Reverting to Revision 92

Lots of changes are going on for myself and Walentyn. I'm sad to say we have both left Aion. I started school last month and development on KDM has been going very slow. The latest update had too many changes for me to handle all at once by myself. I have decided to remove Encounters and revert completely back to revision 92. I added some bug fixes that needed to be addressed and the result is the latest update for KDM.

I'll continue to work on KDM in my spare time and provide updates when possible. Thanks for your patience. I advise any one using the 1.6.0 version to download this update. Here's the change log:

KDM 1.5.5 Beta 6

• Removed: Multilanguage support.
• Removed: Sessions and Encounters.
• Added: Player classes are now detected based on unique skills.
• Added: The user will now be asked to confirm closing if players exist in the window.
• Fixed: Delayed effects such as Magma Eruption should work now.
• Fixed: The elusive Poison Arrow.
• Fixed: Player percentage in the tooltip will show as the total from group.
• Fixed: Percentages should no longer appear as NaN when the value should be 0.
• Fixed: The provided system.ovr file should now work properly.
• Fixed: An issue in the parser caused an out of memory exception when loading a large log file.

Beta 7

Beta 7 has been uploaded.

Change Log:

Version 1.6.0 Beta 7

• Added: Encounters! An entire system devoted to blow by blow analysis.
  
• Added: Completed multilanguage regex support.
• Added: Player classes are now detected based on unique skills. Tested in english only.
• Added: The user will now be asked to confirm closing if players exist in the window.
• Added: Combat is now broken up into encounters.
• Added: Damage player received.
• Added: Notify icon and ability to "minimize to the tray."
• Fixed: Player pecentage in the tooltip will show as the total from group.
• Fixed: Percentages should no longer appear as NaN when the value should be 0.
• Fixed: The provided system.ovr file should now work properly.
• Fixed: An issue in the parser caused an out of memory exception when loading a large log file.
• Fixed: Magma Eruption.
• Fixed: Poison Arrow.

NCSoft's Stand on Log Parsers

I posted this on the Official Aion Forums last night and I want to put it up here as well. There are some people out there who are still reluctant to give KDM or ACT a try in fear of being banned for using third party software. So I'm hoping this may just clear up the air a bit.

If you're familiar with an End User License Agreement (EULA) then you'll understand that the game publisher is legally bound to it. Just as any player is. The community managers can't directly come out and say, "yes, these parser are acceptable." For the simple reason that KDM and ACT are third party software.

However, they are allowed to hint at it:

Tamat's Input on ACT - AionSource - DPS meters -- bannable?

Posted 14 January 2010 - 03:23 PM

"I've replied to similar threads in the past, but I don't mind reiterating my stance on this. I love DPS parsers! Heck, I use them myself. We don't ban people for using DPS parsers but rather for the use of third party software that manipulates your characters movements. The software rule is in place to stop botters, hackers and cheaters of an equal feather -- not prevent our community from coming up with helpful programs like ACT.

For those who see this as a great excuse to use after being banned for botting: we can see the difference between damage parsers and bot software. If you're botting, we'll know."

Tamat later went on to quote from the EULA to clarify that all use of third party programs is not allowed.

Ayase's Input on KDM - AionSource - King's Damage Meter

Posted 11 February 2010 - 04:57 AM

"The application does imply modification of the game client (I'm primarily referring to the System.ovr file) and is in doing so in breach of the User Agreement (liability ensues). We want to keep the game fair and never hesitate to go after cheaters, users who automate their game play or otherwise exploit/hack. There's however a ladder of priority, and I'd be lying if I said that going after people deploying this seemingly 'harmless' tool is on the top of that list at this point. "

Conclusion

Can they ban you for using KDM or ACT? Yes.

Will they? No.

I have openly spoken about KDM and I have never tried to hide my in-game identity. (I'm Keiden and Kingofspades on Nezekan server.) I have also emailed the community managers requesting that they feature KDM in the "Eye on Community" series from the same email that my NCSoft master account is registered under. KDM does nothing to try to "hide" itself on your computer from the game client's anti-cheating protection.

At this moment there have been 1,722 downloads and 0 reports of bans connected to the use of KDM. If they decide to ban any one, I'm sure I will be the first. =p

Now, go download KDM and have fun.

