Why do two out of three users on most IRC networks these days have to use a lame script? Each one is more n00by than the last…

WTF does a noob need with a clone scanner?! Noob’s aren’t opers, so they can’t do anything about clones. And a sensible oper uses a plain(-er) mIRC, Xchat, or another client.

Also, do noobs need an annoying away system which spams every single channel their in with an action (using “/me”) when they go /away, come back, or are highlighted? I don’t think so… That’s what /whois is for!!

Another annoying habit is for noobs to load a system stats script (or a lame script to bundle one inside), and then not change any of the settings, so if you send a VERSION request to that user, you’ll end up with between two and four replies! One from mIRC, one from any lame scripts their running, and one from the System Stats thing, with all their OS/CPU/RAM/HDD info in.

There will come a point where I start banning every user of these damn scripts from any channel where I have +o or higher… and it’s coming quickly.

To start off… “NoNameScript” is aimed at the more experienced IRC user — according to their website - what a joke. It inserts it’s name and URL in your version reply, quit message, and several other places. However, less people use it now, as some of the other scripts below are (unfortunately) becoming more popular.

(10:00:00) * Quits: User (name@random.isp.com) (Quit: ( www.nnscript.de :: NoNameScript 4.02 :: www.XLhost.de ))

“-I-n-v-i-s-i-o-n-” is the ultimate n00b client. It inserts it’s name and URL wherever it can, and then it does it again in some extra places. In kick messages, quit messages, the “Now playing” announcer and the version reply. And it’s not subtle!

(12:00:00) [User VERSION reply]: ”–I-n-v-i-s-i-o-n–” 2.0 Build 3515 by cRYOa with Advanced File Serving features on WinXP obtained from http://www.i-n-v-i-s-i-o-n.com

You think that’s bad? You should see it colored! And because “cRYOa” defaults the background color to black (or some other dark depressing color), and optimizes the colors to show up on black, they look even worse than they would normally if you use a white background (which is mIRC’s default).

“mIRC Power Pack 8.00″ is up next. Bright, annoying colors, more crappy scripts are the main features (or so I’ve seen so far). It’s less popular than the above two, but still manages to insert it’s name and URL everywhere.

(10:00:00) * Quits: User2 (name@another.isp.net) (Quit: mIRC Power Pack 8.00 (www.mIRCPowerPack.com) by sod/sgt-d (sgt-d@sodpit.com))

Now for the ultimate l33t script, with L33TSpeak everywhere. Plenty of self-advertising in this one as usual.

(14:00:00) [User2 VERSION Reply]: « Ë×Çü®§îöñ » Info~[v9.5 for mIRC v6.12 32bit on Win2K]~ Released~[October 27, 2003]~ Channel~[#Excursion on efnet.net]~ Webpage~[http://excursion.humr.org]~ « Ë×Çü®§îöñ »

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From what I’ve seen, each one of these scripts have increasingly annoying abilities… There are simple ones, which can take stuff the user types, such as “brb” or “lol”, and turns it into something like “Be Right Back” (and so on). And of course, there are more annoying ones yet: from being able to “mass highlight” every user in a channel, to creating stupidly long, pointless phrases/sentences or actions (using the “/me” command) which have more color codes in than actual words. And of course, there are the ones which use between 5 and 15 lines creating something that looks like a button.

Here are some great examples, all taken without about 30 mins of each other, and all one one channel.

The button thing:

Another button..:

Converting acronyms:

Yes there are more, I probably missed loads… but it’s not worth finding them. I’m highlighting the ones I see every hour or so connecting/quitting/chatting on my network.

If you’re a newb/noob and are thinking about running one of the scripts I mentioned above, please don’t… you’ll only get laughed at, kicked/banned from most channels/networks, or just ignored

</rant> :P