Claire [1971751] —
Original article
With Mauk set to end his work on the popular extension DoctorN, we sat down to speak with him, Icebluefire and Chedburn to see what the future holds for scripts in Torn.
In May of 2018, the Torn community was made aware that Mauk, the creator of the DoctorN extension, would be discontinuing his work on the popular tool with immediate effect. Mauk had actually announced the end of DoctorN in a largely unheralded post in the Tools & Userscripts section one month prior, but it was Lonestar's announcement which brought the news to the attention of the masses.
DoctorN's imminent demise was then publicised through a forum post based on a conversation Mauk had with Lonestar, and in the thread that followed, many players expressed their extreme sadness and gratitude for Mauk's hard work.
For those who don't know, DoctorN is a free third-party extension which replaces the City Watch and adds a number of other functions that help optimise your Torn experience. Officially released via the forums on May 12th, 2016, DoctorN's userbase has been growing exponentially ever since its creation, and it has now become a must-have for anyone who plays Torn through a PC.
DoctorN's features include:
- A Travel-Hub to see if your desired item is available in a country.
- Find what has spawned in the city.
- An Easter Egg highlighter.
- TornStats integration to keep track of your stats.
- Full energy and cooldown expiration notifications.
After it's release, DoctorN has gone through several changes, many of which brought in useful new features like the V5.8 update 'Hit the Road' which introduced the Travel Hub. Occasionally, however, some wonderful features had to be removed due to game updates. One example was the V.5.16 update 'Handicapped' when, to accommodate a new scripting rule, Mauk had to remove some automated actions which had previously helped players avoid tedious manual tasks.
Mauk had worked on DoctorN for almost exactly two years when he announced he was stepping away, and in anticipation of his absence, many players began working out potential solutions. Lavish gent Evil-Duck (who has now temporarily left the game) said he would take over DoctorN even though he hasn't exhibited any talent in this field in the past.
Pictured: Evil-Duck hard at work.
A more serious suggestion was made by new player manyakimm, who proposed that donations be made to Mauk to provide an incentive for him to continue. Eno, a member of Itsi Bitsi Bikini, asked if Chedburn might incorporate the extension into Torn itself. He received no direct response to this query, but the Torn City Times has obtained the following quotes from our Torn overlord.
TCT: What do you think of the DoctorN script?
Chedburn: "Any userscripts which increase the player's enjoyment are welcome. I know DoctorN, in particular, has been a very popular extension for thousands, providing advanced tools which make their life in Torn easier without giving players a gameplay advantage over those who don't use it."
TCT: Would Torn ever consider integrating some of its features?
Chedburn: "Absolutely, if such features are suggested we can certainly look at integrating them officially. However, Torn and its many areas are meant to be simple and intuitive for all players - casual and advanced. Some features of extensions tackle very specific things and may feel complex, strange or out of place as part of the base game. Any features added to Torn would need to be simplistic, without adding any additional complexity, and feel like they rightfully belong there."
Welcome news I'm sure to those who are worried about what the future might hold when DoctorN loses his licence. The Dr's patients would therefore be wise to post the most crucial features in the Suggestions forum imminently, as we cannot possibly know how long the current iteration of DoctorN will continue to function as normal. It may be that another player takes up the mantle and provides an alternative, but at present, we have no idea who, if anyone, is capable of stepping into Mauk's medical clogs.
Pictured: Shoes which are both stylish and practical.
One possible candidate is Icebluefire, a fellow scripter and the creator of Tornstats; although he may have enough on his plate given the demands of his own creation. Icebluefire posted on the forums that he understood why Mauk hadn't made his code open source - a provision which would've allowed others to continue its development - and while he was sad to see the end of DoctorN, he was thankful for what Mauk had brought to Torn while it existed.
When we spoke to him, Icebluefire told the TCT he had been using DoctorN ever since its public release. He found the city finds update one of the most useful things Mauk had added, and he also gave a mention to the travel-hub, which provides important information even to a non-flower runner like himself. The notifications feature is Icebluefire's favourite part of the extension, though, with his second favourite being DoctorN's ability to integrate with Tornstats.
TCT: Was it hard to get TornStats integrated into DoctorN?
Icebluefire: "Not really, not from my end anyway. The hardest part was approaching Mauk to convince him to help me with it."
TCT: Was he interested in the idea?
Icebluefire: "Surprisingly yeah. I was worried he wouldn't want to be bothered with working with another third-party, but he was quite excited."
