Quote:
Originally Posted by trevius
This is a fairly valid complaint right now. Though, Titanium and SoF are still available via legal means, but not always very easy to find available.
However, I am pretty sure that 80% or so of the people playing EQEmu over the years got their clients illegally, including Titanium. We do not condone or support illegal clients on this site, but that doesn't mean we are blind to the fact that people do get them.
Hopefully at some point we will be able to come up with a solution to the lack of a legal and fairly current client.
This is only relevant to the PEQ website, team and server. Even though the PEQ DB is the primary DB used by EQEmu, we are not really directly affiliated. Of course, we are all very thankful to the work done by the PEQ team and the fact that they are willing to share their hard work for the better of the community.
The majority of the population resides on a few specific servers. PEQ is one of those servers, but most of the rest do not rely on PEQ updates. The custom servers like EZ and THF doesn't do PEQ updates. Project 99 runs on its own DB and doesn't do PEQ updates either. This leaves a few smaller servers that rely on new content from PEQ to help maintain their server population. As far as big servers go, I think PEQ is the main one that relies up PEQ updates, and they get theirs on a steady basis, as they aren't limited to when they do releases for the public.
I am not really sure what you are referring to here. Plenty of servers have added modules to their CMS to integrate server stuff into their site (server uptime, player counts, player lists). People have also made tools such as the Magelo and Alla Clones that help integrate servers into websites. Maybe you have an example of another game that does exactly what you are referring to.
Again, this is a PEQ specific point. It is only relevant to a handful of servers. Though, new servers heavily benefit from the newer content even if they plan to customize it. Still, for the most part it is PEQ that is effected by how fast content is added to their database. Maybe EQTitan as well, but they somewhat maintain their own DB now as well since PEQ isn't releasing updates as often.
I think 2k people at peak is a decent number. It is better than what EQEmu had 4+ years ago. Numbers may not be quite as high as they were a year or 2 ago, but they aren't that far off. A number of new games have taken a toll on the EQEmu player base such as Diablo 3 and SWTOR, but both of those are dying off quickly and I think we will see a rise in players this fall. We normally go in cycles where player numbers drop a lot over the summer and then pick back up through the school year.
Keep in mind that 2k at peak doesn't mean we only have 2k active players. I think it is safe to bet that there are 5 times the active players as what can be seen at any given time. People don't play 24X7 normally, and a lot are only on for a few hours at a time throughout the day. So, we probably have closer to 10k active players, which is really decent IMO.
Also, your numbers of 75% being botters is probably pretty far off. Yes, a few servers are probably heavily inflated with botters, but keep in mind that P99 should be a 1 for 1 server and they are by far the highest population on EQEmu. It is probably 40% or less botters and AFK characters overall.
Times in EQEmu have been far worse in the past than they are now and it is still going strong many years later. I remember when I first started running my server, KLS was the only active dev that had access to change the source. We have come a far way since then with the addition of the SVN which opens up source updates to many other people to help with.
Yeah, development these past months has been a bit slower, but most of the regular devs are still around lurking and making the occasional update. Everyone has their own reason for not being quite as active. And we always have new people who are willing to start helping with updates (such as Kayen's recent major updates).
Either way, I don't see EQEmu dying any time soon. As long as a few people in the community are motivated to keep new stuff going into the source and new servers and content, the players will keep coming back. We all love EQ and this project has one of the cooler communities that I have found on the internet (even if a few here are jerks).
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I hear what your saying Trevius but things simply don't look good right now no matter how you slice it.
You say the PEQ db has no affiliation with EQemu but in reality this is the
only db anyone can use for EQemu if they want their server to work. Someone needs to take this thing over and put out updates weekly. PEQ is not doing their job and they are sinking EQemu fast because of it.
Simply look at the WoW emulator projects and DB's. These things get updated 5-20 times
per day. The sources for TrinityCore, Arcemu, Skyfire, etc... get updated constantly on a daily basis and they make huge progress almost every day.
You want examples of a real CMS for a server? Take a look at WoW once again... There are a dozen CMS's created specifically for those servers and updated constantly. Sure you can get a Joomla, phpbb, ipb, or vb CMS and add these EQemu php scripts into them but in the end it's just that, addons that aren't secure whatsoever.
It's probably not fair to compare EQ to WoW but still.
Everyone here uses the same exact who's online script, alla clone, magelo, and peqphpeditor. It's quite sad that after all these years no one has made a complete solution for EQemu servers. Everything is a separate script. People don't want that, they want something that does everything in one single CMS script.
Also, you say that the "big" servers do their own db work which negates the need for PEQ. It's complete BS. No wonder no new server can come close to the "big" guns. You think every person that runs this emulator is an expert at SQL, packet sniffing, and C+? Without the PEQ db there would be about 5 servers left. The reality is EQemu is nearly 10 years behind live because the lack of database support. Someone that understands this stuff and is truly interested in keeping the emulator alive needs to step forward and start releasing serious db updates, like up to HoT at the minimum.
Listen, I love Everquest and I think EQemu and the community is amazing but something needs to change soon. If I knew aything about databases, programming, and php I would be doing something about it but I don't. I'm a server and website admin and that's what I'm good at.
This is what it all comes down to.... Right now it is just an extremely unfriendly experience for new server owners that have to rely on what's available right now. How does a new server with a 10 year old database and random website scripts compete? No matter how good of an admin and GM you are, you're going to fail. And I'm sorry to say, if you don't have 50+ people online 24/7 then you are failing. I'd put that number at 1000+ if this was 2001 but it's 2012 so not many people care about EQ to begin with anymore.
I'm just frustrated that one of my favorite games and emulators of all time falls so short when it comes to functionality after all these years. This project should be light years ahead of other MMO emulators but it's not even close. :(
This should be in a new thread...