EQoffline, bots and more..

[Darkonig]

In looking over the bot code and considering its intent, I was wondering why the bots were not implemented as an extension to the client class rather than an internal modification of the npc class.

One of the big issues I have with them being npcs is that they are targeted by the f8 key which interferes with targeting 'real' npcs. They keep getting in the way. When I tried a test of sending the spawn packet declaring the bot's were clients they did not interfere with f8 and showed up in the /who command. This simple change is not sufficient by itself because, although the mobs were still functional, they were identified as <LD> <LFG> <Bad Guild> and had a tendency to go invisible. So further work would be required to make them actual clients on the server side.

If there will be a major rewrite to make them a real class, I would highly recommend making them an extension of client so they behave more like actual players and don't interfere so much with the actual player.