What if .......

[Stud]

Just a thought, but what if EQ disappeared completely (however unlikely), or patching procedures were somehow changed?

Was the client on say, a clean cd install of EQ + Expansions too broken to work with, without patching?

Just wondering how much of a setback it would be. As I recall there wasn't an emu version that worked with just out of the box eq + kunark+sov+sol, was there?

[Baltar]

I agree. Depending on Verant patches kinda puts the power
in Verant's hands. It's a dream, but I hope someday there's a completely independent version of the emulator that works with the core cd install.

Of course the advantage to working with the latest version of
the client is the fact that all the netcode is up to date and bug
free. But this can be a dire disadvantage when Verant versions
up and all your work is rendered useless.

I think the only full proof way of getting arround this is to stick with a static client version (cd install?). One in which people will no longer have complaints about. It may involve alot of re-development but hey, it takes the power out of verant's hands!

[Stud]

Yeah, exactly, I keep getting the underlying feeling that no matter what, I'm still "in their world now"

Problem is, I have no clue just how broken the unpatched most recent expansion client is. Definately not my area of expertise.

IMHO, if it wasn't that broke, one group doing development on the core set of files would be an excellent idea, since these guys are going to keep up with live client.

I just dont' know at what point the EMU would have been closest to working with clean install client.

So that all the ground work didn't need to be redone.

[Ryozu]

The problem here lies in the fact that, to develop the EMU, they have to have packet logs of actions on the live servers. Without these logs they cannot find what packets do what. The unpatched installs do not connect to the live servers, and we don't really know what the packets do, It's easy enough to find out what packets coming from the client are for, but then there isn't any way to find out what packets need to be sent to the client.

While having an emu for a static client would be nice, I just don't believe it's possible.

[Hmm]

theres few slight problems.

luclin on cds is broken for nearly EVERYONE



verent put latest versions into cds means not everyone has same version.

[Baltar]

yeah maybe I was a little unrealistic about that one. I guess the only way to really remain free of verant's versioning is to always backup a steady version.