EQ Worldbuilder Team (long)

[Gino]

Greetings

With all the progression made by the Coders lately, it seems to me, that it is time to start building up the world of Norrath.

I saw on the boards and in chat, that the Coder`s expressed multiple times, that they wish to stay as close to the original EQ as possible, just with a few needed tweaks here and there.

And that

[Drawde]

I'm already about 90% complete doing spawns and loot tables (except loot tables for unique NPCs) for the original 3 continents and Kunark. When I've finished and debugged them hopefully they will be included in the standard DB or at least made available as a seperate alternate DB.
I also plan to do merchant lists once the code for merchants is included in the code.
However Velious/Luclin spawns and loot tables, quests, zone points, unique NPCs etc still need doing, and it would be great if someone could work on those.
Like you I'd really like to see the emulator become a fully playable game, not just a zone explorer and PVP duelling game, that's why I decided to work on doing the spawn/loot data.
I'd be happy to contribute my data to your team when it's finished. However currently I'm still adding a few missing loot tables, setting the correct Z values for some zones, and getting rid of bugs.

[Drawde]

Another thing I hope you agree with, I've set up the spawn tables so that "rare" items drop far more often (e.g 1 out of 5 times, rather than 1 out of 50), also "rare spawns" are always there. I really didn't think that if you were playing EQ offline or with a few friends on a LAN you would want to camp for 10 hours to get the item you wanted!

[Gino]

Hi Drawde

Thanks for the responce.
I guess i need to make clear, that im no way special when it commes to the eqemu and i dont have a team of any sort.

I was just tossing out an idea that`s it.

About your DB

I recently D loaded a few of those huge BD`s that floated around on the old Boards. Most of them were converted show eq files (at least when it came to locs and such).

I havent found even 1 DB so far that looked halvway complete to me. (sorry no offence)

Sure there were mobs all over the place, some hanging in the air others just didnt look the way they should, and one of the nice Freeport guards was so gentle to drop non the less than 6 pieces of Crafted Armor (War quest).
This would be ok for a casual server, but is far below the standard, the one EMU DB should come along with.

I really cant comment on your DB, but i can tell you that populating halv Thurgadin A, in the standard this should be done, took me without loottables 2 Days now.

But every NPC now stands at the right x,y,z, faces the right direction, has the proper appearance and so on.

I am aiming very high standard and i guess it would take 1 person about 1 week just to populate 1 medicore size zone.

Please dont take offence from my words.

Regards
Gino

[Bunga]

Gino, I would love to help in any way I can, but I dont have showeq or sins, heh, I can't even log into EQ from here. But if you know of a way in which I can help, please tell me how. Abou the only thing other than this that I can help with, is to stresstest the boards (ie leech info) , so I really want to make a difference.

[Drawde]

About the NPCs in the air or in the wrong place etc, this is one of the things I'm fixing at the moment, it's due to the height values being wrong. Freeport now has the Z values properly set.
Zones with several "levels" like some dungeons (e.g Runnyeye Citadel) still have a lot of problems, I'll probably have to manually set the Z values for some of these eventually.
Another problem was with "clones" of many NPCs like guards all over the place, which I've now fixed.

The NPC data I got from a text file on the website http://giftsplace.com/eqn1/ and according to the site was obtained with ShowEQ.
I have extensively modified the data since then though
I did the loot tables myself, mainly using http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com for reference.

The version you saw was probably a very old one, maybe the first release. It was incredibly buggy, incomplete and unpolished, and I said so when I posted it, it was simply for people to try out and have fun with.
There are countless things fixed then, though my data is still far from being anything like a perfect copy of the real EQ! It is still very unpolished but much, much better than what you saw.

Regarding NPCs/mobs not looking right, NPCs/guards do not equip items at the minute, and all have the same faces, so all NPCs of the same race look identical regardless of class.
The version you saw also had loads of bugs with monsters using the wrong models, etc. most of which are now fixed. For example Freeport guards did not use the proper model and appeared as generic humans.
My data also has the proper textures for monsters like fire/ice goblins, giants/cyclops etc. However size is not implemented in the emulator ATM so the sizes are wrong for some things like giants.

As for loot, non-monster NPCs (including guards) have equipment appropriate to a player of their level. This gives a more "realistic" feel I think. It's intended to be equipment, rather than "loot" but as I said the emulator does not support NPCs equipping items yet.
As I said in another post, most NPCs have hit points many times that of a player of equivalent level so if you can kill one without cheating then you'll already have equivalent or better equipment.

I don't take offence from your reply, I understand how you feel, but I'd personally rather have a fully populated but very "rough" world and work on polishing and improving it, than spend a week on each zone. That's just my personal opinion though.
Besides I don't play EQ anymore so wouldnt' be able to verify any of my data.

I'm not trying to claim my work is perfect or anything, I'm just explaining why some of the things in it are like they are and also that the version you saw is very out of date.

Maybe I'll have to release my data as a seperate project, though. I'm still happy with it so far and many other people have said positive things about it.

[Slide]

Just going offtopic a little, this website has a ton of information regarding factions and game lore.

[TheClaus]

I am willing to help out anyway I can. I will get showeq or sins loaded up and start going through the zones but have only a lvl 36 rogue so I won't be too much help but will go to everyzone and sit at the zoneline to gather the data. As for Drawde data I agree with him on pushing out the rough world and then going in an polishing it. I am personally doing that right now with the spawns in cities. As soon as I am done with cities i'll move out to the other zones and then dungeons. I like the idea of trying to make a real eq server but it should be better than eq in the fact of mobs dropping stuff for the level of the mob and rare being rare but not stay up all frickin night for AC rare.

*changed live to like

[n00b8472]

Sounds like a great idea. Doing a full server, populating multiple zones with NPCs and quests really isn't feasible single. I welcome this opportunity and would gladly help in any way I can. I'm starting to get the hang of the admin tool (created a few of those nifty missing armor pieces from Velious, effects and all).

[Pyrotek]

This sounds like a good idea. Due to the IP issues I think direct devteam involvement would be a conflict of interest.

What do you think?

[Gino]

Quote "Due to the IP issues " sorry i dont get what you mean.

[TheClaus]

Gino I think what Pyro is trying to say is that IP or Intellectual Property would not be a good thing for the dev team to get into. If we were to develop a DB that they had no involvement from the dev team Verant would be less likely to try an harm the emu.

[Gino]

Ehm ok lets see if i got that right ?

The Term *Lifeteam* or whatever you want to call it would surely not involve any VI employees or ex employees. (sp?)

Maybe Pyro was just trying to make a joke, maybe my post was unclear. Im not sure what i shall think atm.

Sorry for the confusion, but like i said previously, i got limited english skills.

Regards
Gino

[Zeitgeist]

right pyro is saying the dev team will NOT be involved, but you can do what you wish as far as customization. if only non emu-devs work on it, verant is less likely to have spasms about it... or at least their spasms will not include attacks on the dev team =)

[TheClaus]

Well I doubt Verant would have spasmisms about a db being made. After all it is just a database for npcs, loot, quests, an spawns. Every website I know that has this information has it in a db format of some sort. So I say lets get started.