I know I complained about that profile when I first started here, but once I figured out the game a little more I had no problem with it. I completely agree that it is worth buying, and that a Zodiac Weapon profile would be worth buying. Bring on the store... Wait... where is Mastahg? Mastahg? ..why aren't you participating in this thread?
Trust me when I tell you that this has been asked for A LOT. Unfortunately though, it's not a high priority for Raphus to implement on the Store. That's getting onto a whole new topic though. Hopefully Mastahg will decide to participate in this conversation "soon" so we can see if he'll actually do it or not.
Could potentially do a community rating system in a thread and have everyone send their comments to whoever wanted to operate it. Until they develop one that is built in of course.
First I understand how lucrative extensions are. Before I worked full time for the buddyteam I was one of the first,if not the first person to sell combat routines(selling customized ret paladin routines for arena in wotlk, then "vanguard" for cata+pandaland; before any concrete rules about no paid for products), my work was often imitated (Everyone "used" my dll loading code). Now we have the buddystore and I am conflicted about it being introduced into RB. It was my hope that by providing the quality of API that I wish HB had when I was writing my own routines that development would flourish. While there were a few developers at the beginning the number has dropped. My concern is what effect will the introduction of the shop have on the overall number of developers in the ecosystem. While the idea getting paid will encourage some to develop new content, it will also raise the barrier to entry for new developers to come along as they won't be able to see how the extension works. Also, it makes people who are otherwise capable, totally incapable of modifying an extension even in the slightest. Another concern I have is the quality of the code that would be produced, right now we have some good code out there, but a lot of what I like to call "Shit code", I swear if I see another "treeroot.stop()" its going to become an internal function as people seem to love sprinkling that around. I don't want to introduce the store without me personally being able to looking over the code at least once per major update of a product, and require a certain level of quality be maintained before a product becomes available. This would end up adding a lot more work to my already loaded schedule. Then there are two final remaining issues: The actual implementation of it. It's not as simple as adding a dll to the project and being done with it. Integration with the store would require a decent bit of work to get it functioning fully. Right now my main focus is on getting ready for heavensward and the introduction of flying mechanics to the game. I want something that will function way better the flightor in honorbuddy, which is going to take a lot of work. The final issue is financial, I haven't spoken to bossland and workout what the cut of the proceeds would be.
I understand your concerns. The API for RB is excellent; there are hardly any bugs, it's clean, and the naming convention used makes most things self-explanatory. The only problem I found was the lack of documentation in regards to RB's internal architecture. Some things might be obvious for people who have had experience programming bots in the past, but for other programmers whose past work has had little to do with injection or behavior trees it can get rough. Programmers usually learn stuff fast, but there has to be a source to learn it. When I started I felt overwhelmed by the amount of questions that I had. Things like: Was game data cached each tick? Is it correct to send multiple actions to the game on a single tick? Can I sleep the thread, or make an external thread for a task? In what order are the different hooks on the tree called? Where should I hook this if I want it to be called above combat logic? Must a bot base create a navigator? What is the effect of returning a RunStatus.Running? What do I need to consider when I extend a tag or a composite? You are right that the way I learned was through looking at other people's code and a lot of trial and error. I have two problems with this though: 1. Many people did bad stuff in their code, and since that's where we learn from, we end up repeating the bad stuff. Like you said, stopping the tree is done a lot, from FateAutoLeveler to Atma Hunter. They sleep the thread outside of coroutines, etc. Then someone new comes around and thinks doing that is fine. 2. Good programmers would learn very quickly how to do stuff without needing to see other people’s full work if there were good documentation and a few good examples. Someone who has experience programming doesn't need to be told that fate info is on FateManager and inventory data is on InventoryManager, they just need to know that game data is separated by managers, and a few technical details like: Is the data cached for the entire tick? i.e. if I read a slot on inventory, move the item to another slot, then read it again on the same tick, will it reflect the change or won't until the next tick?" Once someone knows how to send actions and read data from the game, the rest is up to him. Rebornbuddy was the first time I programmed something as a hobby that ended up being shared with others, everything else had been for work or personal use. It was a new experience, and it felt good to see people's posts about how useful what you've made is and how grateful they are. What I made, I made it because I needed it for myself, and thought sharing it would be easy. But after a while, things started to feel like an actual job with the amount of customer service you end up giving. I'm of the mindset that the only way I'd give customer service to people is if, in fact, they are my customers. I am done leveling every crafting class to 50, why should I worry about supporting anything other than endgame crafting now? I can self-repair everything, why should I care about supporting something that repairs with menders? You'd prefer a GUI instead of Yaml/Json/Xml files cause they can be complicated to edit? Well they aren't for me. After a while, the drive to add the features that people wanted, or fix problems specific to other people's circumstances starts to dwindle. I'm at a point where I'll just do the stuff I want to do, like the crafting AI, for myself. I'll probably only share it with people who have helped me in some way, also made something for the community, or are one of the three people kind enough to have donated. It might sound selfish, but if you're not going to seed the torrent and only leech, then don't expect the seeders to go out of their way to help you either.
