Advanced Combat Tracker is a combat oriented log parser for EverQuest II. The main focus of the program is to capture as much information about an encounter as possible and display that information in a meaningful way. ACT is not a lightweight program but one designed around complicated raid encounters where huge amounts of data may be gathered from the log file. Top level tables may show summaries of information and allow you to view many levels of data below that down to tables of individual pieces of data. Summary information may vary from simple totals to somewhat more complicated formulae. Every single piece of data that ACT contains should be visible to the user and thus can be verified manually. Log parsing can done in real time or by parsing archived logs. Parsed encounters can be saved and shared in a variety of methods; the most common being combat summaries being pasted into EQ2 chat. I could try to explain the types of things you can get out of ACT, but I think the screenshots would explain things better.

ACT started as a learning project to teach myself C# after I first started playing EQ2 in November of 2004. At the time there were very few offerings for log parsers if any. Those that did exist did only basic things at best. I had not started raiding yet, being barely level 15 but I knew from EQ1 that it would be in my future and in order to better understand how the game worked, I would need a reliable log parser. That is essentially the purpose behind the program, to better understand the game. Being a Templar, I did not have a particular care about how much damage I could output in a certain amount of time. Even though that is a popular misconception on the limits of log parsers. As ACT was a learning project, I never had immediate plans on releasing it to the public. I certainly didn't foresee the eventual popularity or even controversy that it would cause.

A couple years ago some popular gaming sites interviewed me about ACT. They contain some good general information on what parsers do and a sense of what ACT can provide. Feel free to read the articles: EQ2@TenTonHammer & EQ2@OGaming/Allakhazam.