Lua Addons Coming to LotRO Will DDO Follow?

[Kemoc]

This article states turbine will allow lua programming in Lord of the Rings Online. Some of you who played WoW will be already familiar with this. If you are not, it allows interface addons to sort all your bags into one bag by category, pop up chat windows for pm similar to msm, and things like threat meters to name a few. Hope this comes to DDO as well as I would really love something to enhance my chat and inventory interface for sure. Also some hot-bar management and outfit manager might be nice as well.

[Ninjaofthesea]

It would be very nice. I'd really like to see a scalable interface though so I can keep my UI the same regardless of the resolution I need to play in.

[dunklezhan]

It would be very nice. I'd really like to see a scalable interface though so I can keep my UI the same regardless of the resolution I need to play in.

Puts big neon lights around this post and runs naked around Turbine's offices shouting "THIS! THIS RIGHT HERE! YOU'VE DONE IT IN LOTRO WHY NOT IN DDO FOR THE LOVE OF GRUD WHYYYYYYYY???!!!"

Been saying it since I got here in September. I'm sure the community's been saying it a lot longer than that.

Seriously turbine. Why not?

On topic - Provided these don't allow an easy button, and restrict it to UI changes, I'd be in favour.

[Uska]

Please no adding stuff this just adds to the slippery slope wow fell way down add stuf like this and then people are asking for more junk that ends up being almost being required to have as it is in the hell that is wow.

[Uska]

Puts big neon lights around this post and runs naked around Turbine's offices shouting "THIS! THIS RIGHT HERE! YOU'VE DONE IT IN LOTRO WHY NOT IN DDO FOR THE LOVE OF GRUD WHYYYYYYYY???!!!"

Been saying it since I got here in September. I'm sure the community's been saying it a lot longer than that.

Seriously turbine. Why not?

On topic - Provided these don't allow an easy button, and restrict it to UI changes, I'd be in favour.

this I Could support UI changes only

[rimble]

Please no adding stuff this just adds to the slippery slope wow fell way down add stuf like this and then people are asking for more junk that ends up being almost being required to have as it is in the hell that is wow.

Yeah, at a certain point I'd rather just go play Excel.

[Alexandryte]

Please no adding stuff this just adds to the slippery slope wow fell way down add stuf like this and then people are asking for more junk that ends up being almost being required to have as it is in the hell that is wow.

Eh...as long as they do not allow access to specific variables or the ability to parse specific things ingame, LUA programmers are quite limited.

I would, however, take the time to learn the syntax of LUA if it meant I could change up the appearance of my UI and the placement of the hotbars and resize various UI elements. The current limitations are kinda restrictive and ugly after you've played a host of MMO's. Effective, yes....but not terribly attractive.

[Icculus3k]

It would be very nice. I'd really like to see a scalable interface though so I can keep my UI the same regardless of the resolution I need to play in.

^^^^^THIS!!!


On the topic of addons, I have a love hate relationship with them. In Wow the UI was so bad and outdated looking addons became a must for me to play comfortably. DDO already allows you to move UI elements which is big step up over wow. Bag space addons are nice. Threat in this game is very different than wow and I don't think meters for it would work well. DPS meters are good and bad, they help you tweak your build but also lead to allot of epeen stroking. Anything else is just cosmetic.

[SolarDawning]

The danger is when, as in WoW, you have addons able to track data from the game and provide you with information such as DPS, "gear scores" (average quality of a player's gear), and other information that leads to discrimination.

There's nothing wrong with discriminating against a player because they are bad at the game. If you're running a group, you want to succeed.

But I draw the line at having an addon tracking everyone's damage-per-second, and saying "Anyone under X DPS at your level sucks and is out!" or having an addon tell a person when he examines another player that his gear score is X, and then deciding only to let people with Y or higher in a group.

[Kemoc]

The danger is when, as in WoW, you have addons able to track data from the game and provide you with information such as DPS, "gear scores" (average quality of a player's gear), and other information that leads to discrimination.

There's nothing wrong with discriminating against a player because they are bad at the game. If you're running a group, you want to succeed.

But I draw the line at having an addon tracking everyone's damage-per-second, and saying "Anyone under X DPS at your level sucks and is out!" or having an addon tell a person when he examines another player that his gear score is X, and then deciding only to let people with Y or higher in a group.

There is good and bad in this and ^^^this^^^ is the bad. I think DDO is more sophisticated in that dps is only part of the game in that it is not a always a dps race and that a balanced party is usually needed. And the players are generally more mature. Limiting access to certain variables will eliminate some of this. I just would like some helpful organizers for hot-bars and social interfacing like chat would be nice. Perhaps some of the raid interface might be fun like markers and pinging the map.

[sirgog]

But I draw the line at having an addon tracking everyone's damage-per-second, and saying "Anyone under X DPS at your level sucks and is out!" or having an addon tell a person when he examines another player that his gear score is X, and then deciding only to let people with Y or higher in a group.

We already have a form of gearscore. Whenever I run a Shroud above Normal, or a Tower (any difficulty), anyone without 100% Fort is out, as is anyone without basic solid HP for their class.

[SolarDawning]

We already have a form of gearscore. Whenever I run a Shroud above Normal, or a Tower (any difficulty), anyone without 100% Fort is out, as is anyone without basic solid HP for their class.

The difference is that in your example, it is a human player making the determination according to your own values based on the task at hand, and not a blanket generalization programmed into an addon that automatically scores the player on their gear.

[Ebuddy]

In DDO, I believe that skilled players who know what they are doing or who are willing to listen and follow directions trump gear any day.