System.OutOfMemoryException

It's been brought to my attention that every one may start experiencing this bug soon if you haven't already. I'll avoid all the technical babble and skip to the fix.

For now, you can to delete your Chat.log file. Aion will create a new one. I immediately committed a fix for this in the source repository and it will be included in the next release.

On a separate subject, Walentyn has updated the system.ovr file that will be included in future releases. I think the issue had something to do with the encoding.

KDM 1.5.0

Hey all. I know it's been a couple weeks since a release and here it is. 1.5.0 comes with a lot of new changes and additions. I would also like to officially welcome Walentyn to the development team. He is really smart and is a big part in the direction KDM is heading.

Get it here: KDM 1.5.0

Change Log:

Version 1.5.0 Beta 6

• Added: Right click on a player and "Skills..." will now show a breakdown of their skills and how much damage each contributes.
• Added: Now keeps track of Kinah spent/earned, EXP and Abyss Points gained.
• Added: Player controls can now display damage, dps and percentage.
• Added: The You alias can now be changed from the options menu.
• Added: The zip package now comes with a basic system.ovr file.
• Added: The Copy All function is now Copy Macro. This allows you to copy all the players to the clipboard and paste into an ingame macro.
• Added: You can now flag players as friends. This will automatically add them to your group when they appear in the player list.
• Fixed: Interface translations are now accessible from the Options menu. This does not change the parser language.
• Fixed: Effect damage should be captured.
• Fixed: Sorting will now continue as the list is updated.
• Fixed: Moved some menu items to the main options menu.
• Fixed: Added some formatting to the numbers.
• Fixed: Reset Damage is now Reset Counts because it applies to more than just damage.
• Fixed: Made the checkboxes in the context menus a bit darker.
• Other: Probably some I forgot.

Plans for 1.4

Thanks to you guys, I've been able to knock out some issues with KDM fairly quickly. Many bug fixes have been made and additions to the parser. I've put in a lot of error handling to help expedite future fixes.

I think the damage inflicted and damage received aspects of the parser are starting to mature. I know a couple of features every one wants to see are a breakdown of skills and how much damage each skill is contributing (including pets) and the damage each player received. Code has already been implemented that breaks down this information. All that it would require are a few changes that store it and then show it in a pretty format. I'm thinking something nice and tidy like a ListView control where I can add sorting features.

I think these will be a top priority for the next milestone. We'll see what kind of bugs there may be in-between that need fixing.

It wouldn't be difficult at all to publish KDM as an installer that can create the system.ovr file for you. But seeing as KDM is still in beta stages, I think it might be better for now to just leave it as is. I'm still not sure where I stand on letting it save a file in the Aion directory any way.

Another idea I had might be to help calculate how much xp is required to level and how long it would take to level based on the speed in which you're gaining it. Unfortunately, the log doesn't provide information about how much xp you currently have and how much you need to level. These may be values that the user will have to enter manually. I know it would be possible to obtain these values by reading Aion's memory, but that's a no-no so we'll make the best of what we've got.

As we go along, the more types of damage you guys can report to me, the faster we'll find everything covered. I happen to have one character of every class, but I'm a long way off from being able to play them all and see what the first person events look like in the chat log for every scenario. I also don't know what it looks like first or third person when a godstone procs. So, as far as I'm aware, it wouldn't be captured by KDM. If you have something to report, visit KDM Tickets and post a new ticket with the necessary information from the log file.

Well, I'm done rambling on for the night. Enjoy 1.3.5. It's a good update.

Version 1.3.5 Beta 5 has been released and is awaiting approval.

Changelog:

Version 1.3.5 Beta 5

• Added: Debug logging functionality. Disabled by default, this log can provide information vital for development and debugging.
• Added: "You" alias for languages that don't use "You."
• Fixed: Revised regular expressions.
• Fixed: Power button will now stay in sync with the parser.
• Fixed: "Copy All" will now only copy visible players.
• Fixed: Copy to clipboard features have been shortened.
• Fixed: Unhandled exceptions will now be reported.
• Fixed: Assassin poisons are now captured.
• Fixed: All pets should now be captured properly.