Lua Scripting+Content Databasing system

[c0ncrete]

i would devote countless hours to conversion efforts in order for this to see the light of day.

[cavedude]

Yes, but not everybody has the ability to convert their server over. A good number of servers are completely custom or at the least altered versions of PEQ. A dual system would be needed to accommodate everybody and not force anybody to keep up or get out. We wouldn't want to make Lua an on or off type situation either, because then we'd have Lua folks on one fence, and Perl/DB folks on the other and we'd essentially be forking the project... Something we do not want to do.

[Akkadius]

Originally Posted by cavedude

Yes, but not everybody has the ability to convert their server over. A good number of servers are completely custom or at the least altered versions of PEQ. A dual system would be needed to accommodate everybody and not force anybody to keep up or get out. We wouldn't want to make Lua an on or off type situation either, because then we'd have Lua folks on one fence, and Perl/DB folks on the other and we'd essentially be forking the project... Something we do not want to do.

While I see no problem with adding LUA as a scripting language option, as far as integration with C++ goes I've been told that the integration is beautiful in what you can do, it is not something this far into this project to fully replace the Perl system. That is said with complete fairness in the purpose of a scripting language meant for driving events flexibly within the world by not needing to export stuff constantly in the source is a great benefit.

Though if you go beyond the flexibility of a scripting language and integrating it within the source code and start talking into more practicality and use, Perl has thousands of modules and other abilities that make it also have incredible potential that is not nearly seen here on the forums. Perl also has the capability of doing shared memory functions within one of its modules and has thousands of other modules made to bring functionality to a higher level beyond basic script parsing.

[Zaela_S]

If the quest scripting option is the only thing that is wanted/justifiable, I'm fine just working on that and keeping the rest to myself. It would be a lot less work, and I don't really have anything to gain in working on it anyway, just figured I might as well offer. Integrating it into the Parser/QuestManager handler classes shouldn't be too hard, and I think that'll get it just where it's wanted.

Lua does seem to have a very minimalist, "if you want something done, write the module/library yourself" mindset behind it, which is fine for me but I can see where that would be problematic for a works-out-of-the-box project like EQEmu.

[cavedude]

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

If the quest scripting option is the only thing that is wanted/justifiable, I'm fine just working on that and keeping the rest to myself. It would be a lot less work, and I don't really have anything to gain in working on it anyway, just figured I might as well offer. Integrating it into the Parser/QuestManager handler classes shouldn't be too hard, and I think that'll get it just where it's wanted.

Lua does seem to have a very minimalist, "if you want something done, write the module/library yourself" mindset behind it, which is fine for me but I can see where that would be problematic for a works-out-of-the-box project like EQEmu.

I'm actually more interested in the spawning stuff, to be honest. The quest scripting is more a it'd be nice to have it, but ultimately there is nothing wrong with Perl for that. But, don't kill yourself. If something can't be done easily, forget about it.

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by cavedude

I'm actually more interested in the spawning stuff, to be honest. The quest scripting is more a it'd be nice to have it, but ultimately there is nothing wrong with Perl for that. But, don't kill yourself. If something can't be done easily, forget about it.

Spawns would probably be the single easiest thing to implement without disturbing any of the existing systems -- just need to add a lua_spawn_id variable to NPCs, and then do all the LuaSpawn checks/processes after the Spawn2 versions. Wouldn't be any problem to have Lua-spawned NPCs use Perl quest scripts, of course.

Could probably have just the spawns and maybe path grids done in an evening or two. Then I'd just need to figure out where and how to commit stuff ;p

[sorvani]

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

Could probably have just the spawns and maybe path grids done in an evening or two. Then I'd just need to figure out where and how to commit stuff ;p

Just post a diff here for the server code changes