My Loot, Your Tears

This isn't going to be the kind of post you're used to seeing here at MLYT. This is a software release.

The Jerks do a lot of chatting with people who don't like us. Whether it's a gank target, a war target, or the corp chat of a corporation we've infiltrated, sometimes we want to share with our friends what we're hearing. Copying and pasting is how we've always done it before, and that works OK for a highlight reel, but for real-time lulz and intel, we needed something that would spit out every line from the chat as it happened.

Enter EveGossip, a short Python script I cooked up one afternoon. Here's how it works: drag and drop the active chat log onto the EveGossip.py file. The window that pops up will ask what server, channel, and nickname you want to use. The script will connect to the channel and start spitting out the tail end of your log in real time. You don't have to do anything, just keep playing as usual. Your friends can connect to the same channel using the IRC client of their choice and watch the chat in real time. Nifty, huh?

We've already used it to great success during a war against a corp with whom we had a spy. It made fleet fights against them hilarious, to say the least. Not only did we have the intel advantage of a spy, but in a sense we were ALL spies, and could react much faster than a corp being fed intel in bits and pieces by a spy that was multitasking.

It requires Python 2.x to work.

I'm posting the script itself to pastebin. This is something of a competency test for running what could be a fairly harmful (to IRC servers, not to you) script. If you can't manage to get the text into a file named EveGossip.py on your computer and run it, then you probably don't have any business using a tool this unpolished.

Nonstandard disclaimers:

First off, this tool should be completely legal according to CCP. I remember reading that they don't care what you do with log files. That being said, what you do with it and how CCP looks at your use is your problem, not mine.

This script is rightly considered to be an IRC bot by every IRC network I've ever seen. Some networks require that you get permission before using a bot on their network. Some will ban your entire IP range for using this script. I avoided all such problems by administering a private IRC server behind a firewall accessible by a VPN. How you connect to other people's networks is your responsibility. In other words: Python scripts don't get people banned...People with python scripts get people banned.

This script is hilariously bad. I stole lots of code from various tutorials and patched them together to do my bidding. There is no error handling. If you give it the wrong kind of file, it will crash. It will crash if you make a typo in one of the prompts or leave it blank. It will crash if the nick you choose is already taken. It will crash if you connect to certain servers that don't format their requests the way I expect them to. I don't want to hear in the comments about how poorly it functions, or how it violates some rule of programming that I couldn't be bothered to learn. I don't work with computers for a living, and I'm not a professional programmer, but odds are I have created exactly ONE more intel-sharing tool for the Eve community than you have. Don't bitch about the free thing I'm making available. It works for Jerks, and that is exactly as much effort as I'm willing to put into it at this point.

There is no support unless you can get some poor sap in the comments section to help you.

If you have an idea that will make it better, then implement the idea, post it to pastebin, and link it in the comments. No, I won't handle changes from multiple contributors. You kids will have to figure that one out on your own while Daddy has a drink in the study.

If you DO like it, then I will accept your accolades in the comments section and your ISK in my wallet. kthx.

This entry was posted on August 7, 2010 at 3:23 AM by paul and is filed under Developers! Developers! Developers!, Incredible Offers!.