Asherons Call: Sucamarto Interviews YewWanSum of Morningthaw

Q. What Plugins have you developed and what do they do?
A. The only Plugin I've personally inflicted upon the public is RoboChef, but I helped spec and test the very first Decal buffbot Plugin:

Ming's Buffbot (now known as Buffy), which has gone through several rewrites by several people including Roxer (of Conversion fame), Lonsgard, and myself. Before I took over development of RoboChef, I maintained an updated XML file for several years, adding functionality that it didn't have by default and keeping it up to date with patches.

I also helped develop the com protocol used in D'Sanai's LootTracker and have an internal Plugin called Allegiance Elf that I've never deployed. I've also written fishing, money changing, crafting, and even a 'blind melee with GSA and Atlan combat macro and 'DM drain macro' script for AC Tool back in the day.

Q. What was/is the 1st Plugin/3rd party Application you programmed?
A. Fittingly, it was a script for making craft items in AC Tool. For Decal, it was Allegiance Elf. I used the framework for the Decal Companion part of AC Tool as a base.

Q. What inspired you to write it/them?
A. I have always been the type to spend 10 hours teaching a computer to do something I could have done by hand in 3. Its the intellectual challenge of fulfilling a need by making a computer do the 'drudge work' (pun intended). It just seemed insane to have to spend hours hitting hotkeys to make items when I could be out dying with my friends instead. If the computer can restock my THE's, arrows, etc. while I'm eating supper or asleep, then I can actually PLAY when I get a spare moment rather than practice logistics.

In fact, the whole buffbot thing came about as a solution to the very real problem mages had with people begging for buffs. I figured if I could help develop a way to provide automatic buffs, then a small number of people, in their off time, could ease the playtime burden of a great many mages.

Q. What was the biggest obstacle you had/have to overcome in writing your Plugins/3rd party Applications?
A. I've had to deal with VB6, .Net, C#, C++, and Delphi at various times, sometimes all at once. Switching between languages every 10 minutes gives me a serious syntax migraine. Not to mention the nightmare of getting multiple versions of multiple development environments to coexist semi-peacefully.

The biggest obstacle, however, is Decal itself. There are far too many 'seekrits' and 'things we can't do/tell you cause its dangerous'. I appreciate the Decal developers for their hard work, but I keep hoping for the ' Turbine supported API' or at the very least, a return to open (and documented) memlocs and full source code for Decal.

Q. What is your favorite language to program in?
A. Delphi. Whether its a .NET target or device driver, N-tier or OpenGL game, Delphi does things more intuitively and has some very comprehensive components that work miracles with a wave of the mouse. Pure, to-the-bone assembly is even better, but there's no way you'll catch me trying to implement a COM server in ASM. Fortunately, Delphi lets me inline ASM when needed.

Q. How long have you been programming in general/with Decal Applications?
A. In general, I started out programming just when punch cards were on their last leg and the 'new' floppy disk drive was making its way into mainframes. With Decal, its been about two years of actual programming.

Q. Have you felt the overall contribution of the decal programming community has been positive on the game?
A. Once I get past the shock that Decal is allowed at ALL, I'm pleased to say that it has been a good thing overall. You have to take the bad with the good, but I don't think AC would even be around anymore if people didn't have Decal (or AC Tool, etc.) to provide workarounds for what were very serious design issues. (e.g. remember comp shopping?)

Q. What Plugins/3rd party Application other than your own, do you use?
A. I use the following plugins;
Bandit Sight/2,
Universal Salvaging Tool (UST)
DHS (Decal Hotkey System),
Deadeye Color System (DCS),
Stoic,
Castaway,
TreeStats 2,
OpenMJ.

Q. What can we look forward to in upcoming versions of your Plugins/3rd party Applications?
A. RoboChef 1.X is evolving and 2.X is under development. 1.X will have a feature or two added, but RC2 will be the big one, filling many gaps that players have asked for over the years. Only a total redesign will allow this to happen and that's what RC2 is all about.

The rest of my plugins may or may not ever be released. Ever since Buffy 1, I have kept my plugins to myself, mostly because I never had to 'polish them up' for public consumption. Buffy 2 was going along well, and would surely have rocked the AC world every bit as much as Buffy 1 did, but the demand for it just isn't there. I used to have queue's over 14 people long, but now people rarely have to wait. The same goes with Allegiance Elf, which was sorely needed back in the high-population, mega-monarchy, pre-allegiance-officer days. If we ever see server pops rebound to the 2K level, though, I may have to get back to work.

Q. Do you still play AC and if so what Servers do you frequent?
A. I took a brief break to move my family cross-country, but other than that I have played continuously for over 5 years. Mornigthaw, and more specifically, Mayoi, has been my home the entire time.

Q. What is your favorite Plugin/3rd party Application that you have written?
A. RoboChef is and has always been my favorite Plugin. I'm a big fan of crafting systems in general (the one in Star Ocean III was great) but the sheer amount of time and effort saved by RoboChef puts it on top.