KoLmafia Praise

[Presto Ragu]

No matter how it may appear, I really enjoy Mafia.

It has kept me in KoL for a long time after I would have just left the game.

And because of that, I have been privileged to witness the new content. (Even that which I do not agree with. ;) )

Every one who works on Mafia has my respect, and admiration.


Now... If there was just a way to keep the KoL developers from altering code to make the Mafia development easier. :P

[efilnikufecin]

Stands up and walks to the front of the group. To begin speaking.
I speak for a group of others who are unable to be here when I say that kolmafia has saved their interest in the game. Often these players might very well have had their accounts deleted if kolmafia didn't exist. That very aspect would have caused them to lose interest.
Overall, I can say that they all really appreciate what the developers of kolmafia have done.

Now I will speak for myself when I say that I think I might appreciate what you have done a little more than any of them. My reason for saying that is I not only get the benefit of using this great program, but some of the people mentioned above wanted me to write a program to do these things in pascal. The start of that program is somewhere on my computer, and all it does is log on to kol. I was searching for some form of database of info about kol to port into my program when I found kolmafia. After checking out the functionality of kolmafia I found that it had all the features I was planning to write into my program, and many more that I never thought of adding. The feature I use the most was one of them, and that feature is scripting. :D

Thanks a million!

I have noticed in the internal databases that it appears as though information was obtained from external sources for parts of kolmafia. I would like to extend my thanks even further to include those people, and any other person who has aided in the development of this program.

[Veracity]

I have noticed in the internal databases that it appears as though information was obtained from external sources for parts of kolmafia. I would like to extend my thanks even further to include those people, and any other person who has aided in the development of this program.

This is a good point.

Thank you to Max Demian (even though I intensely dislike many other things he's done) for his Item Number Database. We used it to seed our item description database with the original data. I haven't used it for a long time; I now have other ways to directly get itemdescs (mall stores, display cases, ...) but his work was important for us.

Thank you to Kittiwake for his Monster Attack/Defense/HP database, and what he discovered about XP, monster levels, and so much more that we now display in the Location Details pane.

Thank you to Yiab for his many months of tireless investigation to collect Combat info, Item Drops, and Meat Drops for (almost) all the monsters in the kingdom. That info also now appears in the Location Details pane.

Thank you to Vladjimir for coming up with the 0-3 star system for rating familars in Arena contests. That data is at the heart of the Familiar Trainer. We now have a way to discover that data directly ourselves when a new familiar comes out, so we haven't used his recent data, but his work was key. (Some of our own investigation leads me to think that more granularity is appropriate for some familiars; 0-3 is generally pretty good, but not always...)

[holatuwol]

My ever-short thank-you list of data contributors is conveniently stored on the KoLmafia Sourceforge website, and I'd feel rather silly copy-pasting that list here.

http://kolmafia.sourceforge.net/credits.html

There are other people I'd like to thank, too -- daychilde, for coming up with the idea for a Praise forum, efilnikufecin and Presto Ragu for taking the time to drop by and say something positive eventhough it might seem a little hokey to do so.

I'd also like to thank Veracity for breaking the developer ice so I don't feel hokey for posting here, and everyone who swung by this forum, thought about posting thanks, but felt a little awkward in doing so.

But, I thought I'd let you know how this forum will help in the development of KoLmafia -- you don't have to come in here and sing praises of KoLmafia.* Essentially, the basis of the next big project for KoLmafia is how you, yes you use KoLmafia.* You guessed it: the mythical KoLmafia end-user manual!

What you can do is (without putting down the developers or anything) create a post in this thread which describes how you use KoLmafia.* You can either be creative about it (turn it into a short story about a single day's use), methodical about it (make it look like an ascension log that might be posted to Hardcore OxygeNation), or vague about it (I use it for this, this and this.* Thanks so much for those features!).* Or, if you wanted, and you felt that the result was cockle-warming, you could attach your name to it and send it to my gmail account (yes, it's what you think it is -- attach my forum handle to gmail) and I'll use it as part of my portfolio letters.

I'll be taking all of that information into account when writing the KoLmafia user manual -- in short, new users should be introduced to existing uses of KoLmafia in addition to theoretical uses of KoLmafia based on my own experiences (since I use KoLmafia differently from most people).* So, no need to write some amazing, cockle-warming thank you (I know some people hesitate because they want to write something like that, but don't worry!) -- something straightforward and personal is more than enough.

