76,845 registered users

[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.

[boogerific]

Just an FYI on the client. I've never used Titanium. I'm still using the last good patch that was emu-compatible on the old client, from when it said not to patch after 9-13. The only trade-offs are I can't see certain newer models and I can't see links sent from a Titanium client, and I find that neither of those issues are all that bothersome. And since nothing seems to be implemented past OoW, I'm not missing any zones (so far).

[techguy84]

All make good points. There are way to many servers that do absolutly nothing, so you cant really bring people together to make a good community. There are a handful that visit this board reguarly but most just come and go.

There are not near the members involved as there was when I was here along time ago. Back then we were chasing LIVE and it was great, becuase the dev team was working and pumping out patchs right and left. Things were great, there were alot of servers, but each server had a good population on it. GW, WR to name a couple. But things have severly gone down hill.

I dont belive that lack of a dev team, lack of orginization and lack of other things here at the Emu are all to blame. If there was any way we could see active users still using EQ Live, you will see that number is very small now a days. The game just simply is outdated, and when sat side by side with current MMO's, it fails in comparison.

"But nothing matches the challenge of EQ" some may say. Vanguard is currently the closest to EQ in terms of difficulty. It is a grind intensive, wait and camp style, like the original EQ. But I think the kicker now is mostly the graphics and gameplay. Newer MMO's look great, and a big kicker for me is the combat system of the new ones. I dont like to just click attack and watch the health meters go down, I like to be involved in it. EQ has some options you can do while you battle, but you just click Bash, Kick, Slam ect... thats it. It was great at its time because of the sweet world that it was, but that was then.

Maybe I'm speaking for myself, maybe others share my views, but this is what I belive and what I feel. Eq was great to me for a long time, but I have my eyes set on the newer models now. I think others feel the same way.

[Windcatcher]

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.

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.

[Amra]

Why not make the client an open scource?

I think your project is amazing as it provides the ablility to customize things far beyond sony's client. Creating a completly new game based on the current structure is very possible. It's too bad there is a lack of interest in the development. I wish I could help.

[Windcatcher]

Originally Posted by Amra

Why not make the client an open scource?

I think your project is amazing as it provides the ablility to customize things far beyond sony's client. Creating a completly new game based on the current structure is very possible. It's too bad there is a lack of interest in the development. I wish I could help.

The problem is cheating. If it's open source there's nothing stopping cheaters from going crazy, and believe me, now that I've written one I can see all kinds of ways that cheaters could take advantage. So as much as I would like to make it open source, I doubt that it can happen for the really important parts (though many parts CAN be open-sourced, such as the netcode, content loader, 3D engine, collision avoidance, etc.). By the way, SimpleClient uses the same engine as OpenZone, so if you downloaded OZ then you already have all the 3D engine and collision avoidance code...

One question that I need answered, and only the devs can do this for me, is how to enforce client upgrades. As we fix bugs, close exploits, etc. there needs to be a way that ensures that people upgrade. It's ironic that with our own client we find ourselves in the same position as SOE, but there you have it. So anyhow I need an answer to that before I/we release it.

Edit: Someone will definitely get the full source, if nothing else to ensure the longevity of the client. I have no idea who that will be, as I haven't thought about it, but that will have to be another dev discussion. Whoever gets it will definitely need to have Delphi 6 or 7 (the personal version would be just fine). It can also be ported to newer versions -- I once ported it to Delphi 2006 but I hated D2006 so much that I dropped it and went back to D6.

[Kayot]

^-^ I really got into EQEmu for it's database. It was fun learning SQL and context design. Thats one thing I have to say for the project, the Database is layed out nice. And thats about it. In the last few months I've noticed something interesting.

Every few days there is another PvP server. I hate PvP in general and it's worse when the GM is a PvPer. Talk about a twelve year old (Ironic that when I started I was insulted after my third post with the claim that a 12 year old could set it up, I wonder if this is one of those ironys I hear so much about?)

As for me, I'm waiting for EQ2emu, and until that happens (Probably never, or worse, a closed source non-obtainable login server) I'm playing WoW with Antrix. I like how there isn't a long load delay because the world thread loads each section. No more drops during zone. My only complaint is that the database design is a little crowded, and while I'm working on the EQemu Editor I don't have time to look into it.

It's been a lot of fun working on the broken wiki and the the non utf8 forum. I liked working with object placement, and there was nothing like the newer levels in the game.

I personally blame Sony for all the trouble, and ever since the root kit incident EQ is more of a reminder of how Sony doesn't care about the common user. When EQ shuts down, this EQemu will be important for the cult players. Till then, expect the weekly servers.

P.S. I'm not trying to be negative, it just comes out that way.

[LethalEncounter]

Sorry if I'm a couple of weeks late, but I just noticed this thread. I believe that enforcing client upgrades is the simpliest of the problems you are facing. The way EQ2 does it, is that the client sends its version number to the login server before it logs in. If the version number is too old it cant login. You could do something similiar. Another thing you could do is just randomly change opcodes every patch to prevent old clients from working

Originally Posted by Windcatcher

The problem is cheating. If it's open source there's nothing stopping cheaters from going crazy, and believe me, now that I've written one I can see all kinds of ways that cheaters could take advantage. So as much as I would like to make it open source, I doubt that it can happen for the really important parts (though many parts CAN be open-sourced, such as the netcode, content loader, 3D engine, collision avoidance, etc.). By the way, SimpleClient uses the same engine as OpenZone, so if you downloaded OZ then you already have all the 3D engine and collision avoidance code...

One question that I need answered, and only the devs can do this for me, is how to enforce client upgrades. As we fix bugs, close exploits, etc. there needs to be a way that ensures that people upgrade. It's ironic that with our own client we find ourselves in the same position as SOE, but there you have it. So anyhow I need an answer to that before I/we release it.

Edit: Someone will definitely get the full source, if nothing else to ensure the longevity of the client. I have no idea who that will be, as I haven't thought about it, but that will have to be another dev discussion. Whoever gets it will definitely need to have Delphi 6 or 7 (the personal version would be just fine). It can also be ported to newer versions -- I once ported it to Delphi 2006 but I hated D2006 so much that I dropped it and went back to D6.