TCT: Do you have a solution to prevent DoctorN from dying eventually?
Icebluefire: "Sadly not. All we can do is hope Ched doesn't break anything major, but he's not going to stop development for an extension. The dream would be Torn buying or implementing their own version
Otherwise, we have to hope that if it does eventually die, that someone else steps forward and creates something with similar functionality."
Might that person be Mauk himself? There is a small glimmer of hope in that this isn't the first time he has announced his decision to discontinue the development of the DoctorN tool. In 2016, Mauk considered ending the project due to two incidents; one where he accidentally released a blacklist that prevented certain people from using DoctorN's features, and another incident where he was falsely accused of stealing user data.
On both occasions, Mauk relented and continued to develop DoctorN to the delight and relief of its users. Neither incident was deemed to be malicious by the community at large, and the public's support for this tool has been consistently unanimous, with many having shared their love for DoctorN via its official Discord server.
It was here where Mauk conducted a $2,650,987,095 giveaway to celebrate the Doc's very first birthday, but this generosity pales in comparison to the years which Mauk has given in service of this important and popular tool. As such, we must respect his decision to end his work on DoctorN and assume, despite our hopes otherwise, that the Doctor is closing his door to new patients permanently.
But why has he chosen to cease his development work now, and what made him start in the first place? To find an answer to some of the questions that only the creator could provide, I interviewed Mauk earlier this month.
TCT: What is the reason you made DoctorN in the first place? What provided you with the incentive to do so?
Mauk: "DoctorN's very first (and for a long time only) feature was the City Finds highlighting. I created it as soon as city finds were introduced. It wasn't meant to "be a thing," I was just tired of looking at the map and wanted to solve that problem. I didn't publish it or improve it for over a year."
TCT: Did you work alone on this project?
Mauk: "Yeah. The only ones who knew about it were myself and my spouse, RobFl. I didn't intend to release or grow the project, and actually spent quite a bit of time away from the game after creating it. Unfortunately, RobFl passed away. And in that time I kept thinking about our time together in Torn and decided to clean up and release DoctorN publicly."
TCT: How did you choose the name DoctorN?
Mauk: "I have to admit I never liked the name. The play on words was indeed intentional. I remember having no idea what to call it and resorting to those scrabble cheating sites to find words ending in "torn," and later "tor." I never found anything cool, but having no other idea I settled for doctor."
"Now, Doc Torn is awful to my eyes, so I chose to go with DoctorN as a "prettier" capitalization and perhaps to make it harder for people to notice the pun. I still hate it, however. It is super silly and I feel like a 13-year-old every time I type that N. That's why you'll often see me calling it simply doc."
"For what it's worth, the plan seemed to work and most people wouldn't notice "torn" right away. In a way, it lessened the cheesy-ness for me. I did eventually drop stronger hints both in posts and, more prominently, the thread logo. Either way, it's amusing to see that even such silly things can result in speculations and surprises. Also, there's no official pronunciation. I personally always call it doctorn.Ohshi,brokemyspacebar."
TCT: Is it true that DoctorN is leaving us?
Mauk: "Well, it is true that I'm no longer working on it. Some features still work, but as Torn gets updates it's expected that more and more of Doc will stop working."
TCT: Hmm... If you don't mind me asking, Why are you stopping?
Mauk: "A bit of everything, really. At the end of the day, I just have invested too much time on this hobby."
TCT: Who do you think is capable enough to continue your project?
Mauk: "There are plenty of talented scripters in Torn, so I'm sure new projects will keep popping up to fill whatever areas of Torn are in need."
TCT: Will you make the extension open source when you stop working on it completely?
Mauk: "The code is not in a shape I'd feel comfortable sharing, tbh. And I wouldn't want to deal with malicious copies floating around. People who are knowledgeable enough and would work on Doc could easily start a competing tool."
TCT: I believe our Player Committee is blessed with a few good user-script creators. Is sharing with them a possibility so that they can continue working on it?
Mauk: "I don't see that happening :/"
TCT: Can us DoctorN users expect a final update?
Mauk: "Well, that was the TS one. :("
TCT: Will you ever consider working on DoctorN again in the future?
Mauk: "Of course; we never know."
And on this positive note (and the two depressing answers above it), I would like to bring this article to an end. DoctorN has undoubtedly shaped Torn in many positive ways, and if this is the end, it will surely go down in Torn's history as one of the most useful community additions ever made. Dedicated players like Mauk take everyone's Torn experience to a new level, putting in hours, days, weeks and years of their own time in return for nothing more than the gratitude of their fellow players.
