Addon communication between players

arkemiffo · 05/07/14, 01:47 AM

Hello,

So, I have no idea how this would work if it does work, but is there some way for addons to communicate between players, lets say through a hidden chat channel or something?

What I mean is, if I build an addon that is meant to sync certain information within a group, guild, whatever, can that addon have a specified chat channel (not visible to the players) that it send information through so that the players can be synced somehow?

Thanks.

lyravega · 05/07/14, 01:58 AM

To my knowledge, there is no way. Auto-sending messages to a chat channel is a private function (to fight with bot spams). And I didn't see anything in the API that could send "silent, add-on related" messages - but then again, I'm learning like everyone else.

Manually dumping the info to the chat and then parsing it is possible though. You could, say, create a new type of link, dump the info on that link, and let anyone else clicking on it getting the info - it is possible.

arkemiffo · 05/07/14, 02:38 AM

Yeah, I was afraid of that.
I mean, it is good they take steps to combat bot spamming, but too bad for the rest of us.

It's a good idea, but would only work for snippets of information.
The reason I started this train of thought is that my guildmaster has been complaining over the lacking information in the guild bank (only 100 slots displayed).
Saving the guildbank info into the saved variables would also only for the times he's online already, but anything that happens when he's offline, if it happened more than 100 events ago is lost.
I was therefore thinking we maybe could rely on the officers as well. It's rare that no officer is online when other people are there too, so if all the officers and the guildmaster could sync up each time any of them came online we would be able to store a more complete picture of guild bank events.
There is still major flaws in this, but it would be better than just a local addon for one person, and it might create some lag during the sync up, but it would be worth giving it a try. If they could sync that is.

LilBudyWizer · 05/07/14, 07:16 AM

It isn't about preventing botters. Perhaps if you weren't in a dungeon in the first month you might have noticed, but this didn't do jack to stop botters. A weak mechanism for protecting code let them easily bypass that. You don't even need to do that since you can inject keystrokes and mouse actions into the game, intercept data packets and perform your own communication between clients. Too technical for most, but so is writing a browser which doesn't keep people from using one.

This is to prevent DPS meter addons. That being because the best solution to people behaving in a manner we don't like is to force them to not behave that way rather than ignore them. Hopefully next they'll make changes preventing people from being RP Nazi's for those of us that don't like RP Nazi's. And, yes, I'm being sarcastic. This post is a good reason why they should have never done that. They hamstrung a bunch of useful addons just so people can hang out with people they don't like. Now thanks to no DPS meters they aren't going to notice you standing in the DOT and dying as a result. They won't be mean to you because they can't possibly know you don't know wtf you're doing without a DPS meter. Now you can hang out with elitist snobs without them ever knowing you're clueless because the only possible way they could tell is a DPS meter.

**Wykkyd** · 05/07/14, 09:48 AM

Originally Posted by LilBudyWizer

This is to prevent DPS meter addons. That being because the best solution to people behaving in a manner we don't like is to force them to not behave that way rather than ignore them.

No. DPS meters had nothing to do with the chat communication nerf. Perhaps you weren't involved at the time it happened, or you simply haven't been brought up to speed. But guesses like this and misinformation aren't helping anyone's "cause" here.

SendChatMessage, and addon inter-communication in general, was nerf or simply not supported for the following reasons:

1 - Limiting the ease of which users could spam chat. While we can all agree this did nothing to curb illicit spammers, that was indeed one of Zenimax's motivations for disabling SendChatMessage.

2 - Curbing the ability to use said messages, or addon-communication of any kind, to support automation scripting. Sad to say but there was a group of players who posted videos of themselves using a combination of addons and AutoHotKey to automate gameplay during a weekend beta. The addon read the game environment info out of the API and drew tiny colored pixels on screen for AHK to react to, to automate heals, blocks, interrupts, etc.

#2 is quite pathetic for a player to do, but players do it. Nerfing addon communication to thwart #2 doesn't actually solve anything in the long run because you cannot make a game unscriptable... you can only curb the "honest", so to speak. The harder it is to do the less likely the masses will attempt it. Those who are intent on cheating will still find a way.

#2 was also about stopping addon to addon communication, which would have circumvented a lot of the API nerfs they'd put in place. We could have had addons communication between players to cross-feed info like buffs, debuffs, stamina, magicka, cast bars, etc. Or more to the point, addon-to-addon communication opened the doors for things like my War Tools addon which, prior to the nerf, was using Party chat to flag/mark/highlight AvA objective targets in party-member addons so you didn't need to talk, chat or have voice chat to coordinate team siege warfare. (It was actually quite awesome, though short lived).

EDIT: I was also working with another addon author pre-nerf on an "assist target" system that would have helped people focus fire during crowded combat scenarios... we were doing it simply to see if it was feasible. It was, to a limited extent. And had the nerf not occurred I'm sure a nerf would have quickly followed launch to disable it, because it would have become a "must have" for anyone in Cyrodiil.

None of the above had anything to do with DPS meters, which are still relatively useful to that crowd of players.

arkemiffo · 05/07/14, 09:56 AM

Thanks for the info Wykkyd. Although a pity we can't make "harmless" addons, such as syncing bank details to store more than the default gives us intercommunication can as you state be used to trivialize the game.

Goemaat · 05/31/15, 06:47 PM

I was going to create an addon since I started playing a lot with my wife to keep track of our quests, so we could easily see which ones we were both on and if she had completed one I was on for instance. So you mentioned putting information into chat links, can I populate a chat that she just has to hit 'enter' to send at least to sync up our quest information semi-manually?

Ayantir · 05/31/15, 09:57 PM

if you both got addon, you can use chat whisps or mails to establish a communication yes.

**Baertram** · 06/01/15, 08:01 AM

...can I populate a chat that she just has to hit 'enter' to send at least to sync up our quest information semi-manually?

Yes, you are able to put a text into the chat edit field and she just needs to press return (twice if she is not already in the chat mode) then.
Your addon could use a string conatining information in a compressed way and if she sends this link the addon at your side would be able to read the data coming from this string again.

Provision · 06/02/15, 01:32 PM

Does official topic who speak of this limit ?