Shattered Kingdoms

I have heard a few people in this post say it - "I dont use my client for aliases" - but I am not sure as to the reasoning.

I can see the reasoning in regards someone who plays at work, at home, and on their laptop on the road - Although it is easy enough in zMud to copy your aliases from one computer to another, I am not sure about others - But what reasons do you have for not using your clients Aliases?

I have 20 aliases too. I would use more.

A

The same reason I don't automate my pk with dynamic aliases, hot-linked macros, and trigger classes. I use a client that also allows me to directly use perl and python for scripts, which means I could literally automate my character to do anything, including /gotos, and using a proxy-command interface, could automate the actions of several characters at once using the same client + script.

Buuut....I like to keep things simple and on the mud. Less relying on clients = more even playing field = less temptations for players to act stupid.

I've always preferred playing mostly by hand. The only kinda things I alias would be like cure/cause light, and small things.

I'd love more too, but I think Dulrik mentioned something about how much more memory that would take up? He had some technical answer, any rate.

As far as using client aliases, how would deciding to branch into a client be the first step down a path of total botting deprivation?

It doesn't seem that big a deal to me. And for Zmudders, it's easy, and even rather similar to the game's method. You can input it directly into the prompt. Turn parsing on, type:
#ALIAS mm {ca 'magic missile' %1 %2}
and you're good. Doesn't seem so different to my quite possibly ignorant view.

Personally, I reserve my in-game aliases to combat or inventory management, and use client aliases for RP purposes (read: emotes). I don't see anything wrong with that method, and it tends to work well for me. The only problem I run in to is when I accidentally use an emote I have set up for one character with another, but that doesn't happen often.

It's more about speed than memory use. Every command you enter is checked against every alias in your list until it finds a match. Twenty has been enough for over a decade. If you have to have more, there's always a MUD client, which doesn't take up server processing.

I've heard that in the last decade, servers have gotten faster, and memory's cheaper. Any truth to the rumor?

Peace,
Bux

I think they are but last I heard SK runs off a gift that was given to them. Also even if it is faster Id rather that speed being used to remove lag time not add more alias. Speaking of speed if you string two commands in an alias there is extra lag time between the first two commands unlike an alias from an outside source.

Obviously what is available in general and what we are using are two different things. What we are running has not been state of the art for at least five years. Also you have to understand the differences between the basic MUD server code that was written twenty years ago and what a MMO uses today.

Every instance of a World of Warcraft game is running on its own little server farm, each of which is at least a dual-core machine and the code is multi-threaded and load-balanced so that all their processors can be used at one time. It also has the advantage of having a lot of pre-processing handled by the gigantic game-specific client that is on your PC. In contrast, SK does all its computations on a single processor for every player as well as everything else in the game.

So, even if we could afford to upgrade to the best processor available, we don't have the leverage to go hog-wild on every feature.