This is something that everyone may want to consider with this whole "help" issue on these forums. (This is my own opinion)
Many people have spent a lot of time reading and learning how to build a server manually and how to edit the database. That
infamous phrase "search the forums" has probably been used a gazillion times, over several years. People asked questions and
while some were politely answered, others were flamed or ridiculed for asking. Forum searching is not easy, but some will
not be as capable as others, so the odd experienced person will choose to open up a new post with a question, read it and be
annoyed with it. For some strange reason, they expect everyone to have the same skills and abilities to search.
In some cases, the info is indeed in the forums, in other cases it's not. But some of that vast "knowledge going to waste" is
outdated, (or obsolete) as well. Many of those old answered questions need to be updated with new answers.
But now, since the inception of Akka's easy installer, it's allowed many "non-technical" people to install a server with very
little knowledge. It's opened doors that otherwise would still be closed for many. But it's also created, (what I call) a
whole new era of forum help questions, because the "installer" is doing most of the work that was usually done manually and
some of these end users may not even be aware that there is info available for various customization of a "vanilla" server.
There is simple things taken for granted, like the config files. Instructions explain about the world address, IP's, etc., but
no advanced technical info such as knowing about how a line in the config is commented out with a <!-- and a -->
A "technical" person cannot assume a non-technical person would know things like these, or for that matter, be aware of needing
that knowledge. Patience is a virtue. Having high expectations of a non-technical newbie isn't even close to reasonable.
I also noticed several times, a post with technical people discussing the edit of a source code file, for example, client.cpp
and one of those non-technical people who used the installer and have no access to a file like that, may be looking for that
file in their server folder after reading a post. Many results will show up in a search that do not apply to the "installer".
Nobody has even made the effort to explain much to these people using the installer, what they actually can edit in that server
folder. Aside from making one time adjustments to the config files, the only main edits they can or will do is in the quests if
they make an effort to learn perl/lua. The database is a whole new ball game for them, but some may not even know that it's not
part of their server folder.
For those who do download the installer and have very little knowledge, keep something in mind if you plan on learning how to
edit and customize your server. Even though there are many good "technical" people on these forums who are willing to help when
they can, they are not going to hold your hand while you customize your server. If you're the type that can't find anything by
searching, it's going to be a difficult journey for you. There is going to be dozens and dozens of questions you want answers
for, but guaranteed, I doubt you will be able to ask them all, one by one and have them answered without finding info yourself.
Nobody is going to teach you perl/lua scripting to customize quests. You will have to learn most of the basics yourself. Nobody
is going to teach you how to edit each and every table in your database, you need to learn the basics yourself, but I would
suggest doing something first. Open up your database and familiarize yourself with all the names of the tables, rows and colums.
You may not understand it all at first, but at least when you're searching for info, the names will look familiar. You might
even want to start by grasping a brief concept on what happens when you start your server up. Those binaries (.exe files) in
your server folder will look for info in your config files, so it knows what to do, what database to use and where it is, along
with other things. The content you see when you login to the game with your client is all in the database and your client.
Just to give you an example of two different tables in the database, doors table and zone_points table have two different ingame
functions. Doors, quite commonly are things you click on ingame to open or zone. Zone_points are those lines you just have to
run across with your toon to zone. Tons of knowledge to gain but a good place to start is the main wiki :
http://wiki.eqemulator.org/i?M=Wiki
You might also want to read though some of the other sections on these forums, such as Quests. You can find editing tools
under Development section as well. The "Support" forum is not the only source of help on this site. Sometimes you may even
find little tidbits of useful information on individual server forums/sites.
Help Issues for Newbies with Installer
Linear Mode