My thoughts about the concerns: With the amount of tools that are currently available to create profiles for OrderBot, I would love to see RB implement the Store for Plugins/CombatRoutines only. The barrier to enter Plugins/CombatRoutines is already very high. I don't see the Store preventing anyone else starting these...especially with the few amount of developers that are already doing them. I'm going to quote myself for that one: To add to that.... Expecting everyone to code to your standards just wouldn't work. With the new approval system, you just need to make sure that your work does what it says it will do. If it doesn't, then it would be denied for approval. No one can deny that it will be a significant amount of work to integrate with the Store, and I'm sure that we will want to be able to handle flying through the API. I also bet that if most had to choose between flying in the API and a lot of other things that have been requested to be in the API...they'd choose the other things(Player Stats just to name one!) I do not know if you're talking about bossland's cut as in the entire Buddy company or if you mean your personal amount....but currently Bossland takes 30% of what is sold on the Store. I'm not sure if that is different for ArcheAge compared to WoW, but looking at the documents regarding the Store, I would say it would be 30%. I would highly recommend looking at this page: BosslandGmbH:Getting Started with the Buddy Store (as a Developer) - The Buddy Wiki
I just checked online, and it would cost $107 to have someone powerlevel that questline. I never buy powerleveling, but I would certainly pay $30 Euros for a profile that would help me do it with Rebornbuddy. Furthermore, I appreciate Mastahg's concerns. I don't think any of us wish to see a hasty project thrown together. However, a priority list could be developed to determine the type of products that would be initially accepted in the RB store for the first 6 to 9 weeks, and if some of them just set on your desk for a few weeks due to time restraints then that is understandable. Since, I am new to FFXIV and to RB, I know my own suggestions concerning priorities may be misguided, but I have heard several people say we need a better CR for healing, a profile for relic/zodiac, and I am sure the old timers around here could help to build a decent priority list for what is actually needed. Then, if someone develops a new profile for mining and it is not on the priority list you could simply give it a temporary rejection, and tell them to try again after 6 to 9 weeks.
Unfortunately, the Store doesn't work like that. You're not going to be able to just reject anything new until all of the "wishlist" items have been made. It would be a free market where anyone can make any thing they want for it(for whatever is enabled for it). What I think you'd see is people making CR's for the individual classes instead of All-In-Ones. Personally I wouldn't ever try to make another all-in-one again. It's just too much of a headache to try and support EVERYTHING. I'd be happy to do single class CR's though. I'm sure that once/if the Store gets implemented you'll see more CR's out there. I know I'd start with a Healing or Tank CR since that's what everyone seems to need the most right now. If I could put that out on the Store, I'm sure it'd be worth the time to invest in.
