How deeply wow can be modded?

[Miens]

Hello there,
modding wow got my curiosity just a day ago and after I saw what other people have done - now it has my attention. What I am interested in making is quite huge - certainly not one man job. But befere I will start doing anything I want to make sure that what I want to achieve is doable. I am programmer myself so all scripting languages used in wow dont scare me.

What scares me is a vision when I have to figure everything out by myself using trial and error method (bleh). So essentially documentation / support is really important for me. Below I will list features that interest me and if someone could say if they are doable or not I would be obliged (also mention if there is some documentation on these topisc if possible please ).

-redesigning combat system (skillshots / aoe instead of point'n'click)

-changing character class / talent trees while character is in game

-forbiding certain player(s) from entering some area of map

 -a system which would make some game object become transparent if they obscure players character (client only)

-character staying in game world after player logged out

Looking forward to your reply guys! Cheers!

[schlumpf]

Ego shooter like: no. Barrage / frost orb: yes.
The trees themselves? Hard, a lot of reverse engineering and binary editing. Something that looks like it would be talents: easier.
Server side script, trivial.
Hard, a lot of reverse engineering and binary editing.
Server side, trivial.

[Valkryst]

The Combat system could, with some work, be modified to work in that way.

The class/talent tree changes are doable.

Transparent gameobjects may be difficult or impossible depending on what you actually want done.

Having the character stay online after logout should be doable.

[Miens]

Hey guys thanks for quick reply.

What are you saying about transparent game objects worries me alot since it is one of most important features for me. Let me explain in greater detail that I want to achieve, and then maybe we can talk about it.

For a moment presume that camera in game is hovering directly over players character in fixed postion, player has no controll over it. Problem begins when you want to create lets say a tower - clipping camera position to ceiling height is unacceptable. The idea I came up with was to cut tower in to layers (levels), then camera offset from player remains static BUT if an object (layer of building) is between camera and character it turns transparent (this mechanic would apply only to some game objects like building levels or roofs).

This is the idea I came up with if you see any other way of handling the top down camera problem please share it. So now that you know more detail about this feature do you still think it is hard / impossible to do?

[schlumpf]

I still think the same.

[Miens]

there is one more feature that interests me. I want the camera to be in the same position in relation to player all the time. Is it possible to forbid player from manipulating camera? And if its possible can anyone guide me to some place where I can find some information about it? (i know it is possible to manipulate camera with wow api but can I achieve what is described here with it?)

[schlumpf]

There is likely no tutorial or information on this. I doubt that people ever bothered with modifying the camera while attached to a unit, tbh, as machinima will just use the spectator camera. In cata+ I know that a spell can change http://wowdev.wiki/DB/CameraMode on the target, I wouldn't know about such a thing in WotLK though. There, as with the other questions in this thread, the answer is: happy reverse engineering.