EQC Dead in the Water

[Anesthia]

Not a huge surprise:

Many of you have recently reached out to me asking about the project's status, so I might as well take the time to address everyone.

Testing started on April 5th and I recently closed it on July 9th. The testing environment was very small, so our testers simply exhausted the content (I was only expecting the content to keep them busy for three or four weeks). I have recently become very busy at work, so I am not yet sure when the next testing phase will begin.

We did discover a few key things from this first testing phase. Starting with the bad, roughly 10% of users experienced an issue with the UDP/IP handshaking stage (this stage occurs when connecting to the server and while zoning). The severity of this issue ranged from an occasional problem to completely preventing the connection. We do not yet have enough data to say this for certain, but this seems to be a problem with recovering from packet loss during the handshaking stage (a number of these users were connecting through hotspots and other wireless connections). We have also experienced a number of issues with running the client under Windows 8, but I believe most of these have been resolved by now. On the plus side, we learned that our work is unbelievably stable. In the 2,250+ hours the server was online, we only experienced two crashes, both of which were due to silly mistakes (an infinite loop in the forage routine and a race condition in the PC trading routine). This level of stability for software that was never tested in the past is just absurd and we are really happy about that.

As some of you already know, I reached out to SoE in February with a partnership proposal, which exchanged full liability and monthly subscriptions for the rights to possess and distribute their intellectual property (IP). Although the deal was entirely in their favor (I would have essentially been an unpaid slave), they ultimately said no. I believe I have made it quite clear in the past how critical legitimate data is to me (there is no close; you either have it or you don't), so it should come as no surprise when I say I have zero interest in hosting a server without it. Plus, despite what so many others will have you believe, it is unlawful to distribute SoE's IP without their consent--you cannot argue against this.

Although I was not expecting SoE to accept my proposal, I was relying on them doing so. At this point, my only option for this project is to create an original content server, but I doubt I will have the motivation to do so. While I refuse to be involved with any classic-era content server, this does not mean one cannot exist under our work.

[SamwiseRed]

thats always been his stance, what is your point?

[Zadrian]

All that is going to mean is, once the project is complete, they will hand it off to someone who is willing to host it illegitimately.

[Visual]

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

All that is going to mean is, once the project is complete, they will hand it off to someone who is willing to host it illegitimately.

Yea right

A selfless act in the spirit of altruism. Keep dreamin

[scarthearmada]

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

All that is going to mean is, once the project is complete, they will hand it off to someone who is willing to host it illegitimately.

Yeahlight has said that he would rather do whatever he can to see P1999 fail than share his (his emphasis) source code with the P99 team.

[Swish]

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

Yeahlight has said that he would rather do whatever he can to see P1999 fail than share his (his emphasis) source code with the P99 team.

From what I read over there, and I'm no techie... the source code there wouldn't be compatible with the code here anyway.

People get all nostalgic for "true" 1999 EverQuest but when it comes down to it a lot of those people couldn't handle the old UI/meditate button/no item links... and such a server wouldn't sustain the crowd on the same level as P99.

Overall people will jump ship for anything if its deemed a new server..."screw climbing the P99 plat mountain, I want to go and be king of that small hill over there".

EDIT: Also, tried to make an account over there - it was never approved [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[a_gnoll_pup]

Ironic that he says it's his source code when he copied most of his work from EQEmu.

[scarthearmada]

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

From what I read over there, and I'm no techie... the source code there wouldn't be compatible with the code here anyway.

That isn't the important point. The important thing to remember is that P99 is a team of people willing to take the legal risk of hosting a server that SOE does not approve of. And further, it can't be denied that the core team behind P99 has a lot of technical talent between them.

People get all nostalgic for "true" 1999 EverQuest but when it comes down to it a lot of those people couldn't handle the old UI/meditate button/no item links... and such a server wouldn't sustain the crowd on the same level as P99.

A lot of the EQC people had a lot of fun playing the alpha testing server a few months back. But I think you're trying to speak for people that you don't know or understand.

Overall people will jump ship for anything if its deemed a new server..."screw climbing the P99 plat mountain, I want to go and be king of that small hill over there".

It doesn't seem accurate or fair to say this. There are specific things that people seem to flock to, and another group of things that people seem to avoid. We can nail down at least a few of these for certain when it comes to games and MMOs specifically. Nobody wants a classic EverQuest server because it would be, in any way, easy. Easy to play. Easy to be the king of. Easy to control. Whatever. If there is an interest in any project, some group of people will come forward to work on it. EQC has apparently come quite close, but its leadership is unwilling to finish it.

[JackFlash]

Rogean already said he wouldn't want the code anyway.....

[Misto]

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

Not a huge surprise:

Many of you have recently reached out to me asking about the project's status, so I might as well take the time to address everyone.

Testing started on April 5th and I recently closed it on July 9th. The testing environment was very small, so our testers simply exhausted the content (I was only expecting the content to keep them busy for three or four weeks). I have recently become very busy at work, so I am not yet sure when the next testing phase will begin.

We did discover a few key things from this first testing phase. Starting with the bad, roughly 10% of users experienced an issue with the UDP/IP handshaking stage (this stage occurs when connecting to the server and while zoning). The severity of this issue ranged from an occasional problem to completely preventing the connection. We do not yet have enough data to say this for certain, but this seems to be a problem with recovering from packet loss during the handshaking stage (a number of these users were connecting through hotspots and other wireless connections). We have also experienced a number of issues with running the client under Windows 8, but I believe most of these have been resolved by now. On the plus side, we learned that our work is unbelievably stable. In the 2,250+ hours the server was online, we only experienced two crashes, both of which were due to silly mistakes (an infinite loop in the forage routine and a race condition in the PC trading routine). This level of stability for software that was never tested in the past is just absurd and we are really happy about that.

As some of you already know, I reached out to SoE in February with a partnership proposal, which exchanged full liability and monthly subscriptions for the rights to possess and distribute their intellectual property (IP). Although the deal was entirely in their favor (I would have essentially been an unpaid slave), they ultimately said no. I believe I have made it quite clear in the past how critical legitimate data is to me (there is no close; you either have it or you don't), so it should come as no surprise when I say I have zero interest in hosting a server without it. Plus, despite what so many others will have you believe, it is unlawful to distribute SoE's IP without their consent--you cannot argue against this.

Although I was not expecting SoE to accept my proposal, I was relying on them doing so. At this point, my only option for this project is to create an original content server, but I doubt I will have the motivation to do so. While I refuse to be involved with any classic-era content server, this does not mean one cannot exist under our work.

You sound like you work for the fuckin' government.