Server ideas.

[ecliptic]

Something I would to see would be an EQ pre-Luclin. With the old world completely redone with larger zones, bigger cities, better quests, new zones that were never made. (Just look at your old EQ map). Some zones could even be combined, such as Felwithe with Gfay, the Karanas and both Commonlands. :)

[JohnMcguirk]

yes. it shouldnt be done on eqemu though, i want to see pre luclin eq on a leet open source engine with high poly detailed remakes of each zone and remakes of the old race models and mobs. REAL REMAKES. not like the luclin model upgrades. they should be actually based on the original models not just the modellers random creation of what he think that race might look like, he should actually start off with the original model as a base and start adding more polygons etc. nothing should be changed, only added. some places dont need anything added, for example citys like felwithe or zones like blackburrow, the geometry is perfect the way it is, i would want them to be just the same exept with things like high polys, rich lighting, bumpmaping on things like stone walls and houses or cave walls, specular lighting on shiney things, particle effects, and lots of objects. its the vast randomly gen'd out door areas that need content added.

[a_Guest03]

JohnMcGuirk, it would rule if we could find this mysterious "he" who would design these extra polygons, no?

[JohnMcguirk]

what do you mean we? who is we? i am not aware of any project with a vision similar to this. if there was i would start working on the 3d for it right away.

[KhaN]

i want to see pre luclin eq on a leet open source engine with high poly detailed remakes of each zone and remakes of the old race models and mobs.

Will never happen, main reason being is if openeq make it out (and will be prolly in a few months), remodeling EQ as you are speaking is impossible for amateur, or is a yearS work, which will be useless, before at the end, it will be just EQ1, ask every roleplayers around, no one really play for the graphism, but for the contents (cept maybe the teenagers~).

Also, you have to take in consideration you cannot add anything to existing zone (its copyrighted), maybe copy it and redoing it from starch would be possible (and im sure you will be sued for this), but imagine the task it would be to replace every objects at the same coords, like every trees in Greater Faydark ...

Too many work for minor result imo :)

[JohnMcguirk]

if openeq make it out, remodeling EQ as you are speaking is impossible for amateur, or is a yearS work what? what does that have to do with 'if openeq make it out'

i dont disagree it would take a years work, but i dont think the results would be minor.

[MrPanz]

youve got one valid point there khan, its copywritted.

[ryder911]

if openeq make it out, remodeling EQ as you are speaking is impossible for amateur, or is a yearS work what? what does that have to do with 'if openeq make it out'

i dont disagree it would take a years work, but i dont think the results would be minor.

That means that you can change the models with the client people use now, you Will have to wait for openeq to come out before people will be able to change the models. And even with that out, it will still be hard to make new models for EQ, its not something that you can just read a tutorial and be able to do ti right away, you have to be skilled to make a complex model like that.

[Ilia_Muramets]

Hello everyone and Happy New Year.
What I wanted to ask/suggest is this. Would it be (legal?) in comparison what EQemu is doing right now to have EQemu for different releases out of the box? What I mean is, I want to install just EverQuest the RUINS OF KUNARK out of CD and without any patches get an Emulator server setup just for that. Same goes for every major release.
Why many might ask? Well, simply because many people liked game BEST the way it was (with few minor adjustments) before new add-on release that most of the time screwed game. I don't know about many of you but I personally enjoyed game most until PoP came out. Velius and Luclin add-ons were nice, but they didn't really add anything new to game, just made it larger, which isn't necessary what most people would like to see.

Also, staying current with Live server means every time they get a new patch released they screw those who just came to this forum or if someone had to reinstall/reformat.
I would also be willing to put my skills 7+ years of programming/hacking/editing/ and just screwing around with code/data and (few hours a day, part-time) for development and improvement of the project. However I haven't seen any mission statements - long term goals outlined. Or... I just haven't seen them because forum is just to huge to read everything, and unlike how it was when I was in school I don't have that much free time now that I have different responsibilities in (errr.. Life - Emulation).

[MrPanz]

ryder i think you missed the part about it being on a open source engine, open eqs 3d renderer isnt functional or pretty enough for what he discribed. and we dont need you to tell us the skills required for 3d modeling.