Incentive: your thank you will actually help the project in non-hokey, tangible ways.* Seriously!* So, if you ever felt guilty for never giving anything tangible to the project, this is your chance to make up for it. ^_~

[efilnikufecin]

Well now I stop by again because I want to thank the developers for offering us the chance to provide input into the design of kolmafia. Anyone who uses a program often develops ideas that would be great to add to the program that other people might just love, but not think of themselves. Some might seem silly, or even off the wall, but may just prove beneficial. It's great to be able to offer these ideas, and have them implemented.

Now as for Holatuwol's post above. I read the post just after it was first made, but didn't reply right away. I planned to do so, but had some things I had to do so I didn't have time. This lead to my forgetting to post later. Sorry about that.

What I do the most of with kolmafia is take care of other people's accounts. Though I know that kolmafia isn't intended to totally run a character, I prefer to not even log on to the account other than in strictly cli mode. The ability to print some data to a file affords me enough basic info about the account to know when something goes wrong. Then I log on normally if need be, but most of my scripts are written so that they can just be re-ran to fix any error.

I also have a script for my DC which automattically builds a list of items I have in my inventory which need to go into my DC. It then puts them in. I sit in trade a lot buying items, and the same script that handles my DC handles my store too saving me a ton of time. I prefer using the relay browser for chat, but I switch to kolmafia after buying several items so I can run the script.

I'll toss this in here just for the humor of it. I have sometimes wished that kolmafia would add an extra chat command when in relay browser mode. That command would be something like "/run script.ash" which obviously kolmafia would take that command out before it was sent to the server, and of course run the script.

Now does anyone wanna feel weird?? How much more weird can one be than to make a bug report on kol because "the new feature where a use link is added when obtaining an item only seems to work part of the time." I did it. :o That feature fit so well into kol that I did not realize it was a feature of kolmafia. I really wish I could find a way of making people feel more comfortable posting their thanks here. I know I am grateful enough to get past feeling uncomfortable and I think everyone else should be too.

[macman104]

This is going to be short cause it's early, and I still have the letter that I've been writing for some time now to send to you Hola, it's sittin' there, almost done. Anyway, I've come to the point where if mafia ceased to exist, I'm not sure what would happen. One of the biggest things I use mafia for is inventory handling. That is, moving items from one place to another, sending items, DCing them, etc.

Now, that may not seem like a huge deal, but there are quite a few things that I do after I complete an ascension. For example, I have a massive list of people that I give gifts to. This list is close to 25+ people long, and if I had to send out all those gifts by hand after every ascension, I'd be doing it forever, and most likely, I would stop and only give gifts (usually DC collections) to those that I felt really close with. I like being able to give the items out to everyone, and I'm thankful that mafia is able to do this for me.

DCing things is also tedious. I have a nice little script that DC's my current collection stuff, and allows me to run it, and be done. It's something that would again, become tedious, and especially when I do it after every ascension.

Kmailing items. I send all my remaining items and meat to be sold to my mall/trade multi, and mafia lets me specify all the items I want to send, and then sends as many messages as it takes to do so. Sometimes, those items make for 4-5 separate kmails.

Ok, so this wasn't as short as I was thinking it would be, but that just goes to show, how much mafia means to me. These are simply the most consistent ways that I use mafia, however, I do use it for other things from time-to-time.

Since, Holatuwol mentioned it...

KoLMafia warms my cockles every time I use it :o

Thanks KoLMafia developers for all the work you do. :)

[Presto Ragu]

feels the prodding guilt to post.

Right. I did mean to answer Holatuwol earlier than this... I did. But I had trouble putting my common usage of mafia into words. So I decided to think on it. Somewhere between then and now, I forgot about it. :S Sorry Holatuwol.

My primary usage of mafia... HMmm..

First, let me say that for a free, no frills game, KoL kicks major ass. It is a great game - the first 20 or so times that you see it. After that, it gets tedious to do even the most simple tasks. I am sure this is due in part to the language that KoL has to be programed in. I am, by no means, a HTML/XML/Javascript guru... But from my limited forays into that arena, I know it isn't as flexible as it should be for a project like KoL.

But I digress.

Mafia saved my interest in KoL. I stumbled upon it many, many months before ascension was rolled out. During a time when all there was to do was to level. It kept me around. In fact, it is likely the only reason I still stay with the game...

