P99 is the Slackware of EQEmu
 

We all know the story (or should know) about Linux and slackware. The gist is that everyone was using SLS Linux but it had a bunch of bugs. But it was open source and it was a revolution. But slackware improved SLS and got rid of lots of the bugs. That would be great, everything was open source so everyone was happy slackware improved SLS right? Wrong. Slackware made their changes closed source. This means that slackware took an open source project and killed it basically. They became a Microsoft.

Debian was pissed at what slackware did. They started debian as a truly open source Linux project. And now look at where things have gone. The community cornered and killed slackware because of their arrogant selfish schemes.

That's not to say that slackware is bad. Slackware is actually very good at what it does. But the Linux community was robust enough to undercut them for being selfish and not releasing the source.

Fast forward 10 years and EQEmu shows up. Open source revolution. P99 takes the database everyone is using at the time (probably) and fixes the 'bugs' (things being not classic, Sony introduced the bugs intentionally). And everyone was super happy right? EQemu is open source so the changes helped everyone right? Wrong. P99 made their changes closed source. This means P99 took an open source project and killed it basically. They became their own SOE.

Now the only part of the story that hasn't come true yet is that the robust EQEmu community undercuts and kills p99.

P99 is pretty good at what they do (except the fact they let high level zone disruptors run rampant probably because they are donators) But like Debian we have to muster up the huevos to say no its not ok they closed their source and we are going to do it better than you and take you out.

The way we do that, I believe, is to get the trilogy client working and make a new database hopefully from scratch to really be classic eq. This is my goal and I have a long way to go since I just barely got my first server up but it will happen eventually and since it is open source we can all contribute and never worry that once the P99 ship goes down everything we invested into helping them is lost forever.

While an open source community would obviously want to keep everything open source, it's far from unheard of for someone to fork a project and not distribute their changes.

IMO, enmity is not the goal of community. We're all on the same team.

In my situation I actually prefer open source as well I think it is really what this project is all about, preserving it for everyone not a select few. The reason I took part in this project was because sony would no longer own the server and I knew that I could always use it long after EverQuest died (amazing how long it has lasted compared to other MMOs).

However there are people with different opinions here and that has to be respected, they do spend the time on it and it is their choice whether or not to release those changes to the public.

What you ask seems to be resonating quite a bit with others, but I would say that what is lacking is guidance/leadership in this area, which in one way or another helps p99 be what it is, it has a large team and they have a goal.

See this post which is pretty much what you are asking: http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40028

"This means that slackware took an open source project and killed it basically. They became a Microsoft.

"P99 is pretty good at what they do (except the fact they let high level zone disruptors run rampant probably because they are donators)"

LOL.

You have to also know that one size does not fit all. The classic changes I make to my server are not going to suit people running GoD based servers, same with my database.

I'm not going to pick at the specifics of your post, MarcusD, because the overall message is what is important.

I appreciate what image said in that what people do is their prerogative.

What people do is not always righteous.

The direction is simple, forward.

P99 has been around a good time now. With the amount of effort that goes into it, you would think Rogean and Nilbog would be extremely tired of managing it. Maybe I am wrong but eventually you would think they would want to get from under it. Most people do not understand the level of effort that goes into setting up and managing a server. Even a low population server can get overwhelming, I cannot imagine a server with a population that is constantly 1000+. My hat is off to that crew.

Just a random thought.

I agree I much prefer the BSD liscence which allows people to commercialize and close source any changes they make compared to Linux which now has to not only keep everything open source but the source has to be hosted at your own expense on a file server.

However that doesn't mean that we can't undercut such people who choose to take full liberty and close all source; like how fully open Debian far outshines closed Slackware today. The people hopefully will eventually learn their lesson that to build your dreams and have them last you need to be generous which is what this open source movement is all about.

Just fyi also there is this trilogy source. Not sure how well it works and with what databases. Also read the comments someone forked it and supposedly it works better. At some point I am going to try to build a server with the forked code and peq database and see what happens.

** LINK DELETED **

I was reading through that forum link someone provided and I think the direction we need to go is not too complicated. We start a file sharing thing like FTP or whatever where we all put our current progress. We don't need any more organization than that I feel. Someone could grab the files where we are at and make more changes. All it would need is a little readme file so everyone can record when they got it and from who and what changes they made. It may be a little messy but it's a start. And this way the project is super robust, no one could decide to close the source because there are so many 'snapshots' around the web.

Also don't take it wrong but my server is called 'NeverQuest' for a reason. I think we can totally neglect quests in our quest to bring EQ back to classic (and thus save a ton of work). I think the whole point of an mmo vs PC rpg's is that in an MMO you don't NEED quests. Ever. MMO was made to be free open world where your interaction with other players creates your goals. Has anyone else thought that?