[GAYLOVEPANDA]

does anyone else think its sad soe is in charge of everquest? theyve completley degraded its once respected name and turned into a rediculous franchise with things like Lords of Everquest and EQ:OA. the original game that was designed is gone, and theres little hope of it ever existing again. eq2 makes me sad.. the project described is how eq2 should of been. i want to see a project like this done, its the only chance there is for seeing everquest alive again. and if they shut you down, so what, you didnt steal any of their work, you just took their concepts and design and enhanced it because no one else would. you didnt make any money off it so you cant get in trouble. i cant wait till open eq's 3d renderer gets good enuf to do that. and if no theres always some good looking game engines out there.

[Cisyouc]

open eqs 3d renderer isnt functional or pretty enough for what he discribedPardon? OpenEQ has already been able to successfully open and navigate any zone in EverQuest and they are working on EverQuest II zones as well. At the moment eqg's are disabled, but I have walked through Anguish personally (anguish.eqg) with openeq and the only thing that was wrong was the water shader. But I believe even now that is fixed.

[MrPanz]

but it doesnt have all the pretty functions mentioned in the begining of this thread, and it would need to be able to handle eq2ish polycount.. it doesnt even have eq style lighting atm which is what made eq look good. sorry if it offends you but what you quoted still stands atm.

[Daeath]

Ecliptic, JohnMcguirk: either one of you two ever do any serious 3d work? To design a decent high-poly organic mesh takes some time, but decent textures take longer, and proper animation is the kingpin of time (at least for me with my home studio and no $$$ motion-capture). What you're asking for, to only take 1 year's work, would require a dedicated team of at least a dozen veteran designers working a full 40hrs/week. That's just for gfx: you'll also need scripters and sound. And all this is assuming that you're going to use a system/engine already out; otherwise you'll need a full coding team to create a whole new client. A years work? That would be historic proportions for the game design community.

What you could do is make a mod of a few zones - I recommend using TES's construction set. You can get some great poly-counts with it, and it has a wonderful built-in world editor & quest/item creator. And being a mod, I don't know how applicable copyrighted material is being a free distrubution system.

In the end, would it be worth it? That depends: if you spend the hundreds of hours just to create a product just for the sake of creation, then you might walkaway satisfied. But usually people create something with the hope to watch the masses fall in love with it: that'll never happen with an updated EQ1.

[MrPanz]

the mass's couldnt fall in love with a free eq1 with better graphics? not to mention old school eq gameplay which mass's have already fallen in love with and beg soe to remake every day. a project like this has more of a chance to bring pre-luclin gameplay back to life with a mass ammount of players than any pre-luclin eqemu server. you dont think an updated eq1 could ever be popular? if eq2 had been an updated pre-luclin eq1 it would have twice the playerbase it has now.

and a project like this will not be on 'TES's' or any other noobie eqemu 3d 'construction set' it will be built with the professional 3d software todays 3d artists know and use.

[KhaN]

and a project like this will not be on 'TES's' or any other noobie eqemu 3d 'construction set' it will be built with the professional 3d software todays 3d artists know and use.

Stop speak about things you are not able to understand PLEASE.

[MrPanz]

I am speaking of nothing I am not able to understand thanks. Way to go off-topic and flame though.

If you want to defend your construction set you point out facts, logic, and reason to explain your opinion as to why its just as good as the professional 3d software outthere, not flame the poster.

[KhaN]

Of course you are speaking about things you doesnt know.

Have you ever launched one of thos professional 3D software you are speaking ? i doubt, well yes, maybe im wrong, maybe you have installed like 3DSMax and made humm ... a teapot~
If you want me to explain how dumb you are, lets go for it.

