Today we take a look at several of the LUA plugins that have been written by Beta Players during the Free-to-Play testing period. The two that we have featured in this episode are:
- Plugin Manager which, once loaded will load and unload installed plugins through an interface instead of requiring you to use chat commands.
- Hunter Travel Window which creates a separate window for all of your travel abilities (which despite the name works for all classes) freeing up your bar space and general UI clutter.
Please note: LUA scripting and all Plugins are in BETA! There is no guarantee that LUA or the associated plugins will be released. It is for this reason that I have not identified the authors of these plugins. (However should they wish, they are more than welcome to identify themselves.)
Resources Used in this Episode:
| Plugin | Author | Download Location |
| Plugin Manager | Shady |  |
| Travel Window | D.H1cks |  |
August 25, 2010 at 11:43 am
First, I have yet to look at this guide, at work and no headphones. That said here it goes.
Question and possible show topic. Where do we find the plug ins? How do we ” load them into the game?” I’ve tried to find info on the forums and either the search result is too big, lacking info or filled with jargon.
Maybe a walk through tutorial that we could play in the background while we try to get a Lua script?
August 25, 2010 at 12:04 pm
This video does show Merric loading and unloading lua scripts to his game. If you mean how to install so the plugin manager in game can load them, Merric does plan to show stuff like that as well. From what i understand (and i may be wrong) it’s currently similar to loading a ui skin.
Since everything is in beta, all the information on this stuff is in the beta forums. But there will be places to find lotro plugin scripts when is is released. I know of several sites prepping to host lotro lua scripts from developers.
August 25, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Sure, that probably should have been my first part anyway, but yes I will do a video on that.
August 25, 2010 at 11:52 am
Plugins are all KINDS of exciting! This is very cool.
August 25, 2010 at 12:49 pm
http://www.lotrointerface.com is probably where most if not all Lua “mods” (stands for Modifications) will be stored. Currently you can only utilize “skins” for your gaming enjoyment but down the pipe will be the possibility to do more than re-skins of the UI. Exciting customizability!
August 25, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Lotro Interface has stated that they will create a section for Plugins when (if) they are released to the live game. They also stated that they would try and add it to their Minion updater as well.
I believe that other sites, like Veneration’s Lotro Plugin’s will also be working with developers to host their plugins as well.
August 25, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Wow, thanks for the great review of the Travel Window Merric, much appreciated.
August 25, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Great video Merric.
I’ll be looking forward to this if and when it does go live. Hunters in general will probably rejoice. That Travel bar is pure win for them.
August 25, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Thank you! This was one of the more popular plugins of the beta so I thought it would make a great “first” choice. A lot of people have done some pretty cool things and I’ll be excited to show what they have done.
August 25, 2010 at 3:32 pm
The plugin from Beta I am looking forward to the most is the Buff Bar plugin. It will be so much easier to keep up with countdowns if/when LUA scripting goes live.
August 25, 2010 at 4:26 pm
I have no experience with plug-ins, therefore I find them kinda scary like my 80 year old step father still finds the “interweb” scary.
I realize that I am probably just being stubborn, but that said, are plug-ins safe? How do they intereact? Am I at risk for loading spyware, malware along with them? Could they cause my lotro client to crash? I trust turbine, but not so much trust for LUA script writers…
Any help for a stubborn old fart like me in understanding plug-ins would be great.
August 25, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Turbine has gone to great lengths to limit what plugins can do. Plugins can’t communicate with the outside world, so they can’t really be spyware. They have extremely limited access to your PCs files (only files in the plugin directory with specific data file extension), so at most they can harm other plugins. It is possible for a poorly written (or malicious) plugin to crash the client, but in general, it appears that even a very buggy client will only crash itself. I think the biggest risk is someone sending out a link to a file they claim is a plugin, but is really something else. If you get your plugins from trusted sites, that shouldn’t be an issue.
I’m not an expert in security, LUA, or plugins, but I wrote some more detailed thoughts on my.lotro blog:
http://my.lotro.com/poinky/2010/08/25/plugins-mostly-harmless/
August 26, 2010 at 4:24 pm
You’re entirely correct. They are very limited (even more limited than WoW’s at this point) in this implementation. They cannot communicate with the server, they cannot execute programs, but like Poinky points out there is a possibility that someone could try and trick people into “installing a plugin”. The best way to negate that is to try and always obtain them from a legitimate site such as lotrointerface.com
I will go over next week what plugins look like and try to cover some of the security aspects.
September 7, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Delayed response, but thanks for the info. I will wait and see which ones are best for my classes
August 25, 2010 at 10:38 pm
I’m super excited about the hunter port plugin. I have one a 1/4 hot key bars dedicated to ports alone! Space that could be better utilized for quick access to potion, food and the like.
I have no intentions of going Beta so will these be available for those who aren’t going to switch their accounts?
August 25, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I’m sorry. I don’t understand the question. Switch your account to what?
August 26, 2010 at 5:54 am
As far as I can tell, no announcement has been made on whether plugins will be included in the Sept. 10 launch. There is some question about how plugin development will continue if the feature is not included at launch, if the Bullroarer beta server shuts down as well.
To play on the beta server you download a separate client, so t doesn’t impact your regular character at all. No switching is necessary. So you should be able to try out the plugins yourself, if you like. You still need to get a beta key to get access however.
August 26, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Dude! I am so excited about pluggins!
Great video. I look forward to more.
August 26, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Thank you!
August 27, 2010 at 5:18 am
Since there’s still no official plugin manager or menu, I suspect that either plugins will go live as a beta feature in the state they are now, or they will stay on the test server. In any case, unless there’s a major update that has been kept under the wraps, it’s not mature enough for broader audience.
September 9, 2010 at 6:34 am
Thank you both for being such helpful people, well, maybe not that Merric person but definately Goldenstar. JK you both have been very helpful for an older gamer like me to learn and enjoy Lotro
btw Pijo is my burglar and Soyel is my hunter on like 5 servers
September 9, 2010 at 12:31 pm
You’re welcome.
September 13, 2010 at 2:20 am
Just so everyone knows the official place to download the Plugin Manager and my other plugins is
http://code.google.com/p/gimped/downloads/list
(and Merric) Shady isn’t the author that’s just the namespace i used for my plugins
September 19, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Looks good, but when i install it and pull up the list of plugins, i get, ” Unable to resolve package “Shady.Manager”. “
September 19, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Do you have the Turbine plugin components installed? If not, check out the second in his series.
September 19, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Yeah I have those installed. Plugins refresh pulls up the list and this addon is on it. C:UsersNameDocumentsThe Lord of the Rings OnlinePluginsTurbinePluginsManager
is the path. I put it in Plugins and it didn’t show up in the game at all, so any assistance is welcome.
September 19, 2010 at 11:09 pm
ah, OK then that file is one of the ones that the author didn’t pack correctly.
in the plugins folder, make a new folder named Shady and move the Manager folder underneath that one. So it will be Plugins/Shady/Manager
September 20, 2010 at 6:25 am
Yup, it says “Loaded plugin “manager” ” now, thanks much.
September 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm
You’re welcome
I also updated the link to point to LOTRO Interface now which has the latest version. Also I checked and Shady has updated the path in the zip to go to the right location.
September 21, 2010 at 12:36 am
Hey man I noticed you have a background on your chat box. How did you do that? Ive been wanting something like that for a long time
September 21, 2010 at 8:57 am
If you go to the Main Menu (System Menu), click on Options and then choose Chat, at the top there will be a slider that will change the Opacity of the chat window.
September 8, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Excellent! Thank you!