Crome, it's an awesome platform and is indeed great at what it does with loads of potential still to tap! Pls don't think I'm suggesting otherwise! I will eventually learn it especially if I have to wait days like right now to be able to fix EUO after a patch. I'm not elite so any delay by Cheffe means no scripting at all (unless TM eventually releases a public version, which he did cuz he's a nice guy!).
Stealth = the new sports car
Stealth script = the key to make it go
What I'm saying is that the above isn't quite true with stealth, you can have the platform and the script but not make it go because the script needs manipulation to be compatible, there's a 3rd process between the two that doesn't exist with EUO(EUO = script+platform=works). I would wager that most UO players are clueless about ScriptSDK or Python or Pascal, heck I'm a webmaster and can code PhP/SQL circles around most, wordpress has nothing on my sites, but I don't yet know those and it's blocking even me a bit.
- You've got a great how to video for loading up stealth and starting it on Youtube
- You've got great areas to learn about how to write a script
Both of those are new languages so to speak which take time to learn and master for new users. The middle part where you need to compile or prepare a script needs to be equally covered for a new user(forgive me if it is). A new user can figure out when they get stealth running right or can figure out if a script is running properly once it's running but getting a finished script ready to run on stealth... It's not obvious to most people who haven't done it yet(incl me).
I'm over simplifying here but I think stealth would get much more use if it was easier or more intuitive to get scripts running. Here is a basic frustration...
- "Oh Awesome, they posted a cool sounding script I want to try out, let me download that"
- "OK, I have stealth running, let me try to use this awesome script now"
- "Hmm, I have stealth running and I have this awesome script but... nothing... let me check what I need to do to make it work"
ScriptSDK takes the Communication API from Maxwell (included in sources) and extend it to a runuo derivived object orientated structure with more flexibility and features then raw stealth offers.
ScriptSDK is written in C# but can also be used in any .NET supported languange. Since Visual Studio exist now as community Edition, many user tend to use Visual studio from Microsoft. A good alternative is also Sharpdevelop.
The user who knows very little about Python or Pascal is left feeling like
I understand that the user needs to put in the effort to learn, that goes unsaid. I'm not sure the disconnect is being addressed though when a user WANTS to learn to make things work, PROBABLY has managed to get stealth running, PROBABLY has managed to learn some about how to code a stealth script but just can't test things because of the requirement to prepare scripts for use with stealth.
Suggestion: You've got the stealth platform available and well doccumented, yay. You've got a scripts section with various scripts that do wonderful things, yay. Nobody who doesn't know something about Pascal or Python etc can make it work, boo. There needs to be a "You need to take this script and do THIS to it to make it work with stealth" or "This script will NOT work with stealth until you prepare it LIKE THIS" type documentation.
I'm sorry this is long, and I'm sorry if it's just me being dense, but there's something missing for the average user who knows nothing about Pascal or Python and doesn't have the required software to figure it out.
Solution: If stealth is a platform for developers then don't change a thing! If stealth is a platform for both developers AND users then require that any stealth script posted has BOTH a code version AND a compiled version that you can press "play" on after loading it into stealth(like is done with EUO)? All of the steps requiring Python, Pascal and 3rd party software(visual studio) to prepare a script aren't going to work for simple users, it's a foreign language to probably 99.9% of UO users.
Right now many, incl myself, keep putting stealth on the back burner because having the platform and a script doesn't mean we can use it. We'll get there, eventually, and it's a great platform, but it will frustrate users until they reach developer level with it... and that takes time.
I hope I explained that well enough, i'm not new to code and DO try to put in the time to learn things, even improve them, but the requirement to learn new code before being able to use your platform to even start learning to code scripts is a big commitment for simple users. I'm not complaining, just trying to explain the frustrations new users have a little.