You are barely making the mix between a 3D Modeler software and a 3D World/Object editor, when sorry, its two different software. WHERE the hell on earth did you heard you could make a game with one of the professionnal software you are speaking about ? Damn, i bet you wouldnt been able to say me three of those 3D professionnal software (3DStudio Max, Alias Wavefront, Softimage, ...). You know, game modeling and scene modeling is two different worlds ?
Game Modeling consist mainly in low-poly modeling (And yes, sorry, but even HL2 is low poly modeling) when polycount ALWAYS have to be taken in count, instead like scene modeling, where polycount is never taken in count. In Game Modeling, do you need like, the last build of Softimage ? Hell no, poser, milkshape (Hi Richardo), Gmax is way enough, because for game modeling, you will never fully use profesionnal 3D software and all their useless functions, because all those software are more oriented in scene modeling and 3D movie animation than game modeling. For game modeling, you only need a 3D modeler that allow you to make poly, UV, bones, animation, thats all.
You are also dumb, because you are dumb enough to assimilate OpenZone to "any other noobie eqemu 3d 'construction set'", man, Did you EVER launched OpenZone and tried to use it more than at least an hour ? Where did you getOpenZone was a somewhat 3D Modeling software ? Because sorry to say you this, but software like OpenZone are been used everyday by company making games. And of course, if one day, someone will take the time to remodel EQ, it will have to use one of the "noobie eqemu 3d 'construction set'" you are speaking about.

Do i needed to first make a long post like this to defend like you are saying my "point out facts, logic, and reason to explain my opinion", dude, wake up, its not an opinion, its reality, and you, you are still dreaming.

PS : Oh btw, in this post i flamed you, but you so must asked for it, sorry.

[Richardo]

Yea LOL, OpenZone is not a modeling program, hahaa its more of a .... Prebuilt Mesh Importing Compiler.... Unless your talking about creating the terrain, that is not modeling, thats putting in how big you want something and having it do it for you. You do abosolutely no real modeling work when ceating terrain... I work with Milkshape, and am still learning 3DMax, khan teaches me every so and so, but ehh.. Yea man, that made me laugh in real life about the OpenZone comment.. Nice ownage khan

[MrPanz]

khan you barley understand and can barley type english.. your getting confused and upset over things totaly off subject.

You are barely making the mix between a 3D Modeler software and a 3D World/Object editor, when sorry, its two different software. i am barely making the mix? I understand the difference between the two if thats what you mean. The first can do everything the second can do, and the second is for noobs.

You are also dumb, because you are dumb enough to assimilate OpenZone to "any other noobie eqemu 3d 'construction set'

I didnt assimilate or compare OpenZone to anything. The way you quoted me is completley out of context. Like you said, OpenZone is not modeling software. Its a "Prebuilt Mesh Importing Compiler" and a random terrain gen.. It is not cappable of producing the 3d for a project like the one described earlier.. all you guys did was prove my point.. and btw thanks for the 3d lesson lol! oh so insightfull.

[Cisyouc]

khan you barley understand and can barley type english.. your getting confused and upset over things totaly off subject.First of all hes french, secondly his post wasnt that bad.

i am barely making the mix? I understand the difference between the two if thats what you mean. The first can do everything the second can do, and the second is for noobs.Wrong. OpenZone is NOT a 3D Modeler. It's not. And you just said it is. Theres your problem there, sir.

[Richardo]

I didnt assimilate or compare OpenZone to anything. The way you quoted me is completley out of context. Like you said, OpenZone is not modeling software. Its a "Prebuilt Mesh Importing Compiler" and a random terrain gen.. It is not cappable of producing the 3d for a project like the one described earlier .....all you guys did was prove my point.. and btw thanks for the 3d lesson lol! oh so insightfull.

that sentence makes abosolutely no sence.. Basically you are saying, It isnt cappable for Open Zone to produce 3 dimensions for a project, when that is its main function lol

Nah, we proved you dont know what your talking about homie :/

and yes, KhaN is french and he knows english very well... It's just his spelling needs some fixing :p

[MrPanz]

Basically you are saying, It isnt cappable for Open Zone to produce 3 dimensions for a project, when that is its main function lol

I am not saying Open Zone is not cappable to produce 3 dimensions for a project. But that is not all the project described needs. What you quoted in red is completley true still =/.

Wrong. OpenZone is NOT a 3D Modeler. It's not. And you just said it is. Theres your problem there, sir. Where did i say this? by first i ment 3d modeler's, by second i ment 3d world editor like open zone.

khans spelling is fine. his sentence's barley make sense though. and i think he reads things wrong and then gets upset about it.

