Patching Alternatives
 

We are posting this poll to get a feeling for how the community stands on the future compatibility of eqemu. Nothing is garunteed to come of this, we are just putting out a feeler about a third alternative to the way things have been done. This being making eqemu compatible with the EQ Titanium client that comes on the CD, so anybody could play by getting ahold of the EQ Titanium CDs and doing a fresh install. Its always possible that they remaster the CDs with a different client, but we believe it is unlikely.

Idea
 

I think its a good idea. I bought the that version and still have the keys and cd's. Thinking about I have 6.0 client, 6.2 client and also live on my HDD. If you did go that route. Would you make it so they would be able to use it on 6.0 servers or 6.2 servers?

6.0 is officially not supported by the devs anymore (there has been over 60000 lines of changes since then), anything we do will only be based on 6.4+.

I do not think that to use "TITANIUM" is a good idea for the community eqemu.

People distribute backpatch for titanium in the place of backpatch for last 0.6.4 version... I see future post asking TITANIUM's Links in place of backpatch ...

Forget Live's chase is forget Everquest's upgrade.

I would like to say much more things on this subject, but my knowledge of English is not strong enough.

I personally think that going with a fresh install from the CD would be a good idea but I can also see the downfall of it. As Belfidia said, instead of asking for a backpatch yes people would now be asking for these files, however, no matter what choice you make people are still going to ask for the client files. This is just going to happen either way. My other concern regarding this would be availability of the Titanium package. Sure right now you can buy it for $20 bucks, but what about in 6 months when they come out with another new expansion and then release an all new package deal. Or how about in a year, will the Titanium package still be available for those that want to buy it?

As for the good things, as long as the Titanium package remains available this would allow for the community to grow even more. No longer would people have to worry about patching at the right time. The Devs could then just stick to fixing old bugs, implementing new features and making a really solid emulator. Not having to worry about chasing live and what is broken now that it has been made compatable with live agian.

As for new features and things that get added with the new expansions I personally have not played any of the new expansions past LDoN and actually never made it to some of the content from before this even, so I do not care if the newer stuff ever gets implemented. I would be happy with just getting everything up to PoP working but that is just my own opinion on this.

All I am really trying to say is under the right circumstances I think that using the Titanium package for client compatablilty would be a great Idea. Well whatever you do decide to do I say, keep up the great work and thank you for providing all of us with a great emulator so far.

I think the best way is keep fixing bugs so we all get a better emulator. In this months of not live compat, devs got tons of things fixed that were broken for a long, long time. They even fixed bards!!

I agree..I think that if a person is not patient enough to wait for live compatibiliy(And in the meantime read/study/ect..about emu.)then they should not be be here. This is hard stuff for a noob to understand and the purpose is NOT so a player can play for free. In fact its much easier to collect cans on the side of the road to pay SOE and play EQ live.

I don't want to pay SOE because they have truly ruined a game that could be great with a few small changes.

I want to start a server with a small number of players, make 'named' NPCs only spawn once (well, take them out of the game after they die the first time), but drop all their loot when you finally kill them and make a world where you truly work through everything together. I have a small group of friends who would love to see this come to fruition and I can't run around telling them to go to backpatchers or whatever. I'd rather simply be able to tell them to go out and buy Titanium or whatever and then play in a world that's scaled for that smaller group of players.

Everything really started falling apart at PoP (Hello... killing your own deity without consequences?!?!) and it never really got any better. I loved pre-PoP EQ, but when everything just started to be exclusively about loot and killing stuff with no consequences (or effectively no consequences), the game was on a quick slide to "who can kill x critter and get y loot".

Nothing personal to the rest of the community, but I want to play a game where I'm trying to accomplish something with my friends and not compete with 4000 (or even 400) other people trying to do the same thing on the same server. Not to mention the whole problem with never really encountering anyone else in the game, since everything might as well be completely instanced for all anyone does anything together or with other people around any more.

Stopping on titanium would be an excellent idea, for those who got patched and for new members.

Hum i think you don't understand something
If they work on the Titanium package, nobody have the correct patch, and all people must buy titanium package (old and new). I have 2 everquest bought, i don't want buy one more for a six month package release...

well lets face it, theres not a ton of people around, most people are around because they found a back patch, and will do so again. At least would be a legal alternative that we could officially support.

