Why all the Emulated EQ servers if EQ is free to play?

Quineloe_sl said:

I'd love to know why Sony EQ people dislike P1999 EQ people

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I could be wrong but we heard a rumor that there was the perception among some SOE Employees (I don't think Elidroth is among them) that we stole source code, which obviously couldn't be further from the truth. Everything on EQEmulator and Project 1999 is custom created using research, reverse engineering, and memory.

Rogean_sl said:

I could be wrong but we heard a rumor that there was the perception among some SOE Employees (I don't think Elidroth is among them) that we stole source code, which obviously couldn't be further from the truth. Everything on EQEmulator and Project 1999 is custom created using research, reverse engineering, and memory.

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Are the original builders of the emu even around anymore? The guys who first cracked the clients that are widely used. Excuse my ignorance, but I was under the impression that all the current emu servers used the work of those original coders and just altered things.

Frenzic_sl said:

Are the original builders of the emu even around anymore? The guys who first cracked the clients that are widely used. Excuse my ignorance, but I was under the impression that all the current emu servers used the work of those original coders and just altered things.

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First, to clarify, my statement was specifically towards SOE Source Code.

But to answer your question more directly, the emulator code has gone through so many changes over the years, it's not anything that it used to be. The efforts by original coders to reverse engineer opcodes, structures, etc, have to be redone almost every time there is a change to a new client.

Image was one of those original developers (He's posted in this thread) and can give you an idea of how the project as evolved.

Some of the other EQEmu devs have brought up a lot of good points, but didn't really touch on things from a player's perspective. Personally I've tried numerous times to try to get going on EQLive but it has always resulted in a sour taste in my mouth and eventually doing something else or playing on PEQ again. For me, the sour taste is from the F2P model sucking. It could be worse, but it could also be better. (There are some games that are FAAAR worse) To me, Rift probably has the best F2P offer (unless it's changed drastically since I played it ..) but I found the game sub-par and wanting more EQ . The thing I find the worse about Live's F2P model is probably the prestige gear. I made a few heroic toons to enjoy some EQ and gather some data to improve EQEmu/PEQ. But I quickly found myself up against a wall of not really being able to upgrade my gear, which is probably the funnest part of an MMO . I set out to get tier 2 group HoT gear, since that's probably the best I can get without forking over a bunch of cash each month (to pay for multiple accounts), something I can't currently do. But I'm about to pass the intended level range for that gear, which will make the content much too easy IMO, I mean, whats the point of reward without a little risk. I know I could pay for an AA cap increase so I could lock my level in (also, does buying the AA cap on a heroic toon allow you to get more AAs, or does it just increase the bottom number which would result in me not being able to get any? I'm sure this is answered some where, but I've been too lazy to actually look ...)

I have no issue with the newer content being locked behind the pay wall of buying the expansion, but I feel I would be much more willing to pay that price once I've progressed through some gear tiers, but I can't because the gear is prestige and I have no idea if I would be able to do VoA group stuff without buying gold to finish off HoT group stuff or not. So I'm stuck here with a sour taste in my mouth, not wanting to give SoE money. EQEmu has none of these restrictions, but development is slower and I already have 12 toons pretty much max geared on PEQ and they're all maxed AA'd, so I need to find something else, and EQ Live just makes me not want to spend any money.

TL;DR EQ Live F2P isn't free

EDIT: Also a lot of the servers started before EQ went F2P (at least the note worthy ones that are still up and running) and they've built communities that aren't directly exportable to live now.

Rogean_sl said:

First, to clarify, my statement was specifically towards SOE Source Code.

But to answer your question more directly, the emulator code has gone through so many changes over the years, it's not anything that it used to be. The efforts by original coders to reverse engineer opcodes, structures, etc, have to be redone almost every time there is a change to a new client.

Image was one of those original developers (He's posted in this thread) and can give you an idea of how the project as evolved.

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Very interesting! I had no idea how much coding the p99 team actually had to do. I figured it was all just editing the details. Much credit to those involved then. I still think your Gms and attitudes are extremely poor though.

