Some points

[sfisque]

Ok, i got it up and working. Much thx to everyone who helped me through it, both actively and passively through all the posts i sifted through via Search.

Anyway, i have some key questions about an operational server now?

1) i noticed alot of mobs have "interesting" pathing, take a step, drop about 10 feet from the sky, take a step, drop about 10 feet from the sky, etc. where is this pathing controlled so that i could maybe take a look at it?

2) is there any documentation regarding the table schemas. some columns are very obvious, items.Name = pretty obvious, others are a little unapproachable (the various blob/clobs in character_).

3) for performance purposes, what is the general overhead per zone (dont worry, i'm not going to scream my machine crashes, i'm just trying to consider some fine tuning. the server is going to be very low population, but if i can prep about 20-30 zones in memory, i'd like to, in order to make things load faster for them.

TIA

== stanton

[paaco]

For your pathing issue make sure you have the maps files in the correct place.

For the database schema take a look in the wiki. I believe it is called 0.7.0schema or something similiar.

On my Athlon 2400 with 1 gig of ram I didn't have any problems loading up 30 zones. With a bare, brand new install of 2k3 Server Enterprise. ( Although if your running XP I'm not sure, 2k3 Server actually uses a decent amount less ram than XP )

Good luck

http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka...DatabaseSchema
Just realized I had the DB Schema bookmarked in Firefox, there you go.

[sfisque]

1) map files are in place. the mobs appear to be pathing "correctly", its just that the pathing looks like it could use some "fine tooning". my assumption after watching various mobs is that the pathing "hits" the terrain, and the engine corrects the collision by doing the "add stuff to the Z axis" and then the mob falls into place. what i suggest is that i'll go in and take a look at this and maybe fine toon the paths. are the paths stored in the map files or are they in a db table somewhere or some combo of both?

2) thx for the link to the schema page. if i discover anything interesting in my mucking around, i'll post it for inclusion.

3) i'm running slackware (linux) on a Sempron 1.8Ghz with 768Mb of Ram and 1gig of swap. this machine also runs a webservice but all teh DB work is on a backend machine, exposing a DB to teh internet is a recipe for suicide . i'll experiment with some configurations and post my results.

== stanton

[Rhodan]

THe hopping mobs are because of the waypoints in their path. Two waypoints create a straight line for the mob to follow - not just in direction but also in elevation.

If you have two hills and a dip in between and place two waypoints at the top of the hills, the mob will end up hopping. Each "step" the mob will not only move forward but also move upward to the point directly between the two waypoints.

easy to solve (as pointed out to me in a different thread). Place a waypoint at the top of one hill and the next waypoint at the bottom of the hill; a third waypoint at the bottom of the next hill and a fourth at the top. THe mob will then follow the terrain properly.

I also find it handy to edit the waypoints manually and lower the Z coord a bit in areas where there are slight or difficult to see elevation changes (everfrost newbie area - all white makes it hard to see).

[sfisque]

i've looked at some of the tools available and some work for me and some don't. are there any tools you could recommend for:

1) editing zone pathing (waypoints)

2) add/removing spawns from a zone

3) adding/modifying/removing quests

4) fixing zone points

some things i've seen when wandering around in my vanilla install of eqemu 070 and peq:

nektulos forest is VERY different from what i remember. was this something new in titanium? same for lavastorm. both zones look reskinned and appear to have new a new model. as well as broken zone entry/egress points. i stopped playing around the OOW expansion so if these zones changed thats cool. just wanted to make sure i didnt screw up something in my install.

== stanton

[paaco]

1) editing zone pathing (waypoints)
I always did in game

2) add/removing spawns from a zone
Also done in game, I don't know of any tools that will do this from out of game anymore.
TIP: Make hotkeys for updating, deleting, etc spawns to make things quicker.

3) adding/modifying/removing quests
There are some quest editors, but I never used them. From looking at the quest editors I came to the conclusion that if you didn't understand perl enough to do them by hand, you wont understand the editor either. Best way to learn, look at quests that the PEQ team has written and change the wording etc around to fit what you would like your quest to do. Thats how I learned.


