Community Poll

[stevetcollins]

I spoke with John Adams about a new site and he had said "CC'd our Community Manager, Ilythor. You convince him this site is in need of an overhaul, it'll go a long way to convincing me." Well Ilythor got back to me and said he would take in suggestions for a new color scheme banner. Well I was thinking why I shoot him my suggestion, I would make this poll for the whole board to see where people stand. The EQ2 Emu project is very promising and like everyone else I want to help out the best I can.

Also, I figure it could get people active (:

[JCL]

While a whole site overhaul would be time consuming, I think it would be good to work at the wiki and move around some posts and tutorials to make the site easier for new people.

[Eradani]

I do agree that the site is somewhat difficult to find stuff in. I just voted for a way to get ppl more active. Even if we're here, nobody says anything and it's hard to tell if you're the only one checking or not.

[ilythor]

While a whole site overhaul would be time consuming, I think it would be good to work at the wiki and move around some posts and tutorials to make the site easier for new people.

We implemented Welcome PM's that guide people to all of the tutorials, introduction threads, and Wiki support articles.

The wiki overhaul is something our Dev Team simpley does not have time for, it is placed as a Wiki, and not as a Knowledge data base so YOU can add stuff to it, and rearrange it. I certainly do not know everything, and I hardly expect everyone else to. Yet if you find something out of date, out of place, or wrong... CORRECT IT!

I just voted for a way to get ppl more active.

Eradani; we released our private database will ALL of our content, scripts, all of our sweat blood and tear after a community poll. We got Hundreds of responses asking to release it. How many new servers popped up?

Zero

While we would LOVE to have an active community, and have all this time reorganizing everything. We simply don't. I do appreciate the feedback, but if you state the site is difficult to find information in, please post a suggestion to do otherwise in the suggestion threads, and I will do the best I can.

[Eradani]

I just voted for a way to get ppl more active.

Eradani; we released our private database will ALL of our content, scripts, all of our sweat blood and tear after a community poll. We got Hundreds of responses asking to release it. How many new servers popped up?

Zero

I made a server at my place so I could test anything I was trying to develop. I didn't make a public one because the server pack is just supposed to be identical to Tess and Tess is the only one you can officially file bug reports about.

I wasn't suggesting devs have time to organize everything or post on the forum every day, but I'm sure there's some lurkers who could organize stuff and post a bit more.

[John Adams]

Figured it was time for me to toss my 2cp into this discussion. While I appreciate Steve's enthusiasm, the website and portal are not the problem here. There is no way you can tell me information is "hard to find" here. Everything is laid out top-down, so anyone arriving can see precisely the Announcements, Project Status, Support, Dev information, Releases, and General info.

Exactly how much "simpler" do we need to make things before anyone becomes interested? For those of you new to the scene (last 3-6 mos), you have no idea how hard we have all tried to foster interest in our little community. We have hundreds of lurkers, people who play our game but never bother to make a forum account. So we know there is "interest"... but where we need help is in developing the game, not making it idiot proof for a 1/2 dozen people who refuse to use Search.

Sorry, but as I am currently the web designer (ahem...) I will not be changing this site's appearance or structure anytime soon. I will however take valid complaints about how forums are laid out, and see what we can do to fix the few things that might be glaringly obvious. Beyond that, I simply have no time, and no desire to let someone else change what took LE and I months to get updated (you think this is bad, you should have seen it before).

This is not against this poll or idea... just give me something I can work on that's reasonable, and precise, and we'll work it out.

[stevetcollins]

Why searching old versions of the site (via archives on the web) it does sow John and LE have made many changes. I do agree with John that people should use the search. Even before I brought anything up to John I always searched. And Ilythor is correct in that they did give out the database but here is the issue, and I have proven this to note. Depending on the client version you use, you recieve different results. For eexample a clean install straight from the TSO Box does not function like a more updated version (Lets say my TSO is 6000 and the new one is 6092) they will produce different bugs and such. I think that could be a factor why many servers don't popup, or the simple fact is people expect three-five guys to have this MMO complete within a week. Quite frankly we all know that isin't happening with three-five people.

So allow me to drop the whole website thing and give a good suggestion.

- Possibly get the client to work with Live (Regraldess of client build)
- Start passing out free trails, you can do a lot in 14 days.
- Instead of going live-like, maybe get people to focus on classic zones only.

I would love to help, but I just don't understand this stuff. I'm a web guy, a server guy.

[John Adams]

- Possibly get the client to work with Live (Regraldess of client build)
- Start passing out free trails, you can do a lot in 14 days.
- Instead of going live-like, maybe get people to focus on classic zones only.

In an effort to not sound condescending or insulting... you definitely do not understand how this client->server scenario works, or you would not have suggested "regardless of client build". There is absolutely no way to do this. The fact that this emulator project supports client versions BETWEEN GU's is an amazing effort, and one that no other emulator can boast (except maybe a WoW emu). Nearly every patch from SOE, the client version changes. When it does, so does it's "data version", which you hear us mentioning a lot. If a data version in your client is not what is in our "opcodes" tables, it is an invalid version, and you are rejected from login. Each Opcode "range" is specific, and if any opcodes change in value from patch to patch, that functionality within the client stops working - and there's nothing we can do short of every single patch, trying out every single opcode to see if it works (and there are almost 500 of them).. and SOE patches every Tues.

Sometimes (most times really) we are lucky in that the base functionality of the server does not change, so the opcodes remain (like, spawning an NPC, pretty much been the same since the dawn of time). So while spawns, most combat, spells, items, etc... main systems remain functional, but when SOE adds a new feature - like the new way they handle elemental resists on items - that changes everything from client, to server, to database, and opcodes/structs, everything has to be changed. That takes time, and in the current situation, LE was the only one capable of doing that, and he is now gone.

Bottom line, there is no way in hell to get live clients working regardless of version. No way, zero, zippo. What we should have done, was lock our compatibility at a box release (ROK, TSO, SF) and NOT supported any in-between clients. But, the only reason we DO allow in-between clients is that we have to parse the data anyway for server and content development. So as long as we have to do the effort to make the parser/server work with current data versions, we might as well allow you all to play using "live clients". However, again... those days are gone... until someone comes along that can do what LE did.

I hope that better explains why it is not possible to do what you suggest. From our perspective, if you (the player) do not want to spend $20 or less buying a box set from somewhere, then you do not need to play EQ2Emu. Part of our "offering" to the SOE gods is that we require you to buy a legitimate copy of the game from SOE. They make money, and stay off our asses.


Your idea 2: There's no way we (EQ2Emulator) are going to get into teh business of giving people Trial accounts from SOE, because they are too lazy to get their own. Sorry, never gonna happen. Buy a client that we CLEARLY STATE is compatible, and you will have zero problem playing on EQ2Emulator.

Finally, your idea 3: Already the case. If you followed the content design team's mandates, our only goal has been to build a server around The Shattered Lands. That is "classic zones only". Right?

So again, I'm not really seeing what we've done so wrong here to not foster more involvement, except the general "me" attitude of the gaming world. They take, but can't give. That alone will end us without an EQ2Emulator project to take from anymore.

[stevetcollins]

John, you mis understood what I meant for my idea #2.

I'm saying people could use trial accounts to collect data if they don't feel like paying for a subscription. Thats all I was infering.

[ilythor]

Steve, I believe you misunderstood his answer: Trial Accounts/Clients are not compatible with us, for people to provide us data, compatible clients would be preferable. So to get trial accounts working, we'll have to code compatibility for it. Which we simply won't do for an added 2-5 extra on/off data collectors.