Bind zones/ no bind zones

[Angelox]

Can you all post what you remember on this? I'm mostly interested in the old school zones, mainly up to the Kunark Expansion.

Example; you could bind in Gfay, But how about Lfay? I know later on you could with the LdoN expansion - but I'm more interested in bind /zone status not past Kunark.

[ChaosSlayer]

the main distinction was betwen:
BIND SELF and BIND OTHERS

self was working prety much ANYWHERE (at least pre-kunark)
I herd reports of people binding in Permafrost, Sol B, Lower Guk.
I am myself was once bound in Plane of Fear in order to get the raid out (druid) cuase our wizard fell a sleep at keyboard =)

Binding others is a whole diffirent story- CITIES ONLY _ few extra exeptions

And to be more specific:
N/S Qeynos
Halas (not even EverFrost)
Erudine/E. Palace

Rivervale (posibly Misty Thicket )
Freeport (3 parts)
Neriak (3 parts, i cannto remeber if melees could be bound in nektulos - but its a high posability)

Grob, Oggok (cannot confirm of Innothule or ferrot)

Gfay, BB, Kaladim, Felwithe, AkkAnon (posibly SteamFont)

On Kunark, you could only bind others in Cabilis, Overthere and Firiona Vie. (not sure about newbee zones surrounding Cabilis, but posible). Casters again- prety much ANYWHERE (famous chain death at the bottom of Timorous Deep)

The only noteable exceptions was Veksar, Sebilis, VP, Howling Stones, posibly Chardok

[Angelox]

Do you know if "canbind" in "npc_types" is a general statement for all bind types or non - binders (Melletypes, etc) only?

[slowglass]

On top of this, it may have been possible to bind a melee in Runneye. My girlfriend remebers that you could. I personnally cannot remember.

I do not belive it was possible to bind in nektulos or misty thicket. I know that you could not bind in Innothule or ferrot as I remember the melee bind rules our guild had for Fear and Hate.

I would also assume you could not bind in BB or SteamFont. But again I cannot remeber a specific instance of trying/failing.

Gets even more interesting in Velious where you have zones you can only bind in certain parts of

[cavedude]

canbind is all or nothing sadly. Wild and I were working on a spell restriction system a while back and one of the key concerns was bind.

The statements above are correct, casters could bind themselves pretty much everywhere, but could only bind others in city zones. There were exceptions, notably the gypsy camp in NK could be used to bind others, but no where else in the zone.

After Kunark, the basic rule still applied, though Sony started adding more zones nobody could bind in. Those were mainly dungeons and the old world planes.

[Andrew80k]

I thought you could also bind in HHK, but that could be my failing memory...

[rojadruid]

Yeah you can bind yourself and others in HHK it was considered a town.

[Angelox]

O well, I went and set all the binds as if it were for melles, gotta fix that. But keep posting info about bind areas, well be needing it when we can fix that.
I remember there was a bind area in FM for non casters too.

[ChaosSlayer]

Angelox, if I would be you, I would not go into happy frenzy of making "no melee" binding "feature" =)
Its brigns nothing but frustration and anger to melee char towards casters, since caster can bind in 99% of places and can gate home, while melees can neither.

Now if you scroll back to time before LDON, when Soulbinder did not existed, you will realise how much suckage it was to run all way from Qeynos to AkAnan and then spend next 3 hours shouting, crying, begging for a someone to bind you.

Not been able to get a bind REALY SUCKS.

PS. Btw I confirm - BB was no Bind zone for melees. I looked at my archived emails concernign some Unrest raids from 2002, and there I was telling my friend Sk to bind in Gfay =)

[Angelox]

well, it's all a matter of how you look at it. When I played Pre-Kunark, it was the best time I ever had in Everquest , only matched by all the fun I have working with the EqEmulator. My main character was a Ranger, and he was very limited at the time, but I managed to find the right people to group with (Wizard, Cleric, Druid, etc.) and together, we did some pretty incredible things for the era.
I always want to make the old zones, just as they were - with hopes someday we might have a nice old school server.
Binding restrictions was an intricate part of the old game, also, travel was restricted to boats and your feet, or whenever you could find a druid. This made the game seem bigger - a trip from Gfay to Freeport took some time, and was risky. The game was hard, but challenging. Little things make a big difference ; where you can bind, where you can use sow, levitate, etc. This is Verant style game, when it got passed over to SOE, things started to change fast.

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by Angelox

well, it's all a matter of how you look at it. When I played Pre-Kunark, it was the best time I ever had in Everquest , only matched by all the fun I have working with the EqEmulator. My main character was a Ranger, and he was very limited at the time, but I managed to find the right people to group with (Wizard, Cleric, Druid, etc.) and together, we did some pretty incredible things for the era.
I always want to make the old zones, just as they were - with hopes someday we might have a nice old school server.
Binding restrictions was an intricate part of the old game, also, travel was restricted to boats and your feet, or whenever you could find a druid. This made the game seem bigger - a trip from Gfay to Freeport took some time, and was risky. The game was hard, but challenging. Little things make a big difference ; where you can bind, where you can use sow, levitate, etc. This is Verant style game, when it got passed over to SOE, things started to change fast.

