Knowledge required to create plugins/bot/profiles.

[Vinchik]

I have been a honorbuddy user every since my other bot got murdered by blizzard long ass time, pretty much post wotlk. I have always been fascinated by these guys ability to create an amazing product. In 5 years owning the lifetime keys, the recent ban wave was the first for me. I botted on my main account all the time, nothing 24/7 though maybe some leveling of 1-100 had all 11 horde toons. I give praises them for creating a solid product, there really is no bot out there that can compete with how honorbuddy is laid out and an array of many publicly available profiles - which are now decreasing d/t the store but I understand profile makers wanna make some ching as well since most people would not even stop and say thank you sir for making my life easier. I guess here is the question - what knowledge does one need to possess in order to be able to tinker and be able to create things like bots/bot bases.... Second, can the knowledge be gained from self learning - meaning knowing nothing about coding,etc or do does something like this require a major in computer science? Lastly, are there website out there that will teach/show how to code and what not?
Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Galaxy]

I guess here is the question - what knowledge does one need to possess in order to be able to tinker and be able to create things like bots/bot bases.... Second, can the knowledge be gained from self learning - meaning knowing nothing about coding,etc or do does something like this require a major in computer science? Lastly, are there website out there that will teach/show how to code and what not?
Thanks for any feedback.

You do need basic understanding of programming and how game environments work, as well as advanced knowledge of coding and what not. You can certainly teach yourself with practice and tutorials you find on the Internet. I am doing the same thing right now. I'm a graphic designer (I started teaching myself over ten years ago) and I haven't paid a single cent for design/graphics courses. A website I suggest for students interested in learning programming is http://www.codecademy.com/

It's a great website that teaches different languages in programming and it's free. So just look around and you will easily find the resources you need to learn programming.

 

[Vinchik]

What would you say would be a good start as far as learning a coding language at first. There are so many of them the choice of picking one is kind of overwhelming...

 

[RRyox]

You do need basic understanding of programming and how game environments work, as well as advanced knowledge of coding and what not. You can certainly teach yourself with practice and tutorials you find on the Internet. I am doing the same thing right now. I'm a graphic designer (I started teaching myself over ten years ago) and I haven't paid a single cent for design/graphics courses. A website I suggest for students interested in learning programming is http://www.codecademy.com/

It's a great website that teaches different languages in programming and it's free. So just look around and you will easily find the resources you need to learn programming.

;''

Wanna meet up for lunch Galaxy? You seem like an interesting person. I live in OKC and I'm in Dallas all the time.

 

[Galaxy]

What would you say would be a good start as far as learning a coding language at first. There are so many of them the choice of picking one is kind of overwhelming...

Can't tell you from personal experience, but a little Googling has shown me that C/C++ is the best one to start with. Honorbuddy itself is written in that language, I believe and CodenameG suggested it in this post, as well.

Wanna meet up for lunch Galaxy? You seem like an interesting person. I live in OKC and I'm in Dallas all the time.

Thanks, but I consider myself pretty normal. Hah. I'm actually going to be taking my dad up there for a camping/fishing trip in Broken Bow in a couple of weeks.

 

[Vinchik]

Thanks Galaxy, Found a website that has a shit ton info on C++ maybe in couple month, il birth something if grad school allows for it. Is there a hierarchy of languages that would feed of each other to help write/ create a programs? Sorry for stupid questions....

 

[Galaxy]

Thanks Galaxy, Found a website that has a shit ton info on C++ maybe in couple month, il birth something if grad school allows for it. Is there a hierarchy of languages that would feed of each other to help write/ create a programs? Sorry for stupid questions....

The questions aren't stupid at all. Like I said, I don't have experience with programming, but I was doing some research and found that Java, LUA, Ruby and Python were useful as well. In creating programs like a bot, many people suggested Java - I know it's a common language and versatile. Codecademy has Javascript tutorials and they're pretty easy to follow.

 

[Vinchik]

Thanks I'll take a look into it. I just want to educate myself on this topic instead of just going ignorant like that 20 threads created complain about dev team lol.

