Message Board(s)

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by lumin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Wow, getting these to work again is a great idea.

I really think that the "East Commonlands Tunnel" and "Guild Discussion" thread should be completely closed down and the Message Boards feature should be used in the game instead.

This is one thing that I think would make the taverns and inns actually be used for something. Wouldn't it be awesome to actually see players meeting up in the inns to form groups, sell loot, and recruit guilds? I think it would beat the heck out of posting it on lame forum threads.

Amen. Taverns and Inns in EQ are kind of boring. I wish there were more things to do in them. It's "almost" fun to just sit (stand in place) and listen to non-players. Sometimes you can find quests that way (some quests work like this). There's so much that could be done to make them livelier and a better meeting place. Then again, it should all be an option, not a necessity.

The in-game message boards were nothing special. No edit command. Interface was probably slow. They don't have all the features that these forums do. So anything feature-rich would not be classic-compliant. If it was feature-rich and it was allowed to exist, it would threaten these forums and even /auction. Personally, I would rather see it stay simple and non-threatening the way it was. That way it doesn't change the game in big ways. Easier to implement too.

Has there been a poll about this? Have any of hte big names said anything? If this really happened in 1999, then I'm surprised that it's not operating. How hard is it to make a k.i.s.s message board system? Probably not hard, and I program as a hobby. On the other hand, this would require a good bit of networking code and interface work. In my experience, that can be confusing, but that's probably because I don't like to touch networking code. For a new project coder, it would be way too much.

So you see.. on the server side we would have something like:

1) Store the posts in a series of file(s) like: qeynos.bbs, freeport.bbs, highpass.bbs.
2) When player clicks on BBS, the server loads the file and sends the information to the client.
3) When player clicks add button, server runs the bbs add_post command.
4) When player clicks update button, server sends a fresh copy of the bbs information back to the client.
.....

Etc. Something like that, but I'm missing a lot of stuff. Might want to break up the files into 10 posts each or something to reduce loading time and saving time and download length. You'd want to save with each change because if hte server crashes then you'd lose the bbs changes. The amount of traffic would probably be small since most people wouldn't be using it.

If you don't already have a system in place like this, it would take a while to get it working. Almost impossible for someone that's new because they don't even know the organization of the server/client code yet. I've worked with an open source client/server type project, and it was very very confusing. Can you say 200+ project files, couple different projects tied together, and cryptic code and wondering how it all comes together? It's not easy! At first, it's like reading chinese. Several months of constant browsing and tweaking to get anywhere. Depends on the project, and on what you spend your time doing. That's one of hte biggest hurdles for a project is to find a coder that can dedicate enough time to get things done.

[LazyFuj]

this is classic as far as I can remember.

[Spud]

YES i was gonna make a thread about the message boards but i forgot.

They add some flavor to the taverns however i dont think people will be forming groups up there lol.

I just want them so i can write "Spud wuz here"

[utenan]

I remember useing them in classic, just another thing that made classic eq cool. I have not seen them functioning on any emu, and I remember not being able to use them at a certain point post classic. I just assumed that if it had not been fixed yet, then it probably couldn't be fixed?

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Spud [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

YES i was gonna make a thread about the message boards but i forgot.

They add some flavor to the taverns however i dont think people will be forming groups up there lol.

I just want them so i can write "Spud wuz here"

Right they really had a limited use, but would be fun to have them.

Would appreciate any responses about this.

Does anyone know of any screenshots of the in-game bulletin board system? I don't remember, but it was probably very simple because I don't recall editing or deletion functionality. I don't remember how many bulletins were stored (could you see posts from 2 years ago?).

[divarin1]

If it were possible to bring them back I would love it. I was disappointed when they took them out in the first place.
However, it may not be possible, when the message boards were first removed it's likely they made changes to the eq client and removed or commented out functions necessary for it to work.
On the server side anything is possible, but there may be client side code that's just not there anymore

[Virtuosos]

if they are put back in....kaladim is going to get hit hard with some dwarf love messages...


i will bring glory back to kaladim!

[mmiles8]

but I also know they were nearly never used and doubt they'd be used here on p1999 even if they did work.

I clicked on one just 2 days ago when I happened by one, I mad a sadface and moved along, but it would be an awesome tool for those who do use them.

[Kambris]

From a roleplay/immersion perspective I think message boards are a sound idea. I don't remember them in classic, but I think that's just because I never actually used them or knew about them.

They sure get my vote though. I know I would use them! (:

[Reiker]

Dudes, take 2 seconds to think about it. The message boards stopped working way before DODH. This is a DODH client. The message boards will never work here.