Hold on a minute. You are saying the word classic and neglect quest in the same sentence. How in the hell is classic style Everquest not involving quest?

About 30% of my Mantis reports are involving broken quest. That means that players want quest that are complete. Players will rage quit when they spend days on a quest only to find it is broken.

reference?

The reference is if you close your source you are no longer a part of the open source community.

The key here is when something they expect isn't working they rage quit. If we tell them from the beginning quests were removed then it is expected.

Also personally I played eq in 99 and when someone told me (my best friend) to do the crushbone belt quest to get ez levels I laughed at them. I inherently knew this game was about earning things with blood and sweat. The only quests I feel are important to the classic experience are faction quests.

But I have only seen eq through my own eyes so what are your thoughts?

Edit: I never got above lvl 30 so I can imagine there are good quests later on for class specific items and whatnot. How about we could have those as GM quests? Ie; the person submits feedback that they got everything for their cultural armor or whatever and the GM themselves gives the player the item? I feel it is more interactive that way anyway.

My thoughts are quest are a part of Everquest Classic, so are corpse runs, slow travel and grinding. If you are talking about removing quest you are talking something custom and need to label your project that way from the start.

Quest are part of Everquest Classic. Period.

If this is all still in reference to the previous post about a classic Everquest project then you need to label that project clearly as something custom. You will get a lot of negativity from the purists if you even talk about removing quest or ignoring them.

Please ensure that your comments are in compliance with the rules found here: http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28924

well from what I have seen personally quests are not very important especially when they get talked about it is that they are a dealbreaker and may as well not even work on classic eq because of quests.

Why not just remove them at first then build them in as time goes on? If there are any important ones make sure those are working.

My feeling is lets not get caught up on "100% classic or nothing" and lets make some good progress with the important things. Make a good server and people will play. Staying true to the basics is a huge part of that and not biting off more than you can chew.

Well, I have a different view. I would say p99 brought more players to eqemu as well as potential developers.

I don't feel like we're competing.

Cool lies bro.

Again, I don't feel like I'm in a competition. It seems as if you feel otherwise and/or want a competition.

When you have your server made, you won't find me creating threads like this about your project. Good luck and best wishes.

I like you nilbog but I gotta play devils advocate a bit here, esp since I have been through some of this.

I imagine it brought more developers to P99, not sure who exactly you are talking about here? More players I would agree with though, in terms of how far they explored the eqemu community beyond p99 is up for debate.


You may not FEEL it, but in a way we really all are, it is common for players now to compare everything to P99. It is a common excuse to not even try other servers because of either having things different from classic or having something broke that P99 has fixed, because if P99 fixed it why don't you have it fixed.

On the flip side you have to understand the frustration of everyone else reinventing the wheel, y'know?

I just loaded up P99 on my linux box last night because of this thread. What really separates P99 from many other servers is the level of discipline the devs consistently show.

I will admit, I wish they would share some of the goodness back into EMU, but it is far from a deal breaker. I will say this... My next server I build will not try to re-create a P1999 experience ;) They have that covered in spades!

I have often thought a semi Classic -- Antonica - Kunark - Vellious with numerous extensions to these classic zones would be interesting. I would perhaps continue the Giants Vs. Dragons story line. Extend Deities liberally, so they really do make a difference. Enable all of the Planes, but in a way that extends and fits into the old story line. I would enable Drakkin, mostly because I think they are kinda cool, and they would "Fit" into the extension of the Giants Vs. Dragons theme. I would use the newer clients SoD++ for the technical improvements in them. I would limit the levels to approximately 72, and extend the AA's as much as possible (time sink). I would obviously have to revamp literally all of the mobs to drastically decrease some of the later era mobs, and then increase the older era mobs etc.

I have often thought about balance of Player Vs. Mobs from about level 1 to 30'ish to really push players to want to group for the really "Fast" (haha....) experience. The fights would be quite a bit longer, but the exp hit would be more than worth the time. It would be nice to give Necro's a reason to group. That said, I would certainly make sure the solo exp places were well catered too. No bots, No Boxing. Really like that about P1999.

I would re-visit pretty much all of the ancient quests such as the Centaur Crafted Armors for Warrior and make the 100% fully relevant again. Loved those old quests, it is not hard to update them to make them really nice again. I used to kinda like the old Kael and Skyshrine quest armors, it would cool to have those be super important again...

The point would be to keep a classic general feel, keep the soul of classic alive but extend it. Corpse Runs ... YES! I love the idea of a good old "Time to hit the bank for my BACKUP_GEAR!!" Make it hurt when "it" goes south in a bad way... ;) Of course what I am talking about would be pretty intense dev wise, assuming it were to be done right. I would revert most, if not all, of the revamped zones.... but might roll with some of the "Darkened Zones" like they did for a little while on Live for Guk etc.... that was pretty cool.

