proxeeus
commented
6 years ago (apologies in advance, english isn't my first language) Hey man !
Well yeah the general idea down the line would be to release this to whomever, the problem is that even with years of work already done, it's still quite a mess, since I usually do that on my spare time / when I feel like it and tend to also adjust stuff to my own personal liking.
The baseline is actually a very very old AxClassic database. I made that choice years ago because it had original CT, Nurga/Droga, Boat routes already made, and stuff like that, so I thought it'd give me a headstart. A couple years later when I saw that the AxClassic source repo had been closed and that code updates would no longer be available, I decided to port this old database over to the newest EQEmu architecture, which was an adventure in itself, since the DB schemas had years of changes by that point.
The only problem with all that, is that I was then completely oblivious to what was actually missing in that DB, compared to stock PEQ stuff: npc special abilities completely missing, general mobs attack speed out of whack, tons of broken spawns / pathgrids, mobs / drops simply not existing, an absolute shitload of missing / bugged quests (newbie quests, 'starter guild tunic' quests, whatever you can think of), merchant lists pretty much non-existant.. I won't even mention Factions. Most NPCs in that DB were on no faction whatsoever, the few who were, were on completely wrong ones, and the factions in itself were not configured (no class/race/deity bonus/malus whatsoever).
Hindsight is 20/20 but if I had known, I may have started with a PEQ stock and redone a couple of dungeons by hand, but I felt that I already invested too much to just start over, so I sucked it up and went with it.
The amount of stuff I fixed is I think quite remarkable but this will never be classic, as in, it's supposedly for private/solo use with bots, so I haven't been making 200% sure about stuff like drop rates or spawn times being top notch. Let's say it's classic-ey in spirit.
While doing this I modified a bit of the EQEmu source to implement what I call "Player Bots", which are at their core NPCs acting as Player lookalikes (blue nameplate and all). They're randomly generated and spawn in most zones, with random class/race/equipment and hunt mobs (and leave corpses when they inevitably die :P), giving the illusion that you have other people playing at the same time and that you're not alone playing a 20 years-old emulated game on your laptop (yeah it's peak sad). Cool thing is that you can target them and ^invite them, which creates an actual EQEmu bot with all those features (and their equipment), ready for use. Besides making the world less empty, I also did that to have the possibility to build raid-forces quickly while still remaining balanced (their toppest loot is SolRo questable armor so hardly anything gamebreaking), since, as you probably guessed, in that DB, the Planes/raid zones are also pretty fucked and need heavy fixing/testing.
So uh yeah, that's the gist of it I guess ! Sorry about the wall of text lol.
alimalkhalifa
Oh man, I was going through a similar process when I stumbled upon your project! First I started off with eqmacemu then moved on to eqclassic source. Spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out if it was worth developing further.
Then decided to start my own project from vanilla EQEmu source, and lo and behold found yours!
It was meant to be a project that focuses on a certain era (classic to start with since there is less content to go through) and focus on one client and polish it up.
Looking at the README, seems you had a will to share the Database, but was looking for the best way to do that. Any chance you could share it? If you wish, I could provide hosting for the database file so it is available for others as well.