can do with an already limited UI.