It is the scripting that holds my attention. I know, I haven't been posting many new scripts... But that is because what I need scripts to do at this point has become more complex than I can easily translate to either of the scripting languages.... In other words, Mafia lets me challenge myself as much as I want to. And that is a great little addition.


And I still haven't listed how I usually use Mafia... I guess I still can't put it into words...


Mostly I use it for everyday tasks. I use it almost exclusively. I only go through a browser when I have to work around a Mafia - KoL interface problem, or I am in a browser anyway, and just want to check one or two things.

A lot of the early content I do "by hand" through the mini browser, but once you get to about level 5, things start to get tedious... Spend 50 turns leveling up in the Treasury, to get the next quest, to finish it in 20 turns, to spend the next 70 turns leveling up in the friars gate...

That would be damn annoying without Mafia.

I also really enjoy the item crafting aspect of Mafia. The ability to have Mafia tell me what I can make with my given ingredients is very nice. Now all I need for it to do is to recommend the best food / booze item it can make given my ingredients, level, and class. :P

Beyond that, I use the chat window. The tabbed chatting is great. Not having to worry about the leading /r has greatly reduced the amount of misfires into the wrong chat pane.


Mafia still isn't "perfect." I mean, it can't save me from my own stupidity... I made a quick foray into the Tavern yesterday to get some lenses, and forgot about the 1 drunkenness I picked up while there. And then proceeded to overdrink... But weighed out to the multitude of times I would have overdrank due to lag, or accidental over-clickage... I still think Mafia is the best way to play KoL after you have "seen it all."

[asturia]

since I don't own a credit card, I can't donate to get a Mr. A.
So I use Kolmafia to farm for enough meat to buy one and after that I use it to do my ascensions.

Kolmafia makes this real easy, so I want to thank the developers for making this wonderfull program.

[deusnoctum]

KOLmafia has been a godsend for me. There's no way I'd have the time or patience to play through 300 adventures a day on my two characters, particularly because one of them uses a stasis strategy. The information and automation provided (especially when trying to figure out what food and booze I can make) has saved me a huge amount of time--quite frankly, without this program I wouldn't have the patience to be still playing this game, even though I've had an account for less than a year.

[Veracity]

I'd like to emphasize that "figuring out what food or drink you can make" comment.

I originally pointed out that one of the main thing I did that required a whole bunch of manual intevention was figuring out what drinks I could make, given the cocktailcrafting accessories and booze and fruit I had available. It's all very well that I could use my single Little Paper Umbrella to make drink A or drink B - but I obviously couldn't make drink A AND drink B. I was looking at drink recipes and manually doing the calculations.

holatuwol responded with the "queue" feature in the item manager - and I think it's pure genius. When I queue up a creation that uses my single LPU, all other creations that need an LPU disappear, and I can see it immediately and consider if that's what I want. I speculatively queue a concoction, undo it, queue another, and eventually end up with exactly the set of drinks that use what I have available and give me what I want.

It's incredible. I've heard others say that they think it's useless because it doesn't do what they want to do - but I shrug. It does exactly what I need, and I find the interface intuitive and easy to use.

Holatuwol has said that "everything that people like was done by Veracity" - but it just ain't true. I do things that I (and others) like - but he's the driving force behind the whole program and has done plenty of (seemingly easy) things like the concoction queue which are just perfect, in my opinion.

Thank you!

[HoW]

As many of you might have already guessed, I am a Man of very few words, not that I don't know a lot of words, mind you, Its just that I really really hate typing.. :-X

So's, without further ado.

Thank you one and all who have been and mayhap will be, a part of this most glorious project known as KoLmafia.

Thank you.

[rainacake]

Thank you all! As, always..
We appreciate you guys so much.
It feels a little annoying/weird to saying it so much, but it's just.. true.
It seems like you all do sooo much work.
One of my favorite things about Kolmafia is seeing inventory and creatable items.
And I, personally, would have never known the things I could have been making!
On that note, I am very happy with your level of Crimbo involvement. Of course I'd love to adventure without clicking 1,0000 times, but it's totally understandable to not want to include this. What I DO think is awesome, is that you include everything else about it, like the items and foods, what we can create!
OK I'm going to shut up now.