Rogean_sl said:

First, to clarify, my statement was specifically towards SOE Source Code.

But to answer your question more directly, the emulator code has gone through so many changes over the years, it's not anything that it used to be. The efforts by original coders to reverse engineer opcodes, structures, etc, have to be redone almost every time there is a change to a new client.

Image was one of those original developers (He's posted in this thread) and can give you an idea of how the project as evolved.

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Very interesting! I had no idea how much coding the p99 team actually had to do. I figured it was all just editing the details. Much credit to those involved then. I still think your Gms and attitudes are extremely poor though.

Frenzic_sl said:

Very interesting! I had no idea how much coding the p99 team actually had to do. I figured it was all just editing the details. Much credit to those involved then. I still think your Gms and attitudes are extremely poor though.

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To clarify, the P99 development team and general EQEmu project are two different but very similar things. P99 has their own fork of code that originated from the general EQEmu project but the fork is more-so in the efforts to preserve only classic-like attributes. When there is code that could be shared between EQEmu and P99 there is a cooperative effort to do so. P99 is largely it's own community but very much intertwined with EQEmulator.

The perception that P99 is the alpha and omega in which is EQEmulator is not correct. It is a fork but still cooperative in efforts to share code and best practices amongst everyone. EQEmulator is simply a centralized community as Trevius pointed out that encompasses all sub-projects small or large. It is a community that takes all levels of seriousness to respect the EverQuest name and not tarnish the integrity and all the efforts we make to remain respectful of all property.

As Rogean stated, everything has been reverse engineered and continues to be at each and every snapshot in clients that we have the opportunity to do so. We don't do this out of spite for EverQuest, we do it out of the love of EverQuest. We love and appreciate the opportunity we've had as a community to be able to work on the things that we have to get it to the point we have from the sheer force of a community, it's fairly remarkable that the project has sustained since the early 2000's as it has.

To answer the EQ Dev OP's question, the thing that makes EQEmu appealing is the ability to express yourself with using the passion for a great game such EverQuest as your medium to express your creativity. I remember when I had first started 6 years ago, I was like a kid in a candy shop, that I could express my own way of how I would like to play EverQuest and try different things and use my once a passion to develop video games to have my sandbox to express my ideas. This has nothing to do with EverQuest as its own Live entity or anything to do against or for it. I had been playing EverQuest Live for 10 years with my father and real life friends.

On a similar note, I see ideas that have made its way onto EQ Live that have had no way to source from anywhere but EQEmu as these ideas were on EQEmu's codebase long before they appeared on Live. This is a cool thing! With the entire EQEmulator community's attitude of open source (Minus the trolls) it is cool to see these ideas have made their way to Live EverQuest.

It is another point that some of us on the Emulator perspective take for granted, but others from other perspectives may also be curious about is that EQEmu is not in anyway to compete for any commercial aspect of anything and that any and all efforts to remain respectful to EQ as an entity is the reason we've been able to graciously stay around for so long.

We've been publicly recognized by Smedley, Brad McQuaid and they think nothing other than how cool it is that such a thing has been able to be achieved, and it really is.

Once again, you've got all of the EQEmu Dev's eyes on this thread if you want to take this discussion in any way

demonstar55_sl said:

TL;DR EQ Live F2P isn't free

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For your purposes you'd be better off using Test. There are folks in this community who can equip any class you want with a copy across from FV- feel free to shout up any time.



Elidroth you're obviously aware from a couple of your posts what one of your biggest issues is - the EQLive community being resistant to change.

Now I'd suggest that it's actually a small - but extremely vocal - subset of the player base who are an issue. Who's that guy in the Warrior community who's always blowing off in every conversation on how our place is using shields etc ? That guy just pisses me off so much he alone is a reason not to play. I've played a Warrior in EQLive since launch and every time I resub I go around the forums to get up to speed and that same guy is still there dominating every meaningful conversation the same way he has for the last 10 years.

