Interactive Bots

[RichardoX]

This feature would be to use bots as interactive npcs. For example, we'd need some custom perl commands. Here is an example of what I mean.

sub EVENT_SAY {
if($text=~/hail/i)
{
quest::say("Hello, $name! I am a traveling adventurer and mercenary for hire. For 5 platinum, I will join your party!")
}}

sub EVENT_ITEM {
if($platinum == 5)
{
quest::botjoin();
##the npc will join the players group and function as a bot.
quest::groupsay("Hello! Glad to be of service."); 
##groupsay would be a means of the bot responding in group chat.
}}

We could even expand on the abilities to control the bot. Group commands such as the following:

/g !stay
/g !protect playername
/g !follow playername
/g !attack
/g !assist playername
/g !stop

I think this would bring in a bag of opportunities to those who enjoy creating ring events and other forms of interactive questing.

From what I understand, you have to remove the check for ownership of the bot to place a bot somewhere and force him to join any players group. Any useful comments or pointers on where to start with this? I've never written perl commands before so I don't know where to start with that.