Yeah, I can't code like 99% of the developers here. I'm still learning C# for one. I'm using various works including HBs Singular to try and fathom the different styles of combat routine implementation. So far I've got it doing all the basics, group healing, solo combat, pre-buffing etc, and it does a decent job. But then everyone has different approaches to certain aspects, such as dispelling, which I would like to keep refreshed on tick for fights where dispelling is crucial to survival. It's been a steep learning curve for me as I've never done this type of coding before, and without the ability to look at how others do it will be extremely prohibitive. Nor can you expect my code to be anywhere near the competency of Neverdyne et al who are adept coders. My routine is only for Scholar, and it's still a long way off, and I'm going to need help. I have the deepest respect for all those all-in-one developers, debugging one class is headache, but doing for all. Well it's akin to a full time job, and people need to be rewarded for it.
I invite you to join.....https://www.thebuddyforum.com/rebornbuddy-forum/community-developer-forum/211508-community-developer-skype-chat.html
Sodimm you're doing a good job if you ask me. Honestly, a bot is a difficult environment to learn C#, because a big part of the difficulty is not the language itself, but the architecture of the bot and how to cope with it. There's things that are perfectly fine to do on other kinds of applications that are just not correct to do here. I've programmed in many kinds of environments before, from x86 assembler to PIC C, and it still took me a while to understand how RB works design wise, specially when you haven't heard much about behavior trees or injection in general.
If the store never becomes a reality, perhaps you could start your own website the way some have done with Honorbuddy Combat Routines. That way, you would not have to share 30% with anyone. Perhaps some of the other starving programmers here might even partner with you. I have purchased several different Honorbuddy addons (over $200) from offsite.
If i had to chose between a flying support in the expansion or an advanced healing/tank routine i would definitelly chose the later. The fact is that if there are no good combat routines in expansion i wont play for more than a month and will go back to wow. But i have already bought the bot and you would thing that mashtag got payed already so....i dont think he is caring if i do continue play the game and use the bot since is a lifetime. Also i would like to apologize that i have not donated till now. When i got the bot i already had my class to 50 and all crafting/gathering classes too. I only used the bot to do fates and for basic gathering profiles...and also i used lisbeth for mass production of items(i was using keybord macros with in-game macros to do this before) Also my classes are paladin and white mage...i play paladin manually and for white mage i use rebornco and magitech, 2 cr that are no longer supported.. So what to donate? I would gladly pay for a good tank/heal routine and coming expasion i would gladly pay a good crafting bot that will help me level my crafting classes and make quality stuff with an advance logic..
I'm for this too. I remember getting a all in one paladin CR for HB long ago and paid off site for it. Will do the same for a updated CR.
I would support both the store and private site for an updated healing tanking CR. I dont mind paying $40 as it has shown the amount of works developers put in deserve if not more than that.
I would support the shop or the private site. as long as you get what you deserve for your work and we get steadily upgraded/updated scripts I don't mind paying between 25-50€ for a good working script (and not only 2liners)
For now, let's try and keep this topic to the matter at hand...trying to convince Mastahg to implement the Buddy Store for Rebornbuddy. Hopefully Mastahg will continue to have an open dialog on this topic so we can see if he'll do it or not. Talk of selling stuff on another site is well and fine...IF Mastahg won't implement the Buddy Store. It would be MUCH easier to have things streamed down to your clients through the buddy store rather than having to keep an SVN updated.
Let's also keep in mind that we are trying to work with Mastahg to accommodate everyone needs. He is doing a great job with RebornBuddy and I wouldn't want to see any resentment towards him whatever way this ends up going. Please keep in mind that we are trying to keep the RB community growing with new ideas and better service for all. Like Wheredidigo said, if we can keep communication on this topic open I am sure that we can come up with a plan to keep everyone happy.
Lets also not forget to mention that by releaseing/selling through a private site you are giving the full code to the client instead of streaming it, I know there are ways around this, but it opens up for the ability for that one person who bought it to distribute it for free/profit again elsewhere.
I'm all for paying for a routine, but 40$? Not a chance, that's way too much unless it covers ALL classes like Ultima does, if it is only for tanking or dpsing or healing specifically that is way too high a price for a routine in my opinion.