EQlives forums are a poisonous environment controlled by an extremely small, extremely vocal number of individuals and have been for the least decade.

So :

i) consider closing down the forums - many MMOs today do just fine without them.

ii) don't bother with class reps or at least restrict their input so one guy isn't speaking for anyone else but himself.



Another aside : the reason tanks are so hard to play on EQLive vrs emu is that you need the latest/best AC augs in every slot, so very few players actually bother keeping a tank current. Solution : remove AC from augs and just factor it into armour. You need to do something like this if you want enough competent tanks around for grouping.

The short of the long is that SOE refuses to offer what thousands of EQ fans want. So even though the emus have their problems, they are the only place we can go. As numerous people have already stated, most of us would prefer SOE deliver what we want and we would gladly pay for it for the benefits (real CSR support and the accountability of an actual company). But SOE has continued to be stubbornly intransigent.

I can see the execs in the SOE board room opposing a reverse engineered (or strategically limited) client on the basis that they want to move the company forward, not backward. But that's the type of shortsighted pretzel logic and lack of perspective that continues to make SOE a company that exemplifies mediocrity.

Arden_sl said:

The short of the long is that SOE refuses to offer what thousands of EQ fans want. So even though the emus have their problems, they are the only place we can go.

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A big part of the problem is that the players don't even know what they really want, or at least not what they need to truly enjoy a game for the long-haul.

If game developers tried to create a game that fit everyone's wants, it would be complete trash and a failure. The majority of EQEmu servers that get created end up as failures for that very reason (as well as other reasons obviously). The ones that remain are just lucky that they hit the right formula to retain players. The exceptions are the Live-Like and Classic style servers, which thrive because people already know what they are getting into before they join the server, and their content has already been tested and very successful on Live through the years. Different people have different wants and needs. Not many people want to have an experience grind or extremely rare drops, but systems like that are what make the rewards that much more rewarding. I surely didn't want to raid bosses multiple times back in the day taking loss after loss, but when the guild finally beats the encounter it is a great feeling and somehow justifies all of the time that was wasted along the way.

One thing I think almost all MMO players have in common is that they dream to be a top player that is recognized in their community. Or, maybe just to "beat the game" by attaining the best gear and completing all content. On Live, this is an extremely hard and time-consuming goal to reach due to the massive amounts of other players with the same goal and an insanely larger amount of time to accomplish it. The amount of content and the rate at which it is released also makes it hard for anyone but the hard core players to keep up with.

With EQEmu being a smaller community, that goal is very reachable by a larger percentage of the players. Instead of trying to be the top player across all servers on Live, you only have to try to be the top player on your own server, which may have only a fraction of what a Live server may have as far as player-base. Content is released at a much slower rate (in general), so it is very possible that you could "beat the game" on most EQEmu servers. It may still take several months to do so, but it is possible even for most players that consider themselves casual. The smaller community also makes it easier for most players to know each other, and to help people out or group up with them more often.

On Live, I think there is something like 600+ zones. That is a crazy amount of content and isn't really avoidable due to mudflation. I am sure the majority of those zones sit dormant most of the time. On most custom EQEmu servers, only a few dozen zones are available, which helps to funnel players together and simplify the progression path without limiting it so much that it isn't fun.

I don't think there is much that really needs to be done with how EQLive currently works. I am sure there is always room for improvement, but they are going down a path that is basically a formula of what has worked in the past. I am sure many players still enjoy how things are going, and will continue to do so for a long time to come. What I do think is that there is room for experimenting with new concepts for additional server-types, and that player-created content is the way to go for it. You can't meet everyone's wants and needs with a single server type, but you can reach the majority of them if you have several server types available.

Arden_sl said:

The short of the long is that SOE refuses to offer what thousands of EQ fans want. So even though the emus have their problems, they are the only place we can go. As numerous people have already stated, most of us would prefer SOE deliver what we want and we would gladly pay for it for the benefits (real CSR support and the accountability of an actual company). But SOE has continued to be stubbornly intransigent.

