Have other scripting options been considered for the Spark Engine?
I have been trying to pint "Hello World" to the console for 2 hours now and still have had no success. I am able to hit breakpoints in Decoda on the lines above and below, but not the "Print()" line.
In order for any sort of modding to be taken seriously I think there needs to be actual documentation provided along with a sample or two. I feel that UWE does want people to get more excited about modding and show off what their engine can do(i.e. the modjam event they did, they were originally modders themselves), however it is like pulling teeth trying to just figure out how to use it. I really enjoy this game. I feel it is the most original and interesting shooter I have ever come across, but the presentation of "content creation" to the community is very much lackluster.
In my opinion Lua as a primary gameplay language was a poor one from the start. I am not going to turn this into a debate about Lua, but its just something I feel needs saying. Lua is not a language that many studios would want to write gameplay code in to begin with(A previous studio I was an engineer for used Lua as an addon language for a mmo they created and the headaches are still being felt to this day). I do realize the solution is very attractive from a multiplatform angle due to the fact the engine can be written completely in native code and then load the Lua files for content specifics. On the otherhand, Lua is by nature ambiguous and very difficult to work with because of lack of proper IDE support. Yes, Decoda is by far the best Lua IDE I have ever come across, but the language itself makes any kind of type safety, code inspection, auto-completion, or abstraction incredibly cumbersome. If you were not the original engineer that developed the Lua source, it is extremely difficult to become orientated with or jump into an existing codebase.
I don't see how the Spark Engine will ever be able to be licensed(which seems to be UWE's business plan) out to other studios without offering additional scripting options besides Lua.
So I return to my original question, does anyone know if any thought has been given to providing support for additional languages in Spark?
(Please do not take this as disrespect or an insult UWE. I absolutely love your game and want to make content during my free-time for it, however it does not feel readily approachable in its current state.)
In order for any sort of modding to be taken seriously I think there needs to be actual documentation provided along with a sample or two. I feel that UWE does want people to get more excited about modding and show off what their engine can do(i.e. the modjam event they did, they were originally modders themselves), however it is like pulling teeth trying to just figure out how to use it. I really enjoy this game. I feel it is the most original and interesting shooter I have ever come across, but the presentation of "content creation" to the community is very much lackluster.
In my opinion Lua as a primary gameplay language was a poor one from the start. I am not going to turn this into a debate about Lua, but its just something I feel needs saying. Lua is not a language that many studios would want to write gameplay code in to begin with(A previous studio I was an engineer for used Lua as an addon language for a mmo they created and the headaches are still being felt to this day). I do realize the solution is very attractive from a multiplatform angle due to the fact the engine can be written completely in native code and then load the Lua files for content specifics. On the otherhand, Lua is by nature ambiguous and very difficult to work with because of lack of proper IDE support. Yes, Decoda is by far the best Lua IDE I have ever come across, but the language itself makes any kind of type safety, code inspection, auto-completion, or abstraction incredibly cumbersome. If you were not the original engineer that developed the Lua source, it is extremely difficult to become orientated with or jump into an existing codebase.
I don't see how the Spark Engine will ever be able to be licensed(which seems to be UWE's business plan) out to other studios without offering additional scripting options besides Lua.
So I return to my original question, does anyone know if any thought has been given to providing support for additional languages in Spark?
(Please do not take this as disrespect or an insult UWE. I absolutely love your game and want to make content during my free-time for it, however it does not feel readily approachable in its current state.)
Comments
Also I'm pretty sure the Spark Engine isn't actually in Lua, just the game.
EDIT: Also read this, forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128106/how-to-make-a-mod-for-natural-selection-2
I am not seeking assistance, with code. But it was something along the lines of:
Script.Load("lua\KineClient.lua");
Print("Hello World");
Shared.Message("Hello World");
As I stated above, "the engine can be written completely in native code" meaning C++ more than likely.