To start please tell me if I'm misunderstanding this in regards to my suggestion and I apologize in advance if you find this long and winded. I've indented the suggestion if you don't feel like reading a lot. I've recently got a wow classic sub to mess around and have a mmo to play. I had played it in the past but it paled in comparison to eq2 for me. Getting into WOW though and trying to give it a fair shot makes me wish that the game hadn't been butchered over the course of its 15 years. I know I'd still be playing today if it hadn't gone down the path it did and I'm sure many others would probably be in a similar boat. With the context out of the way I'll shine some light on myself as I doubt anyone who reads this will recognize my name screen name, to anyone who does I hope you're doing well. I've far more hours in this game than I'd like to admit. I was an avid pvper (just short of hardcore), and casual raider on a illusionist after pvp had died, and found my home on Nagafen shortly after the server launched in 2006. I basically grew up playing eq2, my mother played with her ex husband and I ended up playing with his brothers kids when I was little. Although at the time I just kept making new toons, took awhile to find what class I wanted to play. Finally settled on loving to heal. Once I got a bit older I'd play all the time, easily 4-5 hours a day. I couldn't count the days I got home from school and asked to use my mothers computer till her boyfriend at the time got home from work. Fast forward a bit and a lot of hours on the game and I finally got my own laptop capable of playing eq2, from there even more hours clocked. Looking back though eq2 kept me off the streets as a kid, for better or for worse. I've seen this game evolve from nearly start to about when skyshrine died down and I stopped playing. Honestly I'd be straight up lying if I said I wasn't saddened by the state of the game in the current day. Now on to my suggestion, again I apologize for going on up till now. Just felt like I should let whoever is reading know where I'm coming from. If this game is going to be anymore than a husk of it's former self then daybreak needs to stop taking the easy route. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. To my understanding most of the game data for mmos is held client side and the calculations and processing are done server side and then relayed back out to the client which then shows you what's going on. It baffles me why no one at daybreak has decided that maybe if they want to do it right they should take the game client files from an original set of eq2 discs, which are on ebay for about $10 CAD, and reverse engineer a new server side for it. The original client files, make a separate client package for it so it wont affect live (kinda like the test server), and then we could have a proper "progressive/TLE" and none of this we can't do this and that because it will affect live mumbo jumbo. Just take it from there, and make completely new patches and extra content in the form of new quests, group instances, raid drops, special world raids every so often as we go. They already have the entire expansion designs and assets that would just need to be "slightly" redone to properly mesh with the new server side. Maybe add the appearance tab if general consensus wants it. Item work can be done as we go for the expansions, one expansion at a time, instead of the ENTIRE game using a script to replace all the stats with stamina and "primary attribute". They do all this work for TLEs, new expansions, events and everything feels half done to me. Half way to what it could be. Want the former glory and the money that was with it then bring the game back to it's glory age to start. Write new quests for the world, hell replace a good amount of the current ones in the original files (and even expansions as we go) aside from the class selection quests so we can experience Norrath and actually have to go quest without a hand hold again and not know how to do EVERYTHING. I'd much rather this than another everquest next.. Or even worse, nothing done in the future of everquest as a ip except for expansions for a game that's barely crawling to the finish line as it stands. Will it be easy? No it won't, we'd probably have to wait a good while unless they got some awesome people working very hard on it. But like I said above, nothing worthwhile is ever easy. To those of you that have read down to this point, I thank you for your time. Maybe if this gets enough up-votes or something daybreak will seriously think about doing it. Who knows. Hopefully one day we can see this game actually grasp at what it once was. -Minko
If the last 20 years have taught us anything, it's that nothing is ever as straightforward as you think it should be in EverQuest Land.
