the oldest fight in multi-player online gaming... Which plugins/addons are good, and which are bad...
A Company (Zos today, Turbine (AC1) before) allows added free development by allowing plugins that enhance their game/UI...
Folks who love the game make plugins, players love it...
Folks who are all fired interested in "Winning" make plugins that help them, but keep them private (this is unfair IMO)
Someone makes a public plugin that does what the private plugin does, catches all sorts of hell and is called nasty names... big stink, threats, lots of hate... a lot coming from the "holier then thou" crowd with the private plugins...
There are always 3 factions in these fights, the "Purist" that thinks there should be no plugins allowed, the "Hybrid" that wants to allow some, but not all plugins (normally limited to the plugins they like) and then there are folks like me, my only stipulation would be no private plugins... everyone plays as they like on an even playing field.
if Zos can figure out a way to "License" addons so that only the licensed ones will work, then they can limit the actions an addon will make, as long as the interface has hooks that addon developers can use, someone will exploit them for their own gain (perceived or otherwise).
Exploits are bad, everyone agrees (even the exploiters), but the policing costs to Zos (as it was for Turbine) can get to a point that it costs more then what the game can afford.
Asheron's Call 1 coined the term "UCM" there were combat macro's, they were ok, but a UCM (Unattended Combat Macro) was bad... there were a number of private combat macro's that allowed their users to level and prosper far more then other players... then the first public combat macro was released, and the term UCM was born.