I can see the execs in the SOE board room opposing a reverse engineered (or strategically limited) client on the basis that they want to move the company forward, not backward. But that's the type of shortsighted pretzel logic and lack of perspective that continues to make SOE a company that exemplifies mediocrity.

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Although you think you number in the thousands (and probably do), there are probably not enough interested in a classic EQ server that would make financial sense for SoE, everything from coding/rengineering the client/support/patches/database structure/you name it. The dev is correct, the advantage that all the emu's have are in the end, they are not a business and they do not have to answer to shareholders. They can have everyone stop playing on their servers tomorrow and lose nothing from that. What emu fans want is probably not even possible in the current structure of how live works. How do you incorporate a 'classic' server like p99 without breaking EQlive in the process?

kudos_sl said:

Last I heard EQLive just got done nerfing damage shield power leveling. Why? What's the point? To stop people from leveling their 100th character quicker?

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Oh hell no... Tell me that's not true! What a fucking dick thing to do.

kudos_sl said:

Oh wait, it's because you want to sell level 85 characters now instead. SOE has basically sold out their game and in doing so nerfed things that allowed people some freedom and enjoyment to make a quick buck off what little of a player base they still have.

So if you want to know why people play P99 and emu's, it's because SOE killed what made EQ... EQ.

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This is pretty rapidly turning into the next #myNYPD or #askJPM

Vandyn_sl said:

Although you think you number in the thousands (and probably do), there are probably not enough interested in a classic EQ server that would make financial sense for SoE, everything from coding/rengineering the client/support/patches/database structure/you name it.

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Suppose you use a really conservative number for the amount of people that would be willing to pay a $15 sub monthly sub to play a professionally run classic progression server done right. Let's put that number at 2,500, which is even fewer than the total people that play the emu servers now. I suspect a server as described above would generate far, far more interest, but let's stay really conservative.

2,500 subs at $15 a month is $450,000 per year. Now keep in mind this is aconservativeestimate.

SOE already has an infrastructure that could help with a lot of the overhead costs of the project. The primary costs they would be dealing with would be the initial investment of building/modifying the DB, setting up the server, paying the staff to run it.

These numbers are all conjecture (and I'm sure they have changed since I was in the industry) but suppose you dedicate resources worth two CSR employees, a coder, and a producer to the project FULL TIME at the following rates:

2 X CSR= $65,000/year

1 X coder= $85,000/year

1 X producer= $100,000/year
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$250,000/year

These are reasonably generous salaries. You can probably find people willing to do those tasks for less, but lets assume you want to hire good people and good people cost more.

Now add the cost of the DB/server setup, we'll say $150,000 in resources, to the personnel costs, $250,000, and you get a first year cost of $400,000.

This means after the first year you are only making $50,000 profit, which for a big company like SOE is peanuts. However, when you consider the fact that a smart manager could probably whittle the costs down and the interest in a server like this would probably be a lot higher, it's at least a pretty safe bet.

Moreover, it's a worthwhile venture. Presumably (if done right) you could keep interest in a true progression server going for several years. After you take away the first year costs, even at MINIMUM sub levels, you would be clearing $200,000 a year in profit. While $200,000 in profit is still hardly mentionable for SOE, I think you could argue it would be a worthwhile project- ESPECIALLY when there is a reasonable chance that you could get more like 4,000 to 5,000 subs, which would bring the profit upwards of $500,000 per year.

You can always quibble with my numbers and there will always be costs I'm not taking into account, but I'm convinced it would be worth the effort for SOE considering the clear market that exists out there.

Elidroth_sl said:

One thing I did take issue with though, is the idea that we've taken ideas from EMU servers and incorporated them into EQ Live. Sorry but that's just not true at all.

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Saylinks. Or click able quest text. Although by how long it took for them to appear on live, I don't think you stole the idea from EQEmu.

I'm sure there are probably some other ideas that are similar to stuff implemented on EQEmu first, I don't think they are stolen or anything though.