Why do scripters make everything overly complex?

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Crow

Because Graal, as a development platform, is incredibly unattractive.

Well if you've read any of my posts you know how I feel about Graal being a "development platform." Worse idea ever.

Originally Posted by Gunderak

Is this regarding my house system? lol..

Dude I haven't been on Graal in months. I have no idea who you are, what your system is, or how it works.

Originally Posted by ffcmike

Probably has something to do with advanced scripting itself being a more difficult and ability demanding practise, as opposed to something which is open and realistically accomplishable to most normal players.

Through a large amount of time, practise and some degree of intelligence, it is possible for those with no prior coding knowledge to pick up the basics and explore more advanced coding. When it comes to trial and error however, which was the case for myself at one point and presumably most others, you don't get such code perfect the first, second, or third time. Coding isn't really about piecing things together until they merely work, and therefore it's easy for practising scripters to run into problems and grind to a halt.

Those who are educated in coding are likely to be aware beforehand as to how things should be scripted in a certain, as you say complex way, which can be necessary to avoid bugs, keep CPU usage down, be easier to implement new modules, as well as be easier for other coders to work with in future.

So it's just a plateau problem?

By what I mean, it's hard to reach the more advanced levels of scripting development because it's just hard and unintuitive to the point where most people quit during the trial and error stages of learning?

Doesn't seem like an issue that can be fixed, since that would just be the nature of the language. More documentation would be a step in the right direction I suppose, but whenever I've looked at what is available, it doesn't seem all that practical.

Maybe it's just the sort of ideas I've always had for a server are just simple. Everything I would want a Graal server to offer seems like it would be very easy for any competent scripter to create in no time at all - in terms of what would be scripted. Then again, I've always wanted to run a classic server more focused on level development run progressions, rather than flashy systems for managing a myriad of other flashy NPCs adding upon an even flashier combat system (or something).

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Hiro

Maybe it's just the sort of ideas I've always had for a server are just simple. Everything I would want a Graal server to offer seems like it would be very easy for any competent scripter to create in no time at all - in terms of what would be scripted. Then again, I've always wanted to run a classic server more focused on level development run progressions, rather than flashy systems for managing a myriad of other flashy NPCs adding upon an even flashier combat system (or something).

The problem in my experience is that people create complex ideas which can't be implemented with simple scripting. The "mudlib" is a classic example of this problem that I see over and over again; people want to make really complicated systems that are probably quite powerful in practice, but the reality is that nobody else can understand half of what these systems do or how they work, and therefore are difficult to expand and maintain. I get really frustrated with watching some of the advice that people give on these forums because it is often just unnecessarily overcomplicated, and as a result, new scripters don't want to learn it.

As much of the problem as anything is that Graal scripters also just don't seem to know how to exist within the confines of the game environment. The NPC-Server isn't a general purpose web application server, it runs scripts for a game environment. I don't know why more people don't see that.

[Fulg0reSama]

Originally Posted by Skyld

The problem in my experience is that people create complex ideas which can't be implemented with simple scripting. The "mudlib" is a classic example of this problem that I see over and over again; people want to make really complicated systems that are probably quite powerful in practice, but the reality is that nobody else can understand half of what these systems do or how they work, and therefore are difficult to expand and maintain. I get really frustrated with watching some of the advice that people give on these forums because it is often just unnecessarily overcomplicated, and as a result, new scripters don't want to learn it.

As much of the problem as anything is that Graal scripters also just don't seem to know how to exist within the confines of the game environment. The NPC-Server isn't a general purpose web application server, it runs scripts for a game environment. I don't know why more people don't see that.

Preach on! Especially on the bit about servers being there for Game Environments.

[cbk1994]

Originally Posted by Mark Sir Link

TPlayer.defaultwalkspeed
TPlayer.diagonalwalkspeed

These are only supported on v6, which still has not been released. We haven't seen a client update in almost 5 years (October 2007).

Originally Posted by Skyld

As much of the problem as anything is that Graal scripters also just don't seem to know how to exist within the confines of the game environment. The NPC-Server isn't a general purpose web application server, it runs scripts for a game environment. I don't know why more people don't see that.

Some of the frustration at GScript comes from players trying to abuse it, but most of the time it is legitimate.

The reason Graal is frustrating to developers is that Stefan and unixmad market Graal as a development platform but provide very little support for the developers.

Did you know you have to pay a monthly fee to work on a server? Did you know we had to argue with Stefan for months just to get nightly backups (not even source control—which we still don't have, in 2012!)? Did you know our basic scripting tool, RC, can't even find and replace? Did you know the Windows version can't indent multiple lines at once, unless you've been blessed with the latest unreleased-for-years version of RC from Stefan?

Graal as a development platform is attractive to players who want to make content because they enjoy the game. It's not attractive to serious developers, or players who have been developing long enough to become serious developers.

Originally Posted by Unkownsoldier

The reason why you don't see projects getting finished is because most of the scripters/developers aren't professional. Most are self-taught (nothing wrong with that) but it makes it more challenging to create content at a high-quality level and a high-output level. Other games, which hire their developers, can have pretty much whatever they want done. This is because they are hiring experienced, diligent, and properly taught developers rather than just players attempting to create something past their limits. This is why Graal doesn't succeed.

This is a naive view of Graal. Even the developers who have the skills to create something great tend to burn out.