Continuum Decal Platform

[»Xog]

Continuum Decal Platform (CDP) - A third-party program that lifts many of the game client’s limitations. This program is a platform for several potentials that would enable developers to program what are called “plug-ins,” or programs that are loaded and ran by the CDP. These plug-ins (decals) can perform pre-determined actions, run scripts, read for specific events, track and record specific events, and display additional information on your screen, over the game-client, while playing in real-time. A “decal” for the game.

 

The CDP, if programmed, would provide a completely new alternative to the development for this game, as well as how you play it. The decals can be used by players across all the zones, since they are ran by the user themselves.

 

Whether you want to make an entire game event or zone have the players required to use a specific decal for the game or not, there are many unique ideas that come to mind right off the bat, for both sides. Here are only a few that pop into mind right away:

 

1. A Graphical HUD that displays your kill history, no matter what arena or zone you’re in. It loads different profiles and kill histories based on which zone or arena you’re in. Examples below.

1a. Killstats

(Location / stats can be added, removed, and moved via the decal’s pre-defined hotkeys)

Zone / Arena: EG - Pub1

Kills: 123456 Killed most: Name

Deaths: 123456 Killed by most: Name

Last killed by: Name Your Highest Bounty:

Last kill: Name Kills per hour (local)*:

Deaths per hour (local): Kills per hour (overall)**:

Deaths per hour (overall): Points per hour:

Total Points Earned: Average Bounty:

 

* , ** - Differentiates between the arena you’re in, and your overall kills per hour ratio throughout the entire zone.

 

1b. Hunt

Say farewell to the old-fashioned bot-hosted games of “Hunt,” where you are given a player you must find and kill, by a bot. Enter an arena with this plug-in loaded, and you can have your own personal “Hunt” game, wherein a name is displayed on the player’s screen telling them their next victim. When said player is in proximity of the hunter, the program sends a private message to that player, “I’m hunting you on Decal Hunt!”. You then gain a score for each kill, and can play as much as you want. Different stats can be tracked, like Points per Hour, Points per Session, total prey kills, total kills by prey, etc. Each of these are saved for each arena + zone they’re in (so as to prevent cheating). Stats can then be shared and compared to other players throughout the entire game, not just zone-specific.

 

You can also play Hunt with a friend or even as a squad event. Enter a pub arena or elim match, and play hunt. Person with the highest amount of points, wins!

 

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A plug-in is not only useful to the players, but it can also benefit bots & developers as well! A bot can be programmed to read things a plug-in might be displaying, or if an event happens and the plug-in is programmed to respond to it, the bot can also interact with it.

 

Plug-ins can also be used to completely replace some bot functions, such as displaying, calling, and loading LVZ’s, which will also reduce bandwidth for servers.

 

Some unique ideas for interaction between user, game-client, and decal has also popped into mind, and that’s by using commands like “?display top 5” which would graphically display the top 5 players in an arena, based on statistics. Another idea is:

“?PMLog,” which would graphically display a private message log between a list of players. Upon using the command, you’d be prompted with a list on your screen such as:

 

1. TheJackRipper

2. Reaping Death

3. Foregoing Disaster

4. Dr. Brain

5. Smeagle

6. A Space Pilot

Use ?PML <#> or ?PML to recall a specific log.

 

Player> ?PML 4

[displays all the private messages exchanged between Dr. Brain and Player, ever. (scrollable)]

 

The logs can also be accessed offline via the C:\CDP\PMLogs\Logs\Player’s Name.txt file that the decal saves to your hard drive.

 

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Let’s say some crazy person decides to make a zone that requires its players to use the CDP for everything (otherwise the zone will seem senseless since those not using it, won’t see anything happening on screen). Let’s say your visions for the zone are very graphic intensive. A decal for CDP can, based on certain actions in the game, react. Say you’re designated a mission through the decal plug-in. The plug-in can show arrows, provide additional overlay information etc. all very easily, based on what you’re doing. If you need to go to an area on the map but don’t know the way, the arrows can point the way - like a guidance system.

 

The plug-in can also call for large files to show on the screen, so there is less loading time in the game, and a much smaller download for the zone itself, when first entering the zone. A big scoreboard, for instance, can be used based on the zone or arena’s gameplay. The scoreboard can even update live, on the spot!

 

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It’s also possible someone can write a plug-in that will load up different in-game radio links in your media player, automatically! A major problem many hosts face is the fact that there are so many different radio stations around. Not only that, but some people just like to listen to their own music. Well, if someone were to write a plug-in (that also installs VLC lite) the plugin can literally stream at the type of a command! See below:

 

Radio Host> Listen to t3h uber radi0 stashun! http://uber.radio.com:8502

Listener> ?radio http://uber.radio.com:8502

The plug-in then opens up VLC.exe and streams from the link.

 

Or, the player can even save them to an easy access list.