All this being said... I am very much enjoying the "Slow Burn" that was classic here in P99!

Peace,

Guys, if you report broken stuff on PEQ forums, they will get fixed. Although the current strategy is to implement like they are on live now, since you know, we can test that shit.

P99 does share code fixes, you guys probably just don't see them.

I have really only just returned to playing EMU again. Had a move halfway across the US. By the way, I was definitely not bashing. I kinda assumed there was at least some code sharing going on at some level.

Oddly enough, I started a toon on PEQ before the one on P99 last night :) I like PEQ too! This thread piqued my interest enough to start an OLD School toon to get a feel of that Old Slow Burn...heh!

All publicity is good publicity.

Problem is all the classicness is in one server and one group of peoples hands. Rhyotte you are the type of person who is hurt the most by what p99 is doing. Classic eq is I feel in many of our eyes is a goal not as an end but as a means. If we had a fresh clean classic eq database and client that worked with eqemu then the rest is butter. You could make your awesome sequel to classic eq. But where it stands now one kid has a junky classic bike and likes to show it off since it is the only classic bike whereas the rest (yourself included) are still figuring out how to make the wheel. It is bad for p99 because all the people who could be working to make the bike amazing are stuck still figuring out how to make axles and bearings from scratch. It is just plain bad for the community and the broader everquest 1 movement in general. I'm not complaining p99 isn't releasing its source. I'm saying we need to man up and finally get the project of "classic" eq done right and open and therefore can expand on it. I'm hopefully going to start working with AdrianD here and the direction he has, I believe, is to use titanium client and just work on the database to get it as classic as possible. I think it is a great direction and probably exactly what p99 did. Once we get that done and open source my goal would be then to work on the client, heck maybe learn some C++.

We can all agree that everquest was the greatest mmo ever made and for us wannabe mmo developers it is the perfect template to start with. We just need a cleaned up working template. SoE mudflated their way to scraping the EQ ship for all it was worth at expense of immersion and keeping original zones and gear relavant, etc etc. What I feel we all care about in this discussion is cleaning the sh*t stained walls lol.

PS: P99...we're comin' for ya :)

This is what i think about this thread.

(1:19:47 AM) Tyen: (7:37:13 PM) demonstar55: MarcusD must be Tyen from like a year ago
(1:20:00 AM) Tyen: you mean when i gave up calling out rogaine and nilbog being lame?
(1:20:10 AM) Tyen: hording source/db/quests like jew gold
(1:20:17 AM) Tyen: even tho rogaine runs the entire project
(1:20:31 AM) Tyen: its disgusting
(1:20:36 AM) Tyen: my shit will always be open source
(1:20:44 AM) Tyen: no matter who contributes or what i do
(1:20:49 AM) Tyen: everyone will have access
(1:20:55 AM) Tyen: because thats how us grownups do shit
(1:21:13 AM) Tyen: not like those stupid pieces of garbage who think if their shit is public they will lose the hill they stand on
(1:21:57 AM) Tyen: "oh we wont contribute because we spent so much time building a team to do shit for us that we dont want to give out"
(1:22:00 AM) Tyen: its stupid as fuck
(1:22:25 AM) Tyen: i like rogaine and all, he is a cool dude, but i disagree that his religion is jew
(1:27:18 AM) Tyen: i mean, for all we dont know, it might be nilbog who is the jew fuck
(1:27:24 AM) Tyen: and rogaine is just catering to him
(1:27:27 AM) Tyen: for some dumb reason
(1:27:40 AM) Tyen: but its dumb none the less
(1:30:01 AM) Tyen: i appreciate every single person who contributes publically
(1:30:16 AM) Tyen: all these dudes that do big plays and lets everyone take advantage of it
(1:30:36 AM) Tyen: and ofcrs you can say "well rogaine contributed that one thing 6 months ago that was cool"
(1:30:38 AM) Tyen: but cmon
(1:30:58 AM) Tyen: you cant be that fucking stupid to know that they are hording shit just to keep the numbers they have
(1:31:10 AM) Tyen: their staff is nazi as hell
(1:31:21 AM) Tyen: if there was another option people would jump to it
(1:31:31 AM) Tyen: and p99 overlords know that
(1:31:42 AM) Tyen: which is why people still bitch about it
(1:31:51 AM) Tyen: and f u for trolling me demonstar55
(1:32:00 AM) Tyen: ~

Also, good luck on making era tags on quests/db (not to even mention weird source shit).

See you in 5 years to see if that shit worked out or if you just flapping gums and never do anything.

I'd bet you don't do anything and we have some other nerd jumping in here next month saying the same exact shit.

