Here's a thought... actually my son's when we were talking gaming at lunch today.

JP has mentioned that TWGS 4.xx will have built-in scripts among other things.

My son told me today that WoW has server side clients (helpers) that are automatically updated for each player as the log in. The server side clients are independant from the game but they are the only way players can access and play the games.

Am I understanding this correctly?

I got to thinking, Swath has something simular, every time you open Swath it has to verify with the server before you can use it.

So, if we marry the idea of server side client with the central log-in portal in this forum.. humm... now I'm getting my hopes back up

No more private scripts, everyone will have access to the exact same scripts and helpers. There's your level playing field.

I agree that it would be useful if the game could provide access to scripts, just as a way to explose players to the full range of gameplay. But that wouldn't mean that a player couldn't use their own script. As long as the game is text-based and there are events that can be scripted on, players will be able to script. So having greater accessibility to effective scripts would be a good thing, but this wouldn't necessarily control scripting.

Right, there's no way to eliminate private scripts like that. People can always route around those sorts of limitations. Even in WoW, despite the "server side client" there are people that use programs like autohotkey to script stuff.

Cruncher, you have to understand that players here don't want to "level" the playing field, it's the act of finding an edge that keeps the game fun.

It would be nice to have a web front end, like JTA, that could also do macros and scripting. Basically a web helper. But that's a huge project, not sure who would do it.

Yeah, I talked to SG a lot about that, and he wanted to do it. I know he and someone or a few others did some work on creating a graphical terminal. I'd love to see that. Heck, I'd love to do that, time permitting.

I had a crazy thought awhile back and never really pursued it seriously. I have a php script I use to upload ANSI files to the TW museum wiki. It reads the ANSI file, then generates a graphical image on the wiki page. That's what I use to show all of the ANSIs from TW and the various apps I have on display there. It occurred to me that it would be possible to route TW output to a browser in png image blocks, and that these couldn't easily be parsed for scripting. Definitely one of my more "mad scientist" ideas, but I wonder if a simple web interface could be made to support non-scripted games? This wouldn't mean no macros or dumb scripts, it would just mean no interactive scripts.

Of course, the question is, would someone write an app to basically do an OCR read of the output and parse it that way? I would not put it past this crowd. I don't think it would be easy, but probably not impossible to script with this kind of web interface.

Autohotkey for most stuff. Or yeh, could OCR it. But truth is, that output would be pretty slow and probably not something most of us would play. It would have to accompany a lot of other things, however, or someone could grid out their entire turns w/o ever getting stopped. Would make exploration and invasion very easy.

Slow it relative. I think it would be slow relative to scripted games, but maybe not too slow for any player who's interested in playing against human players. These files would be very small. The bandwidth needed to transfer them wouldn't be that great, and the overhead to generate them probably not that much. I'm not convinced it would be too slow for enjoyment.

But you're saying that removing interactive scripting without a lot of gameplay changes would imbalance the game? Maybe.

Interactive scripts are really only used for cashing and grid defense. I can invade and offensively grid via macro.

I fully understand this would not interest the players here.

There are now limitless ways to modify the game to keep it fresh and new. And in every sci-fi film about robot domination, the humans win in the end.

Human's wrote those movies... lol

Uhm, no there isn't. There's a single basic equation here. 2 people have more time than 1 person. JP is the only person here modifying the game, and his time is limited. Once he's done, it'll be years before we get another set of changes. You really think he can keep up with every scripter in the community? That's a losing battle, and I'm sure he's got better things to do.

Agreed ;)

No silly, I ment with the Gold editor. JP has given us so many options, there's no way to get bored with the game unless you limit yourself to a dozen or so edits. Mix it up, get creative!

As a sysop you are always limited to what people will play.

Very true on that. A lot of players specialize in a certain type of play and the edit(s) that support that style because that is what they enjoy. What the sysOp thinks is a great idea for an edit is really immaterial if players avoid the edit. A sysOp that changes a popular edit's settings can really tick off players.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."