Looking for Feedback - Monster in a Box / Script Creator

zerodowned

zerodowned

Moderator
Been entertaining this idea for a few days now and wanted to see what you guys thought of it...

Monster in a Box - an in game gump menu that allows you to create mobiles on the fly, set props for (eventually) just about anything you could want, ai, stats, hasbreath, etc etc.

then make it so it's either a single shot spawn, create an item in your backpack that you can reuse to spawn the mob as many times as you'd like, or maybe (and I say maybe because I've never done anything like it before) have it write the mobile script for you.

perhaps even create an offshoot of a spawner to make the mobile spawnable without restarts.

eventually could upgrade it to items, armor, weapons and hopefully since it would a script and not a program it wouldn't have the same eventual downfall / shortcomings that most script creators seem to have.
 
Hours and hours of headaches in perspective xD
But that idea is not bad at all, if you do that, i would suggest you to learn how to write a text file :p
As for the idea to do this without restarting the server, the super famous holy "XML" may be the best way to do that.

I wish you the best of luck.
 
I think this would be a good idea-especially to create a mob for an event, setting hits and dex-int etc might make this more fun :)
 
zerodowned said:
Been entertaining this idea for a few days now and wanted to see what you guys thought of it...

Monster in a Box - an in game gump menu that allows you to create mobiles on the fly, set props for (eventually) just about anything you could want, ai, stats, hasbreath, etc etc.

then make it so it's either a single shot spawn, create an item in your backpack that you can reuse to spawn the mob as many times as you'd like, or maybe (and I say maybe because I've never done anything like it before) have it write the mobile script for you.

perhaps even create an offshoot of a spawner to make the mobile spawnable without restarts.

eventually could upgrade it to items, armor, weapons and hopefully since it would a script and not a program it wouldn't have the same eventual downfall / shortcomings that most script creators seem to have.
Click to expand...

You could easily code this to work with Xmlspawners too :)
 
Po0ka said:
Hours and hours of headaches in perspective xD
But that idea is not bad at all, if you do that, i would suggest you to learn how to write a text file :p
As for the idea to do this without restarting the server, the super famous holy "XML" may be the best way to do that.

I wish you the best of luck.
Click to expand...

ai.imgur.com_eWPADu7.png

granted I might beat the record for the most arguments passed, but I'm not sure I see why it would be hard.
i'll have to do a mockup to try it out and report back.
 
I think you could ease your process by relating somehow xmlspawner to a list, and after that list gump you just make the edit properties gump.

Probably would ease it a lot if you could manage this
 
finding a way to make newly created mobiles save-able/ & pastable is the key:confused: the only reason "i havent touched xml stuff to create individual custom mobiles is because it is repetitive & time consuming not practical for test servers which could wipe out saves, (if your me & I am)
coding in a tiny book/hue/ w/e
there are a few script creators which creates a hard copy item mobile even quest npcs that are cool but out of date
updating one of those would be very awesome. (just sayin')
But your trying to do in game creator which would need xml
me i like having all custom mobiles scripted/hard copied so i can edit them anytime, place them waaaaaay faster
move from test to main server etc...

definitely a good idea but is it much different from xmlspawner it already does much the same :eek:
could make xmlspawner more practical though which i for one welcome. :D

:mad:Angry Face just cuz
 
Omegaexdeath said:
finding a way to make newly created mobiles save-able/ & pastable is the key:confused: the only reason "i havent touched xml stuff to create individual custom mobiles is because it is repetitive & time consuming not practical for test servers which could wipe out saves, (if your me & I am)
coding in a tiny book/hue/ w/e
there are a few script creators which creates a hard copy item mobile even quest npcs that are cool but out of date
updating one of those would be very awesome. (just sayin')
But your trying to do in game creator which would need xml
me i like having all custom mobiles scripted/hard copied so i can edit them anytime, place them waaaaaay faster
move from test to main server etc...

definitely a good idea but is it much different from xmlspawner it already does much the same :eek:
could make xmlspawner more practical though which i for one welcome. :D

:mad:Angry Face just cuz
Click to expand...
it's definitely not for everyone, and as Milva mentioned it would be handy for events.

tass23 said:
You could easily code this to work with Xmlspawners too :)
Click to expand...

can Xmlspawners create a new mobile/item, one that isn't already scripted?
 
