Shenanigunner

Binds have huge potential to increase accessibility. I've helped a number of players get around physical limitations. Nothing is really going to remove the need to make fast, accurate actions, but the keymapping can certainly be moved around to suit one hand, or an unusual console posture, or the like.

Okay. Very much "twój cyrk, twoje małpy," here. But a few parting observations: If you look over the many "tools" and add-ons listed in this forum and discussed here, you'll find that many are in late generations, sometimes their dozenth major release — because the creator was willing to listen to feedback, and implement well-thought suggestions and expansions, and try to aim for that sweet spot between "as easy to use as possible" and "brings as much value as possible for the effort." Most of these are from very long-time player/contributors who learned or discovered some aspect of the game that could be improved by a "tool" and put both their own effort and what they could learn from prior efforts into it. And then took feedback to improve it, sometimes across years or a decade. But you will also find quite a few "one and done" contributions, mostly by newcomers. These tend to have sunk to the lower levels of the forum, largely forgotten and ignored, and any good ideas they might have represented more or less lost. So don't overlook the primary point of my comments: I think you have some interesting and novel ideas with this. But posting one enormously complex version that needs a 3500-word startup guide, and covers a lot of already well-trodden ground in a quirky approach... is just a start in this community.

You crack me up.

Chicken Run popmenu added to the entry. I also streamlined the run; there's not really any advantage to using a random Ouro portal.

For anyone who hasn't spotted it, I wrote up a "chicken run" that a brand-new alt can run in less than 10 minutes, with no risk of combat or defeat, and come out with the Ouro portal, the LRTP and the Fast Travel menu. It's in Guides. (ETA: now streamlined and with a popmenu.) I actually find it fun to run with each of my existing alts... much more so than slogging out all the Atlas Badges, IMHO.

*ahem*

It's odd, but I am finding this run makes an amusing mini-mission to run with each of my alts, even those who long ago got both transporters. 🙂

Okay. I'll just note that "This is for people that want to delve deeper into the world of binds and macros but are maybe too confused on where to start." and "I stated at the start that this was going to be overwhelming." are somewhat contradictory, Either you're attempting to explain it to those who (despite all prior info and art) find binds confusing, or you're taking things to an unprecedented level. I suggest you can't do both. Binds, overall, are not that complex once the basics are understood. Building an enormous, convoluted "management structure" around them that is neither a tutorial/reference (as is my guide, and others) or a "bind builder" (as are a couple of tools already in existence) is... an interesting approach. Not one word of my posts are meant to be any kind of attack or discouragement — you might re-read my second paragraph above before assuming any such things.

Gnomon is an island. 🙂 Okay, I figured "big arching Fooblewetzer" was self-teaching enough, in context of standing there looking around, but maybe not. Small correction made.

None of the commands save the actual chat contents. Those two command pairs, mostly the first, should save the window and tab configurations. I'd have to experiment (further than I have) to see how the chat and window saves interact. I think the window stuff just sets the chat window/s location and size, the chat save/load does everything internal to the windows. I'd have to go roll up a new, unconfigured alt to make sure. ETA: Just ran up a newbie, and my chat windows were pre-arranged probably because I do have chat.txt saved. That should be your complete answer... Also ran the Chicken Run in about three minutes flat, which was my real objective. Recommended as all new alts' first effort.

I might be missing something, but /chatsave includes my added channels. When I checked for the above answer, I was amused to see old, old channels I didn't even know existed any more. What *exactly* does /chatsave + /wdwsave from a configured alt not pass to /chatload + /wdwload new alt?

/chatsave and /chatload, writing to chat.txt in the common saved-files area? Works/shares chat settings fine for my alts. Not quite sure how this and /wdwsave - /wdwload work for the chat windows, but I am pretty sure the above does both while the window commands just save window size and position.

Hey, if England's New Forest has been called that since the Domesday Book.... One heads-up: The two launchers manage the game file structure differently. If you've been using binds and menus and so forth, the old launcher put/looked for those files in another folder. You now want them in [GAME ROOT]\settings\live.

Edited the directions to include this as an option. If you don't just happen to find an Ouro portal after the first steps, going through RV is probably speedier and doesn't depend on any help.

