Consider Project 2002

[Torven]

Originally Posted by Lorian [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Out of curiosiry, how come that the p2002 team is able to release the expansions so quickly? Do they already have the code? They are not needing to reverse engineer like you guys have done?

It's simple. They have lower standards for quality than p99 does. Also the vast majority of their server was developed by other teams as they forked an open source project. They launched a mere month or so after forking. They also still, of course, pull code from TAKP, and rely on TAKP for almost all of their code work. As they forked an existing project, it's easy for them to devote a lot of time doing tedious grunt work as they are starting fresh and haven't burned out yet. Imagine how burned out p99 devs are at this point.

The database they copied already had zones from classic to PoP populated with placeholder stats and loot tables. Many of the quests were already done, or in some sort of poorly working state at least, although many more are left unfinished. Players would have no idea if, for example, an NPC was hitting at 3 attack delay instead of the 2 it should have-- they just see mobs walking around and kill them and assume it works fine. So long as quest NPCs accept their turn ins and mobs are moving and killable, they think 'this is done', but they would be in fact playing an ez-mode version of the game and not know it.

A 'roambox' system for NPC wandering which allows for rapid development of NPC movement areas was also developed after P99 forked, so it's a very easy thing to click on an NPC and input four coordinates that define the box that the NPC can wander in. You can make an outdoor zone look complete in a very short amount of time with this newer emu feature, particularly if the NPCs had already been imported. There are still accuracy issues with where and how large the boxes should be however.

Some examples of accuracy issues:

p2002's plane of air keys were made no-rent. Air keys were not no-rent, but instead poofed when you zoned. This information is readily available in old PoSky guides.

I also wrote some code to allow NPCs to see through walls in flagged zones to more accurately emulate the planes and other outdoor zones. (or more accurately, completed what cavedude started) P2002 pulled the code without knowing what it did, which caused mistmoore NPCs to ignore walls because they copied our database with all outdoor zones flaged no-LOS. Then they blamed and ridiculed me for 'setting assist radii too high' or some nonsense, not knowing what actually happened. (the assist radii for NPCs was in fact 0, meaning the same as aggro radius) One wonders if their hateplane even has LOS disabled at all.

Then there are minor issues like epic quest scripts not checking factions. Making an NPC say text and accept items is the easy part-- details like determining faction levels and such are much more difficult, and again is something most players wouldn't notice.

[Wharhog]

Nice try torven we didn't use any of your code and you have no idea what we have on our server . But anyways I will still put our content up against anyone .....and frankly let's be honest here .,...would you rather have a 100% correct ring war on launch or velious our two years sooner? Or you can put out a flawed server and take 4 months to put out out planes that still have a pile of flaws because the test server has no one on it.. Be careful throwing stones at glass houses.

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by Wharhog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice try torven we didn't use any of your code. But anyways I will still put our content up against anyone

Do you use Melee Push?

Do mobs with spells set to 0 mana in the DB trigger their effects on cooldown?

Do you use anything on this list? https://github.com/EQMacEmu/Server/c...22f31e36b60c36

Do your NPCs hit like they're supposed to with Bash?

Do innate procs of beneficial spells aggro NPCs?

Do you have spell AI radius set to 80?

Do procs only trigger on hit?

Does your cazic touch use the proper spell ID?

Do you have working bolts?

Does invisibility not stack?

Do Dragon AEs work?

Are your resists livelike?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be running Torven's code. Better clean that up!

[Secrets]

Originally Posted by Wharhog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice try torven we didn't use any of your code and you have no idea what we have on our server . But anyways I will still put our content up against anyone .....and frankly let's be honest here .,...would you rather have a 100% correct ring war on launch or velious our two years sooner? Or you can put out a flawed server and take 4 months to put out out planes that still have a pile of flaws because the test server has no one on it.. Be careful throwing stones at glass houses.

I'd rather have a 100% working ring war that is researched and verified. I don't care how long it takes, personally.

And that right there is the difference between our projects. You want it 'now, now, now' and want to be 'the first' at something. Everything is a bloody competition with P2002, from the raid scene, to the leveling grind, to the development team. No thanks.

Oh, and threatening our project. "Be careful throwing stones at glass houses." I'm so scared. What are you going to do, DDoS us into oblivion like children? Grow up.