So, I've always had the mindset of a programmer, I think, and I had dabbled a bit prior to initially joining Neopets roughly a decade ago. I remember being awestruck at the things people were able to create. When I first completed the Altador Plot, I distinctly remember thinking, "Damn, I wish I knew more about programming, it'd be so awesome if this could be automated." Alas, at that time, I was but a lowly PHP programmer and had next to no idea how to go about completing some of the trickier parts of the plot.
That has changed. 
I am very nearly finished. It's a simple command-line script, but you don't need frills for something like this. You press go, and then a couple minutes later you're done with the plot. I think that's nice. : ) Unfortunately, I find myself in a tricky position. Kway says that he has created one, but decided not to release it so as to not take away from those who complete the plot for monetary gain. I have always been a proponent of free, open-source software, so that doesn't sit too well with me, but I can at least understand the reasoning.
So, I'd like to put it to the community: would freely releasing an Altador Plot autocompleter do more harm than good?
It wouldn't do any harm.
There was a free public one made on another site, and it was working for years.
In fact, if you paid someone for the service, they most likely used that program to do it. The only reason it doesn't exist anymore is because the author was too lazy to update the code.
Something like this shouldn't be charged, and honestly, nobody does the plot for monetary gain anymore. Coincidentally, the service died down early exactly at the same time when the old program broke.
Tl;dr: Release it, there's no harm.
Edited by ch33psh33p, 18 March 2012 - 04:39 PM.