 

[sathorod]

C++ (while a great language and my personal favorite) is not what you'd want to learn for your goals. If your goals are entirely centered around eventually writing bot bases or plugins you'll want to use C#, as that is what Honorbuddy uses. C# is developed by Microsoft, and is well integrated with .NET, basically a Windows library that provides functions for all sorts of things that require interacting with the operating system. I highly recommend you take a look at Microsoft's Virtual Academy which has a plethora of tutorials on a very wide variety of subjects. It's easily the best free resource you'll find. I recommend you begin with C# Fundamentals For Absolute Beginners and then move onto Programming in C# Jump Start for a deeper understanding about some of the more complicated aspects of programming. From there, Honorbuddy documentation should be easy for you to review and learn how to use to extend Honorbuddy however you wish. There really isn't a way to effectively cut corners, you have to put the work in if you want to be able to do what you're asking. That being said, it's totally doable by anyone. You don't have to be a math genius to get programming, it all boils down to simple logic. I taught a group of boys with autism aged 8-12 game development in C++ with SFML, and in 16 weeks they were making puzzle games, platformers, all kinds of really cool stuff. If you're passionate I guarantee you in time you will be able to do whatever you want. Good luck!

 

[Phyxios]

The questions aren't stupid at all. Like I said, I don't have experience with programming, but I was doing some research and found that Java, LUA, Ruby and Python were useful as well. In creating programs like a bot, many people suggested Java - I know it's a common language and versatile. Codecademy has Javascript tutorials and they're pretty easy to follow.

the reason java is suggested, is because of how widely used it is and how similar it is to other languages, so once you learn java its relatively easy to swap into a new language.

 

[tomcruise]

I taught a group of boys with autism aged 8-12 game development in C++ with SFML, and in 16 weeks they were making puzzle games, platformers, all kinds of really cool stuff. If you're passionate I guarantee you in time you will be able to do whatever you want. Good luck!

16 weeks is quite slow if they are autistic

 

[flyg]

Its getting harder now with Buddystore but download a few plugin files directly and have a look at them - best way to learn and plugins are generally much easier to understand compared to entire routines. Many plugins are just single .cs files as well making it even easier.

I started off knowing nothing and now make lots of little plugins for my CRs where i feel something is missing and the dev wont add it for other reasons.

So Grab a plugin and look between the public override void Pulse() bit - that's where the main code is.

Then just use logic - i.e. this is quite easy to understand

if (Me.HealthPercent < 30 && Target.HealthPercent > 10)

Me and Target are pointers set up by other code but the conditions are if I'm under 30% and my target is over 10% then do something.

My full function looks like

if (Me.HealthPercent < 30 && Target.HealthPercent > 10)
{
        if (SpellManager.CanCast("Cloak of Shadows"))
        {
              Logging.Write(Colors.CornflowerBlue, "Cloak of Shadows");
              SpellManager.Cast("Cloak of Shadows");
        }
                        
        if (SpellManager.CanCast("Vanish"))
        {
            Logging.Write(Colors.CornflowerBlue, "Vanish");
            SpellManager.Cast("Vanish");
        }
                        
        if (!SpellManager.CanCast("Vanish"))
        {
            if (StyxWoW.Me.HasAura("Handbook: Preparation"))
            {
                  if (SpellManager.CanCast("Preparation"))
                 {
                    Logging.Write(Colors.CornflowerBlue, "Preparation");
                    SpellManager.Cast("Preparation");
                 }
            }
        }
}

Pseduo Code is

If i'm less than 30% and my target is greater than 10% then
If i can cast cloak of shadows cast it
If i can cast Vanish cast it
If i cant cast vanish but I have the ashran book then if I can cast preparation then cast preparation
end if

plugins loop through so next time it will manage prep/vanish etc.

By no means will this code be efficient or anything but it works for me and i'm still learning. Sometimes I also prefer to code in little multiple ifs rather than all same line as makes it easier to debug later.

The treesharp and object orientated methods with constructors and => etc are way beyond me though as oop is just weird!