[dunklezhan]

The reason I said earlier I'd be all for it provided it was limited to UI changes is simply because my WoW experience was not that I was unwelcome unless I had x or y addons, it was because some of the add-ons changed the actual gameplay experience (questhelper & auctioneer being a prime example of both a game changer AND an easy button) to the point where if you didn't have them you felt like you were missing something. Now, to be fair to Blizzard, the most popular addons regularly get turned into core components of the game (questhelper again being a prime example), something I can't see Turbine doing since they can't even get around to fixing the many and various bugs/missing features in their own UI interface.

The only experiences I had in WoW that said 'if you don't have this you can't play with us' were an aggro meter and, oddly, some RP addons, where hardcore RP guilds simple required certain addons to facilitate the RP. Actually, having used those particular RP addons I could see why they would be required for certain guilds and guild alliances, but these were not add ons that would mean the difference between success and failure in an instance. The Aggro meter certainly made that difference, but then aggro is a VERY VERY key part of success in instances in WoW and if every single party member can't manage it effectively you are simply going to full party wipe. Repeatedly. DDO allows for player skill in a far more advanced way than WoW does, and you can cope with the loss of a party member mid fight provided enough players in the group know what they're doing.

However I never, not once, took part in anything where anyone said 'if your DPS is less than this you aren't welcome'.

Have to say that anyone who thinks this type of discrimination is somehow avoided by not having add ons is living in a fantasy world - and not an online MMO fantasy world either. Two words (ok, one word and an acronym): My DDO.

MyDDO is already being treated like gospel by what feels like a large number of players, despite its clear limitations and bugs.

End of the day, human beings work by discrimination. That's how decisions get made. We can't wait for every single piece of potential evidence to be available before we decide something, or nothing would ever get done. We've evolved/been created (take your pick) to discriminate. We're a tribal species and we are prone to snap judgements based on limited evidence, and where we don't have evidence we just slot in a prejudice or two as if they're hard evidence. In particular we tend to assume something is 'bad' if it is 'unusual' - that's not based on anything except the caveman hind brain going 'Warning! Stranger danger! They'll take your food!'.

I'll give you another example: blacklisted guilds. There are people out there who on the basis of the bad/antisocial performance of one or two members of a particular guild in one run forevermore refuse to run with anyone from that guild. I don't think addons would make the slightest bit of difference to those sorts of people.

Its people who do that, and people who assume MyDDO must be a total reflection of someone's ability to play who would end up using DPS meters and similar addons as a reason to block other players from their groups, but since those sorts of people already use an incomplete set of data to make their decisions for them, all this will do is narrow the number of players they're willing to group up with.

Since that means I won't have to put up with such nonsense because I won't get invited to their groups... I'm ok with that.

Personally, i just want to be able to rescale the UI and know that when I press a hot key or click a hot bar whatever I've pressed or clicked will actually take effect instead of starting a cooldown/using a charge on a clickie with no appreciable in game effect. An addon won't help the latter, but it will help the former, which would be a major start.

[Kemoc]

Lua UI Plugins in LOTRO
With the breaking news of Lua’s introduction into The Lord of the Rings Online, we wanted to give you a brief history of how this system came about, what state it is in, and where we want it to go.

History:
To start, I will say that the primary driver behind introducing UI plugins is this: no single version of a UI element will ever be ideal for all players everywhere. What one player loves about part of the UI can send the player standing next to them reeling into a frothing rage of frustration. Knowing this, a small group of us got together last year and began investigating the possibility of adding a UI scripting system.

As several other games have used Lua successfully for UI scripting, we decided to look into it and were quickly able to get a prototype Lua UI scripting interface into our engine. Since then, we have gradually continued to develop the system alongside our other initiatives. Today, we are in the process of Beta testing the Lua UI scripting interface on our closed Beta preview servers.

Current State:
Many of you have been asking what this means when it goes live. This system has been implemented to allow players to override existing elements in the graphical user interface. The functionality available in its current state is small in scope but introduces a lot of fun UI possibilities. Our Lua-based UI plugin system exposes functionality through chunks of functionality referred to as “APIs.” In its current state, we have implemented the following APIs:

• Basic UI element creation (such as windows, text boxes, buttons, etc.)
• Quickslot information (allowing for additional quickslot arrangements for skills, items, etc.)
• Inventory UI information
• Your character’s morale/power information as well as what effects you currently have on you

To clarify, our implementation of Lua scripting in our game is not a macro-able/BOT-able interface. The system does not allow automated input such as mouse-clicks or macroing, nor does it allow automatic skill execution. Any UIs created through Lua scripts will still require human interaction to use.

We intend to continue heavy Beta testing on the Lua UI scripting system on the private test servers. There are several internal hurdles that remain to be cleared before the initial launch of the system and it is not yet guaranteed that “Lua in LOTRO” will launch in the Volume 3 Book 2 (F2P launch) timeframe. Much like our initial launch of QuestGuide or DX10, we will likely launch the feature as a public “beta” stage/“work in progress” as we continue to solidify and expand the initial functionality.

The Future:
As for our future plans for this, our intention is to continue to add more API functionality after the initial launch. For example, some of the popular requested APIs are: target, fellowship, and raid vitals, as well as vault functionality similar to the current API’s inventory functionality. The ultimate goal for this system is to allow players to legitimately customize their UI as a largely upgraded version of our current long-standing “UI skinning” tech. It’s all about the UI and letting players change it so the information we already expose in our current UI can be presented in different aesthetic fashions.

I hope this information clarifies what “Lua scripting” means for The Lord of the Rings Online. As we come closer to the actual launch, we will provide more information into the specifics of the system. We are very excited about this feature and look forward to the day when it goes live allowing players to have a much more customizable experience with our graphical interface.
~Narrel~
Game Systems Engineer
Master of UI and shorts-wearing