I don't think it's dumb, just an idea, however insulting people is not the way to get them to listen to your requests. Personally, I would like to see what is in store with the next expansion, but I am not really a tle lover
To accomplish the CDs not being updated once loaded into a new server they would need to create a whole new environment for Riverdale... It could not be connected to the other servers. More money... won't happen
You have me a bit confused there. There would not be any updates for the CDs at all, it would essentially be the base game pre-patched launched on a independent back end server. Also the goal is to not connect it to the current servers at all, that's what the new back end is for. Current day eq2 would use the back end it's currently using. As for Rivervale, they should have the assets for it VIA the current iteration of it which would just need to be implemented and adjusted for the new back end processing. The same goes for every other zone/instance they have added since launch. It's just about getting the new back end to interact with the assets and players in the pre-patched game. But yes it's going to cost money, so did the Deathtoll and Fallen Gate TLEs though which ultimately failed. I played on Kaladim and in solely my own opinion it wasn't much better, a bit but not much. It felt very lackluster. Didn't even bother with Nagafen 2.0, half due to how I felt about Kaladim since the system was the same and the other half due to the server wipes. But you're also probably right that it wont happen.
The CDs don't have the entire game. They only have the player side of the game that interfaced with the company through the internet. Reverse engineering the CDs wouldn't be reverse engineering the whole game.
I wouldn't call it a TLE, if they actually wiped a good amount of the quests with new ones, new heritage quests, new raid encounters in zones, new items in the zones. Stuff they you've never seen in the game but in the same game we all came to adore. Imagine if they changed up the loot tables in FG, or WC with brand new items, put a rare raid spawn or two in them on a longish timer. Like at the bottom of the pit in WC or in the back of the market of FG. And then did similar things to the rest of the zones. If they can make a entire expansion then surely they can get a few people to think of some new low level items and mobs over the course of a year. It would basically be a new game, new experiences, new items to put on your toons. Old spell names, actual stats that matter to each class again, old animations for spells like magma chamber, slow leveling to actually enjoy the new content they worked hard to give us, hard content that promotes grouping. Maybe have beastlords and channelers there from launch completely reworked to fit in with the rest of the classes without being subpar or game-breaking. I mean to begin with eq2 is set 500 years in the future of eq and in a parallel universe to boot. Why not relaunch from scratch and do the same thing, eq2.1. I get what you mean though, old content can only be so interesting. I'd be much more interested in old content though if I didn't know everything a mob could drop, where to go to get the absolute best gear, how to do nearly every quest with my eyes closed, fastest places to go blow through that uninteresting content, ect. Would be awesome to go to the ruins and do a completely new quest line with a few new npcs. P.S Thank you for saying it wasn't dumb haha!
They have everything except how the server responds to the client side when it receives a message. The cds should have all the zones, mobs, sounds, npc dialogue, quests, ect from the base game. The assets and client are on those cds, the client tells the server you did this sends a message back to you and then relays what you did to all the other clients in the vicinity. What it wouldn't have is the calculation system for how much damage npcs take and do, loot tables, the message that tells the client when something dies, the message that tells the client to make a npc chat bubble pop up, stuff like that. The assets should all be on those discs though as well as the base client which is half the picture. The game came on 2 dvds which are 4.7gb each and after finding a old post from 2004 it was a 10gb install. That's a lot more than just a client I know it wouldn't be easy to do, you're programming half the game out of messages from a client. Taking a systematic approach to it should make it a bit easier though. Start with the login, go to char creation, char select, movement (in instance and between instance), combat, broker. I'm sure there's more messages but you get what I mean. Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to just redo all the systems after pulling the base assets on both client and server side. It would make it a charm to patch and update too if done right. Maybe we misunderstood each other, the only thing they would be reverse engineering would be the company side of the game. The back end servers that send messages to the client. To get the game back to a blank slate with no updates at all. Game update 00.
I am sure if this idea was only half way doable that people at now DB would have thought of it and I am absolutely sure they have the discs I agree that no idea should ever be called stupid And ( I know this is not the same ) there is this guy with a private server who has the old EQ1 running with only minimal changes . True he only has the basic game and I have been told , that was not corrupted by changes to the content but he has a server going .
You all seem to forget that if all servers are on one network they ALL get patched/updated together. They would have to create a network that stands apart from the rest of the servers to accomplish the CD / 2004 version of eq2. Do you really think they will host 2 separate networks for 1 server?
