Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

[Melody]

Just a question, I'm on the PC now and people have been telling me about a program called Windower, I heard you can get banned for it, but there's a man in my Linkshell who's been using it for 5+ years just fine, but SE doesn't seem to even care about their player base. I've never seen a GM step in for a player speed hacking either. I know this is a 3rd party tool, but the website clearly states it's not out the harm. They even give their own warning label telling you that it violates the SE PoL ToS (Square-Enix, Playonline, Terms of Service) Just wondering if anyone had any insight about this program. Someone told me that have user friendly plugins and I don't know if I should do it or not. I've run Windower and it seems to have possibly just opened my game in a window? That's all that I've seen.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

Windower and certain plug-ins for it make the game much, much better.

I would recommend using it if you plan to stick with FFXI for any extended period of time.

I also used to be hardcore anti-Windower, but I finally caved in and couldn't be happier.

[Melody]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

Can you help me out? Like what plugins do I use?

[DakAttack]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

Nobody gets banned for using the Windower. It's pretty much essential for any PC user to be able to alt-tab any window they may have up, and SE never caught on to this. You don't need any plug-ins, just the Windower will suffice.

[Raydeus]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

I seriously doubt you'd get banned for it nowadays unless you were advertising it in shouts in Jeuno. <_<;

My recommended plug-ins are Drawdistance, silence and blink me not. In addition to normal script macros for 1 macro full gear swaps if they still work. Many will recommend spellcast for that, but I disliked it since I only wanted more macro lines. <_<;


PS > Disclaimer: Keep in mind I haven't played for a very, very long time so I don't know if those plug-ins even exist anymore or if there are better versions of them.

[Melody]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

There are, I was just on the website.

[Rostum]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

I've been using Windower ever since it was created. In fact, I can only remember a few months when the game first came out of not using it. I could not imagine this game without it, to be honest.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

Like what plugins do I use?

It really depends on what you want out of Windower.

I'd highly recommend Spellcast, it really makes managing all your gear swaps a lot simpler.

[ShepardG]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

spellcast is arguably the best portion of windower. It actually taught me the basic's of XML coding, which to gain from a video game is probably the only lasting thing (other than memories) that i'll have from FFXI.

If your on the PC, and your not using it, you might as well be playing without a keyboard. The basic windower package comes with 4-6 of the cleaner plugins, that make windower essential in my opinion.

And as far as getting banned, No one I know ever got banned from using just windower, they were using things like on-event in conjunction with widescan spam when camping ixion/sandworm. and other botter things.

I highly reccomend taking the time to learn the spellcast plugin, it will litterly blow your mind at the ease of swapping in gear, for whatever little situation you find yourself in.

EXample:
I'm a dancer, I have 1)TP set 2)WS set 1 2)WS set 2 3)Phyisical damage taken set 4)Magical DT set 5) and 5-10 other Ability pieces that enhance, waltz,jig,movement speed, TP+evasion, etc.

You can make rules that when your HP drops below 50%, and your engaged, and your in a certain zone (abys-tharongi, for example) YOU will automatically change into either your Full evasion set, or if your subbing WAR, your full PDT set.

and say your getting your shit pushed in from a random mob and your HP drops below 25%, you need to escape, your spellcast will automatically modifiy your PDT set, to include your movement speed boots, and it will swap all this gear in, WHEN you disengage!

Stun! and RUN!

Say you hate targeting folks because their always swaping gear, and unlocking your target reticle. BOOM, download blinkmenot!
It can be configured so that everyone never "swaps gear", but you still do, or you can make it so that everyone always stays in the same gear (and mind you i mean graphical wise, which is why the reticle targeting loses it's target, because apparently SE never updated their interface.) You probably won't even miss the blinky ness of LS events.

They have EXP trackers, and Kparser is probably the best parsing program to see how you perform, as well as loot distribution etc.

I wouldn't play the game unless i had windower. it's that big of a difference

[Melody]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

Wow. So everyone loves Windower? Now where do I put these plugins and which ones should a newbie-windower use. The spellcast one is down on my list and I found one with a timer for debuffs. You said it's very convenient for gear hopping? That sounds good to me, since I plan to do BST/DNC for Dynamis so I can make money, I'm doing WAR just in case someone wants to do a Fell Cleave party. So essentially Windower is like the Gambit System from 12?

[cidbahamut]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

NITPICKING!

I think you'd still have to wait for some sort of input action to trigger another pass on spellcast for those swaps. You wouldn't automatically swap into PDT sets, you'd cast a spell, disengage, use a JA or something that would trigger the spellcast rule checking and then it would switch you over. Or maybe I just never figured out how to do it.

But let's not dive straight into the deep end right away for the newcomer. Spellcast can really be as simple or complex as you need it to be. Even if all you do is set it up to manage a TP set, a WS set and an Idle set, it'll still be really handy. It really is something you can ease into if you don't try to do everything with it right from the start. Don't let the XML spook you, it's not too terribly complex and there's plenty of folks here who'd be more than willing to help you if you get stuck.

Blinking problem can be circumvented by using <stpt> and <stal>. Or if you're using spellcast you can just type "//spellName partyMember"(ie, //cureiv bob).

Kparser isn't actually a plug-in for Windower, but it is pretty nifty.

Just don't mention any of this stuff in-game and you'll be fine.

[Melody]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

My Linkshell uses it so they'd be willing to help me out, but they're all sarcastic asses about it so I don't know if they're lying so I don't know if to trust them or not. Come to think of if Yggdrasil hasn't been seen at all on XI or on the forums has he, since he's the one who uhh...got me into Valefor. >_> I'd expect to see him. I haven't seen that damn Taru since I started.

[Raydeus]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

First rule of the windower. You do not talk about the windower in game chat.
Second rule of the windower. You do not talk about the windower in game chat.

[DakAttack]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

I talked about it all the time.

[Raydeus]

Re: Windower, A Good or Bad Choice for XI Experience?

Doesn't surprise me. <_<