Listener> ?radiosave http://uber.radio.com:8502 “Uber Radio”

Listener> ?radiosave http://ssgn.radio.com:8080 “SSGN Radio”

Listener> ?radio

[displays a graphical, numbered list of pre-saved ss radio stations]

1. Uber Radio

2. SSGN Radio

Player> ?radioplay 2

The plug-in then opens up VLC.exe and streams the SSGN radio station

 

Honestly, the boundaries are lifted. The programming bar has also been raised though.. that’s a downfall. I hope someone takes interest in this though, and makes it. Could do a lot for this game.. a lot more than what I just barfed onto these forums.

 

I got this idea from another game called Asheron's Call. Here's a screenshot of a plugin (called v-tank, for the Decal program for AC), in-action, that I took right as I posted this. There are a ton of plug-ins that do various things. The one I'm running, literally plays my character for me (and is not against the rules, as long as I'm at the keyboard watching it). Decal is a third-party program.

 

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4377/screenshot00004qm.jpg

 

AC Decal Info: http://decaldev.sourceforge.net/faq/ <== SOURCEFORGE

AC Decal info: http://www.decaldev.com/

 

v-tank plugin info: http://www.virindi.net/wiki/index.php/Virindi_Tank

v-tank plugin info: http://vnboards.ign.com/ac_utilities/b5432/106600406/p1

Edited June 13, 2011 by Xog

[Cheese]

great idea, let us know when you finished writing this and after you talked to priit and got him to put it in and then got him to release the new client and then after everyone downloaded the new client

[»Xog]

great idea, let us know when you finished writing this and after you talked to priit and got him to put it in and then got him to release the new client and then after everyone downloaded the new client

 

1) I never said I was going to write it. I said "If this ever gets programmed," etc.

2) Doesn't need to be implemented into the game client at all. It's a third-party program. The screenshot you see, is a program running over the game client. It was not made by the Asheron's Call dev-team. It was made by some random jo schmoe, and is used by 99% of the game's community for various things. AC (Turbine) doesn't provide any support for it.

3) Stop being a pretentious dick face.

Edited June 13, 2011 by Xog

[»Xog]

I apologize, my language was vulgar. however I still won't delete that.

[Dr Brain]

He's right. No one will write this for you.

[Samapico]

(From what I understand) It still has to be a plug-in in the client. If we had a client that supported plugins, we'd be doing much more awesome stuff already. ASSS allows us to make server-side modules, but we can't do anything client-side.

[»Xog]

He's right. No one will write this for you.

 

I wasn't asking someone to write it for me. It's just something I proposed what would be a good idea, and it is, and if anyone wants to take on the responsibility of making it then that would be a great thing for the game. That's all. No need to jump down my throat. And samapico, it doesn't need to be built in to the game client. The decal I use for AC is a completely different program that I run on my computer. I can play with or without it enabled. Without it loaded, I don't get any of the programs associated with it. It's not a part of the game, it's an external application.

 

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8145/decall.png

[Samapico]

How does your "external" application gets the data to display, like the kills, and bounty, as you suggested in your first post?

[Resol]

It seems like a program like CE that intercepts packets.

[Dr Brain]

Packet interceptor: see my earlier post.

[Samapico]

Intercepting packets means you still can only act on what is exchanged between the server and the client... I guess you could intercept outgoing ?commands and such, but that's about it. Other than that, it doesn't add anything to what ASSS modules can do................ except having a huge annoying window that hides half your screen, I guess.

 

The energy needed to develop that kind of thing would be much better spent working on Discretion or any other alternative future client.

[Cheese]

you would need the encryption

it still wont happen

[spidernl]

I'd say there's no need to intercept packages.

 

Try googling 'Oblivion Script Extender', 'Oblivion Graphics Extender' or anything similar for its prequel.

Both of those don't touch the game's (TES IV: Oblivion, in this case) executable, but they provide more variables/functions/etc. to play with for scripts, allow new shaders, supply information from the game TO shaders, etc.

 

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Category:Oblivion_Script_Extender

Edited June 15, 2011 by spidernl

[Dr Brain]

If Continuum had any sort of scripting system then that might be relevant.

[»Xog]

yeah the decal program for AC reads the memory from the game client and reads the packets. If nobody's down to make it, oh well. Thought I'd throw it out there.

[»Lynx]

Since Continuum.40 to reduce people using memory editors to cheat they made it a little harder to read the memory and make sense of it as easily. Let's face it, if this application were to be created it'd be an open source project; and in that case you already have a huge loophole as anybody who can read some code can just get the instant upper-hand in any game they play. If you can read the memory, you can edit it. It's a good idea I just don't think it's feasible for the game as it's not really going to be a massive game changer (imo, anyway).

[spidernl]

If Continuum had any sort of scripting system then that might be relevant.

 

Guess I could have expected a reply like that. You could look up "Elys' Uncapper", something* that changes Oblivion's hardcoded formulae and limits. It uses OBSE functionality but does not use Oblivion's scripting functionality whatsoever. Nor does OBSE itself use Oblivion's scripting engine to provide what Elys' uncapper needs.

 

*) a plugin for OBSE to be more precise

Edited June 19, 2011 by spidernl