Yes, actually. You'd have to know all the properties, but for example:
Code: 
SlasherOfVeils/AI/AI_Necromage/name/Colby Jack/title/The Necromantic Lacto-Overlord/Hue/1290/hitsMaxSeed/5000/hits/5000/str/2000/dex/500/BodyValue/216/damagemin/20/damagemax/30/int/400/SKILL,anatomy/120/SKILL,Wrestling/200/SKILL,necromancy/120/SKILL,magery/120/SKILL,focus/120/ADD,0.5/<WEAPON,0,0/Name/Cheese Ripper of The Damned/Hue/1290/attributes.spellchanneling/1/attributes.AttackChance/35/Hitsound/792>/ADD,0.5/<ARMOR,0,0/Name/Unholy Cheese Platter/Hue/1290/attributes.RegenHits/RND,1,3/attributes.LowerRegCost/RND,15,30/attributes.LowerManaCost/RND,6,11>/ADD,0.85/RewardScrollDeed/ADD,0.05/<FountainofBlood/hue/1290/name/Dark Font of Brebis du Puyfaucon>/ADD,0.75/<ChaosShield/Hue/1290/name/Demonic Shield of the Stinking Bishop/attributes.spellchanneling/1/attributes.DefendChance/RND,10,15/attributes.AttackChance/RND,10,15>/Kills/666/BaseSoundID/101/ADD,0.15/<Muculent/RND,1,3>/ADD,0.99/<bankcheck/worth/200000/>
While this uses a base (Slasher of Veils), you can see it's pretty customized right on the spawner, including some loot unique to that mob.

I believe you'd have to set a base to begin with. However, if they were split into categories (farm animals, magical monsters, humans, etc), you could start with a category, which would assign an automatic base. Say farm animals had a base of sheep, then all the properties would be available for changing.

Now that I think about it, that would be a great way to do that because then you could store all the new mobs that were created and they could be put into an existing category, or have one for Custom. This could then be easily output to a webpage as well, just thinking ahead lol
 
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As much as I love XmlSpawner, a stand-alone, lite version of OP would be really, really nice for shards that don't use it.
No matter how easy it is to use XmlSpawner, personally, I have no idea how to use XmlSpawner in-game and have never needed to, but I know it has insane potential.
 
Voxpire said:
As much as I love XmlSpawner, a stand-alone, lite version of OP would be really, really nice for shards that don't use it.
No matter how easy it is to use XmlSpawner, personally, I have no idea how to use XmlSpawner in-game and have never needed to, but I know it has insane potential.
Click to expand...
Being able to quickly import/export .xml files and .cfg would be really useful for people wanting to share their custom xml creations.
 
tass23 said:
Being able to quickly import/export .xml files and .cfg would be really useful for people wanting to share their custom xml creations.
Click to expand...

Yup, you can do all that without XmlSpawner though.
Whenever people say or think Xml, they always seem to think XmlSpawner - and I'm not surprised why :p
 
No, I was thinking in terms of a GUI in-game for the software. I'm talking about specifically for loading custom Xmlspawners, like QuestNPCs or complicated spawner configurations. Click, load the file, click again create the spawner and place it. I'm thinking of a program that would allow you to create an Xmlspawner based whatever in-game, then export the file (which could possibly create a rough script as well, like GumpStudio does when you export a design). You would be able to do almost all the testing on the fly, because of the way Xmlspawner works. Any other program would require a server reboot to load the actual script. Xmlspawner doesn't and to my knowledge, there isn't anything else currently available that's even close to Xmlspawner's capabilities. So why not tap into it and utilize the different facets and make things easier for people with less experience or even no experience.
 
sounds awesome
i have a working proto-script that so far allows to override name and bodyvalue, but have the mobile setup to change ai, fightmode, etc

a little more work and it'll be something worth posting for first looks
 
here's what i have so far

Boxed Mobile.JPG

been building the gump for my Monster in a Box / Boxed Mobile script
Thanks to Xanthos and his(?) shrink code, aligning the item values to show in the gump to bodyvalue wasn't as much work as i thought it would be.

