Dream of reliving the past.

[BWoTHa]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and would like to say to all the developers of this project that they are doing a good job.
I plan on buying a copy of everquest II as soon as I know exactly which one to pick.
This is what I found on amazon.com and was hoping someone could tell me if it's what is needed to configure a working client on your server.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002NW ... d_i=507846

I've played everquest 2 almost since the beginning, to be precise, I started playing around splitpaw saga I believe.
I still play regularly on antonia bayle and really love this game. Unfortunately, I'm not so happy about some of the decisions that changed the game from what it was back then. I got fond memories of how it was and feel pretty sad that I will never be able to experience that again. Fortunately, this project would be an excellent oportunity to relive all that. So far, it's the only thing that exist which is even close to what I'm hoping to see someday.
I'm not the only one feeling like this as I talked to numerous people I grouped with while playing. There is a lot of people that would jump in right away if they knew of a server that would ressemble what it was back then. I think what would be best, is a server capped at level 50, just before the expansion that brought the sinking sands. With a little twist of course that would make it such a unique experience that I'm sure tons of people would love to join.
I cannot talk about this idea without making reference to what project1999 did with everquest 1. I never played everquest 1 before the second, but one day that I was reminescing the old memories, I wanted to find a similar experience on how we needed to group to do things, how we relied on other people to complete themselves and cooperate to do quests.
I loved how hard eq2 was when I first started playing it. I'll try to list a couple of things that are no more that I would wish badly to relive one day. Having to run for shards when you died, the old crafting system with sub-components (bars, ornaments, settings, etc), having to take boats to get to thundering steppes, couldn't affort a horse unless you were rich, how mobs were much harder than what they are now (for example, lavastorm, I remember the flying balls of fire being tripple up heroics everywhere, it was a really nasty zone to be in, almost impossible to solo, the epic scarecrow in antonica, etc), long camping required for mobs to respawn, the old sub-class system (being a commoner 1-9, sub class 10-19 and having to do your class quest to become your actual class), the old fence system (with the 2 economy split with good and evil races), the single character capable of selling items on the broker, the old city of freeport before it's collapse, the contested events (i don't remember if it was pre-sinking sands, but the event to build the wizard spires, having to craft components and fighting epic dragons at each stages), no guild halls, there is so much stuff to list here but you get the idea.
I'm not a programmer tho and I cannot imagine what would be required to do so. Basically, with the expansions the client is currently at, I would imagine it would require to reverse the clock and undo the changes that were done in all the game updates listed on the soe website to revert it back to what it was before. Soe didn't do only bad changes, some unbalanced issues and plain exploitations methods should still be implemented to keep the game fair and fun to play (i remember leveling a coercer from 1-50 in 3 days using a charm exploit they fixed for example), or some mitigation issues that would make a group with an undestructable guardian too, some crafting components that sold higher than what it cost to make them (opening the doors to plat farmers using bots), people using feign death to redistribute the agro of the mob on innocent bystanders (oh the fun, but sadness when it happened to you by some kid having too much fun).
But some stuff has to be kept as they were when it started, how frustrating they might have seamed, that is how some people miss so much in this game (like what i listed before).
I think that copying the game simply to copy the game is not what the project should be aiming for, but instead making a classic everquest 2 server just like what project1999 did with eq1. There is a large amount of players agravated on how much the game was dumbed down, made easier, simplified only to please the majority of people not patient enough and whinning too much for changes that they did it. I don't think sony is ever going to make a classic server like that anymore (i wish so badly they could take some backups of server like they were back then and boot em up for players to re-experience).

I'm rambling and rambling, but basically I had to say it.
It might never happen and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't, but here is the only place that have a chance for that.
Who knows, maybe the people that worked on project1999 would help you out developping an eq2 classic server like I described.
What would be even more of an interesting project like that, would be to start at the beginning and follow the game updates from the real game at the same rate they did, to redo soe's work chronologically from the beginning and have a community to experience it again. You could even have multiple servers within this timeline so people could choose "when" they want to play, at which part of the development of soe they prefered the best.

Anyway, keep up the good work, I hope this post will be read by you guys and maybe will become a reality someday.
Cya.

[ilythor]

Okay, I guess what your trying to say is you want EQ2 how it was back in the day? Also this is more of an introduction, please try to keep the topics localized to their relevant forums and subforums.

