[MUD-Dev] UI scripting gone too far?

[Derek Licciardi]

Recently a friend of mine showed me a site that was cataloging the
item and monster database of WoW.  My first thought was that this is
not a big deal because we see it in every MMO release.  It's not
long after a release that warcry.com and other sites begin housing
large databases of information.  The thing about the WoW database
(www.thottbot.com <http://www.thottbot.com/> ) is that it is
populated through a custom Lua scripted UI interface; Cosmos, I
think is its name.  I'm not sure this is a good thing to have what
is in effect a distributed computing system cataloging everything
the game knows.  The error rate and speed through which humans did
it on other sites has grown to be a comfort level for me as a
designer.  This, however, seems a bit too efficient me.  On the
other hand, there's the argument that the users will do it anyway.
What are your thoughts?  Is a popular scripting engine a good way to
release player tool functionality or are you inviting trouble
because the language isn't specialized enough for your developers to
control?

Derek
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