Suggestion: Morph old weapons into Ornaments!

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Vizier, Nov 4, 2019.

  1. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    Reading comprehension FTW.

    Weapons are not ornaments, there is no 'ornament tag' for a weapon.

    Ngreth would have to make a separate item for each ornament, and a way for that item to be acquired. Were you thinking that every weapon that drops 'going forward' would also drop an ornament? Doubling the amount of bag space people need, or leaving ornaments all over the place rotting?

    Or maybe you'd like a special quest for each and every weapon to obtain the ornament of that weapon. Now they have to add a quest too?

    It's too much work for not enough value added, and reduces performance. Which is why Ngreth has clearly stated he has no interest in it.

    So to return to my equation once again. You've added no Incentive to improve the desire to make this change, even by minimizing it to 'new items going forward' (you reduced the dO).

    Let the crowdsourcing begin if you all really want this so bad, you're not getting it by begging obviously. Using my formula should help you get an idea of how much money you're going to need to provide any incentive pressure. Hint: You're gonna need TONS of money.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    At some point, Microsoft will drop support for old DX. DX9 was part of the big push by Microsoft to make Windows platform more 'game friendly'. But DX9 is almost 18 years old. You are absolutely correct. EQ's game engine will need another overhaul. I think something is in the works. Holly mentioned supporting EQ1 for at least another 10 years. I doubt her team believes they can continue for 10 years without a core code upgrade.
  3. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    At some point, yes they will. End of life support has not yet even been announced for DX9, there is no immediate concern. And even when support is ended does not mean applications cease to function.

    Why do they need an overhaul? And what indication are you getting that 'something is in the works' vis a vis 'a core code upgrade'?

    All changes that have been made recently are towards supporting the existing code base. And getting as much performance as they can from the existing code and server structure.

    There are no big 'core code upgrades' in the works, and there are no indications of anything of the sort.

    They are shoring up the existing code to try and squeeze as much as they can out of what they already have. For however many years they can possibly continue.

    Anybody saying 'AT LEAST 10 years' is a fool. They might last that long, but it won't be easy, and it won't be 'core code upgrades' either.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  4. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer


    So you consider acerbic pragmatism your job or is it more of a hobby?

    The reasons EQ1's game engine needs an overhaul are many, not the least of which are game features and improvements. But the main reason is that EQ1 is an IP keeping DBG afloat. Anyone that cannot see this is a fool.

    Sorry to say, you're wrong. EQ will be around much longer than your pragmatism will allow for.
  5. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    It's how I flex my Forum Quest muscles I suppose. And I take no joy in it.

    More ornaments and more opportunities for appearance customization would be a dream come true for me.

    I don't raid, I care nothing for the optimizations they've been making for better 'crowded instance' performance (raids) at the expense of appearance items.

    I wish they would have never shut down Player Studio and refused to put our final items, that made it all the way through the approval process and into the game files, in the marketplace.

    They have been all about performance optimizations over appearance items for a while now.


    We'll just wait and see. Every day they don't 'overhaul the engine' is a day I'm right and you're wrong, just waiting for your speculation to come true.

    I'll take my sad but pragmatic assessment of factual data points over baseless speculation because you feel they need to do something.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  6. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Speculation or fact, the need to overhaul the engine for such a popular game has been present since Luclin. I would agree that the grim reality is such that it is not economically feasible. If it were going to get done it would have already been so.

    On the other hand, consumers have a way of convincing for-profit entities to spend cash on such frivolity with their baseless speculation and feelings regarding their product. Whatever the outcome, I am happy to see our game march into 2020 with fresh, new content and a hopeful dialogue with the dev team and leadership that underlines the uniquely phenomenal nature of this 20-odd year old software known as EverQuest.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  7. Vumad Cape Wearer


    How does the suggestion of the augmentation tag work out with the code? Totally cool if it cant be done. Just curious how a change like that would act. If you took weaponA and just added fits into slots 20 what would happen? Theory is cool, just curious beyond "it wont work", even if it wont work, what causes it to not work?
  8. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Ngreth knows the code and its limitations, you do not. Just take his word for it.
  9. Vizier Augur

    Um so what if they need a recipe and such for items GOING FORWARD?How many is that exactly? Not many. Friggin do it already.
  10. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Two things about your reply.

    1) I did not doubt him. I accept it is not possible and asked a question of curiosity.

    2) He only answered about making a trade skill combine, which is not what I asked. I asked what would happen if an item (any item, say the Mana Robe) that was not an augment was given the augmentation tag. What would happen? Even if the response is theoretical. Again, not a question of doubt, but a question of curiosity.

    I myself said that I don't know how the code, so yeah, I agree with your point. The only reason I asked for an explanation beyond "it wont work" is because I was hoping for something like, the database system is not able to parse that out, or the code would apply the stats and there is no work around, or something. Again, curious, not argumentative. How it all works interests me.
    I_Love_My_Bandwidth likes this.
  11. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    I already went into a brief explanation here.

