Player made quests via a network of bots

[bkc56]

I was not thinking of using already existing trade bots because of a few reasons:

...

I just realized that this implies the creation of a whole new set of bots for the quest system. I could see at least one on most every map on both C1 and C2, perhaps more depending on the needs of the quests. Seems like we have plenty of bots around already.

 

So if these are not existing bots, and they're for the sole purpose of quest support, I assume they'll all be free, non-blessed bots, and (as stated above) hosted by some generous trusted person.

 

While they may not need any leveling (beyond perhaps to harvest 20 so they could all join a quest guild perhaps) there should probably be some sort of plan developed for what the names will be and what they will look like. Names, races, genders, and even what they're wearing could all be important for the role-playing aspect and how the quests will be written ("look for Lady vs Lord <whatever>").

 

This should probably all be planned out ahead of time.

[DogBreath]

Ok, let me clarify a few aspects. I was not thinking of using already existing trade bots because of a few reasons:

This can become a security issue, if there is a bug in programming then they can give too many prizes or something.

Doesn't matter who writes this, if there's a bug in the programming, it's going to mess up.

Those bots might have to move every once in a while, to make the quests more interesting (think of a quest like a missing girl, that is always on the move).

Our tradebots can move, assuming you don't have an issue with them moving for a quest and then returning when they're done. (They don't perform as a normal trade bot when they're not at their home position, already...)

In case someone doesn't pay the bot fee and it gets locked, then the whole quest can fail.

This is why I suggested having more than one bot listed - a back up bot for each step (with as many as have volunteered from our service already, this would be very possible.)

Those bots will have slightly higher privileges than a normal player, and I don't want the owners of trade bots to have access to them.

The owners wouldn't have access to the higher privilege commands, just the code base on events. And, if you have these bots tagged as having special privleges (or the IP) then even if someone had the code it wouldn't do them any good, would just be another person trying to scam and they'd get banned for attempting it.

I would also like them all to be hosted on a single machine, to make it more reliable. For example, think about the above mentioned example with the missing girl quest. If the machine hosting the girl bot gets disconnected, then the players can waste their time looking for it.

All of our bots are hosted on a single machine, while no one can gaurentee 100% up time, we're around 98% or better. And with 70 bots spread across the 'world' I'm not sure you can find a better spread without doing what bkc suggested, making a new bot for every map....

Learner's system is nice, but only for non programmers. What I have in mind is having some scripting language targeted at programmers, that would make things easier to do for those implementing the quests.

If the interface is nice enough, I'm not sure why it matters if some programmer understands it or not. If the person that's setting up the quest understands it, what's the difference?

[Entropy]

Ok, let me clarify a few aspects. I was not thinking of using already existing trade bots because of a few reasons:

This can become a security issue, if there is a bug in programming then they can give too many prizes or something.

Doesn't matter who writes this, if there's a bug in the programming, it's going to mess up.

 

Well then, if people you host the bots for don't mind the possibility of having everything on their bot scammed, then it's OK to me.

[DogBreath]

Ok, let me clarify a few aspects. I was not thinking of using already existing trade bots because of a few reasons:

This can become a security issue, if there is a bug in programming then they can give too many prizes or something.

Doesn't matter who writes this, if there's a bug in the programming, it's going to mess up.

 

Well then, if people you host the bots for don't mind the possibility of having everything on their bot scammed, then it's OK to me.

They already take this risk every day. If I screw up, they have the distinct chance of losing everything. AFAIK in the year+ we've been hosting, not one bot has been scammed due to anything other than operator error (sell price lower than buy price, etc...) While I can't claim perfection (by no means...) I can say that having so many eyes watching the same pool of bots gives us a huge advantage over the scammers. As soon as something is found, we have the ability to shut the entire thing down and fix it and we have a team of admins (that can shut it down) spread across different time zones so there's usually someone watching. We also have forums, in game contacts, and the admins have my phone number to call me if the roof caves in.

 

That being said, it seems to me that it'd be best for a single bot (like perhaps walkincloset, that's being used to hold the quests prizes already, or a similar storage bot) to hand out the prizes, so, the tradebots would just be handling the quest events and logging who's completed what. This way these bots don't have to worry about actually trading anything (cancelled trades could be used to verify items, or the 'ending' bot could be the one that collects the item(s) and hands out the prizes, depending on how the quests were planned...)

 

All of these bots are on a centralized database as well, so there's no timing issues between them, they all know (or could know) 'everything' from each other bot at the same time. You asked for a network of bots, that's what we have We're just trying to offer that network to do what you're asking (assuming you can trust us enough to handle things well.)

 

It's your call

[Affliction]

That being said, it seems to me that it'd be best for a single bot (like perhaps walkincloset, that's being used to hold the quests prizes already, or a similar storage bot) to hand out the prizes, so, the tradebots would just be handling the quest events and logging who's completed what. This way these bots don't have to worry about actually trading anything (cancelled trades could be used to verify items, or the 'ending' bot could be the one that collects the item(s) and hands out the prizes, depending on how the quests were planned...)

 

All of these bots are on a centralized database as well, so there's no timing issues between them, they all know (or could know) 'everything' from each other bot at the same time. You asked for a network of bots, that's what we have We're just trying to offer that network to do what you're asking (assuming you can trust us enough to handle things well.)

 

It's your call

 

 

I have a storage bot i'd donate for this purpose. me and my guild are not really using it....

[SleepyDragon]

I know very little about bots and the programming side of this, but if there is a team that gets together to come up with quest ideas and storylines I'd like to get involved with that.

[DHT]

Would these QuestBots be available on both servers (main and PK)? If so, then the normal trade bots can't be used... I'm not aknowledged with the bots' scripts, but as far as I know, bots can not be attacked by creatures, either normal or invasion ones, but they can be attacked by players (e.g GuardBots). so i guess they should be made non-attackable too.