Quests in a Database Table

djeryv · #1 07-17-2009, 02:32 PM

I don't want to belittle the efforts by the coders here...as I am not knowledgeable at programming. Why do we have perl quests and not quests in a database table? I only ask because the WOW emulator has the quests in a database. Is it a major undertaking to have quests work from a table? Is perl just a better/only way of doing quests than a table?

- Djeryv

Zeice · #2 07-17-2009, 03:18 PM

In WoW quests were done through a quest system that was designed for the game itself. This game was made in 1999, so originally quests were all text-based so there is no system to use the database to control quests. However, this changed with the implementation of the task system, which does allow quests to be created and controlled through the database. It still requires some perl coding to get the most flexibility out of the system, but that's just the way it is. I don't know anything about WoW emu, but I do know that the perl system gives me alot of flexibility to do what I want. It is also very handy for setting up scripted encounters.

djeryv · #3 07-17-2009, 03:20 PM

I'll check out that Task system. Any docs around for pointers?

-Djeryv

djeryv · #4 07-17-2009, 03:23 PM

nevermind...it is in the WIKI

**trevius** · #5 07-17-2009, 03:56 PM

Something that should help you to be able to learn tasks quicker and make them easier is the TaskMaster tool KLS made. You can download it here:

http://code.google.com/p/projecteqemu/downloads/list

It is the one named tm_1_0_8_zip.

**cavedude** · #6 07-17-2009, 03:59 PM

Getting back to quests, the advantage of using an external scripting language like Perl instead of having it database driven is it gives us a lot more flexibility. Often, instead of adding code to the EQEmu core, we can get the same functionality using functions native to Perl. Hell, Perl can often even be used to overwrite and correct bugs that exist in the EQEmu core, until a developer can get the time to do it the correct way.