For this, Mauk does not deserve pleas or demands now his work is concluding; his scripting retirement merits one response and one response only:
Thank you, Mauk.
DoctorN's imminent demise was then publicised through a forum post based on a conversation Mauk had with Lonestar, and in the thread that followed, many players expressed their extreme sadness and gratitude for Mauk's hard work.
For those who don't know, DoctorN is a free third-party extension which replaces the City Watch and adds a number of other functions that help optimise your Torn experience. Officially released via the forums on May 12th, 2016, DoctorN's userbase has been growing exponentially ever since its creation, and it has now become a must-have for anyone who plays Torn through a PC.
DoctorN's features include:
- A Travel-Hub to see if your desired item is available in a country.
- Find what has spawned in the city.
- An Easter Egg highlighter.
- TornStats integration to keep track of your stats.
- Full energy and cooldown expiration notifications.
After it's release, DoctorN has gone through several changes, many of which brought in useful new features like the V5.8 update 'Hit the Road' which introduced the Travel Hub. Occasionally, however, some wonderful features had to be removed due to game updates. One example was the V.5.16 update 'Handicapped' when, to accommodate a new scripting rule, Mauk had to remove some automated actions which had previously helped players avoid tedious manual tasks.
Mauk had worked on DoctorN for almost exactly two years when he announced he was stepping away, and in anticipation of his absence, many players began working out potential solutions. Lavish gent Evil-Duck (who has now temporarily left the game) said he would take over DoctorN even though he hasn't exhibited any talent in this field in the past.
Pictured: Evil-Duck hard at work.
A more serious suggestion was made by new player manyakimm, who proposed that donations be made to Mauk to provide an incentive for him to continue. Eno, a member of Itsi Bitsi Bikini, asked if Chedburn might incorporate the extension into Torn itself. He received no direct response to this query, but the Torn City Times has obtained the following quotes from our Torn overlord.
TCT: What do you think of the DoctorN script?
Chedburn: "Any userscripts which increase the player's enjoyment are welcome. I know DoctorN, in particular, has been a very popular extension for thousands, providing advanced tools which make their life in Torn easier without giving players a gameplay advantage over those who don't use it."
TCT: Would Torn ever consider integrating some of its features?
Chedburn: "Absolutely, if such features are suggested we can certainly look at integrating them officially. However, Torn and its many areas are meant to be simple and intuitive for all players - casual and advanced. Some features of extensions tackle very specific things and may feel complex, strange or out of place as part of the base game. Any features added to Torn would need to be simplistic, without adding any additional complexity, and feel like they rightfully belong there."
Welcome news I'm sure to those who are worried about what the future might hold when DoctorN loses his licence. The Dr's patients would therefore be wise to post the most crucial features in the Suggestions forum imminently, as we cannot possibly know how long the current iteration of DoctorN will continue to function as normal. It may be that another player takes up the mantle and provides an alternative, but at present, we have no idea who, if anyone, is capable of stepping into Mauk's medical clogs.
Pictured: Shoes which are both stylish and practical.
One possible candidate is Icebluefire, a fellow scripter and the creator of Tornstats; although he may have enough on his plate given the demands of his own creation. Icebluefire posted on the forums that he understood why Mauk hadn't made his code open source - a provision which would've allowed others to continue its development - and while he was sad to see the end of DoctorN, he was thankful for what Mauk had brought to Torn while it existed.
When we spoke to him, Icebluefire told the TCT he had been using DoctorN ever since its public release. He found the city finds update one of the most useful things Mauk had added, and he also gave a mention to the travel-hub, which provides important information even to a non-flower runner like himself. The notifications feature is Icebluefire's favourite part of the extension, though, with his second favourite being DoctorN's ability to integrate with Tornstats.
TCT: Was it hard to get TornStats integrated into DoctorN?
Icebluefire: "Not really, not from my end anyway. The hardest part was approaching Mauk to convince him to help me with it."
TCT: Was he interested in the idea?
Icebluefire: "Surprisingly yeah. I was worried he wouldn't want to be bothered with working with another third-party, but he was quite excited."
TCT: Do you have a solution to prevent DoctorN from dying eventually?
Icebluefire: "Sadly not. All we can do is hope Ched doesn't break anything major, but he's not going to stop development for an extension. The dream would be Torn buying or implementing their own version
Otherwise, we have to hope that if it does eventually die, that someone else steps forward and creates something with similar functionality."
