Quote:
Originally Posted by devn00b
From an ex-developer (and dare i say it senior member round here) point of view, the project is being hampered by several factors : Lack of live compatibility, Lack of patches to make live compatible, No lead developer anymore, only one person (doodman) in control over the login server, releases not tested in the proper manner.
Lack of ability for new players to play without spending cash on the right cd is hurting the project pretty bad, lets face it most people that want to use the emulator want to use it so they DON'T have to spend money. Going out and buying CDs defeats this. Lack of patch files available for these players makes it hard. Times have changed and this philosophy probably needs to be re-evaluated.
There seems to be no active lead developer to recruit new people, to set goals for which developer works on what portion of code, what needs to be done etc. This leads to things getting worked on that don't really matter or are non essential.
Back in the day before the degradation of the project we the login server in several hands (Mine, LE, Image). We could modify update and run the login servers as needed.
Lack of testing of new releases is a huge problem, FNW drops a new version (with a new # even) and doesn't test it on windows. Thats a huge problem. Back in the day releases weren't done till tested to be working on BOTH platforms in a reasonable manner. Again this could be due to no real project lead.
All in all the project is in a sad state, the current people that are in charge don't care anymore really and its rather sad. EQEMu was my baby for a long time, as with many of the other developers that have come and gone breaks my heart to see what has been done to her.
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You know, one reason I started working on a client back in 2003 was because I realized way back then that the process of trying to keep up with live was quickly becoming untenable. It's not that it can't work in principle, it's just that it was clear that the resources such an effort requires simply weren't there anymore. Too many developers had fled. I saw our own client as the only way that something like EQEmu could survive long-term with the level of developer resources being granted it.
That's not to say that there aren't trade-offs: many people come to EQEmu to play EQ, but I decided that my client, at least, should stay away from EQLive content. I tried putting myself in SOE's shoes for a moment and I figured that they would be forced to go after EQEmu in that case, and decided that a client should be 100% legally safe from them. It's made the effort easily twice as hard as it would otherwise be, since I've had to not only create content but the means to create it, but it's just about there now. I really should say it *is* there -- it's playable with the limited content it has, though it's buggy. Like EQEmu, it requires more resources than it currently has, but it at least offers us something of an out if people would be willing to put some effort into it.
Cavedude has been beta-testing it for several months on his own server, though he is notoriously hard to get a hold of and I don't know how it's going. Scorpoius2K has offered MANY MANY times to use his already-built custom server with the client, and I made sure two years ago that the client is compatible with it. Put the two together and they simply work. No CD's to buy, nothing. Just download and run. The only issue is content, specifically mob models -- Scorp's servers were built expecting that all of the SOE content would be available, which isn't the case with just SimpleClient. In my opinion, here is where resources could have a huge effect -- adapt Scorp's custom zones to what content we have right now, and get a server running. Even with its current bugs, SimpleClient could be released today -- it works, given a server for it.
I tend to vent to Scorp from time to time (grin) and I've been saying for years that I need help from the devs -- I need someone to set up a server, with appropriate levels of content, and provide hosting support for it -- sort of an offically blessed EQEmu-SimpleClient server. Don't worry about the login server -- Doodman and I already worked out a protocol and the LS supports it. Short of inventing our own encryption, that part is done. I can't work on SimpleClient AND work on OpenZone (which I'm having to do right now for v7.7 to make mob modeling easier) AND create content for SimpleClient (spectres at the moment) AND deal with a server. GeorgeS has been a godsend getting me mob models to work with, but I still have to rig and animate them all, and I still have to get OpenZone to the point where others can take mob modeling chores over from me (this means features AND tutorials). If we want to talk about developer/EQEmu "offical" resources, then I can honestly say that there's something you can do in the very short term and from my standpoint it's definitely a "help needed" situation. The point is that there is at least one way out of some of the difficulties you mention, but I've reached the point where I can't move the ball much farther forward by myself.