I mean they cant change a single AA ability without it killing the pet and the caster so you think they can reverse engineer an entire client and server enviroment? Cmon man.
there are already 3 different versions of this game Turgadin the European server , the American servers and the P the test server even has Public test server this 3 versions are almost totally separate. absolutely nobody can transfer onto the test server or get of it lol almost like Trunder , I wonder if that server is still around .
getting late translation Turgadin , all American servers including , TLE servers , and all Event servers and the public Test server and occasionally Beta , but I will not count that . This are 3 versions of the same Game , each more or less independent . And Drunder used to be another server that was so separate from the others nobody could get on it anymore after the first weeks , when people could go there if they chose to do so .
For the purposes of an MMO, the backend is basically the game. You're not going to create a server based on looking at a client, and you're being kind of handwavey by saying the "the only thing they would be reverse engineering would be the company side of the game." It's like saying if I want to fly to the moon the "only" thing I need to do is build a spaceship (with a skeleton crew at that). Also, they can't just ship old clients for people to use -- libraries have been upgraded since then, client-side bug fixes, etc. WoW Classic is the modern client (heavily modified of course), which Blizzard is able to do because they have a lot more resources to toss at the problem and the original source code to look at.
I still don't see why I can't buy a boxed edition of the game, with no disc in it, but really finely crafted in Thailand figurines, or maps... anything. Collector editions of everything on line is kind of old. I don't walk into my office and see my spoils. I love my Feronia Vie figuring from the old EQ1 expac, the Norrath map signed by all the dev's from the EQNext launch party in San Diego. I would love some more cool stuff like that. I'm in the wrong business. I need to partner with Daybreak and have these third party made while giving a portion to Daybreak and they don't have to do anything... hmmm..... hold my beer.
Out of curiosity did you choose to ignore my statement right before the "only thing they would be reverse engineering is the company side"? Where I said maybe it would be easier to just pull the assets and redo all the systems ground up? If a guy can get a private server running for early eq1 with minimal changes than I'm sure a dedicated team at daybreak could do the same with eq2. As for the client well? I don't see why they can't ship an old client. We're trying to get back to square 1 are we not? Enough proper testing should work those bugs out. Also not quite sure what you mean by libraries, as in the databases storing stuff such as character data, guild data, ect? Data not related to the client? If so that's more simple to fix than a movement response from the server. Just make a new database compatible with this version. It's just a text doc that gets wrote to and read from after all. And I mean could also use a DOF client as well to skip the early bug fixes, assuming DOF was also shipped with the full game on the discs and not just the expansion assets and a client update. Even then could just do that and disable the DOF content while it's reworked like the rest of the game. As for your analogy, I don't think that was quite all the way there. All we have to do is build the spaceship, yes, the launch pad (client) is already there. The crew (server infastructure) is already there, albeit with some tweaking. "You're not going to make a server looking at a client", why not?? The client sends messages to the server all you need to do is code the proper responses back to the client. Write a system that displays the messages sent from the client in a offline fashion and use those displayed messages to code the responses systematically. It's not like the server sends a different message to every client that engages in combat. I realize I'm using "messages" very loosely here, but that's fundamentally how it works. When you move your toon the client sends a message to the server saying you vectored so much and the server relays that to everyone else. Write a program that intercepts any messages coming from the client and then pauses the client after not recieving a logical response. Use the intercepted messages to code the properly working response systematically. Remove the middleman once everything is working. Also "is basically" and "is" are two very different things. But you're right about not being able to look at the client, that's why you have a program look for you. That'd be a huge waste of time to look for each message in a bunch of client code, but if it sends it out (which is does, otherwise multiplayer games wouldn't exist) then you can intercept it which makes it much more simple to find. Maybe I'm being an idealist, or "handwavey" as you would call it, I realize it's not simple task. Like I previously said though, nothing worth it is easy. And to that end it's nost certainly not impossible. *Side note sorry if this is small, I wrote it on my phone and couldn't figure out how to change text size.
The current team barely has the manpower to support the live and TLE servers as is, they're definitely not going to be able to effectively rebuild the old version of the game from the ground up. Unfortunately, the rest of your post makes it clear that you don't grasp the technical reasons for why what you're suggesting isn't really feasible, nor the level of effort actually required.