4) fixing zone points
Very easily done in any sql editor. I used MySQL-Front myself but I also hear a lot of people using Navicat.

[sfisque]

Originally Posted by paaco

1) editing zone pathing (waypoints)
I always did in game

oh. i thought the pathing was stored in the .map files. does the engine modify/rewrite these files during operation? or is the pathing stored somewhere in the DB? my casual perusals of the database didnt yield where this might happen. i apologize for my laziness, i could probably pour through the server source code to find this answer, but i'm at work now and kind of bored :P

Originally Posted by paaco

2) add/removing spawns from a zone
Also done in game, I don't know of any tools that will do this from out of game anymore.
TIP: Make hotkeys for updating, deleting, etc spawns to make things quicker.

3) adding/modifying/removing quests
There are some quest editors, but I never used them. From looking at the quest editors I came to the conclusion that if you didn't understand perl enough to do them by hand, you wont understand the editor either. Best way to learn, look at quests that the PEQ team has written and change the wording etc around to fit what you would like your quest to do. Thats how I learned.

i know PERL very well, but the details of "what methods, variables are relevant" and "how to hook it up properly" are not obvious. guess i'll start searching the forum for HOW-TOs on this.

Originally Posted by paaco

4) fixing zone points
Very easily done in any sql editor. I used MySQL-Front myself but I also hear a lot of people using Navicat.

which table handles this? if it is merely a "insert" or "update", i can handle that with some creative /loc'ing in the game interface

TIA
== stanton

[paaco]

Some very useful links that I think will get you going.

Quests
http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka...=QuestTutorial

Waypoint Editing
http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka...aypointEditing

[sfisque]

Awesome. i've started putting together some newbie quests for my realm and they appear to be working out nicely. i found the PDF guide also, and that has been invaluable as well.

The waypointing looks like its gonna be a bear, but i guess anything this big and expansive is going to take some grunt work.

i have some more things i was pondering while building my quests.

1) how do you specify if a spawn is singular and should never spawn again unless the zone is reset? basically, my realm is going to be for a very small group of friends, and i wanted to simulate a real world, where, lets say, they go and clear out a bandit camp for a quest, the bandits dont respawn, because, well, they killed them. i'm going for a "no camping" approach where everything is "linear" in the sense you cant just sit on spawns and crank up the levels artificially. in the spririt of World of Warcraft, i want questing to be preferable to camping. of course, i'm planning on making "critters" respawn like normal, because there's always deer and bears to be hunted.

2) how do you mark a spawn as truly unique, like sleeper. that way i can tag a named mob like, the Frenzied Ghoul, to never spawn again once he's taken down, unless of course, i forcibly respawn him.

3) is there a way to mark recipes as "always succeed". i plan on mimicing WoW's approach where you always succeed on a combine, but limiting materials so that "desireable combines" become truly unique or hard to come by, like crafting a racial weapon, or crafting fiery chainmail gauntlets. basically i want to promote tradeskills without the drudgery of doing tons of combines just to get a success. i was planning on setting the minimums above 1, so that lowbies cant just go to a loom and craft a 10 slot haversack, per se, as well.

4) is there a way to adjust the "skill up" percentage on skill attempts. since i'm going for a non-grinding environment (casual play), i'd like to see players not have to go and cast the same spell 309023920 times just to max out Divination for level, or sitting with their back to a mob while a friend heals them just to max out Defense. figure a player should be able to modestly skill up within the time it takes to level, or maybe come up 1 shy of max.

i plan on searching the forum, of course, but getting a direct answer to a question is sometimes more effective, know what i mean?

thanks in advance, and again for all the help thus far.

== stanton

[sfisque]

secondary note:

should i repost the above questions in the dev area, or do they still constitute "server discussion"?