    To get more in detail:
    Their database is text based, and not capable of many functions a modern relational database is built with by design.

    In this case when the code needs to populate data for a weapon (you're equipping it), it seeks the 'data row/record' for that weapon, by searching for the name of the item. A long string is returned that is 'delimited' by carets looking something like:
    SampleWeapon^1^0^0^0^12^16^sampweap.obj^sampweap_d.tga^sampweap_n.tga^sampweap_s.tga
    This is then parsed, simply by position. Code inserts the first text into the name, the second number is weapon type, third number damage etc.

    This type of database record does not identify what the fields are, code (as it's currently written) can't just pull out the model and texture part, or be smart and know that model and texture files are what we are interested in for an ornament.

    So existing code just plugs the values parsed from a string (based on position) into the weapons stats (including the files to use for appearance).

    Ornament records are not the same number of fields in the exact same order. Ornaments have no damage info for one thing, so we know already the records don't match and they can't do this without adding new code.

    Adding more code to parse more stuff reduces performance, so they are really not interested in doing something like that, over maintaining the current code.
    Vumad and Zamiam like this.
  12. Braveheart Augur

    EQ2 has the technology. Allow us to stick the graphic we want in an ornament slot and it overrides the graphic of the primary slot.....The tech does exist.
  13. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    Read the whole thread. This ain't happening PERIOD FULL STOP. Read the whole thread.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  14. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    Yeah. It's only saying that it's not a function the game engine has, and I'm implying that it's possible to add code that will make it possible, **BUT** back to the oportunity cost. Is it worth not working on other things?
    Nope. Again. it's in now way as simple as an "ornament" tag. Our game has no concept of this. It will require changes to our code base.
    As for creating the items and recipes. It's time and memory. There may be some created, but I doubt we'll create the 192 items necessary to give every option for the new looks made for this expansion.
    EQ2 code and EQ1 are in no way compatible. Not the tiniest bit.
  15. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Great reply. Thank you for taking the time to explain it. And you did well explaining it using coding examples but still at a level a person with minimal background can understand. Exactly what I was curious to understand.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  16. Kairnn Lorekeeper

    To break it down a bit regarding the idea of just adding an "ornament" tag to the items (which is actually adding them as an augment that fits into the ornament slot), items in the ornament slot still add their stats to those items (and thus the player). We saw this when a shield ornament on the Marketplace inadvertently came with 18 AC. This AC added to shield AC, so everyone bought it. It was subsequently fixed, but this just shows that adding an "ornament" tag to weapons would not work without completely overhauling how ornaments work.

    Your best bet is to find weapon graphics you would like to have as ornaments and specifically request ornaments with those graphics. It's much easier for them to create a single new ornament item than it would be to create items/recipes/code to convert old weapons.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Vumad like this.
  17. Zippie Journeyman

    In Ngreth's defense, the amount of work to make this happen would be significant.

    As for what would have to be changed, depending on the design route you took, the game client itself would require no changes at all. I say this because you can load up an eq server on your own computer, and make any weapon look like any other weapon by changing the ID for the visual associated with that weapon in the database. In other words, the game client already supports making any weapon look like any other weapon. What ever graphic ID you send it, that's the one it renders.

    The significant work to implement this change comes down to the data behind the scenes. If you want every weapon to be able to become an aug you can slot in to the appearance slot, you are going to have to create an appearance slot aug for every single weapon in the game. So, we're talking creating thousands of new items in the database for initial setup.

    Then you have to create a script for an NPC that allows you to hand them your weapon, and get an appearance aug back in exchange.

    Then you get the onslaught of customer service requests for, "omg I just accidentally turned my ultimate_ sword_of_everything_dies_when_I_swing in to an appearance aughment? Please give me back my sword."

    It can be done, but it probably wont be.
    Vumad likes this.
  18. Lingum Elder

    Prison guards don't code, and I don't know the ins and outs of Players Studio, so just throwing this out there:

    Would it not just be easier for civvy artists to take commissions for requested non-epic (those are already covered IIRC) appearance items and just produce a line of look-alike ornaments through the players studio program to be made available in the store?

    For instance, say I have a particular fascination with the Ethereal Guard of the Scrykin I got back in POR days or even the SMR I had in 99. I drop a message on wherever it is convenient to communicate my desire for that to be designed and some enterprising artist does it up and submits it.
  19. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    Sadly Player Studio has been closed.

    They have no more interest in having us make art for them.

    Even when it was running we were basically not allowed to do something that looked exactly like something already in-game.

    I don't know why this thread won't die, but it is absolutely not going to happen in any way shape or form.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  20. eliandra Elder

    so ... possible or not to do it ? really a good way to use old old nice item ... (better than new velious horrible items actually )