Item Stat Values

[Scatman]

So in order to support SOE's new item stats (removal of some resistances, crits, etc), how do we want to handle this? I'd say putting them into the database with a stat id, stat value, and a max version for that stat. These would be loaded up at server start obviously and then when an item packet is constructed, it'll grab the client's data version and the respective item stats from memory.

What do you guys think? Any better ideas?

Also Z when you get a chance I need to confirm a few things with you about these dynamic packet types (int or float). I'll be in IRC !

[John Adams]

I thought we were ditching pre-SF client support once we got SF worked out, so we didn't have to straddle two different styles of item details?

Is there something wrong with our current item stats tables, and their data? All those weird 100*stat+type whatever weird ass math thing we have currently?

[Scatman]

Oh ok that works then. The only thing wrong with our table is I think we have to change the value field into a float to support float types. I forgot we planned to ditch the Pre-SF stuff though. It's just they changed the ids around so all those #define ITEM_STAT_* in item.h are wrong. I'm currently finding all the new ones.

[John Adams]

Of course. Ugh. Well I wasn't going to delete the old item_stats table, but we can duplicate it and make an item_stats2 or item_stats_sf table, and maybe we could actually keep older clients working(??) but I think Zexis said we were ditching ROK/TSO after SF became viable. We'll have to ask him for sure. I'm good with supporting everything, if it's not too complicated.

[Zcoretri]

Of course. Ugh. Well I wasn't going to delete the old item_stats table, but we can duplicate it and make an item_stats2 or item_stats_sf table, and maybe we could actually keep older clients working(??) but I think Zexis said we were ditching ROK/TSO after SF became viable. We'll have to ask him for sure. I'm good with supporting everything, if it's not too complicated.

Scat and myself had a little discussion on the item_stats. Scat said he is gonna test out a solution tonight.
It maybe we can still support the older clients, just not sure how viable it is, I'm sure Scat will let us know.

[Scatman]

It wouldn't really be a problem supporting older clients. We could do the solution as I suggested for item stat types. But the DB would get kind of ugly and I could see things getting a little out of hand.

[John Adams]

I'm not a fan of ugly.

[ZexisStryfe]

I have no problem with supporting older clients if we can find an elegant solution, however I would rather not make creating/maintaining servers more difficult/messy for clients that can't be purchased anymore.

[Rhas]

So will the current client be able to be patched to the SF client or will those of us with Pre-SF clients need to purchase a copy? Is the only difference the exe file or are there other files? It would be nice to support multiple clients but I agree that you probably wouldn't want to create a big db/coding mess to do it.

[ilythor]

If it was only an exe file, our lives would be so simplistic. As I've come to understand, it's not even patch numbers that work. It's data structs and opcodes, which are way over my collective heads. Our current goal is to get Sentinel's Fate Working, but as it stands TSO and RoK are what works. As you may have read in the discussion right here, to get all the compatibility we have now, PLUS SF, would result in a very difficult to run and maintain server, and ugly database with too many tables, redundant data and the like, as well as making our lives a lot more difficult, while probably making this project Vaporware. So for the sake of everybody's patience, we are most likely going to just purely maintain SF. It is the most common client, mst readily available, and current data we can still obtain.

[John Adams]

Rhas, it's a lot more than just the everquest2.exe, all the pak files, the vdl's and a few other things that all need to work together to bring the right content to the player.

I too wouldn't mind keeping ROK/TSO clients working - problem is, we develop in sync with Live, so that means our content matches the current client (UI) and when that changes, people using ROK/TSO will get screwed.

Also, I think it makes sense that for a FREE EQ2 server, the fee is a mere $20 a year to buy the latest client (after release, on eBay or whatevs) is not too much to ask... thus, we're not overly concerned about moving forward. Keeps SOE happy too if people have to buy clients from them

[Scatman]

John, whenever you get a chance, can you make item_stats.value a float in the database? I've committed the code for dynamic packet values. The stats are now being loaded as floats from the database so it won't hurt anything that they're ints for now.

[John Adams]

Done.

The Minor version is: 248