== stanton

[bufferofnewbies]

Originally Posted by sfisque

1) how do you specify if a spawn is singular and should never spawn again unless the zone is reset? basically, my realm is going to be for a very small group of friends, and i wanted to simulate a real world, where, lets say, they go and clear out a bandit camp for a quest, the bandits dont respawn, because, well, they killed them. i'm going for a "no camping" approach where everything is "linear" in the sense you cant just sit on spawns and crank up the levels artificially. in the spririt of World of Warcraft, i want questing to be preferable to camping. of course, i'm planning on making "critters" respawn like normal, because there's always deer and bears to be hunted.

My server is attempting to do similiar effects with quest spawn of mobs. when a player/ group enters the zone (low player numbers here, same as yours), a proximity trigger will spawn all the mobs in the zone. Once they are killed, there is no respawn due to no spawn table for the mobs. The zone then resets if the players leave the zone and reenter (for others who want to hunt there). This gives the feeling of the ldon fights, instead of camping spawns. But it does take alot of work on the pl files.

Originally Posted by sfisque

2) how do you mark a spawn as truly unique, like sleeper. that way i can tag a named mob like, the Frenzied Ghoul, to never spawn again once he's taken down, unless of course, i forcibly respawn him.

You could always make a quest file to force a spawn of the mob upon death, but in a 'safe box' area that no players can access. (off the map, or such). Then make sure the mob is set for unique, so only one can spawn. Thus no respawns will be allowed until a GM (only one with access to the mob's location), kills the named mob. This is a rogue work around, and Im sure it could be done without all this work, but this is off the top of my head.

Originally Posted by sfisque

3) is there a way to mark recipes as "always succeed". i plan on mimicing WoW's approach where you always succeed on a combine, but limiting materials so that "desireable combines" become truly unique or hard to come by, like crafting a racial weapon, or crafting fiery chainmail gauntlets. basically i want to promote tradeskills without the drudgery of doing tons of combines just to get a success. i was planning on setting the minimums above 1, so that lowbies cant just go to a loom and craft a 10 slot haversack, per se, as well.

Go into the tradeskills section of the database and change what is returned on combine failure.

Originally Posted by sfisque

4) is there a way to adjust the "skill up" percentage on skill attempts. since i'm going for a non-grinding environment (casual play), i'd like to see players not have to go and cast the same spell 309023920 times just to max out Divination for level, or sitting with their back to a mob while a friend heals them just to max out Defense. figure a player should be able to modestly skill up within the time it takes to level, or maybe come up 1 shy of max.

off the top of my head,. yes. But I'd have to do more research into what section of the emu deals with skillups. I'm certain you can change this on your side to any rate you desire, but I honestly have too much on my plate atm to look for it. Sorry for the cop-out on that part.


Hope this was of some help, even if it's not really much.

[sfisque]

Originally Posted by bufferofnewbies

You could always make a quest file to force a spawn of the mob upon death, but in a 'safe box' area that no players can access. (off the map, or such). Then make sure the mob is set for unique, so only one can spawn. Thus no respawns will be allowed until a GM (only one with access to the mob's location), kills the named mob. This is a rogue work around, and Im sure it could be done without all this work, but this is off the top of my head.

hrm, nifty approach. i'll probably investigate the quest approach. maybe have a couple "quest" guards outside a given room/area, when they die, the desired "one off" spawns. when that mob dies, set a zone global that prevents the "guard quest" to not trigger the repop upon their death. still creates the "chicken and egg" problem if i want a whole area to have "one off" mobs and then a single unique boss mob. but you're idea got me thinking about possible avenues.

Originally Posted by bufferofnewbies

Go into the tradeskills section of the database and change what is returned on combine failure.

cool. i'll look at that table, thx.

Originally Posted by bufferofnewbies

off the top of my head,. yes. But I'd have to do more research into what section of the emu deals with skillups. I'm certain you can change this on your side to any rate you desire, but I honestly have too much on my plate atm to look for it. Sorry for the cop-out on that part.

npnp. you at least got me started. from what i've seen in other similar posts, i'm gonna have to hack the server code on this one. maybe i'll set it up as configurable, that way i can fine tune it if some players find ways to "abuse the system". if it works out, i'll post it as a patch.

Originally Posted by bufferofnewbies

Hope this was of some help, even if it's not really much.

very much so, thx

== stanton