Game launch replica

[Norrathian9]

With this EQ2 Emulator project, would it be technically feasible to create a server, or even a fork of the project, that is based on how the game was at launch or as close of an approximate as possible?

Not like the current TLE servers that DBG are running, but something that doesn't change and is basically a snapshot of the game at that time, including as much of the original content as possible.

Things like the original Qeynos and Freeport artwork, racial starter areas, citizenship and class quest system, itemization and attributes. Basically all the launch content that is missing from the present TLE experience.

I realize there's a lot more to it than just having the launch client assets. I'm really looking for an EQ2 time machine!

[Jabantiz]

Using the original client will be hard as we have no data collected from that point, our first logs actually came years after.

That being said the original Qeynos/Freeport as well as the original zone files for the suburbs are all still included with live client so switching to those is easy so you can have the classic artwork for those zones. You can also use the old class system, those original classes are still apart of live they are just not used. Content wise every thing would need to be made from scratch, like I said we have no logs from back then so people would have to research online or recreate from memory. It is possible for some one with enough time and devotion, but it will be a huge time sink.

[Norrathian9]

That's interesting that all those things are still around in the live client. Would it be modifying the .ini files to access those or would it have to be special server settings to enable seeing them again?

I haven't a clue how the client and server interacts for this game. I assume all item, ability, and actor names, stats, dialogue, combat is stored and processed on the server and then the client requests things as needed? I wonder if the old stuff could be reverse engineered by creating something like an echo server that the original client connects to and then looking at what it requests from the server as you attempt to do things.

I'm going to have to read through your entire development board, I find all this stuff fascinating.

[Jabantiz]

It is just the data that is sent from the server to the client. For classes it is just the class id, I believe we have a command to change the player class in game, if you just use that command with an id of 0 it should turn you to a commoner, 1 should be a fighter. For zones the new Qeynos/Freeport are entirely new zones separate from the old so just tell the client to load the old zone and it will, in fact both versions are on the emu server and both should have the mass pop content so you should be able to visit the old versions on the emulator now.

The main issue with getting an old client to connect is the format of the packets the server send as well as the order, no way to capture that now. This would take either a large amount of guess work or some one to reverse engineer the original client to see what it expects, either would be hard and time consuming but not really impossible.