See you really need to be here first before you even get started. Do you know C++, Perl, Lua or MySQL at all? Can you at least do joins? Using the editors just is not enough. EqEmu and PEQ are focusing on the expansion they stopped at, which is GoD. You are going to have to know how to code to accomplish this.

Classic mechanics like pets not zoning, boats, harmony being AoE, 11% max XP, Conning. Those things plus 100 more need to be taken care of. I am not trying to dissuade you but you need to think about these things. It is great having and idea and ambition but you have to put the time in and acquire the skills.

I joined this place in 2007 and lurked for a long time. Eventually starting my first server and having to go through the creation and compile process got my feet wet. It was the players that pushed me, they wanted many things fixed and I had no clue how to do them. It forced me to learn Perl to start, not many source changes. Eventually with LoF I had to really start learning C++ because our source has to be different from PEQ because of the Era we are focusing on. Players have a great way of pushing you to learn more than you already know.

MySQL was close enough to MSSQL that I already know from work so that came naturally.

Provoc I'm not a kid lol I know that I am going to have to learn. This isn't about me getting my fix of classic eq, one of the goals in my life is to make my own mmo and a great way to do that is pick up where the original 989 release left off. My only question is if I should work backwards from eqemu or work from scratch with a new client but I don' know enough about what is going on to know the best way forward. I am working with/for adrian so I can get my finger in the door and start learning with a mentor. My thought though is that 989 used some type of C++ tool to where some program wrote the code for what they wanted to build so I don't want to have to learn latin when spanish works know what I'm saying?

And the troll accusations begin (from demonstar not tyen)! Never has anyone ever called me a troll my entire life except in relation to p99. During my time there not only did the players relentlessly call me a troll but even the devs joined in! You can go search for marcusd in the p99 forums and see how I was treated there (if they didn't delete all my threads which it looks like they did). Great community you got there!

And tyen I totally agree. We will get there together, open source=working together. And since p99 hasn't been open they have no part in what is coming. They could have been the leaders of a great new movement but instead once we reinvent the wheel they will get run over by the movement instead. Sorry ;).

Even if that's true so what? The movement needs motovational speakers. I'm not a god just a man who wants something many others also want. I may do a little bit and quit like so many others before me. Who knows? And who cares? This is an open source project so any baby step is a baby step for everyone.

And if I can give 1 person 1 ounce of encouragement to work toward our goal then it was worth it. And if I can give one person a teeny spark of encouragement to stand up and stop begging for scraps from p99 or other closed projects like Eqclassic and realize they need to stop focusing on them and start something new and open then I have accomplished my goal.

This thread degenerated quickly.

MySQL is a must, not doubt about it.

Lua is highly advised for making mob encounters, and quests etc.

IMO, C++ is for when you are drastically serious about features.

I parked my first server due to the intense time requirements conflicting with real life at the time. I had figured out how to modify / make items, modify / make spells, and had dabbled with mob encounters via Perl. If I actually do roll up another server, I will have to learn a lot more LUA, and probably some basic C++, not to mention get more serious about MySQL. Quite a bit of work.

*****
You do realize that if 10-15 people who really want a P99 general Type server were to band together it would become possible. That said, it would likely take about a full year before it would even be ready for an Alpha launch. Then you could fully open your DB / Source to the community. TONS of work that would have to be done...

I agree. It's also the path I have taken in learning.

I'm fortunate I enjoy learning because I am NOT patient.

I would have been that guy talking about it and leaving otherwise.

All true in my eyes, as well.

That really only applies to the guy off the street though. Those of us who have been working on it have a head start.

Add together the number of people working on it plus their existing progress and you will get whatever arbitrary number for time which has been stated reduced significantly.

A lot of smart people here. It's hard imagine this point hasn't been thought about.

Anyways, I agree learning something if not already known is mandatory to make progress and to work together. I don't need a cheerleader, I do enough of that. I believe (and know from experience) the guy off the street who is willing to put TIME into it can help from about day 1.

Marcus is correct when he said I am focusing, or have focused, on the DB. This is something a FNG can help with on day one. It's arguably the largest project.

I've thought about this a lot. I have a plan of attack. It involves the DB. And it's incremental. I'm fairly organized about it, not flailing blindly.

Thanks for listening.

What server...? Sounds interesting.

Well I have played on about every emulator on the list with multiple clients,and for a few years tried every single one that popped up and I dont really remember many standing out.

P99-EZServer-THF-KP Emu- were the ones I spent the most time on.

I enjoyed Kimuras and Lootfest quitewell myself I enjoyed the random looting made it fun for me for sure just something great about it.

As for the best GM service Provocating has been the best so far as his servers are very stable,and always taken well care of.

I really hope someone could devote mass amounts of time and teamwork to develop a say p99 #2 a successor but I highly doubt anyone can come close. If they could release a clone it would be fun to see what would happen since its been around for quite a while now.

Thanks!

/morechars