Request for Review of P99 Source

[quido]

I am cordially requesting that Project1999 open up the core of their source to review from the community.

It seems that every time something gets fixed or changed with regards to the source, another bug or two pops up. Right now the ghosting and desync issues are so severe that I simply cannot believe this hasn't mandated emergency action with the highest priority.

I understand that you devs consider the source proprietary and don't want to release it, but I ask you - what are you really accomplishing? The real work on P99 is in the database - I'm not sure why you think guarding severely broken code is that worthwhile of an endeavor. You wouldn't even need to release it all - you could leave out the few parts that actually are innovative new code and not just stock EQEmu made worse by amateur developers.

Rogean is busy. The other devs are busy. Why not share some of the burden with capable neckbeards like myself and others who have a shot at fixing this sort of thing with minimal effort from the staff? It is appalling how clunky gameplay has become on P99, and I really just want to see a server that operates smoothly with as few bugs as possible.

Please share!

[kank]

Maybe they'll add source-code access somewhere in the Kickstarter rewards...

[Exmo]

I'd probably fork the code and contribute.

I'd love to see the code on Git.

[khanable]

Yea desync has been a fatherfucker lately

[loramin]

As a developer myself, I feel very strongly that developers should be free to do whatever they want with their own code. End of story. So, if Nilbog et all want to keep their source closed, I firmly support that position, and I'd argue that no one should give them any flack for it.

That being said, open source is what "all the cool kids" are doing nowadays. I believe most projects could benefit from open sourcing, and that includes Project 1999. Just imagine how many bugs would get fixed if it all it took was a pull request.

Plus, since P1999 isn't for-profit (and the usual reason to keep code private is to profit from it), I'm honestly not what the motivation to keep it closed is. I don't mean that as a dig against them; I mean I'm genuinely curious, if one of them wouldn't mind taking the time to explain.

But again, Nilbog and the other developers put all the hard work in, so they don't owe me or anyone else an explanation, and if they want closed source then more power to them. Even if the entire reason was "I hate the word 'open'", I would still support them 100%.

Oh, and I say all this as someone who has been trying to help the dev team for awhile (but for various reasons, such as me putting my application in the wrong spot, I have yet to hear back). I am genuinely willing to help with my L33T coding skillz, and if I could (ie. if the source was open) I'd already be trying to fix a bug.

[quido]

Of course they can do whatever they want, but when you're regressing with regards to playability, it's time for action. Who cares about Velious if you're just going to repeatedly train yourself because mobs are ghosting everywhere? The previous issues of mobs teleporting, ghosting (to a lesser degree than now), and doing other dumb stuff have been obvious and well-known for over a year now (ever since they added the patch that made mobs rotate before changing directions while pathing/following), yet nothing has been done.

Help us help you.

[letsallkillandy]

I'm a Sharepoint engineer if you need help with the site :P

[NextGenesis88]

Yeah. My game has been pretty damn smooth previously, but now I get higher ping and tons of mobs that aren't really there. It's really a shame how much the experience degraded. I even see new players on streams who are seeing these things and mobs dissapearing and etc and they just think the servers and the code is unstable and that's just how it is here. It's by no means unplayable, but took a pretty big hit. I normally have like 36 ping too... so it's really surprising and odd to see the things that I am seeing.

[Byrjun]

Agree, I also used to get a ping around 36, sometimes even in the 20s. Since the last patch it probably averages about 120-140, sometimes even higher. The ghosting is bad, but what bothers me mostly is when you try to zone and it just hangs forever and you have to crash the game and reload to get back in. This never happened for me over the past few months, now it feels pretty frequent, especially after dying.

It's not as game breaking as some people make it out to be, but I do miss the way the game used to run.

[baalzy]

Any chance this is related to the higher populations? Or is it still this bad during off-peak hours? I've been lazily doing a static camp for the past week so haven't seen much problem with ghosting.

I have noticed when feign splitting a camp that the mobs don't smoothly return to the camp, instead they kinda warp back to it a few feet at a time while facing the wrong direction.