There's still more work to do before it's even half done, just looking for some feedback on how it looks so far.
 
Looking good so far Zero! :)
For the Bodyvalue, instead of just Up/Down arrows, maybe open another gump (so you can see more than one and/or skip a bunch to get where you want to be).
 
Might consider grouping most of the text boxes to the same X to avoid visual parallax.
Also to have a better view of the text boxes, a 1 pixel border would light them out, like in [go or [who etc.

And i like that shrinked image thing xD
 
Po0ka said:
Might consider grouping most of the text boxes to the same X to avoid visual parallax.
Also to have a better view of the text boxes, a 1 pixel border would light them out, like in [go or [who etc.

And i like that shrinked image thing xD
Click to expand...

I didn't even think to ask this until Po0ka just said something, but is that image just the statuette version? I don't think all the body values have shrink images like that...?
 
Po0ka said:
Might consider grouping most of the text boxes to the same X to avoid visual parallax.
Also to have a better view of the text boxes, a 1 pixel border would light them out, like in [go or [who etc.

And i like that shrinked image thing xD
Click to expand...

yeah the x alignment needs some tweaking
good idea about the border, that's definitely going in
 
tass23 said:
I didn't even think to ask this until Po0ka just said something, but is that image just the statuette version? I don't think all the body values have shrink images like that...?
Click to expand...

it is just the statues, sadly
same thing the polymorph menu uses

you are correct, not all body values have them. i'm using the same list as xanthos' shrink system but i think i'll have to make some changes and maybe add names
 
You could use the bodyvalues from Fiddler...the actual animation frame. They are larger of course....or perhaps another idea might be to use the statuettes as "category" markers....like the one in the picture would obviously be for a Dragon-type...then have all the bodyvalues for Dragon-type mobs listed under that category...?
 
I don't think there needs to be a visual element for the mobiles body value. People are going to generally know what mobile they are working with. In addition to that there are several body value lists available. for example: http://www.runuo.com/community/resources/complete-valid-bodyvalue-list-client-7-0-34-6.168/
I think the body value name and number would suffice. But if visual representation is required & this is an ingame gump. There could be a preview button that changes the users model to that body value or places a generic mob with that body value at a targeted location.

Keep up the great work zerodowned, you definitely deserve that bravery award! Thank you for sharing your progress with the community!
 
Hank said:
I don't think there needs to be a visual element for the mobiles body value. People are going to generally know what mobile they are working with. In addition to that there are several body value lists available. for example: http://www.runuo.com/community/resources/complete-valid-bodyvalue-list-client-7-0-34-6.168/
I think the body value name and number would suffice. But if visual representation is required & this is an ingame gump. There could be a preview button that changes the users model to that body value or places a generic mob with that body value at a targeted location.

Keep up the great work zerodowned, you definitely deserve that bravery award! Thank you for sharing your progress with the community!
Click to expand...

Thank you Hank, and I was actually just looking for that list. Will save me the trouble of writing out the names
 
well darn, excel isn't separating the numbers and the text like i was hoping it would. unfortunately i don't have access to the real program, just the online version.
 
silly me, forgot it was in Data > Text to columns
open office has that function too. <3 open office
kept thinking it was a paste special operation instead
 
I'm still working on this project but it's been on the back burner for a while.
I had and idea and wondered if it possible, I'm thinking not but seems like it should be possible.

Create a mobile or item and pass a string as part of the class parameters.
This string is then passed to a method like OnDeath and becomes the body of the method with a Try() Catch() to prevent crashing.

I realize you'd want to use a Verbatim String, but how would you get the system to process the string as the method body?
 
With a try/catch i only see issues regarding performances.

You could use the same concept, but adapting it to a serializing dictionary of items and a dictionary of mobiles (with the Type of the class as a key), then in that you would store the string.
You would then call it with:
Code: 
if ( listThing.ContainsKey( typeof( thatClassUWant ) ) )
	exec(listThing[typeof( thatClassUWant )]);

Another issue would be that exec executes all C#, so expect bad behavior affecting your system (looping read/write etc.).

I've only been thinking about that quickly, it's probably not even the best practice, but it should work.
 
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