P99 Open source

[Fammaden]

ITT: plat farming enchanters terrified of losing their monthly rent money.

[jerryR]

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

Too late my contributions are already in the files you download because I can reverse engineer a file and change the way your spells look and map out how to control effects using a hex editor and you and most other people including developers can't.

I'm not saying that because I think you're no good at what you do - just you seem more motivated in trolling people than making the game better, as evidenced by all of your posts trying to piss people off. That is why I would view any contributions in a dubious light, because the motivations seem a bit off

[azxten]

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

I'm not saying that because I think you're no good at what you do - just you seem more motivated in trolling people than making the game better, as evidenced by all of your posts trying to piss people off. That is why I would view any contributions in a dubious light, because the motivations seem a bit off

Yeah I suppose you're right, I do love to troll people. If I can troll people and make P99 more classic though it's a win win.

My motivation is actually just that I enjoy P99 but one day I was sitting around considering how boring groups were and how it was because of OP Enchanters that weren't like that in classic which was fine but then I figured out channeling seemed to be part of that. Then no matter what caster alt I played, grouped or solo, when I casted gate through 5 mobs hitting me I would just think, "This isn't fucking classic." Ruined my immersion and I'd like to get it back.

I remember trying to solo blue mobs at level 20 and being unable to cast root after 10 tries and dying and getting so mad I wanted to throw my computer through the window. I want that back.

[Danth]

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

I remember trying to solo blue mobs at level 20 and being unable to cast root after 10 tries and dying and getting so mad I wanted to throw my computer through the window. I want that back.

That's kind of what some folks are worried about: Someone remembers a singular worst-case scenario and programs an overdone system that kind of breaks the game. This has has happened before on P99 so its not an unreasonable concern. Not to mention there's always the possibility of unintended glitches--see how we're presently missing velious textures on Blue. You know that wasn't deliberate and you probably appreciate more than I do that the codebase is a twisted mess.

From the programming side you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. You put it out there to test openly, you'll have the same crowd who were pinky-swearing that everything was fine back when charm lasted full duration every time telling you it's broken no matter how well its done because they like being overpowered. On the other hand, if something's off, with P99's present low patch rate we could be stuck with "off" for a very long time indeed. Gone are the days when we had the luxury of frequent patches and daily interaction with the admins, so it's more critical for stuff to be done right the first time. Look at the "classic night"--it has some problems which haven't been touched in over two years now, and might never be. Your efforts in the other thread at trying to address P99's contribution system effectively tie into that problem to some extent so I know you're aware of it. Feels like a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Do you have the ability to decompile a PC client yourself? The older PC clients are still out there, especially the 2001-production Trilogy client which represents the specific era P1999 seeks to emulate.

Danth

[azxten]

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

On the other hand, if something's off, with P99's present low patch rate we could be stuck with "off" for a very long time indeed. Gone are the days when we had the luxury of frequent patches and daily interaction with the admins, so it's more critical for stuff to be done right the first time. Look at the "classic night"--it has some problems which haven't been touched in over two years now, and might never be.

I was thinking I might just make a poll asking people what they want fixed. It's one of the things I've seen out of talking about the channeling changes. Lots of people saying, "Why are you doing that instead of X?" The answer is because fixing channeling was important to me but I'm apparently in the minority who want a more difficult experience. It's always surprised me the staff never asks players what is bothering them to include player enjoyment in prioritizing bugs. I just expect P99 to function too much like a traditional commercial software product I guess.

Do you have the ability to decompile a PC client yourself? The older PC clients are still out there, especially the 2001-production Trilogy client which represents the specific era P1999 seeks to emulate.

Yeah, where are they? I don't know that I really want to though. I try not to use banned lingo but I used to make cheats during live so I'm very familiar with reverse engineering EQ but I'm also really bored of it. I bet there are some cutting edge toolkits that could reveal some interesting things.

[mischief419]

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

It would be cool if P99 open sourced their code and data to allow long standing issues to be resolved more effectively. As P99 was built on open source software it would be nice to give back to the community that built the emulator upon which the majority of functionality is based.

Yeah I mean - just because it's open source doesn't mean anyone will have access to push the code. Just do pull requests. I mean this is a free, unpaid volunteer project - it only makes sense to allow the community to contribute back. It's a win-win. There are pretty much no "secrets" and the ones that are secret, the community deducted already to about 99% accuracy to the point where it doesn't matter. Contributions and open src > cons.

It's ALREADY based on open source code anyway.

[mischief419]

...actually, it's GPL3 licensed. If you ask for the source code, they are supposed to pass it along: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

I was curious because I know there's no way Daybreak would MIT license the code - and if they ever wanted to use what was made as a template, they (or anyone - eg, this thread), could simply ask for src and it should theoretically be provided, according to GPL3.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by mischief419 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...actually, it's GPL3 licensed. If you ask for the source code, they are supposed to pass it along: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

I was curious because I know there's no way Daybreak would MIT license the code.

Holy crap, I never realized this. While R&N do not have to publish the database, they do have a legal obligation to publish the P99 source code, because it's based on a GPL3 project!

Any lawyer could take them to court over that contract breach if they don't remedy it.

[mischief419]

Yea minus the db - but the src + modified code, from what I read. Someone [crazy] could even fork it and make a Luclin server based off classic~ and that would be gpl3'd too. Or finally make a deserving "Red" server if they think people would join. The possibilities are endless.

However, most of all, I hope they would honor gpl3 and just simply let us fix bugs and such.

[Gustoo]

Proper pvp happens at every level besides level 60, where the game ends. Just a heads up.

The database is what P99 took great pains to correct to classic.

I wonder about the rest, though.