In case some of you were wondering, I DO check the site...often
It makes me sad to see what's been going on. If people are bickering, especially the devs, maybe those of us who code need to take a deep breath and reevaluate what we're doing. This is supposed to be FUN.
A note about myself: I quit playing EQ a long time ago. Ages ago. I have absolutely no intention of ever playing it again, or any similar game, as they are too time-consuming. I made the admin tool for this project because I wanted to help out, not because I ever had any intention of actually playing on the emu. I don't want to devote the time to the game. I do think that an open-source, owned-by-no-one network game of EQ's caliber (or at least its genre) is a good thing.
As for myself, it's no secret that I haven't updated the admin tool in a while. Simply put, I've gotten burned out. I'm making an appeal for anyone to take the existing admin tool and try to get it working using only the structure-translation files. I put them there for a reason; so that I could hand the program off and have other people easily keep it synched up with the database. Please, if it's gotten out of sync, would someone try it? It's only three text files, and they're almost exactly the same as the corresponding .h files in the emu source. Changing those files should help keep it synched most of the time.
In the meantime I've been working on another project that's related to EQEmu. I've always felt that, with the rapid-fire patches that VI puts out that keep breaking the emu, that we need our own client and content. Maybe the breaking is intentional on their part or maybe it's not--it really doesn't matter IMHO, just the fact that we are having problems keeping up is. At any rate, I started a program called OpenZone some months ago. It was designed to be a tool for creating zone content for a possible client that someone might write in the future. I created the format from scratch, and it's basically a 3D program that lets you place scripted objects. This makes them easily configurable; the idea was that people could whip up content quickly. I don't know if this is the right approach, but it's what I tried. The idea is there is a project file that contains the object information, and when the zone is done you export it to a zone file that has meshes, textures, etc. The file is NOT--repeat NOT--compatible with the EQ client. It's a new beast for our own client.
The program is really embryonic and still has a couple of bugs, but if people want to start a push toward making our own client and content it's a start. If people are serious about it, I can spend a week or two to iron out the bugs and post it. Beware, it's written in Delphi 6.0, but there really is very little code and it's well organized. The scripting language is something I invented, and looks most like BASIC. Though I was thinking of making some advanced improvements to the scripting engine, it is finsihed and fully debugged in its current state (i.e., it's fully usable).
As for scripts, I only created a few so far, but they are EASY to create. I have scripts for square columns (as opposed to round ones), chairs, tables, rectangular dais, a staircase, and a box. Adding scripts involves merely creating the text file and a matching BMP file for the script palette. The program does the rest. You can change a placed scripted object by changing the parameter; when you select an object, its parameters are shown, and all you do is type in a new number or use a drop-down to change a texture.
Rendering isn't as fast as I would like, but if you turn textures off it speeds up a lot (yes, the tool automatically maps textures; just fill the textures folder with--freeware!!!--BMP files and you're all set). Right now using textures is hardcoded to on but adding a checkbox would take all of ten minutes.
I also started investigating the prospect of a client. I looked at CrystalSpace, but it seems really hard to work with. There's also an engine called OGRE, and this seems to be really good. I started porting it (yes, the entire engine) over to Delphi as I can't stand C++, but I'm not finished yet. If some people want to try to whip up a really simple client, I think that 3D engine would be really easy to work with (I've converted 95% of it; I've seen all the ins and outs, and it's really elegant).
I can't possibly handle all of this by myself; I can't even handle a small part of it. I work, I have other coding projects, and I'm writing a book (yes, a real book, it's 165 pages so far). And I also have a life outside my PC
I put a lot into the admin tool and I'm really glad it's useful to people; that was the idea. I poured my heart and soul into OpenZone, but the totality of everything is just too much. When I first saw EQEmu I even ported the entire server code (1.3 at the time) to Delphi to learn more about it. I'll never do that again
But if people want to get in and try a different tack, I can contribute what I have.
Windcatcher
Come on people...
Linear Mode
