Where the customization of EQEmu Ends

[iamjooish]

Originally Posted by Windcatcher

and you'd be surprised at how few pieces are need to create a client:
- A 3D engine

(a couple days too late responding, bah..)

From my limited knowledge of game developement, I'd wager that last part is your biggest problem, and likewise, the most labor-intensive. IIRC, the vast majority of most game developement budgets (the ones that run into the 7 or 8 digit figures) are spent on programing how the game interperets and renders it's media; it's graphics engine, basicly. As to why or how it's so consuming; time and money wise; I haven't the foggiest.


So unless someone has made a 3d graphics renderer open source and available a la GNU... my 2 coppers goes to trying to play tug-o-war (attrition) with sony over live compatibility, and see who quits first in frustration. (EQ1 is slowly dieing, right?). Certainly, it's better than allocating the mountains of human resources and time to reinvent the wheel with EQemu, and at some point having the team realize it's too much effort involved for a volunteer basis, burn out, lose interest, 'run into' real life issues, find something shinier to invest time in, get a new hobby etc.

Personally, I just want to play that oh-so addictive ORPG with a tight knit band of fellow gamers, experience all the content up to a fully-functional PoP DB (hopefully) on a nonlegit server, whack a few raid mobs without the leveling treadmill, etc. And I wouldn't want an OS client to distract EQemu from that.

[Windcatcher]

OGRE is an LGPL engine in C++. I haven't followed it in a while, but from what I've seen of the earlier versions, it should work well.

[Drake1132]

There are, in fact, several open source 3D engines available... most aren't that spectacular, but OGRE is one of the ones that shows substantial promise. Also, I don't know how the licensing is handled for it so I don't know if it would work, but there is an engine called Torque which for the least expensive license costs something like $300.00 US for the baseline engine plus shaders plus sound handler. There are options... The real issue is not finding options, but finding a GOOD option and implementing it. I would recomend that anyone interested in using an already existant engine take a look at DevMaster.net.

Hope that that helps at least a little somewhere, 'cause I for one would LOVE(!!!!!) to see a new open source client that can be used with the emulator... none of this "the new patch breaks the emulator, do not patch, if you're new to the emulator you're SOL" anymore. It would be beautiful.

Drake

[EDIT] At this point the last couple of posts are no longer about OpenZone and are about OpenEQ and therefore should probably be redirected to the forum for such topics... just a thought

[RangerDown]

Most people I bet aren't even aware those two projects are separate and independent.

[Shadow-Wolf]

Torque is NOT a graphics engine, it is an entire game engine that was developed for Tribes 2. The creators of the engine retained the rights to develop and sell it.