renderluz, kat and i aren't really coders, but there are a few guys that do visit or hang out here who might be able to update the exporter. and thanks for the recommendation, i only recently made the huge jump from 2.49b to the 2.6 builds and although i've found a few annoying bugs, over all i do prefer the latest blenders over the 2.4x builds.
sorry, i previously didn't make myself clear with my not very helpful comment about .ase, i'm behind times when it comes to exporting into game engines, although i used to make some abstract art animations and render them in blender years ago. i would eventually like to learn how to import and export rigged characters for games, as opposed to just working with static models, which is the reason for me still using .ase