This question has been answered before, please do at least a light manual search of this website. To bring the game to back to what it was, is frankly, from our standpoint. Somewhat impossible. Almost ALL of the data you see, comes from the server. Which means we need the data that the server was sending out years ago, and it's gotta be every segment, every, tiny, component. It can't be done.

The best analogy I have, is like trying to get that exact and perfect sandwich, after throwing it up into your garbage bin, and trying to retrieve this wonderful sandwich, from a landfill.




It's been sitting there for three years.

[John Adams]

BWoTHa,

Because you made such a noble effort to spell out what you're looking for, I'll jump in and help Ilythor with the what's and what-not's of EQ2Emulator. First things first, the WIKI tells you exactly what copy of the game to buy. Including a link. That couldn't be easier, so I will back up our CM by saying, please do a little reading before asking obvious questions

But now onto the more meat-n-potatoes of your post. "Classic EQ2" would be an enormous effort, that is to say to get the ORIGINAL released client to work with our server. Nothing is >impossible<, but i will say, impractical.

I think that copying the game simply to copy the game is not what the project should be aiming for, but instead making a classic everquest 2 server just like what project1999 did with eq1.

Our primary objective as a project is to build an emulator based on the current live game - or as current as we can get. That does NOT mean that someone else cannot take our code base (al la Project1999) and start building a server that can handle interfacing with the original game. WE cannot, and will not, do that FIRST. If we finish our primary objective, and still have the interest as a core project to pursue EQ2 Classic (2004), then we will. It is of great interest to me (as Project Admin) and some of our developers as well... however, understand clearly I will keep this project on track for our primary goal. EQ2-Current.

So let's talk about some details. "EQ2 Classic", as far as content goes, could be emulated with our current server code. After all, the zones are about the same, the NPC and Items models are there, basically everything you need. You do not have to use any content that utilizes "modern" EQ2 UIs or functionality. You can lock zones that were not in EQ2 Classic, too. Basically, you can "fake" it, but purists would still have a problem And you certainly can cap levels at 50, and make encounters as simple or complex as you wish.

Things that do not exist of course would be things like the older Tradeskill system, simply because we support a more current Client, and in order to emulate the old system, someone would have to build custom UI screens (and commands) to try and emulate the old crafting system. And this would all have to be done from MEMORY, because as Ilythor said, we do not have packets from the old server to even try and determine that functionality.

Shard runs? That's another one I'm not sure we could emulate, because we don't know how to make the server place a tombstone without extensive trial and error. I do remember them clearly though... and that accursed XP debt red line

I played EQ2 starting on Nov 9, 2004. I think I win on the "who played the original game" contest, except for those beta players heh... and I do remember fondly many aspects of the game that I, too, wish were still in place. Factions, city-vs-city, initial plans that "language" and faction would prohibit opposing players from even grouping together, etc. I do not remember having to ride a boat anywhere though... Getting to Thundering Steppes, in your example, was merely running there through Antonica, if memory serves. Again, all something you can emulate with the current server the way it is.

As far as Freeport collapsing... that's just graphics. If you played on our Emulator with an old ROK client, or I think even TSO original set, you would not see a broken Freeport. The server does not govern that, the client does.

Events to build the wizard spires? Those are also just Objects you place in the game. They are not part of the zone details, I'm pretty sure. So why couldn't you write a quest/script that builds said spires? I don't remember the event, but I'm basically saying, it can be done again - with the current emulator.


Now, in closing I will offer this... I recently brought up EQ2 Classic to the team, even before seeing your IRC chat yesterday. Many people have expressed an interest in that concept. I made the effort to load the original client, got it connected through our LoginServer, and saw the old Character Creator I haven't seen in years. It was exciting. However, getting the old client->Login->World will be a huge task, and one we cannot take at this time. Again, I offer anyone outside the Core EQ2Emulator Project to take the reigns, and make that happen. Or, wait til we get around to it... that's the only choices available for EQ2 Classic at this time.

Hope this clears things up.

[BWoTHa]

You're both right, I should have spent more time reading first before posting this huge post.
I ordered to day from amazon the right copy (sof box set) and hope to get it soon and start playing your server.

