Scripting

[Snikle]

I am curious about the scripting that is being talked about. Will this allow us to use and create plug-ins? If it is, I think this would cause FG usage to explode. In my experience anything that is customizable and able to use plug-ins just causes it's popularity to increase.

I know many people with coding skills that are dying to make plug-ins for FG.

[Alkaven]

Sort of a plus and minus to plug-ins. Some casual players (who aren't very dedicated) might not want to deal with "extras" because they "Just got the application and want to start gaming already."

However, being that this is a Virtual Tabletop, it's expected that players tend to maintain a connection with their GM in order to keep playing. The ability to script plug-ins would be a valuable asset to the community, and would most certainly be an excellent addition to the application itself.

[Craw]

Sort of a plus and minus to plug-ins. Some casual players (who aren't very dedicated) might not want to deal with "extras" because they "Just got the application and want to start gaming already."

However, being that this is a Virtual Tabletop, it's expected that players tend to maintain a connection with their GM in order to keep playing. The ability to script plug-ins would be a valuable asset to the community, and would most certainly be an excellent addition to the application itself.

This raises an interesting question about software development in general. Are developers better served to concentrate on basic functionality for the "start gaming/writing/editing/etc. already" crowd and leave the additional features for plug ins, either commercial or community made? Being all things to all people seems to be a waste of time anymore.

[Crusader]

I would say that for me the answer to Craw's question is a resounding yes! As I use a completely different rulesystem I probably wouldn't be helped by a bunch of clever features developed for d20. I'd be a lot more helped by a stable platform to develop my own clever features for my rulesystem.

I can also draw an analogy to the stuff that I work with. My main area of expertise is loadbalancing, and the loadbalancers that I mainly work with has a scripting feature that allows the loadbalancer to examine incoming or outgoing traffic, evaluate certain conditions and transform, redirect or partially rewrite the traffic + a bunch of other stuff. The best way I ever heard to describe this feature was when the manufacturer described it as "A tool to make the loadbalancer do all the stuff that we forgot about!" Basically, what I'm trying to say is that although I think that the guys at SmiteWorks are brilliant, they can't predict everyone's needs. They can however supply us with a tool that makes us able to make FG do all that stuff we want it to do.