Why Live? Why not Classic??

[Sik San]

Hi guys!
Wanted to get here for ages, but I did not even think I have to use VPN (Thx to FB guy).

I'd like to ask/suggest for the KoS-RoK times build. I wonder why do you guys emulating Live cuz most of the ppl dislike it. It's a ghost town even at the official servers.

But on the other hand there are a lot of vets who's dreaming about proper "classic" EQII server aka p99 for EQ1.
If you heard about TLE servers, you mught see how many hype it generated untill failed miserably (but it's just whole DBG fault). Ppl want classic so bad.

Since it's an old emu project since 2005, I'd like to ask if you guys have the data for KoS-roK? And if you have it - why would not you emu that. It'll make Live completely obsolete!

[Jabantiz]

Simple, the size of our team. It is much easier to do content dev where we can compare to the live servers, use logs from the live servers and parse census then it is recreate something from memory with limited data, and yet it still takes forever because our team is so small.

That being said all of the content we produce goes on an svn so any admin can grab the data and use it as a starting point to modify it to mimic the era they liked best. By us emulating live it will make it easier for other servers to emulate what ever era they like.

[Sik San]

Simple, the size of our team. It is much easier to do content dev where we can compare to the live servers, use logs from the live servers and parse census then it is recreate something from memory with limited data, and yet it still takes forever because our team is so small.

That being said all of the content we produce goes on an svn so any admin can grab the data and use it as a starting point to modify it to mimic the era they liked best. By us emulating live it will make it easier for other servers to emulate what ever era they like.

I see. that is pretty sad. But thx anyway and gl.

[Sik San]

1 more q. Does pre TSO source code actually exist? Or anything you guys released is modern EQII based?

[Jabantiz]

RoK box client might be able to connect an emu server if that is what you want, if you want the content then there is an old db on the content svn of the islands and city suburbs but that is about it. Content takes a huge amount of time to do so the old content and the one we are working on now doesn't have that much due to our small team and why we try to take the quickest path.

[Gangrenous]

The biggest issue getting anything done, at all, is the size of what is left of the team. IMHO before too much content is introduced, more things in the source needs to be ironed out. You can have all of the content completely done but if the server is crashing or being flaky, well that will turn off the general player. If the source is more stable and proper tools are out there for content creation, sure I think it would attract more content developers to do their own thing.

[Sik San]

The biggest issue getting anything done, at all, is the size of what is left of the team. IMHO before too much content is introduced, more things in the source needs to be ironed out. You can have all of the content completely done but if the server is crashing or being flaky, well that will turn off the general player. If the source is more stable and proper tools are out there for content creation, sure I think it would attract more content developers to do their own thing.

The main question is how many code left from the original EQII before turning it to the Hello Kitty adventures around TSO. I did not rly get Jabantiz's answer aboyt that (i guess, english in not my strongest feat ). But srsly, I was so happy to know someone is working towards EQII emulation, but what a letdown I've experienced when I noticed it's all about Live :'(

A lot of ppl want that classic EQII feel, but 2bad, there are no developers interested. I rly envy WoW players that still have their beloved game iterations.

[Cynnar]

The main question is how many code left from the original EQII before turning it to the Hello Kitty adventures around TSO. I did not rly get Jabantiz's answer aboyt that (i guess, english in not my strongest feat ). But srsly, I was so happy to know someone is working towards EQII emulation, but what a letdown I've experienced when I noticed it's all about Live :'(

If it is server code you want you should look at the release post From there you can download, edit source and add in the missing things you will need to get the server working. At some point SOE/Daybreak changed things and the server code had to change to keep up. There could be changes to the code now that will add functionality for earlier game play that is not present in older code. Plus any bug fixes, security fixes, etc are not present in the older code.

If you are referring to content I would say there is logs dating back around 2007 if not earlier. All the logs that have been collected are available on the SVN and anyone can download them.

A lot of ppl want that classic EQII feel, but 2bad, there are no developers interested. I rly envy WoW players that still have their beloved game iterations.

I've seen some people saying they want classic EQ2. While I agree that this would draw a few people to the emulator, this project is not about recreating classic servers. In fact here is the welcome message from the home page.

The efforts of the EQ2Emulator Project are to emulate the Everquest 2 experience as close as possible to the actual live game by Sony Online Entertainment. The project is "Open Alpha"; which means our server is nowhere near complete, but you can still get your hands on the source code, binaries and a sample database and begin developing your own custom world.

As you can see this project is about recreating live, and it is possible for anyone to build their own server to recreate classic if they choose to do so.

My personal observation is that classic is not popular enough to draw in anyone to the project to develop the server. Maybe you can be that person that wants to run a classic server.

[Zcoretri]

There was not enough "Classic" data that was collected to be able to emulate a "Classic" client. You need to know the data flow from client to server which is only possible with "Live" servers.
But that isn't to say someone could change server code to maybe mimic "Classic" behavior, that just isn't the focus for the current devs on this project.

[Cynnar]

Ah! Thanks for the clarification Zcoretri. I haven't really had to work with earlier data so I wasn't sure.

[Gangrenous]

And anything can be done if you put the time into it. Whether you want a custom / classic server, it can be done.

[Sik San]

Some other thoughts about classic.

Aye, there is no data for the old build, but possibly, you guys can work on something like TLE (Live build modified to mimick classic), but make it right(not like DBG did). That will attract a lot of ppl for sure, maybe some programmers also. There was a huge demand for that kind of server (since true classic EQII is not an option anymore).

Less zones, less classes, etc to work on. Yeah, you can finish the whole live build emu after, but tbh, I doubt someone rly needs thalumbra and other modern crap xpacks emulation since there are free official servers to play.

Once again - making a throwback server will attract a lot of attention and possibly - new reqruits.


P.S. I know I might bother some ppl with this classic/throwback idea, but I'm kinda obsessed with it.

[Scribble]

Some other thoughts about classic.

Aye, there is no data for the old build, but possibly, you guys can work on something like TLE (Live build modified to mimick classic), but make it right(not like DBG did). That will attract a lot of ppl for sure, maybe some programmers also. There was a huge demand for that kind of server (since true classic EQII is not an option anymore).

Less zones, less classes, etc to work on. Yeah, you can finish the whole live build emu after, but tbh, I doubt someone rly needs thalumbra and other modern crap xpacks emulation since there are free official servers to play.

Once again - making a throwback server will attract a lot of attention and possibly - new reqruits.


P.S. I know I might bother some ppl with this classic/throwback idea, but I'm kinda obsessed with it.

These are all great Ideas! I hope someone is motivated enough with this post to take up the call to arms and make something like this. I know I would love to see it!