Brainstorming: Partial DB Standard

[Damilis]

Greets all. I just wanted to throw down a brainstorm that I have many many months ago and see what people think the Pros/Cons are.

Since EQEmu is an open-sourced application, users can do pretty much whatever they want with any bit or byte they want. This has lead to the segregation of efforts in many different facets of the project, namely NPCIDs, Items and Quests. These three categories represent the largest portion of the database and thus the largest point of segregation. Granted, people have migrated towards consolidating DB's and we have never really had more than 3 or 4 mainstream DB distros out at any given time... this is a good thing, sort of.
I know I have spoken on these boards before about centralization of data and efforts pertaining to the EQEmu effort and have been met with very good insight from others. Here is a refined version of my thoughts:

Standardize certain portions of the database. For instance: 'Reserve' the first 250,000 NPCID's for EQLive-like mobs. Any custom created content *should* start at 250,001. Enact a similar reservation for ITEMID's, NPC types, factions etc. This should allow for the seamless creation of a Npc, Item and Quest set that would work 'right out of the box.' Also, people can offer up their custom DB mods to the public and be able to state:
"This add-on uses NPCID 300000-310000, ITEMID 300000-310000, blah blah blah"
This will allow serverops to see where/if this mod can fit in to their db. Additionally, as long as the db mod is totally self related or related to itself and the 'base' DB, then a serverop can just use a script and bulk change the NPCIDs/ITEMIDs/etc into a range that will fit on his/her server.

All the numbers I used in my example are trivial as its the concept that I would like to discuss. To answer the obvious: Yes I know this is potentially a HUGE effort and NO it won't mandatory, just standardized.

Aight, open floor! Questions, comments, concerns, ideas?

[Rhodan]

I think reserving IDs is the only sensible thing to do. Years ago I ran a UO emulator and thats exactly what they did. The standard world had reserved ID ranges - if you used those for custom things they would be overwritten during an update.

Some people even went so far as to agree between themselves which ranges individuals would use - this let certain people work on specific aspects of a world and combine their efforts when wanted.

ANd this is a timely discussion. I was just wanting to make a custom item and was coming here to ask if there were any kind of designated ID ranges

[Damilis]

Originally Posted by Rhodan

Some people even went so far as to agree between themselves which ranges individuals would use - this let certain people work on specific aspects of a world and combine their efforts when wanted.

I had several add-on thoughts that I didn't post, one of which being a system to allocate the non-reserved (aka 300k+) ID's for a person in 1k, 5k or 10k blocks. That way even the 'registered' db mods won't overlap.... but that would require a little more of the Devs copious amounts of free time so I opted out on posting it initally.

[John Adams]

Pretty sure there is already a generally accepted standard for NPC Ids, and Item IDs. 13th Floor items I believe use the same itemID you find in the live game - or it's an amazing coincidence that all my magelo gear IDs match items in EQEmu's Items table. And NPCs standard numbering is zoneID * 1000, with the first NPC ID for zone 123 being 123000. etc. Fairly sure people have tried to keep mob-specific IDs to this scheme too, though some mobs (like a rat) can spawn anywhere.

Bottom line is, your first statement was accurate indeed - open source, anyone can and will do what they want. But those who feed BACK to the official PEQ project need to follow their guidelines, or it won't become part of an official release. And very few offer their changes because many tweak for customization anyway, and again, the core project is "Live-like"...

Guess I am saying, I think we're fairly standard already. but always a good idea to remind the new folk.

[Damilis]

So CaveDudes and Angelox's DBs are based on PEQ?

[GeorgeS]

Originally Posted by Damilis

So CaveDudes and Angelox's DBs are based on PEQ?

That's correct