Instances and Developing Them (Not a Request FOR them)

[scarthearmada]

Hi all,

Does anyone have insight into how difficult it would be to modify P99/Titanium client for instances? Is there an "easy" solution to that challenge, or is it one of those things that would require huge changes under the hood?

I guess the gameplay/in-game change would either be nothing (zoning creates a new instance, but everything meaningful happens on the back end) or the "Agents of Change" (like on EQ Live) spawn a new version of the zone.

But how crazy are the architectural changes required to get it working?

Edit: Shitballs, I think I posted this into the wrong forum category. Apologies, mods!

[Gustoo]

I’m going to be really constructive here and direct you to live tlp
Servers.

[Gustoo]

Also, all of red is like every zone is instanced just for you. Enjoy it

[scarthearmada]

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

I’m going to be really constructive here and direct you to live tlp Servers.

I actually have been playing on the newest TLP, Yelinak. It's kinda fun. But there's too much I don't like about it. The new Freeport is awful. Everyone is talking about buying and selling krono constantly. And it feels like everyone is either in a rush, or is already going into it expecting to quit at the end of Velious and letting their characters rot. Heck, half the people I was playing with during the nearly week long 50% exp bonus event were buying exp potions for an additional 25% on top of that.

I'm actually interested if anyone has ever thought about working on instanced content on any of these old emu servers. Like -- from a technical perspective, how crazy would it be to do it?

[scarthearmada]

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

Also, all of red is like every zone is instanced just for you. Enjoy it

Nah, I had my fill of PVP in MMORPGs back in 1999-2001. No shot I'm dealing with getting ganked over a camp again. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Gustoo]

It seems that the mechanism is in place at some level since titanium features LDON.

No one will gank you on red unless you’re extremely lucky and there is no exp loss so you at worst lose a 30 min corpse retrieval if you’re alone with no cleric pals in the area.

I’ll help you out and park Gustoo wherever you and your friends choose to grind and rez as needed.

If it’s mobs alone you want go play red right now. It’s been promised not to get deleted and there is no pvp to speak of. And Getting PKd is a thousand times better than dealing with career Rmt people at every mid to high value camp in the game
On the pve servers.

Instances suck

[Naethyn]

It's not a client change so really, really hard.

[scarthearmada]

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

It's not a client change so really, really hard.

So the Titanium Client would already be ready for it, but it requires a whole new level of reverse engineering and server expansion/redesign in order to get working, to place it in a nutshell?

[scarthearmada]

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

It seems that the mechanism is in place at some level since titanium features LDON.

No one will gank you on red unless you’re extremely lucky and there is no exp loss so you at worst lose a 30 min corpse retrieval if you’re alone with no cleric pals in the area.

I’ll help you out and park Gustoo wherever you and your friends choose to grind and rez as needed.

If it’s mobs alone you want go play red right now. It’s been promised not to get deleted and there is no pvp to speak of. And Getting PKd is a thousand times better than dealing with career Rmt people at every mid to high value camp in the game
On the pve servers.

Instances suck

So the client would be compatible. But it would require a whole range of reverse engineering and server-reworking feats to get that functionality on P99's (or a similar project's) servers. I see!

I don't think that instances suck though. I think the overuse of instances (incl. phasing and sharding) absolutely sucks. I played WoW really for the first time in 2020-2021 during Covid lockdowns when Shadowlands came out. And it was bewildering having NPCs, the scenery, and other players disappear (or change) all around me while running across a zone. It was like this in LOTRO when I was trying it out recently too. I hated it.

It's all an attempt at solving a set of problems. But it feels uncomfortable. Sometimes the instances on TLPs feel uncomfortable too. But the Agents of Change instances for high level content aren't bad. I just wish it wasn't such an immersion breaking way over starting them. It's like PoK books and gnomish translocators. Literally just spend a few more hours on a solution that doesn't break immersion, but keep the same general functionality.

Anyway, honestly there's no shot that I'm starting over on Red. But it's awesome of you to offer. Maybe I'll start over with characters if Green 2 (or Teal, or whatever) launches. But there are only 20 people online on Red right now, and I usually like to group a lot. And one day I'd actually like to get an epic on my P99 characters. Or at least some of them.

(Tbh, it's this last point that always makes me think about instances. I have like 8 characters from level 20 to level 58 on Blue. And if I sold everything on my main character (mage) and everything on the twinked characters, I'd still have only a fraction of the costs necessary to loot the Earth staff off of Magi P`Tasa in order to complete my mage epic.)

Anyway, I know instances are never going to happen on P99, and I wouldn't waste my time in asking for it to happen. And you mentioned part of the reason why it'll never happen (career RMTing). But the technical side of how it would work is still interesting to me. That's the only reason why I asked.

[Rogean]

The client supports it. Almost all of the code server side has been ripped out. I've thought about working on putting it back in for various reasons (Raid Mobs, Custom Content, Custom Seasonal Servers, etc), but it would be a large undertaking that I don't have anywhere near the time for at the moment.