The format concept sounds good to me. I've been thinking along those lines, of atomic structures where there is a standard way of extending any structure (WLD's concept of fragments was hokey at best and done poorly at worst).

Well, there are four zones of mine that are available...if we can agree on a file format I can get an exporter in OpenZone post-haste and release it. I've been redesigning OpenZone's engine since August and it's come along nicely. I have to admit I'm still against the idea of converting existing SOE zones...how many zones do you think you'd need for rigorous testing? I'd like to see if an effort can be made to satisfy your requirements before taking that step. Khan, how are your zones coming along? Can any be released? Is anyone else working on zones?

See, this is really what the community needs more of; people working together to reach a common goal :D

I'll start a thread in the OpenEQ dev forum immediatly and hopefully we can hammer out an initial file format today. As long as the atom headers don't change, it's 100% backwards and forwards compatible, so that's not a big issue.

If you can get me 4 or 5 decent sized zones, I should have no problem doing some nice testing and all with it.

As always, it's a pleasure working with you WC :)

Agreed about the converter...we can probably come up with enough zones pretty quickly with OpenZone to use instead of using EQ zones if you really need it.

Well the four I've already created are all large outdoor zones. The trick will be knowing that I'm exporting them correctly. It would be nice if I had a viewer or something that I could use to validate the output, but I'll do the best I can.

As soon as we agree on a file format, I'll start work on making OpenEQ work with it so you have a viewer to test with :)

One other thing we need is a file format to package it all together, which is trivial and then some.

I think I'm going to rewrite OpenEQ almost completely from scratch to accomodate the new changes... going to keep the draw code pretty much intact, though, I think.

I agree with you guys that the new client is the way to go, but from what I have heard its still months away from a viable solution. So until then if we dont continue to support the EQLive client we are going to have a lot of unhappy people :P


Couple of questions: Why are you guys using archaic C, when you could be using C++? and do you guys have a cvs server setup so it would be easier for people to help contribute?

Because C is _far_ from "archaic". I'm considering using C++ for the rewrite of OpenEQ simply because I'm sick of dealing with passing structs to functions. I still won't touch the STL with a 10-foot clown pole. I'd rather keep the bloat out and do a little bit more work by hand.

as you know daeken, my previous objection to helping this project had been I wasn't going to touch that mess of struct passing with a 10 foot pole. Having said that, if you really are serious about changing over to c++, I'll drop by and see if I can't offer some help. (I have currently been contemplating using ogre to do a similar goal as your openeq.. but only until I was able to get some origonal content made)...

-- Yodason

How many different players per day on EQemu login servers ATM ?
How many of them also own and pay for a EQ account ?
i wonder if the loss of money for SOE, represented by the players that don't fit in the second category is enough to pay a lawyer to put EQemu down. After all, for SOE, its only a question of money, they proved so many times... My opinion, as humble as it has to be, is that EQemu has no reasons to worry about SOE, even more with the upcoming release of EQ2. Tho, i m less optimistic for an EQEmu2 that would start with EQ2.

What don't you like about STL? I hate the syntax sometimes for iterators and so on but STL itsself seems very solid and if used right doesn't lead to "bloat"...

Sometimes, I reactivate my EQLive account to packet collect or look at specifics of how a game mechanic works. Thanks to EQEmu, SOE's making money off me :P

Same as rangerdown. actually i've had my live account active for about 4 months now. 4 months sony would NOT have had if i hadn't found emu. I had quit, and still dont actually play. I just have it active to packetcollect