Opinion from Community

[PathToEternity]

I've been watching this thread (as well as others over the last few days) and thought I'd share an idea. I'd be interested in the thoughts of others on something like this.

How about having a very simple launcher program?

I am not a big fan of launchers, but have been rolling this idea around in my head.

We could have a simple (and I am stressing simplicity, though no need for it to look shoddy) launcher program. You would run the launcher instead of the shortcut, and it would open up showing a list of servers. The servers would list from two separate sources. First, they could be manually added (server ops can give the ip/port of their private LS); second, eqemulator.net would host a downloadable file (not just real time gathered information) which would list all the servers (as in, servers with submitted server info) and this could be updated from within the launcher (download a small text file, for example). So, based on the personal list and the public list, all the servers you have ip/port info for would show on this list.

Obviously a server which is down/not operating would say as much on the server list.

Hopefully, the private LS information can not only report to the launcher whether the server is up or down, but also current population. Thus, based on the list of servers from both the personal and public lists, we could mimic the client's server list. Of course, because these would be private LS's, the username and password would/could vary from server to server, and that would have to be entered within the client later.

This puts the power in the hands of the user as to what servers he wants to keep up with/connect to, while not divorcing him from the EQEmu community because of the (optionally downloaded) public server list.

I'm at work right now, so can't come up with a nice picture to explain, but basically the idea I have is an interface with a listing of the servers, a button to download the latest EQEmu server list (but all using private LS now), a button to manually add a private LS, and of course a button to launch the game (eqgame patchme).

Additionally, with a little more work, perhaps it would be possible for servers which use custom files to use the launcher to swap files in and out on the fly, but that is probably wading out a little deeper than my mind is willing to go.

Anyway, if this idea is worthless and nothing can be done with it, so be it. Otherwise, I have always wanted (and I think I speak for the community) to see something which allows EQEmu to continue on, even if the public LS is down (temporarily or, God forbid, indefinitely). And sorry for so many parentheses, but seemed unavoidable.