Doesn't RV have an entry level restriction? (Nope, just a warning from the gate guard.) Good point. But even before the recent playersplosion, it was not hard to get someone to drop a portal at either Liberty Plaza or (via tram) Talos. I asked yesterday, with maybe 40 players in Liberty, and nothing happened. Asked again, got "What's wrong with the four behind you?" Uh... oh. IME, the crowd there is generous to show-off about dropping portals; I do almost every time I pass through and one's not up. So pretty to see a whole forest of them. 🙂

All three powers can have a delay in appearing, from "a little while" to "next session." Ouro is usually instant, but the LRTP and the TP manager have been erratic, in my experience. On my new-alt test of the instructions, I had to get that 11th badge before the LRTP dropped. Some of the accolade powers are irritating in that you spend X hours in the hospital or university, and earn the acc/power, which then doesn't appear until your next session, and doesn't begin accumulating charges or uses until after that.

FWIW, I checked all the regular zones for other badges that are right near the tram stations, and safe/easy to reach. There are a few, but not in completely safe "green zones" like the ones I listed. Happy to see suggestions for a shorter/easier run to Ten.

It is no longer hard to get useful transportation powers like the Ouro portal or the Long Range TP. But for squeaky-new alts with barely a punch to their name and no travel power but their Nike Hero™ model boots, it can be a slog, even to collect the 8 in Atlas Park, and most badge locations have some risk of combat and defeat. So here's a "Chicken Run" that will bring you several good things in the shortest time, allowing you to collect those ten exploration badges for the LRTP quickly, with no exposure to early and tedious defeats. (Revised after some input from Lemming, then again to simplify the steps.) Note that you can enter any Ouro portal you pass to do Step 3 there, but you will still have to return to the City Hall basement at some point. Probably best to just stay on track. New: popmenu for this run now attached. Bang! There you are in front of Ms. Liberty, all clean and shiny. Run behind Ms Liberty to get the Rookie badge. [/thumbtack 128.5 16.1 -233.0] Run to the START vendor and get the Jump Pack. (If you're smart, you'll load up on other freebies, but let's keep it simple.) Go to the north plaza of City Hall to get the Hero Corps Insider badge, near Henry Peter Wong. [/thumbtack 282.0 16.1 -891.5] Jump to the top of City Hall to get the Freedom badge. [/thumbtack 126.1 170.3 -652.4] Jump to the top of the Atlas Statue to get the Top Dog badge. [/thumbtack 131.0 319.7 -319.5] (If you hurry, you can do it on the same Jump Pack charge.) Get an Ouro portal: Jump down and enter City Hall. Get the Patriot badge at the far side of the rotunda. [/thumbtack 164.0 -768.0 -673.0] Go downstairs to DATA and get the Edge of Chaos badge. [/thumbtack -145.5 -784.0 -902.0] (If you DON'T have the Ouro portal yet)— go through the elevator doorway right in front of you to Recluse's Victory then go through the big portal. Go back through the big portal to Atlas Park. One way or the other, you should now have the Ouro Portal power, and probably the Fast Travel TP Integrator in your Powers list. Throw down your Ouro portal and dive through— Climb to the top of the big gold arc over the pool (the gnomon, if you want to be pedantic) to get the Chrononaut badge. [/thumbtack 543.5 867.6 -768.3] Jump across the Ouro temple and use the portal behind it to enter Echo Atlas Park. (Use care; miss a step and it's a long, long ways down.) In Echo Atlas Park: Go to the exit side of the tram station to get the City Traveler badge. [/thumbtack 585.1 74.3 -1362.9964.5 -27.0 -754.5] Run/Jump south to visit the base of the statue in the lake to get the Virtuous badge. (Warning: there may be lethal mobs on this path; use care to avoid them. You can skip this badge—you can skip any one badge in this list of eleven—but a little caution should see you through. Or use the Jump Pack to sail over them.) [/thumbtack 964.5 -27.0 -754.5] Go east and enter Echo City Hall. Go downstairs to MAGI and get the Trustworthy badge. [/thumbtack -128.0 -784.0 -805.4] You may have the Passport accolade with that badge, but if not/may as well: Go to the back of the lobby and into GIFT's bookcases to get the Knowledgeable badge. [/thumbtack 44.0 -784.0 -1002.0] Use your new LRTP to return to Atlas Park. Whichever path you took, and whether you had to get the "extra tenth" badge or not, you should now have: The Ouro Portal power. The Long Range Teleport power. The Fast-Travel TP integrator (actually a popmenu). This power may not show up until your next session. You need to add one exploration badge from each zone to add it to the LRTP's availability. Park your alt for one hour in Pocket D to get the Gold VIP badge and LRTP access to that useful hub. (Note: that has to be real-time in the game, not logoff time. Of course, getting this badge also gets you the LRTP... so all you need to do is get to Pocket D as a Level-Nothing-Much alt and stand around doing nothing for an hour. The Atlas Park entrance is a truck at [/thumbtack 269 0 787], at the east side of City Hall. Risk-free except for massive boredom, no badges and no Ouro portal...) Now you can go get your butt kicked by Hellions and Skulls and such. You don't care; you can Tee-Pee! LRTP-ChickenRun.mnu