I also started playign pre-kunark. And yes, I also adore spirit of adventure by having to travel by foot. But there are features, and there are annoyances: giving half of the classes a convinience to bind and gate, whiel others may have to run from Qeynos to Freeport 7 times just because they keep getting killed in Kithihor - is hardly fair, classic or no classic

not to mention itemezation pre-kunark sucked uterly. I remember melees showing up for nagafen raid in bronze, and entire server casters were either in Green or Black till 50, and sometimes way after that.
What I am trying to say- Verant Vision was horibly unbalanced, it got better with Kunark/Velious. (and no SOE vision is not any better, and thats the reason I am making my own server )

[TheLieka]

I know it's not 100% perfect, but this is how we did it (same type of approach that Angelox was talking about). I hardcoded a list of city zones, and if you're not a caster, you cannot bind or be bound outside of those zones (note: this list only goes up to luclin - but since our server is Old World only, it's overkill for us ).

Anyway, it could be easily expanded upon if anyone was interested in using it.

Currently, it says:
If the zone is not listed as "CanBind" in the zones table, then you cannot bind (unless you're a GM).
If the zone isn't in the hardcoded list of cities, and you're not a caster, then you cannot bind (unless you're a GM).
Otherwise, you can bind.

It's not beautiful, and I would like to clean it up and put it into the database, but honestly, it gets its job done, so I haven't messed with it. If anyone else wants to use it, be my guest.

Dax

./zone/zone.h

void	SetGraveyard(int32 zoneid, int32 x, int32 y, int32 z, int32 heading);
	bool	IsCity(int32 zoneid); //Lieka Edit:  Put in for melee binding rules

./zone/zone.cpp

	void Zone::SetGraveyard(int32 zoneid, int32 x, int32 y, int32 z, int32 heading) {
	pgraveyard_zoneid = zoneid;
	pgraveyard_x = x;
	pgraveyard_y = y;
	pgraveyard_z = z;
	pgraveyard_heading = heading;
}
	bool Zone::IsCity(int32 zoneid) {
	if ((zoneid == 1) || //South Qeynos
		(zoneid == 2) || //North Qeynos
		(zoneid == 3) || //Surefall Glade
		(zoneid == 8) || //North Freeport
		(zoneid == 9) || //West Freeport
		(zoneid == 10) || //East Freeport
		(zoneid == 19) || //Rivervale
		(zoneid == 23) || //Erudin Palace
		(zoneid == 24) || //Erudin
		(zoneid == 29) || //Halas
		(zoneid == 40) || //Neriak Foreign Quarter
		(zoneid == 41) || //Neriak Commons
		(zoneid == 42) || //Neriak Third Gate
		(zoneid == 45) || //Qeynos Aqueduct Systems
		(zoneid == 49) || //Oggok
		(zoneid == 52) || //Grobb
		(zoneid == 54) || //Greateer Faydark
		(zoneid == 55) || //Ak`Anon
		(zoneid == 60) || //South Kaladim
		(zoneid == 61) || //Northern Felwithe
		(zoneid == 62) || //Southern Felwithe
		(zoneid == 67) || //Northern Kaladim
		(zoneid == 75) || //Paineel
		(zoneid == 82) || //Cabilis West
		(zoneid == 83) || //Swamp of No Hope
		(zoneid == 106) || //Cabilis East
		(zoneid == 155)) { //The City of Shar Vahl
			return true;
	} else {
			return false;
	}
}

./zone/spell_effects.cpp

			case SE_BindAffinity:
			{
#ifdef SPELL_EFFECT_SPAM
				snprintf(effect_desc, _EDLEN, "Bind Affinity");
#endif
				if (IsClient())
				{
					if((!zone->CanBind() && !CastToClient()->GetGM())){
						Message(13, "It would be very difficult for anyone to form an affinity with this area.");
						break;
				} else if ( ((!zone->IsCity(zone->GetZoneID())) && ((GetClass() != DRUID) && (GetClass() != CLERIC) && (GetClass() != SHAMAN) && (GetClass() != WIZARD) && (GetClass() != ENCHANTER) && (GetClass() != MAGICIAN) && (GetClass() != NECROMANCER)) && !CastToClient()->GetGM())){
						Message(13, "You cannot form an affinity with this area.  Try a city.");
						break;
					} else {
						CastToClient()->SetBindPoint();
						Save();
					}
				}
				break;
			}

[cavedude]

As ugly as it is, it's also a clever workaround. Though, I bet it wouldn't be hard to add a new column to zone and get rid of the hardcoding. I'll give that shot and see what I come up. I just got done merging your new MQ2 detection system into TGC's code (it looks perfect, I just need to clean up those 700 zone_points *sigh*) and was about to test it out... until I saw this post. Not sure if I should thank you or curse you :P

[TheLieka]

Haha, you're welcome and I'm sorry.

Dax

[BatCountry]

I think pre-Velious they had support for regions of zones being unbindable.

This may be faulty recollection, but I remember having to get bound right up against the wall on one corner of OT's city keep because I was KOS there and had screwed up my FV faction hunting those faerie dragon things.

If I recall correctly, I had just about enough time to squat, memorize SoW, cast it on myself, and run like hell before a patrolling guard ganked me after I died.