As for the avaliability of titanium over time... theres still tons of copies of eq platinum selling on ebay frequently...

First, I would like to personally thank FatherNitwit and everyone else who has been milling about with complex solutions to all of Sony's complex problems. While there can not be legal tech support for back patching on this site I would like to point out 2 major reasons why the switch to a pre-packaged sony product would create the same quagmire, even though it might grow the community.

First and formost, any prepackaged Sony product will infact use client side communications that are not concurrent with the latest version of EQEMU. I have been 3rd party to some discussions on how to fix various issues, and I can only imagine how FatherNitwit would manage to reinvent the client server communications and encryptions yet again. Aside from his metal well being this has a HUGE impact on the player base. It takes alot of time to dryroom the encryption. That means that even if there was a client in his hands right now, he wouldn't nessicarly be able to push a client to the community quickly. In that time no visable progress will occur. He does have a life after all, and it's not like we pay him. :)

Secondly, There is no guarentee that Sony didn't have the foresight to actully produce a client that militantly protects it's self. While I don't think that Sony has much foresight, it is not out of the relm of possibilities that they would be sneaky. After all, Sony really doesnt' care for us. I could envision 2 schemes that would make it hard to make a client hackable.

First, rootkits that work with a key and a checksum. If you don't know what a rootkit is it's probably a good thing. Let's just say they could, as other companies have, install code that sinks deep into windows (or worse bios) and changes rules slightly. Say for example that they alter it so your eq client isn't the same as the version number stored on their server then eqgame.exe will not proceed past patching without eqhost and loginserver.ini returning a valid checksum. If these checksums aren't correct it purges your eq directory and prompts you to re-install. It may be quasi-legal, but worse has been done.

Second simply hardcode the loginserver.ini and the eqhost.txt into eq.exe. If it can't be edited, it's really not the big an issue for a game in the end of it's lifecycle, but it makes our lives very poor.



Imho the changes to EQEMU since I started have been very welcome. I would rather have a fully functioning world then a buggy one with more people. EQEMU has real progress, and that's something Sony only lied about on boxes and press releases.


I am

Lemur
Sumlek <50-something Monk> PEQ ~ The Grand Creation 0.6.5

Everquest Titanium isn't very present on warez site... to young for a too old game i think.

If it was just for say to new player, Yes you can play if you buy Titanium, np
make it, but don't hope stop backpatch/warez asking :(

That sure this is a legal issue, but I think about future debates : " kind I have already everquest why oblige me has itself to repurchase it... Have interests on the sales of Sony?" (It is excessive I know, I dramatize:p).
I prefer send 200$ to eqemu devs than 20$ to sony ;)

But the true question is How is the titanium pack ?
I have a platinium pack and without patching is'nt very usefull (that just install of all extension but need patch for fix client).

Keep this in mind: I would not have posted this thread if we did not feel it was a very real and viable option. Theres nothing different or special about what comes on the titanium CDs.

I wouldent expect to see eq CDs on normal warez sites, beings that sony will let you download the entire thing for free... why bother.

Won't you be able to make it up to the files that sony lets you download ? and when they let you download more of game simply update to that ?

My opinion is that, while it will help some people who are willing to go buy it, EverQuest is not the most actively-pirated game, and lets face it, while many of us are not, many of the people here are just here for free everquest. There are still going to be people looking for titanium patches.

However. I do like the fact that the goal is to work on the pre-"all-these-unnecessary-revamps" client. In my opinion, I don't think we're any better moving to titanium than staying where we are now -- except that if we move, there will be alot of people who came for free everquest now without a client.

My 2 cents.