Might that person be Mauk himself? There is a small glimmer of hope in that this isn't the first time he has announced his decision to discontinue the development of the DoctorN tool. In 2016, Mauk considered ending the project due to two incidents; one where he accidentally released a blacklist that prevented certain people from using DoctorN's features, and another incident where he was falsely accused of stealing user data.
On both occasions, Mauk relented and continued to develop DoctorN to the delight and relief of its users. Neither incident was deemed to be malicious by the community at large, and the public's support for this tool has been consistently unanimous, with many having shared their love for DoctorN via its official Discord server.
It was here where Mauk conducted a $2,650,987,095 giveaway to celebrate the Doc's very first birthday, but this generosity pales in comparison to the years which Mauk has given in service of this important and popular tool. As such, we must respect his decision to end his work on DoctorN and assume, despite our hopes otherwise, that the Doctor is closing his door to new patients permanently.
But why has he chosen to cease his development work now, and what made him start in the first place? To find an answer to some of the questions that only the creator could provide, I interviewed Mauk earlier this month.
TCT: What is the reason you made DoctorN in the first place? What provided you with the incentive to do so?
Mauk: "DoctorN's very first (and for a long time only) feature was the City Finds highlighting. I created it as soon as city finds were introduced. It wasn't meant to "be a thing," I was just tired of looking at the map and wanted to solve that problem. I didn't publish it or improve it for over a year."
TCT: Did you work alone on this project?
Mauk: "Yeah. The only ones who knew about it were myself and my spouse, RobFl. I didn't intend to release or grow the project, and actually spent quite a bit of time away from the game after creating it. Unfortunately, RobFl passed away. And in that time I kept thinking about our time together in Torn and decided to clean up and release DoctorN publicly."
TCT: How did you choose the name DoctorN?
Mauk: "I have to admit I never liked the name. The play on words was indeed intentional. I remember having no idea what to call it and resorting to those scrabble cheating sites to find words ending in "torn," and later "tor." I never found anything cool, but having no other idea I settled for doctor."
"Now, Doc Torn is awful to my eyes, so I chose to go with DoctorN as a "prettier" capitalization and perhaps to make it harder for people to notice the pun. I still hate it, however. It is super silly and I feel like a 13-year-old every time I type that N. That's why you'll often see me calling it simply doc."
"For what it's worth, the plan seemed to work and most people wouldn't notice "torn" right away. In a way, it lessened the cheesy-ness for me. I did eventually drop stronger hints both in posts and, more prominently, the thread logo. Either way, it's amusing to see that even such silly things can result in speculations and surprises. Also, there's no official pronunciation. I personally always call it doctorn.Ohshi,brokemyspacebar."
TCT: Is it true that DoctorN is leaving us?
Mauk: "Well, it is true that I'm no longer working on it. Some features still work, but as Torn gets updates it's expected that more and more of Doc will stop working."
TCT: Hmm... If you don't mind me asking, Why are you stopping?
Mauk: "A bit of everything, really. At the end of the day, I just have invested too much time on this hobby."
TCT: Who do you think is capable enough to continue your project?
Mauk: "There are plenty of talented scripters in Torn, so I'm sure new projects will keep popping up to fill whatever areas of Torn are in need."
TCT: Will you make the extension open source when you stop working on it completely?
Mauk: "The code is not in a shape I'd feel comfortable sharing, tbh. And I wouldn't want to deal with malicious copies floating around. People who are knowledgeable enough and would work on Doc could easily start a competing tool."
TCT: I believe our Player Committee is blessed with a few good user-script creators. Is sharing with them a possibility so that they can continue working on it?
Mauk: "I don't see that happening :/"
TCT: Can us DoctorN users expect a final update?
Mauk: "Well, that was the TS one. :("
TCT: Will you ever consider working on DoctorN again in the future?
Mauk: "Of course; we never know."
And on this positive note (and the two depressing answers above it), I would like to bring this article to an end. DoctorN has undoubtedly shaped Torn in many positive ways, and if this is the end, it will surely go down in Torn's history as one of the most useful community additions ever made. Dedicated players like Mauk take everyone's Torn experience to a new level, putting in hours, days, weeks and years of their own time in return for nothing more than the gratitude of their fellow players.
For this, Mauk does not deserve pleas or demands now his work is concluding; his scripting retirement merits one response and one response only:
Thank you, Mauk.
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