Virtual Players?

[Ouguiya]

Hello everyone!

Today, again, I hope that someone of you knows the answer to a simple yet difficult problem.

For map testing purposes, it would be very nice to have additional players. They don't have to do anything, just standing around is fine. It just serves the purpose of testing if some variables and triggers work correctly.

The problem is that I cannot use computers for this job, since they have other uses and many triggers do not work if the player is a computer.

Which brings me to my question: Is there any program which allows to create a network game and insert one or more "virtual players" to test the map efficiently?

I also looked into running multiple instances of Warcraft and simply joining multiple times but this does not work, due to limitations in the network, and using multiple instances in Battle.Net would lead to a CD-Key ban.


Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Yours,

Ouguiya

 

[Ghan]

There's always the easy way out - go to a popular chat channel and ask if anyone wants to help you test your map.
A slightly more secure solution might be to ask some of the common visitors around the forums here if they have a minute to help. You never know....

 

[Ouguiya]

Even while I appreciate your trying to help, I have already thought of this possibility, but due to the high number of tests I will have to do and due to the unknown timeframe I will require between these tests, this is not really a good way of doing it.

A way of simply adding a virtual player which can be "kicked" or "made to leave" at any time seems much more simple, if this is possible.

 

[Ghan]

Are you expecting these players to actually do anything? Have any other computers in your house that you could use? You're kind of running out of options here, I think.... There really isn't a virtual player in WC3. The closest thing might be an Observer, but that, I think, must be a real person anyway....

 

[Ouguiya]

Hello again!

Well, I do not really expect them to do anything. They can just stand around all day. All I want to test are some triggers which get launched when the player gets killed or leaves. Both don't really require an interaction from the player.

The idea with the additional computers is good, I'll check around to see if I can find my older Computer.

The reason I asked, primarily, was because of all the AutoRefreshers there are. These do introduce (at least, for a short time) a "virtual player" into the bnet game to refresh it, although I don't understand a clue about how that works, so, it could very well be that those "players" are just a bug used to refresh everything.

What I was hoping for was really a program which inserts a player, but doesn't do anything with it.

In any case, thank you, and so long.

 

[black.sheep]

Err, use computers?
If you have any triggers that remove them from play once game has started, you could aways mod the maps triggers so that they can get units, etc and change them once testing is done.

 

[FrozenShadow]

I think I have an easy answer to your problem, if you wanna test stuff on allies only, though.

Add another computer player, then just share control, and I mean share control from the player settings itself.

And, there is a way to share control with opponents, but I have forgotten how, you can do it on those Maze Designer maps.

 

[DarkSonicele]

The easiest solution to your problem is off course having multiple computers, but if you don't I have another solution. There are programs that "splits" your computer into several computers. From there just make sure you can launch WC3 from each piece and then join your own LAN games. One of my friends used it to test his maps, but I didn't really dig further into it myself.

 

[Ouguiya]

Hello all!

First, let me thank you for your answers.

As I already said in the main post, using a computer player is not possible in this case. (As it would require remodeling around 10 triggers, and 5-10 actions in each, which is crazy, just for testing purposes).

The idea which DarkSonicle gave was cool. I will further look into it.

Should I find the program he was talking about, I will post it here for further reference.

Yours,

Ouguiya

 

[Sevion]

Hmm, I'm curious, why wouldn't making another computer work?

 

[Darthfett]

I would also find this of use.

Hmm, I'm curious, why wouldn't making another computer work?

Sometimes you have triggers which only work if a player is playing, and not a computer.

My suggestion is to just use a boolean array which is set at initialization, which is set to true/false depending on whether a player is playing. Then, whenever your triggers need to know whether a player is playing, use the boolean. Then you can simply make a debug-command which lets you set a player to *isplaying*

 

[Troll-Brain]

There are some cases you really need a player and not simply a computer.

 

[Sevion]

If all he needs is a unit standing there, why would he need a player?

 

[Troll-Brain]

He never said that ...

Also try to exchange gold and wood if you have only computers on your map.
And at very least testing an eventual desynchronisation case is not possible with computers.

 

[Sevion]

Well, I do not really expect them to do anything. They can just stand around all day. All I want to test are some triggers which get launched when the player gets killed or leaves. Both don't really require an interaction from the player.

Troll-Brain, yes he did

 

[Troll-Brain]

Well we missunderstand together, basically even if the player doesn't need to interact, a computer is not enough, hope it's clearer now.

At least for me, i've some cases which a computer is not enough for testing purposes.

 

[Slapshot136]

run a virtual pc, copy wc3 over or install it there (use the same key, it will work but you cant use both on B.net the same time), and then host a lan game, and then alt-tab to the virtual one and then join the lan game