I don't think this can be done. Why? I'm thinking the people who manage sony's domain names and servers are _completely_ different from the developers. If something goes down, they need to be able to change it and patch right away. Mayhaps not the best infrastructure, but.

in the last 6 years i have bought so many EQ CDs
i have a pretty good stack of um here,
back in dec. i bought the digital download of EQ plat
just before titanium came out. if i had to buy titanium to be able to play EQEmu
i would but, seeing i have so many already and it would just me giving sony more money, id much rather donate to eqemu and just use all the stuff ive bought already
i paied sony for a char transfer with items and a week after that my account was banned
contacting sony they said ther was to many duplicate items on server...
made no since at all to me except i was just scamed by sony for the 75 bucks
then i buy the digital download of eq plat giving sony even more money like a dumb ass, played for 18 of the 30 days it came with , and been hanging out on these forums ever since waiting for when i will be able to come back
if EQEmu caught up to live twice a year that would be great, or if the devs did it where everyone had to buy titanium fine id just like to come back to EQEmu

One thing good about using titanium is that EQ is stopped in its tracks from all the Krazy "advancements" being made.(like the wonderful ui LOL)
Too bad it wasnt done or wasnt able to be done with one of these classic versions I keep reading about that everone who has played for many years seems to be enthralled with. I feel Ive missed something really good and now its far too late to experience it.

I voted to keep it like it is but really how I feel is that whatever Father Nitwit and the other Devs want to do and feel they are having fun doing it is OK with me.
I dont think trying to increase population base is good reason myself..Sounds too much like commercialism and what Sony is trying to do.

Im not really interested in freeloaders. I dont think thats what this is about.
Let Sony deal with em.

Seems to me that it would hinder the community at first as everyone would need to pickup titanium if the servers the played on moved to that version. But in the long run the community might be better for it as new members would be able to join and the devs would not need to spend time trying to keep up with live and just focus on 100% on making a better emulator that just worked with that version.

Sure there would still be requests for the files but they could be responded to with an answer of go buy the CDs instead of sorry we can't help you.

I like the idea of makeing eqemu compatible with titanium. The way i see it you can't please everyone. There is always going to be someone that does not like the way it was done regardless of the decision.

So true! Thats why I say..Whatever FNW and Devs do is fine with me..As long as they feel they are enjoying themselves..

I think allowing a version of the emu to work with a fresh cd install could be beneficial.

I do agree with those who claim illegal downloading may occur, but as also said, it's bound to happen anyway.

Doing this would potentially reduce the burden on the devs, since they wouldn't feel so pressured to try and stay compatible with live.

Another benefit, although somewhat selfish-sounding, is that some of us could be able to become more updated. I'm still running 0.6.0-DR2, because I hadn't patched when the emu was live-compatible.

Anyway, this could always be seen as a test - if it flops, then just do what had been done before (chase live), or if it works fine, then maybe update when either another expansion is released, or when the full game and most/all expansions are released as a set.

/* warning - completely off topic */
It's not all that important, but I've noticed that the bars on the voting results won't stay visible. The numbers still show, though. I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1
/* end off topic */

IMO , having a standard that is legally available to everyone would be the route to go. Granted , yes there's going to be the idiot posters that want to just download the files and go with it. Heck I'm surprised nobody has asked for an .exe file that does everything for you. >.< Having something that is available without "breaking the law" would also open the doors to alot more people that are willing to contribute to the development of the emu. Yes , dedicated individuals that will really help out on a project are few and far between , but in the long run I can see it as more of a blessing then a hinderance. Just my 2 cents.

I'd be for becoming titanium-compatible if it's possible. At least then, we have an actual box set we can point people to, hopefully for months to come, and say "go buy that and you'll be compatible." SOE wins on that too, since that hopefully means a few Titanium sales.

Mattmeck pointed out that sometimes they'll release a CD box set and quietly update the contents while calling it the same name -- ie, 2 months from now they might still sell "Titanium" but they now burn the CD's with that current patch instead of the patch that was on when they first started selling Titanium. If that's the case, then it might just be more problems for us (even moreso since somebody will have paid money for a product that won't work). If you are (reasonably) certain there won't be multiple Titanium versions, then I'm totally in favor of it.

That what i would say when i ask if titanium is usable...
(I hate my poor english !)

I really like the idea of having a version of the EMU that would be compatible with the CD install of the Titanium Edition. The people that already have a compatible version that works with another version of the EMU would be fine, and people like me that have a client that is too old to work would finally be able to play.

Well, like you said, Sony freely distributes EQ, so why can't you?
What if you got a couple mirrors, and distributed the build that was needed for the emu?