[efilnikufecin]

I just noticed something new in a daily build that I really like! For a long time now I have been going to the bounty hunter hunter in the relay browser, accepting a bounty, then spending 1 adventure in that location and letting kolmafia take over. Now I see that I cont have to take the time to spend the adventure because kolmafia already knows where I am about to have it do my work. It's already selected! Yet another great feature! Thanks everyone!

[vicgolgo13]

I cannot thank you enough for all the time and hard work spent on creating this!
KoLMafia definitely helps save sooooo much time in so many areas, but I mainly use it for item creation and management. I'm sure that most everyone that uses the daily builds are as appreciative as I am!

Thanks!

[Raven434]

I just wanted to thank all of the Devs and all of the community members for all of their hard work and tireless support.

I can't imagine playing KoL without Mafia. I am coming up on my 1st KoL-versary and would have hung it up long ago without Mafia.

Thanks!

/toast

[tylersalt]

Ditto to everyone who's posted! Great job and thank you for all your hard work!!! :D

[mcsmackton]

i use this everyday and am so glad people are keeping it up to date. it make tons of things slightly easier for me. i mainly use it in relay browser mode for my hardcore/badmoon character I play daily. thank you so much for continually improving this awesome program.

[Not Quite RIght]

You are better than sex :o
keep it up guys ::)

[etheralled]

I just wanted to share with you a K-mail I received this morning and thought all of you who donate your time, effort and obsession to make KolMafia such an awesome tool would enjoy.

[hr]
Date: Thursday, March 13, 2008, 12:15PM

Haha and wow!!!

For some reason, your clans website has totally got me interested in using KoLMafia. I'll let you know when the keyboard starts smoking!
[hr]

If anyone does check out my clans website, I promote Mafia on the page "About E_D". Seriously hope you don't mind the free advertisement.
The other thing of note is our Links page. If anyone knows of any other helpful and informative sites for the Kingdom, I would love to know so I can add them.
The intention is simply to make a handy location that has all the many useful links of informative KOL sites that were otherwise cluttering my bookmarks. Hopefully others too may find it a useful resource.

Note: This is NOT an advertisement for my clan. This is a THANK YOU MAFIA ROCKS and has been what keeps me playing KOL for some time now. PLEASE KNOW YOU ARE LOVED!!!

[NardoLoopa]

I've said this several times on the main KoL forum, but I would like to mention it again: thank you to all the developers who have spent time on KoLMafia. I really wouldn't have played KoL more than 1 ascension if I didn't discover this client. Your rapid response to bugs and changes in KoL's interface are always appreciated.

Thanks again for spending so much time to save us so much time.

[Dreamthief]

Hi all, just wanted to pop in and say that you all do some nice work.

I expected to find alot of slapped together questionable stuff when i first heard about mafia, however, I seem to be pleasantly surprised at every turn.

Keep up the awesome work all!

DT

[dj_d]

Nobody's been here for a while, so let me get the juice flowing again:

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. When I tell people about KOL, I usually tell them about KOLmafia in the same breath, because it makes the game that much cooler. It's so awesome, it has its own scripting language!

I start every day with breakfast.ash. Then I bring up the relay browser and poke around the kingdom a bit. Then I run auto bountyhunt.ash. Then, depending where I am in my ascension run, I fire off the appropriate script: quest-giant.ash, quest-pagoda.ash, or quest-wossname.ash for example (some written by me, many written by forum posters). Then I bring up the item browser, look at recently gained items, mallsell them, pop over to the store manager, and autoprice them. Then I run goodnight.ash, and log off!

[kain]

I just wanted to hop in and express my sincere gratitude for the Mafia project.

Also, happy birthday H!!!

[dangerpin]

Before changes to the game borked Mafia, I have to say it was amazing to me just how well it was working, how fast it was running and how fantastic it is to have all the new features.

I had planned on saying it sooner, but I thought it was even more important to say it in light of these changes and the to game itself and the additional work it is going to require to get it back there.

I don't say thank you enough, I think it is a shame that so many take Mafia running so smoothly for granted.

To everyone that spends time working to put this labor of love out my deepest thanks.

[Bale]

I'll second dangerpin's sentiment.

Kol is a great game with more than its share of drudgery. mafia removes that drudgery so I can fully enjoy as much of the game as I want. Thank you hola, veracity and everyone else who has contributed to making this program.

And a second thank you to everyone who is working on un-breaking mafia.

[Makarina]

Hi Guys

this is the first time I have posted since I just registered, but I have been a mafia user for the last couple of years and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate all your hard work on it. IT is an excellent tool.

