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Newbie Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 3

First post!

Anyway, to the point.

I play a mud called Discworld, its an LP mud, dunno if that helps. I am going to write a few scripts ect and would like to eventualy script a bot but I guess I should learn to crawl before I can walk! I am clueless, the closest thing I have done to this before is write the scripts for dungon keeper custom maps.. and that was years ago lol.
Can anyone point me in the derection of any useful articals or help files please? Any information would be greatly apreshated.. And before anyone says it I have searched the forums for completed scripts and what not but really did not understand alot of what I was looking at.

Thanks in advance.

Z.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

There's a lot of good resources at http://forums.zuggsoft.com/library/

Recommended reading:
1. http://forums.zuggsoft.com/library/book1/features.htm
2. http://forums.zuggsoft.com/library/book2/triggers.htm
3. http://forums.zuggsoft.com/library/book3/speedwalking.htm
4. http://forums.zuggsoft.com/library/book5/programming.htm

Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:17 pm

Just so you know, Discworld has policies reguarding scripting pretty much to the point of disallowing it all together, due to the fact that you get xp just for sitting there.

Its a great mud, but if you try to bot it it is just a matter of time before you get caught and banned.

However you can use cosmeting scripts, gauges for display, gagging excess texts, and whatnot, they just don't want any commands sent to the mud without a user.

Wanderer Joined: 25 May 2006 Posts: 88

You can write a bot however it needs to be very sophisticated so as not to draw attention to itself such as:

1. Multiple checks upon NPCs/players in rooms.
2. Randomisation of input times and also sporadic 'idle' periods of varying lengths.
3. Strong checks against being spoofed by creators.

These of course are reliant upon you first being able to deal with the many varied stances an NPC/Player can be in when you enter a room, titles (of players), surnames, etc.

Good luck .. it will take you a good few years studying the often changing game world and quite a while to learn enough code to accomplish all these =)

Clearly I am not speaking from experience Twisted Evil

Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:24 pm

Aren't you a coder there Ceres? :p

Wanderer Joined: 25 May 2006 Posts: 88

The correct title is Trustee Twisted Evil

Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:30 pm

I wasn't asking about a title :p
And can I take your post to mean that I AM allowed to try and bot DW without consequences?

Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:43 pm

I'm only interested in the part that said: "you get xp just for sitting there"
Being the idle king that I am i should be ranked #1 in no time!

Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:47 pm

there is an idle timer as well... its like 3 xp per pulse and if you do nothing you idle out in 15 or so minutes.

Wanderer Joined: 25 May 2006 Posts: 88

Newbie Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 3

Ceres was a greek god or somthing like that, the great architect. Alot of the cres and NPC's are named after them, or just people in mythology. (ok I cannot spell) Take Althea for example.

And also to sum up;

1. Multiple checks upon NPCs/players in rooms. - Yeah, I have the general idea how this works, just need to sit down and start playing with the code.
2. Randomisation of input times and also sporadic 'idle' periods of varying lengths. - combat should surfice as an idle time when no commans are sent to the mud. I think. Maybe setting up two or three wait timers that go off when certain flags are reached? Dunno.
3. Strong checks against being spoofed by creators. - lol. "blah starts snooping you" - very hard to spot. I am sure they have other ways of looking at your command input and what not, but the best way not to get caught is dont use any sort of tick timmer, something that dose the same command at the same time every * seccons. also when making a killing loop make serveral that overlap and are almost the same but slightly diferant so that it looks like you are doing the same area but change how you move about it 3 - 4 times then start back at the beginning. The other problem would be people reporting myself. Earmufs (these block everything you tell them too) could be used to stop comunication (or the lack of it comming out of the bot) with other players and some sort of check to see if there is a player in a room before starting combat to make sure you dont take someones kill. Or it might be esier to check for anything other than what i on the kill list, dunno.

Ok, these are just some light ideas but I dont know if I can be botherd to be honist. I have played the game for about 8 years now and I am just getting lazy and have no current charcter there. I might have a go, I might not.

Z.

Newbie Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 3

Bah, Ill just manual it, make some sound triggers and the such, try and make the game more intresting.

Z.