Empty world been done?
 

Hi all! Has anyone ever emptied out the database as far as mobs, npcs, quests, items, etc and built their own EQ world containing only their own content? I've seen servers with custom content, but haven't found one like what I am talking about. Thought about trying that once I have more experience with it and better understand the spawn tables, etc.

It's a hugely ambitious goal, reimagining all of Norrath. That said, the tools and resources available to us these days make it at least possible. You'd certainly have to roll out the server in stages, similar to the original expansion releases. Do old world zones, work on Kunark while players progress through that, work on Velious while they play through Kunark, etc. Ton of work.

I totally see where you're coming from, though. I feel like a lot more could have been done with the NPCs of EQ.

Definitely a ton of work, but the sense of accomplishment you'd experience would be worth it I think. I may empty out a database on a private server and give it a try starting with just a single zone and see how it goes.

Plus, you would need to document the behavior of each client that you want to support so that a 'clean slate' would have boundaries/protocols.

Yes, one difficult decision is how far back to support clients. The most supportive would go all the way back to Titanium, but then you'd be missing out on a buttload of spell graphics and effects, races, item graphics, item icons, and you'd run into Highpass issues between clients.

Give up on Titanium and go back to SoF, and you have many improvements in that regard, though SoF isn't particularly widely used. Bump it up to Underfoot, and you're in much more stable territory in all of the above. However, you're cutting out the userbase of people who only have, and only have access to, Titanium and SoF. I don't know what the Titanium population is right now, but from what I've been told, SoF usage tends to hover around 5% of players on a given server.

I think that's an awesome idea. Really the engine is the best thing about EQ, and the zones I would say. I wouldn't worry about people playing and progression and all of that; I am a noob here but what I have seen is you can't count on having players, just build what you want and love and if it is really cool word will get out. Also advertising helps (p99 are pro's at advertising in sneaky ways)

I've tried before using the Titanium client (because it's all I've got for now). It was myself and one other person that completely cleared every zone, quest, item, etc. and started from scratch. We basically each picked a zone for levels 1-15, 15-25, 25-35, etc. all the way to 51 (our server max) and went to work. Once we spawned all the mobs and gave them pathing for each zone we would write quests and I would create them using the old PERL method and implement them. Then we would create items (vendor trash included) and the other dev would create and implement them. Then we worked together on two high level zones and one raid zone. All of this took about 5 months and that was working every single day for about 4-6 hours a day.

Our biggest problem was server uptime, but after we rolled out a few zones we opened the server to some beta testers from the community. We only had a peak of 11 players over the course of a week, but everyone was really amazed at our quality of work. Unfortunately some things came up in our personal lives and the other dev could no longer work on the server. I kept it going for another month or two but the workload was just too much for one person. I took a hiatus until recently, even though I probably won't be able to play much (I'm in the military and deployed and the internet is garbage).

Overall it's a very ambitious endeavor but if you can get some people to help you and you put in a good amount of work it's a really fun thing to do; I had a lot of visions, and still do, for some awesome items, quests, and zones overall. When I get back from this deployment, assuming I'm not working too much, I may try again if there's a more stable client by then. However it'll take me a while to learn the LUA system and stuff

I'm working on something like this now. I started by scrubbing the spell & item tables. I'm focusing on making it work for the UF client.

So far it's been a fairly large undertaking. As with DMing a D&D campaign, just because you have a few great concepts doesn't mean you have the creative juices to fill in all the gaps. That's what I'm working on now that I've gotten away from the most formulaic parts of the database (spells & crafted items).

I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect balancing new NPCs is going to be an absolute nightmarish orgy of tears.