[Cisyouc]

Where did i say this? Right here, sir: You are barely making the mix between a 3D Modeler software and a 3D World/Object editor, when sorry, its two different software. i am barely making the mix? I understand the difference between the two if thats what you mean. The first can do everything the second can do, and the second is for noobs.

[KhaN]

khan you barley understand and can barley type english..
I can also barley speak french, russian, italian, spanish, and you ?

Also, i agree you on something, compare OZ to a newbie program, and i will kill you, your wife, your parents, your kids, your dog, your cat, ...

[MrPanz]

cisyouc, by first i was refering to 3d modeling software, which OZ is not, by second i was refering to a 3d world/object editor, which is what OZ is closer to being. i knew OZ wasnt a 3d modeler since my first post, i never even brought that up, you guys did. my only point on OZ was that it could not produce the 3d for a project like described. what i did do is call OZ an 'newbie eqemu construction set'. i apologize for that.

[sr2]

Hrm...I'll try to inject some non-hatefull commentary here...getting a bit heated here.

Have you guys looked at Vanguard? Its designed by the original EQ designers and they have free reign to do what they want by Micro$oft. I, unfortunately, never got to try old-school EQ and came in right after PoP came out so I've never seen the "real" game. Hopefully Vanguard is more of what your looking for.

[Windcatcher]

Please, let's everyone calm down...

Is OpenZone a modeling tool? Not really...I'm not quite sure how to categorize it, and I wrote the darned thing. It's really designed for only one thing: constructing zones. You can do it all from within OpenZone (like the four I released that are up on SourceForge), or you can import content from real modeling tools and use that. The best way to think of it is a Zone Construction Set. Is it noobish? Probably...I don't know the first thing about real 3D modeling tools, and when I designed it I figured that most people don't either. I designed it for people like me -- I know how to build a GUI with tools like VB/Delphi, and OpenZone is modeled after those. It's more suited for placing pieces of a zone where you wish rather than building entirely from scratch, though it can do either.

This thread started with what kinds of zones people would like to see, so let me see if I can put forth a weak attempt at getting it back on track. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm sick to death of SOE content, the world of Norrath, and the entire mythos contained within. I think a critical part of any fantasy world is the thrill of discovery and how fantasy is so broad that there's lots of room for uniqueness (think of every fantasy book you've ever read and how they all differ on many levels). In that sense, I think that customizing zones, items, and models (probably in that order, from least difficult to most difficult) is a noble cause and one that will attract many users.

That's not to say that nostalgia for pre-Kunark EQ isn't a bad thing (and I agree that SOE ruined the game after Kunark), but I don't think it's really different enough from EQLive to attract users to more than a small degree. If I still enjoyed EQLive (and that was so long ago that I can't remember how long it's actually been anymore) I would just play EQLive. Their subscription price wasn't that much -- what I couldn't stand were the time required, the overpopulation of the world, and the fact that the game eventually became old hat (the last one isn't SOE's fault -- it arises simply from time spent playing the game). Still, there isn't anything about OpenEQ that precludes either scenario, though I clearly have a bias towards totally unique worlds.

Let me just say that OpenZone is just a first crack at building zones, and it was done to make it as easy as possible. Suggestions are always welcome (and a thread on that might do some good), and it's *open source*...there's no reason why it has to be the only world-building tool out there (hint, hint).

[MrPanz]

theres no need for another world building tool. i think openzone is perfect, it allows people who arnt 3d modellers to do a decent ammount of world building and allows importing from common 3d formats. what else could you want hehe.

[Vaerie]

khans spelling is fine. his sentence's barley make sense though. and i think he reads things wrong and then gets upset about it.

Barley is a vegetable...I think...oh well, I know it's some type of food.

P.S. I'm baaaaack! Is Melwin still here? I hope not...

[RangerDown]

Barley is for making beer. I dunno if it's classified as a vegetable or herb or whatever, but it goes to a good cause :P

You're back.

Melwin's not.

[Vaerie]

You're back.

Melwin's not.

w00t! ...ehhh, sorry for off topic-ness