[amisam]

Like Makarina, I just joined the forums but I've been using mafia pretty much from when I started playing KOL. It enhances the game no end for me and I especially appreciate how quickly you respond the increasingly frequent mafia-breaking changes going on in KOL. Thanks guys!

[EdFox]

I only joined the forums to download scripts and daily builds--I have the coding abilities of an eggplant--but I'm happy to make my one, and probably only, post here a warm thank you to the hardworking developers of mafia, and to all the script writers, too! :)

[Cereal killer]

Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for the great job all of you do!

[dangerpin]

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f339/dosjock/meatgem.jpg

A nice little hardcore present.

[jokermage]

I have a little ash script that I run before I ascend that sends items I have in inventory to people who I know who collect them. Basically its a bunch of lines like...

cli_execute("send * stuffed cocoabo to holatuwol || End of Run Collection Items!");
So if any of the mafia developers or forum admins want in on this, send me a PM with your character name and items you collect. As long as the item isn't rare or expensive (don't tell me you collect Mr. A's or hockey sticks, even if it is true) or being collected by someone on already on the list, I'll add you to the script.

Consider this my way of saying thanks.

(Yes, the line I used as an example is an actual line in the script.)

[kain]

I like that idea!

>adds some lines to his pre-ascension script<

[dawdawdo]

Mafia really refines KOL. It's like the 1.10 patch to Diablo II; Everything you didn't know you were missing.

[siameseretriever]

Love it! Thanks for all of your hard work!

[Jatopian]

i <3 kolmafia

I wish I'd understood earlier that it's not about not playing the game at all, it's about distilling the fun bits. I think that's a common misconception.

I think I wouldn't have wandered off for most of '09 if I'd known.

[Bale]

I like that! It could be KoLmafia's motto: It's not about playing the game. It's about distilling the fun bits!

[Terion]

I like that! It could be KoLmafia's motto: It's not about playing the game. It's about distilling the fun bits!

Missed his negative in there: "It's not about not playing the game...", addressing the concern/complaint about mafia, "Oh, I want to play the game, not just click a button and have everything done for me."

[StorellaDeville]

From the Thread "Add version / build# to Main Interface titlebar":



Try doing "ant clean" first.
Yeah, who wants dirty bugs? :D

Hey, I keep noticing the version and release (revision?) number in the titlebar while using the daily build lately. I realized something: it comforts me. I guess it's related to my... compulsive? desire for information. I really do feel like it's a good idea in general, though.

So thank you for considering the change, and for implementing it. And thank you for the daily builds. Though I still stick with the full versions, the times I start using daily builds they're very valuable to me. And thanks for KoLmafia! Other than the things that might seem obvious, it's a really nice help when babysitting accounts.
I thought this would be a good place to repeat the thanks and express my gratitude. Also to repeat the ant joke, poking fun at my own ignorance -- and pointing out the superness of the people who do understand it!

[wrldwzrd89]

KoLmafia is a wonderful time-saver. It makes so many parts of KoL so much more... bearable :p I'm also glad that it's being continually improved.

[dangerpin]

This was a really enjoyable Crimbo, the update availability in Mafia made it even more so. I hope the change in crimbo release philosophy made things more calm and less frustrating for all the people who work hard to keep Mafia up to date. Thank you for giving me more options and time to think about my game strategy. Thank you for giving me more time with my family.

[kain]

Hear Hear! Thanks for everything that the Mafia devs did this last month.

[darkraven]

I believe you guys .. but i can't use it X_X

please help me.. guide me

[Bale]

guide me

Guide (http://wiki.kolmafia.us/index.php?title=KoLmafia_Guide)

[wrldwzrd89]

I believe you guys .. but i can't use it X_X

please help me.. guide me
The first thing you should do is go grab the latest daily build from the Daily Builds link at the top. Save the file to your computer - daily builds are distributed as JAR files. You'll then need to check to see if you have a new enough JRE to run KoLmafia: the relevant links can be found on KoLmafia's Sourceforge page (http://kolmafia.sourceforge.net/). If you lack a new enough JRE, go download and install one. Finally, double-click the JAR file - that should run KoLmafia. If your computer instead tries to extract the JAR (and you're running Windows), you've run into a common problem, which a free program called jarfix (http://johann.loefflmann.net/en/software/jarfix/index.html) can solve. Hope that gets you going.