So, I held off a while on commenting on this, so as not to discourage any useful discussion. But anyone who hasn't gotten their comments in over two weeks will just have to live with their regrets. 🙂 First, absolute 10/10 on the thought and work invested here. I'm big on binds and anything that advances their understanding, implementation and use among the player base is a solid good. But three thoughts, here— Too complicated overall. Game mods/extensions have to be plug-in simple, or easy to understand, not "follow a ton of detailed instructions and hope you don't make any mistakes." Too idiosyncratic. This is a solution tailored to, well, you and add-ons need to be as flexible and accommodating as possible. A lot of missed opportunities and inefficient choices — look over all the prior art and borrow the best for each feature. And what you have to keep in mind is this— Some large percentage of the user base can't be bought, beaten, shamed, lured or arsed into using custom binds— "They're too complicated." "I prefer macros." "I don't want to break the (sacred and perfect) standard key assignments." "I think the regular keys are all just fine, what's your problem?" "I like having fifty macro buttons cluttering my screen." Some fairly small percentage will use a few, add-on, more or less "canned" binds for TP, pets, etc. but won't make any overall changes. Never mind the ones that bitch about how they keep hitting this or another wrong key, or find some key action too hard to use, or have some other perpetual complaint that a (shock! gasp!) custom bind would fix, permanently. The small percentage who like, use, develop and tweak their binds need a simple, open system that fits their needs or can be easily adapted to them. As for Bind Helper™, there are a couple of bind-builders out there, and some "open" bind sets that can be easily edited. But most of those tools run out of steam once things get complicated, to the point where I don't think anything but dedicated AI (not ChatGPT, at least, not without combining it with a huge level of expertise to unkink its errors) can build any but the simplest, fill-in-the-blank binds. I have no suggestions about which direction to take your method/tool; it does have some interesting differences from anything else I've seen in the last 20 years. But right now, barring a real breakthrough, nothing substitutes for a comprehensive bind file that can be edited, expanded and uploaded, based on a growing understanding of all the key, command and syntax elements. Any structure will be a one-size-fits-few; any "builder" tool will have limits on its capabilities. Binds aren't hard to learn, despite the pushback of many players (some of whom don't quite seem to understand that Binds == Macros == Binds, except that binds have far more "actuation" options), and learning and implementing them at an upload-file level (and not the scattered bits of individual-entry via chat) is, IMVHO, the best and only approach. Bulid on from that.

This. This is a friendly, open-community game of friends, unlike nearly every other one I've experienced or heard of. There's no ganking, no griefing, very little obnoxiousness. Embrace/enjoy it, and do not drag in the factional, juvenile netshitting so common everywhere else. The one place that gets out of hand is chat, especially General; there are some truly tiresome factions who blather away there without realizing 90% of the users neither care nor find it amusing. And then there is always someone fresh from the aggressive end of asocial media, ready to fight all comers on inappropriate topics and with inappropriate language. Fortunately, our elite, professional, generally tolerant and highly paid GM team usually shuts them down within minutes, quicker if someone reports them. So be nice here. Ignore the inevitable shitheads; they won't be around (or vocal) long. Have fun.

And an incorrect meme to boot. Contrary to the collective wisdom of netizens, Twain and Lincoln did not say everything worth quoting.

Anyone who doesn't throw out the blank and the advertising card is just carryin' too much baggage.

Gotta confess, I fell asleep halfway through that. But then, there are people absolutely obsessed with everything movie producers do, too. And you can no longer download a solitaire game that doesn't have six layers of ownership, perpetually interrupting ads and endless long-form pitching... of other free games. Where'd I put that deck of cards...?

All I can add is that I'm quite glad the cape talking to the crowd in Liberty Plaza, to Ms, L's left, doesn't in any way resemble any comic book hero ever created in all of time. 🤪

A popmenu could create binds and macros, yes, I think. So this all boils down to a search macro? To actually "find" a GM within radius? That's pretty trivial to accomplish. The "super search" binds would work well for on-the-fly searching: ADD "target_custom_next base" CTRL+ADD "beginchat "/bind add target_custom_next enemy alive " SHIFT+ADD "nop" Hit Ctrl-[NUMPAD +] and type the beginning of the search string. Hit Return. Now NUMPAD + searches for that string. (The Shift+ bind corrects a peculiarity of shift binds like this.) This could be written into a popmenu, but I have no idea what would be useful for GM hunting.