Lich scripting engine
Understanding Lich
Welcome to Lich! The Lich Engine (Lich) is a Ruby-based scripting engine which was originally designed for the Simutronic’s Game Gemstone. The foundation of Lich is such that it provides a means to automate the gameplay through use of scripts written in the Ruby programming language. Lich is not a Front End (FE), it is a scripting engine that hooks into an FE and communicates through it with the Simutronic’s servers. Currently, the most widely used FE’s for DR with Lich are Wizard, Storm Front, Genie, Profanity, and Frostbite. Some work right out of the box while others require a bit of tweaking, but all have been used successfully for a long time. The base Lich install supports the use of the go2 command, which works just like Genies’ goto. Mapping is supported by the narost script. Narost loads a Ruby-based window that provides a point and click map for traversing around Elanthia. Narost was named after Gemstone’s original mapper, Tsoran (it’s his name backward). Go2 and the narost map database are updated frequently. This is the foundation of Lich. You can write scripts in Ruby, and place them in the Lich/scripts folder and access them in-game using the semicolon command. Let’s say you write a simple script that removed all your armor and you named it removearmor.lic. You would then use the command “;removearmor” in-game to invoke that script and run it. As you can see, this is very similar to how Genie or SF scripts work with the comma and period invoking. You have access to making all your own scripts by converting SF/Genie scripts to Ruby, etc.
Understanding Dependency
Now that you understand the basic concept of the Lich Engine, we’ll discuss Dependency. Dependency, or what most people refer to as Lich, is an Open Source software suite that uses the Lich Engine to automate the Dragonrealms gameplay. It is important to note that Dependency is NOT a converted software suite from Gemstone, but rather it is a completely new design built exclusively for the game Dragonrealms. It originated from the minds of two professional developers and has since increased to around 20, most of whom are also professional developers. The Dependency suite is hosted on Github which allows easy development processes as well as allowing end-users to request new features or report bugs.
Important
Many Lich users utilize it as simply a chat room for discussion and to get help, while others utilize Dependency to automate their gameplay. They are two separate things, but have become synonymous as Lich. You do NOT need Dependency to use Lich.