So...is anyone actually using OpenZone?

Windcatcher · #1 07-12-2003, 05:11 PM

Just wondering what efforts are going on, if any, and how things are coming along. Are people actually interested in making their own zones, or in just sticking to content they know? Is anyone working on an EQ mod, like Aliens Total Conversion for Doom?

One thought I had on EQ mods is that it might make things easier if everyone agreed on DB ID's for NPC types, spawns, path grids, doors, etc, on a per-zone basis. Then mods could be made one zone at a time...

So, how about it? Is OpenZone actually getting any use?

Wind

dcl · #2 07-12-2003, 06:20 PM

To be honest... I'm excited by the prospect of making new zones, but I'm holding out till someone figures out how to add new zones, rather than replacing existing ones.

Memener · #3 07-12-2003, 09:05 PM

yea me too or find a way to edit the ones already made it looks good a nd it really cool that we can do i just dont want to mess it up lol.

Just though about it, there a way to add the zone using eqemu ADMIN program?

Windcatcher · #4 07-13-2003, 09:15 AM

You may be waiting a very long time (read: forever). The client will refuse to load any zone that it doesn't know about. It apparently has a list of zones it "likes", and it will load only those. Off the top of my head, I can think of only two solutions to this problem:

1. Write our own client from scratch (yeah, like this will ever happen--paging rickmanx, paging rickmanx)...

2. Write a client proxy. My thought is this: right now, to play EQEmu, the client is pointed at the eqemu login server. It could instead be pointed at a small proxy program the player runs himself, and the proxy is pointed at the eqemu login server instead. Basically the proxy would intercept all packets, listening for the packet from the server telling the client to go to a particular zone. If the zone is one of the "new" zones, the proxy could quickly copy over the new .S3D files to something else (e.g. cshome.s3d), and tell the client to zone there instead. This means all the new zones have to be *exported* as that particular zone (though you could call the .S3D files anything you like).

One wrinkle is when you go from one new zone to another. I don't know what the client will do if it's told to zone to "cshome" if it's already there. Will it reload the zone info or simply skip the process? If it skips the process, then all the new zones have to be exported *twice*, once for one zone and once for another (e.g. once for "cshome" and once for "tutorial"). Then the proxy could simply ping-pong between them. So basically you'd have a winds_test_zone_a.s3d and winds_test_zone_b.s3d; one is exported as "cshome" (that is, the textureset was set to "cshome") and the other is the same zone, exported as "tutorial".

Since a proxy would have to use the same encryption library as the server, my recommendation is that it should be written in C and built at the same time as the server (maybe not necessarily by the server devs themselves, but the makefile should support it). C isn't my strong suit, so I recommend someone else tackle this project if possible. My thought is that the proxy would be a really tiny program that could reuse all of the server code. I don't think it would take someone long at all to code one...

Wind

tcsmyworld · #5 07-13-2003, 09:43 AM

you would actually have access to 4 zones if you used the load and load2 zones also.

Windcatcher · #6 07-13-2003, 11:05 AM

True, but we only need two, and more would be worse, since each new zone has to be specifically exported as the "alias" zone.

OverKills · #7 07-13-2003, 11:18 AM

I'm using it Windcatcher. In fact it delayed alot of other things I was working on. I was 90% ready to open my server to the public, and you came along with this tool. Now I'm redesigning my starting city to fit my vision. Keep up the good work, and thank you.

dcl · #8 07-13-2003, 02:40 PM

Hmmm... is it possible to edit existing zones?

I was thinking what if you took a relatively small zone, increased it's size and built a whole new area which is not attached to the original. Then, in the DB when setting up zone connections, one can lead to the original zone entry point, while a new one can lead to the new section of the zone.

This way you've got two independent zones in one. Does this sound plausible?

Windcatcher · #9 07-13-2003, 02:49 PM

No can do.

Importing .WLD files isn't the problem, if I chose to do that. Delphi Zone Converter can do that right now, and I've since improved it dramatically for testing the .WLD files I generate. That functionality would have to be grafted into OpenZone, but that would be pretty easy. OpenZone would have to be improved to preserve everything in existing .WLD files, and while that would be a ton of work, that isn't really the problem either. Even if you only distributed the .WLD files you'd still be including SOE geometry and that's a no-no. Distributing entire .S3D files, their textures and all, is totally out of the question. It's a shame, too, because that would otherwise be a great solution. The only thing I can think of is to somehow allow OpenZone to handle additions and let the users run it against their own .S3D files: point OpenZone at an .S3D set and a scene to add and tell it to add the new stuff to the existing .S3D's and repack. Theoretically it's possible, but a ton of work. It's also somewhat dangerous, as you just know some idiot would start distributing the patched .S3D files so people don't have to do it themselves (and guess who would take the blame...)

WC

dcl · #10 07-13-2003, 04:57 PM

Ah good point... I hadn't considered the copyright issue.

daeken_bb · #11 07-13-2003, 07:22 PM

possibly make it so you can export wld to xml and assign each part of the zone geometry a node-id... then put your changes in an xml file of the same format, and when you want to patch the normal wld to a new one, just load up the xml and it'll say 'ok, this node is different' and patch it.

of course, this is very rough, and i'm incredibly tired while writing this... so it's entirely possible that this isn't possible... but it's an idea nonetheless...

Edgar1898 · #12 07-14-2003, 05:50 AM

We might have a solution to this problem, so that you will not have to lose existing zones. I wont comment further until we verify it works correctly.

a_Guest03 · #13 07-14-2003, 06:18 AM

This could be very exciting. Keep us informed of the final solution when you feel you've reached it.

jdankanyin · #14 07-26-2003, 03:39 PM

If there was a compiled version for win32 exe for it i would use it

DeletedUser · #15 07-26-2003, 06:03 PM

As the needs for this program is a MOD of EverQuest, I need this program a ton.. the problem is creating it. I suck at it.. :(