ascend.ash

Bale said:

I'd trade you a Mr. A to keep it to yourself

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Hey how about throwing me a couple to fund development of my own? ...which I will then not release. The more Mr. As u want to contribute, the more awesome functionality I will make and keep private!

While I am sure that the script ascend was a huge job to write, I would never use it even if it were free. What is the point in playing a game if all you have to do is log in and tell mafia to run the script?

don't get me wrong I use the auto adventure function in mafia to burn turns once I free the king and sometimes to finish the war when I get tired of grinding that out. But a script to take a character from ascending to the NS is just taking things way too far.

MHoP: I definitely understand your feelings, and commend you for sticking to your principles. Many people feel the same way about botting (e.g. using KolMafia) at all.

For some of us on an ascension grind, though - I'm doing literally dozens across 3 multis, perming skills like crazy - it's all the keeps me playing!

I'm rather solidly in MHoP's camp and I've never understood the other point of view, so dying to ask you... Why do you bother to ascend 3 multis like crazy when you aren't actually playing them? I ask this not to argue, but because I'd like to come closer to understanding.

dj_d said:

Many people feel the same way about botting (e.g. using KolMafia) at all.

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I understand using mafia to skip the boring parts. I use it for leveling up in the ballroom or gallery. I use the (slightly modified) hiddencity script to skip that annoying area completely. I use it for lucre. I'm sure everyone has a least favorite thing about anything they like. However, for everything else I'm eager to play this game while mafia maintains my moods (and runs my recovery script) for me. I also don't understand being rabidly anti-mafia since it can easily remove that sort of drudgery without removing the experience of playing the game.

MHoP said:

But a script to take a character from ascending to the NS is just taking things way too far.

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I am sure that holatuwol agrees with you; he said that if it became possible to script KoLmafia to do that, he'd be so depressed that he'd stop working on the program. Who knows? Perhaps thats why he stopped developing it last year. I'm under the impression that bashy's character has been ascended by script for a long time now. Since hola is in N.O., I'm sure he knows all about that.

I don't happen to agree with that viewpoint. I wouldn't use such a script. Heck, I don't use scripts at all. I run all my turns in the Relay Browser, except when it's time to grind the war or something.

But, I don't see how it affects me at all if somebody else wants to use scripts - even complete ascension scripts. It seems arrogant to me to say that an ascension script is "taking things way too far." If it's not for you, cool - but it's not your (or Bale's) business to dictate how other people want to play the game.

The bottom line is that there is no "one true way" to experience KoL.

For me the social aspect of the game is what keeps me playing, weird since it is a single player game I know. But I like the the clan stuff and spading new areas. I also love the mall, I like trying to find ways to buy a Mr.A every month without doing any farming or spending any real money. It is challenging and fun. Without Mafia I would have left the game long ago, probably after my first ascension or so because manipulating the mall by hand can be tedious and aggravating. I am sure Ascension.ash is great but not perfect. I am sure you have to fiddle with it a lot to get it to work perfectly for you and I doubt that it will ever get you on a leader board. The only thing I would use it for is to level multis out of ascention to use as clan or mall bots (which I don't have since I don't have the time to level a new multi and I cannot afford ascention.ash).

That is my 2 cents worth, I have ascended over 20 times but only twice softcore so ascention.ash would have to be redesigned for a quick hardcore run for me to buy it.
I am afraid that I would abuse it for all it is worth if it was optimized for a hardcore run!

^ You give good post there, Veracity. Well spoken.

Bale: I run several service-providing bots for my clan, both of which still haven't permed all the skills their optimized builds specify. An ascension script is useful in such situations. In these cases, the point of the character (and ascending said character) is not about gameplay, but about providing a clan service. I still play my main (currently doing fairly casual HC runs) mostly in the relay browser and CLI, but if I had to actually play the bots too, it would take far more time than I have. Currently I've been ascending only one of the bots at a time, but once I configure ascend.ash to my liking, I may be able to increase the speed at which I can develop the clan bots into all they can be.

All this to say that there are situations for which an ascension script is not only useful but also contributory to the overall KoL-playing experience.

But as Veracity so aptly pointed out above, everyone's mileage may vary.

Veracity, I hope you didn't actually think I was saying that I was trying to dictate how others play this game. I was not trying to shun other people's gameplay, but I do want to understand it.

Thanks for sharing your own mileage with me zarqon. I suppose I can understand that reason since it takes the drudgery out of providing a service for others, rather than substituting for your own gameplay. I'm still interested in what others have to say though.

I think I will send you a Mr. A. for this, it sounds like a good idea!
*thinks it over*
*decides yes*

@Bale: My main has never ascended. Since 2004! I play him manually. I wanted to experiment with ascension, but kinda liked having an ancient unascended character, so I created a multi to start ascending. After a while I started doing a few HCO runs, which meant that I got to play basically 40 turns a day, so I started a third so that I had someone to test my scripts on.

After five years, regular gameplay is deadly boring. What's fun is clan stuff, mall interactions, exploring new content, and - most of all - scripting and optimizing. It turns out this set of interests combines nicely. I do the stuff I like, and script the stuff I don't.

dj-d,

I can understand regular game play getting a bit boring after a while. That is the reason I am currently Doing Bad Moon, HC and HCO runs. SC was just getting way too easy. I also spent quite a while in hobopolis once it came out, then their is fensworthys basement and the shimmering portal and now the slime tube. When I started playing a little over 2 years ago it was pretty much free the king and nothing else to do. Any way my point is that if you dislike ascending so much that you want to script the entire run then don't ascend. I can understand limited use for a script like that to help build a buffbot, or some other type of clan character, but just bot ascending a character just to build skills seems pointless to me.

MHoP said:

Any way my point is that if you dislike ascending so much that you want to script the entire run then don't ascend. I can understand limited use for a script like that to help build a buffbot, or some other type of clan character, but just bot ascending a character just to build skills seems pointless to me.

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He says that he finds scripting and optimizing interesting. He's not actually doing it to build skills. In other words, ascension is not the goal, but the means to his goal, with new skills as a nice little side benefit. That makes sense to me at least.

I just came looking for this script already thinking about the ethics of using it (no matter how sparingly.)

My reason for wanting the script is periods of time every few months when I simply cannot play. I can maybe log in and grab a lucre, but I can't play & often can't even predict exactly when I will be away from the computer to make sure I'm just in aftercore.

So I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have that script; so I could just log in to finish an ascension?" Yes, it would. But after reading all of this, I'll just try to be better at ascending -- esp b/c I don't know that I could reasonably set the thing up without somehow breaking everything on the internet accidentally, and I don't like asking a ton of idiotic questions, or a ton more than I already ask.

So, there's a reason for wanting the script that is a tad bit less nefarious in nature than being a Crimbo multi or something

Good luck with it, even if I'm among the people who strongly hope that the cost keeps it away from a lot of people I can think of right off the top of my head.

Be well -- Halle

Halle - that's great! I definitely wouldn't encourage anyone to use the script who feels uncomfortable with it. And I'm glad you're being careful. It's pretty easy to break the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrQUWUfmR_I
(although FWIW it's not that hard to configure ascend.ash either )