I'm not sure that's entirely legal though, its just a suggestion.

AOL freely distributes the AOL client. If you ran an AOL server, theoretically, you'd get in serious trouble for distributing the AOL client for the purpose of being compatible with your AOL server.

If you said your AOL server works with such and such AOL CD's.. that's different.

I can let Cis use my car, heck I can let ANYONE use my car, but that doesnt mean you can let someone use my car.


Sony lets you USE there software, read the fine print, you do NOT own it, you buy the right to USE it.

Sorry, couldn't pass up on this opportunity to chuckle at unfortunate typos. The rest of the post, however was a very good analogy and one I will use when talking with some people on another forum who don't understand this very concept.

That's not really what I was going for.


But what if you just made it work for the official download? It pretty much never changes and so people don't need to do illegal things like download from warez sites.

No difference, if you play with a legal client download or a Warez client download, You don't pay use of this program if you don't take a sony account and pay each month.

The official download changes almost daily.

Making Emu compatible with any off the shelf package isn't going to work.

The issue is that Sonys packages can contain a client that was never available from the Sony patcher, so people would have to keep buying these packages to keep playing Emu. Every release/update I've installed has always resulted in a client download even though I just installed it.

Sony might as well not bother to put the client on the CD/DVD. Maybe they don't. Never bothered to look.

Also, as people have pointed out, there is availability issues with these complete package distributions.

This project is basicly dying a slow death as long as you don't keep Emu compatible to live. This came very evident to me when I hadn't played Emu for a over a year and found less than half the servers there were when I last played. This could easily be attributed to the fact that people can't get the client to even try playing.

OK New Rule. Read other peoples post on the subject your going to rip on first before your going to post CRAP! "basicly dying a slow death"

Also as side note to Buttholes, the 2 Guys working on the Emulator are doing this for fun. So if they want to work on making a better Emulator instead of doing the live thing. They can. If they want to work on the Wiki. They can.
Point is They do what THEY want not what YOU want!!!

If you don't like something. Do it yourself. Cisyouc fav. color

Yes, I only skimmed over all the previous posts. So, if my points were brought up already, I'm still well within my right to state my reasoning for my vote, weather or not others have stated the same thing.

As for dying a slow death, I'm just stating the obvious result of people not being able to get a working client for Emu. Ya can't play a game without an interface.

I appreciate that these guys are willing to put their time into this project. Your attitude on the other hand is just pointless and assinine. You obviously voted for Bush. :P

Well, obviously, you've never worked with the source of EQEmu/ShowEQ vs MQ. The client side structs and the line structs are vastly different. Plus, even if they were, the opcodes used in the packets to move the data back and forth between the client and server need to be discovered.

Perhaps you should dig a little more before spout off. Or, even better, if you feel it would be so easy, you are more than welcome to make EQEMu be live compatible and contribute it back.

Actually, I did rethink how the 2 systems are different and yes, I can see how MQ wouldn't help that much with your interfacing to the currently client. Just deleted that part of my post actually, but obviously not before you had read it.

But it still doesn't change the other points I brought up.

Is ShowEQ still around. At least it's a actual packet sniffer and certainly closer to what you need to make modding Emu to live.

Well, we've always had our own packet sniffer. I was actually actively involved in helping purple (from showeq) understand the network protocol and gave him my sniffer as a reference to help fix ShowEQ for the new network code.

Still, even tho ShowEQ needs the some of the same information that we need for it to work, it's a very small subset of what we actually need to make eqemu work. They can leave a lot of unknonw stuff as unknown since showeq doesn't need to show it. We cannot.

We actually, before we decided to work on stability instead of chasing a moving target, work pretty closely with the ShowEQ folks with exchanging information on opcodes and structures. The MQ devs feel that they are superior to everyone else and, every time I've asked, do not feel it's worth their time to play nice with other related projects.

Keep in mind, there are 300+ opcodes that we have discovered the value for in 0.6.2+ and over 200 structures, not to mention changes to items. That's 300+ opcodes we need to refind almost every patch and at least a dozen or so structures that SoE scrambles for no obvious reason. Chasing live is no trivial task. You might be able to log in with a live client with a small amount of work, but 75% or more of the currently working features would not work.