Now I personally don't see how this effects my game play, so I have no problem if this is what he wishes to do.
I think that scripters do hurt non-scripting players game play.
Why ?
Because they devalue the time spent in game by other players (in PvP they help the scripters win more easily against players not scripting...).
I will try to better explain my opinion with some examples.
A good example is Bulk Order Deeds.
For someone who does not script, trying to get a high end Large BOD for a Barbed Runic Sewing Kit or a Verite/Valorite Hammer is extremely hard. Which means, having to invest a whole lot of time when playing the game to get this particular item.
Now, a scripter, being able to just script the gathering of BODs, can do it not necessarily during the time they play the game. And the more that BODs are scripted, the more the value of the high end items they bring as rewards goes down.
Now, those players NOT scripting will STILL have to spend countless time when playing UO trying to get these items but then they see the market value of these items go down and down and more down. So down, that even if a player (not scripting) wanted to earn those high end items on their own, it is simply not worth the time they would have to invest.
I will make an example.
Barbed runic Kits sell on most shards about 1 million per kit, sometimes even less (I have even seen them at 500k per). I think that this low value is also because BODs are so easily scripted.
Now, if a player not scripting wanted to earn a Barbed Runic Sewing Kit, they would have to invest many many hours into trying to get the needed Large and small BODs (unless they were extremely lucky....). Many more hours than the time it would take to simply do something else in the game and earn a million gp and just buy the barked kit.
Bottom line is, that the way I see it, that scripting devalues the time spent in game by non scripting players and makes in the end all activities being scripted not worth it for non scripting players. They better just do something else in the game and buy those items/resources from those players who scripted them, which of course, becomes even an higher incentive for scripting thus making the problem of scripting in the game worse and worse....
But this, clearly, deprives many non scripting players from doing a whole lot of game activities. That is, they pay their subscription to be able to enjoy the full game but in the end, because of scripting, many in game activities are made not worth their time and so they end up playing the game less than they could or might want if scripting did not exist.
Now, let's move to fishing, the topic of this thread.
We all know that fishing quests are VERY time consuming. They are so, because fishing takes time, a lot of time in between shallow, deep and dungeon waters fishing AND, for crabs and lobsters fishing. They are the pre-requisite to be able to fill in the fishmonger orders for the Quests that bring in the rewards.
Now, if scripters script the fishing part, which they can do overnight or at times they are not playing UO, when they actually play UO they already have a bunch of fish, crabs and lobsters to use as a stock to do their fishmonger Quests. That is, in the time they actually play the game, since they do not need to ALSO fish up fish and crabs/lobsters, they can do a whole lot more Quests than those players not scripting.
And since they can do a whole lot more Quests, they have much higher chances to earn the best rewards from fishing. And as the market gets flooded by these rewards, since scripters get more and more and more, their value goes down making it not worth it, like for the BOD example above, for non scripters, to bother to invest so much of their time into fishing and doing the Quests, since it would be more worth it for them to just do something else in UO when playing the game that earns them the gold to just buy whatever Rewards they want from the fishmonger Quests.
Another activity in the game that scripting takes away to non scripting players simply, because it makes it not worth it for non scripting players to spend their time on that activity being scripted by others.
This is why I think that scripting hurts so much the game and other players.
