EQEMu Bots

[DeletedUser]

I'm not sure where this really goes. It's not a "REAL" EverQuest thing. But it's a request that would imo work quite nicely if we could get together some programmers who could work this out.

First off, i'm going to give an example. On image's guildwar server. The town people who were level 65, they were NPCs. Yet they showed up on the /who list.

If you could create a script with npcs who were interactive.. you could add some liveness to your server.

Say theres a file in a folder called bots.. and some other files.
[ c:\eqemu\bots.exe ]
[ c:\eqemu\bots\ ]
[ c:\eqemu\bots\bot1.cfg ]
[ c:\eqemu\bots\bot2.cfg ]
[ c:\eqemu\bots\random.bat ]

The bots.exe would basically be an additional file to the world.exe minilogin.exe it'd have all the info for the bots going.

The bot*.cfg would hold one of the bots info.. I'm guessing they would be like.. 10kb big? So having like 100 of them wouldn't be a problem.

This is what it would look like:

--------------------------------------------------------------

[Bot]
Name=Bot
Lastname=Test
Level=60
Class=1
Race=1
Guild=1
Zone=1

[Equipment]
Earring=item#
Neck=item#
Head=item#
Earring2=item#

--------------------------------------------------------------

And you could go into more detail. But here you say.. WTF this would take forever.

So a [ c:\eqemu\bots\random.bat ] would be made. It could prompt you how many do you want it to create, and it could randomly generate all the bot files and a mysql file to update your db.

I guess it'd have to work with your database to check equipment.. and see if its compatible with race/class/level/slot.

This idea is very vague.. I just look at it as a way for servers to have more interactivity. You could create random chat files. You could make commands so you control them. You could make it so they group with you. You could make it so they go into chat room. You could guild with them. You could trade with them. They could walk around zones killing things, dying.. trying to get a rez for their corpses.

I know all of this would take a REALLY long time, not really long, just a lot of time. If anyone is willing to help me, I really want to create this.

Please post your comments on this, and tell me how much of a loser I am to want to play with bots!

[DeletedUser]

I don't think people really get what I was saying..

Here is a sort of tool to create bots:


Here is the program you run when you run the server:



A thing I just realized is this would be massive bandwidth.. I dunno how you could fix that. :cry:

[killspree]

The city controllers were coded that way in the emu code, there wasn't anything special to make them show up on /who.

They're normal NPCs in the database. :p

[DeletedUser]

Ok well, you get the idea anyways! :P

[killspree]

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting idea. Some of the stuff you can already do with the new quest system, like them following you around, etc...but some would need to be added.

You could probably end up just using the quest system with a few custom modifications.

[DeletedUser]

Sort've, if you really think about it, you'd need to code a lot of things, and script a bunch.

Example:
Each time a new bot is loaded, it'll pick up its last location. It pops them in there. Then start to wander. (you'd have to make pathing for every zone.. JUST FOR BOTS!) If that bot has a trigger such as lfg. It'd put on lfg. THEN! Other bots must be working too, where if theres a spot in their group, then that'll trigger them to look for lfg. It'll send a tell to that bot it finds lfg and that bot has to find that NPC. Now when that bot gets there, it invites it, lfg is off.

Thats just for LFG. Now you gotta go into more details, say a bot is pulling, or finding things to kill. If it has a function for >, <, or =. If its =, if its level 20, and mob is level 20. It'll pull it. What does it do? Should it take the location from where it first started to call the "looking for a fight or group pull.. where if its in a group, it'll pull it instead of kill it" then when it gets the mob agro run back to that location?

This would take a hell've long time. I could try to make a single bot and get crappy code going. Then some people could pick it up.. but it's not something that you can create in a days work.

[DeletedUser]

Tomorrow if I have some time, i'll start to think of how I would go about creating it (design docs) then start to code some.

If anyone wants to get updates, or help.

irc.eqemu.net // #emubot

[Bigpull]

Between the IPC and QUEST system you have complete bots. Currently there is a problem (thanks for reminding me) with assigning quests to ipc's.

Current IPC commands are
Group:
help me attack,
heal me,
pvp,
follow me,
wait here,
evac,
buff me,
buff target

Say:
hail,
group me


Things that don't work, or don't work completely

They will not zone yet.
You have to repeat buff requests to get all of thier buffs.
Group bugs, i don't remeber how many
Inspect.


My theory for two new ServerType, one with pvp, and one without.
You create your group in your character selection, then log into the character you want to play. The server will store an extra copy of your current zone and spawn you into load2. Here all the other characters from your character selection screen are spawned as IPC. There will also be a npc that responds to "I am ready" to return you and any IPC you group to the zone and location you camped in. Add in the pre stocked bazaar and you have a single player eq that shouldn't require to much tuneing changes.

[DeletedUser]

IPC? Heh.

[fnemo]

Interactive Player Character

Not the inter process communication that are used :p