I understand a bit more what was flawed in how I thought the game worked. It is extremely different comparing a single player game to an mmo (with a server and client side). Without actual source code from the server side, you need to use those "captured" packets in order to understand the server responses to the users actions and such... I can't begin to imagine how complex that process must be. I understand now how impossible it would be to re-create a server like it was when it first launched without packets from those days. Maybe in 75 years soe will put their source code in the open for people to make server with. I really liked how you explained an alternative to what I spoke using the actual game client rather than using old ones. To "emulate" the behavior of the old world sounds interesting. With memories, documentations off the websites and whatnot, it could be possible to put the pieces of the puzzle together and implement restriction to zones like you said. The old zones are still there, it's only the npc that some were removed, other added, quests removes, other added, same with mobs and their difficulty, their respawn times, their loot drop probabilty... if all those variables are configurable, it could be possible. On the other hand, some other features wouldn't be easy and even maybe impossible to implement back, like the shard system like you said and recreating the events that happened like building the spires and such.
I'm not a programmer, i dabled in some code way back then, but never became pro at it. On the other hand, I want to help in any way I can. Maybe if I can figure out how to spawn npc, write their dialogs, recreate their quest, then i would simply need to hunt down websites and seek old information on what the npc use to say, what quests they gave, the mobs locations, etc... I'm skipping ahead a lot I guess, I have to first try your server and see what I could do or provide to help in the big sceme of things. On the boat thing I said i could be wrong, but some feature I was trying to talk about were access quests that were required to get in feerott for instance, and other zones that are now unlocked and doesn't require those quest to be done anymore. Also, since you said recreating the shard run would be very complicated, then I assume recreating the old sub-class system would also be quite a pain.

Anyway, I understand now that this is just an idea and it won't affect in any way the development of your project, since you made it perfectly clear that you guys are working to aim at having a close to live server rather than starting back at the beginning. I appreciate your input and having spent time to think of ways that this idea could be doable, or at least "emulated" with restrictions to zones and such to ressemble what it was.

Thx for your time, and keep up the good work.

[John Adams]

Hmm, make sure you did not order the one YOU linked, above. That is incorrect. The one in the WIKI is correct.

And SOF is also not correct. That's EQ1. Don't mess yourself up.

[John Adams]

Also, since you said recreating the shard run would be very complicated, then I assume recreating the old sub-class system would also be quite a pain.

Edit: Tested it out for you

Using the current emulator and newer client(s), I think you could fake your way to the old archetype, class, sub-class system. Players will create their characters selecting their classes up front, because that's how the new clients work. However, once they get into your world, you could have a script run that resets their class.

Say you made a Guardian. Enter the world. The script resets you to Fighter (class_id 1). Now you go talk to NPCs, do quests, to pick your Class (either Warrior or Guardian) and that quest script changes your class_id to 2 or 3, respectively. As you progress, the next and last step is to pick your sub-class (one of the 4 remaining classes) and again, the quest script running that progression sets the class_id to the final one.

See here how I went to my Database, changed my class_id from 9 (Paladin) to 1 (Fighter) and it still shows the proper text.

fighter.jpg

That tells me you can "emulate" the old archetype system, if you wished.

[emulates]

Nicely put together Sherlock Holmes

[BWoTHa]

That is extremely interesting.
I'm beginning to see the endless possibilty your project have
Can't wait to start toying with it.

[Chrisworld]

That is way too cool John. I started playing back in July 2007 and I heavily enjoyed (and still do) all of the classic content, but I've heard endless tales of how amazing the game was in 2004 and I only wish I could experience it for myself.

One of the biggest pet peeves I have with MMO's is the fact that you have no control over what happens to your game experience. You end up loving part of your game experience and it just gets washed away when the majority thinks the new"thing" is how it should be. Then the "new thing" gets old and gets washed away too. I don't think my thoughts are unreasonable.

Why oh why can't SOE create a classic server in EQ2? I'm sure there is still a market for the nostalgic and casual types. I would be perfectly happy to keep paying 15/mo to play on a classic release server. Imagine the people who don't play anymore waking up one day to see an email in their inbox from SOE advertising their new "Classic Experience" server where "You and your friends" can once again relive the days they cared about. Imagine the money SOE would make that first day due to re-subscribers? They don't even have to play for 6 months to a year. Enough re-subbers and a years worth of time = win for SOE. And for the ultra casual role playing types, this would be heaven to them.

Only downside is (for me maybe), I was "raised" in EQ2 on classic content + AA, and AA ain't gonna be there if a classic server was ever launched. Actually it might fantastic without AA since the game was designed back then without AA and people made it just fine.