Plugins

imperio59

Hi,
This might've been answered before, but I was wondering what sort of plugin system will exist in NS2 for things like Admin Plugins, etc...

Do you have a scripting language tied into the engine like Lua or Python or something similar?

JAmazon

I think the entire game is written in Lua <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />

TychoCelchuuu

Pretty much everthing is in LUA, yeah. So you can change all that.

daidalos

Am I actually the only one that is afraid of that?

The reason I stopped playing Natural Selection is because I couldn't find any decent vanilla server anymore, or rather I don't even remember finding any vanilla servers that had a normal amount of player slots and didn't play co_ maps all the time or had bots on.
I hope that doesn't happen to Natural Selection 2 aswell, it always disturbed me when some wiseyguy admin thought it's a brilliant idea to install plugins and send the balance to hell.

lazy

<!--quoteo(post=1708769:date=May 31 2009, 01:57 AM:name=daidalos)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (daidalos @ May 31 2009, 01:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1708769"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Am I actually the only one that is afraid of that?

The reason I stopped playing Natural Selection is because I couldn't find any decent vanilla server anymore, or rather I don't even remember finding any vanilla servers that had a normal amount of player slots and didn't play co_ maps all the time or had bots on.
I hope that doesn't happen to Natural Selection 2 aswell, it always disturbed me when some wiseyguy admin thought it's a brilliant idea to install plugins and send the balance to hell.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


I share your concern. Being able to have a consistent and uniform gameplay experience is important for me.

Strepto

That's really the biggest issue with allowing players to change stuff easily. But then again, it can also bring some good things too.

Would perhaps be nice to have some sort of server flag indicating that there are no plugins or mods running that alter gameplay.

If we'll be able to host servers during the alpha and/or beta then I will host a vanilla server. We all want a consistent game experience.

Dalin Seivewright

Although I couldn't find the thread where it was discussed, but before the move to the new engine I remember a discussion about how to handle this very thing. I believe the developers stated that they would likely be implementing a server browser that would filter out the modded servers from the vanilla servers. This would obviously also work to filter out the vanilla servers from the modded ones if you wanted to try a mod out. Given the awesome-ness of Lua as a plug-in system, the only difficulty would be to learn how to use Lua (which is less of a difficulty than one might think) both by itself and how NS2 will incorporates it into the game. Given that some games can load Lua plugins on the fly, I'd gather that debugging will be very easy!

With that said, I am by no means the official word and if anyone can find an exact post (which I have been unable to do :\) please feel free to post <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

Thormme

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We do want to make sure people can play a "vanilla" game of NS2 easily though, so we're planning on sorting servers into two lists: regular and custom.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/faq/#faq-1002" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/faq/#faq-1002</a>

This <i>is</i> the official word ;)

homicide

mp_blocklua 1

Thansal

As per the FAQ:

An advantage of making the game inherently modable is that all the mods will be known by the game itself, and thus easily searched for/against.

imperio59

Gah, I have to learn Lua now. And I was just starting to get the hang of Python... :/

devicenull

I've already started writing an admin system <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

Granted, I know nothing of the API for ns2, but there is enough "common" stuff that needs to be handled regardless of what the API looks like. Getting API specs before it's released would be lovely, but I doubt that will happen.

RobB

Telling by the average gaming Joe's attitude I'll wonder when I come across a Server that's whole Gaming purpose is "Hide and Seek (and some more)" of Aliens vs female Marines.

Yes, this was my reply to the female Playermodel Thread. For me, that's still a valid concern.