We could use one. I don't know what happened to the EQMac wiki-- building from that might be a good idea if the old maintainer still has the database somewhere. Mostly what I want to see on there is a well written setup guide for new users, complete with screenshots and simple instructions. Frankly, our current guides are terrible. I was kind of hoping users would do this stuff for us so I could spend my time on server code, but I'll do it if nobody else will. I also want to write some instructional guides for data collecting on the Live servers in the hopes some people will chip in. A wiki is also a good place to inventory what needs to be implemented. (i.e. quests and such) Kind of unrelated, but would anybody be willing to host a client torrent on a seedbox that we can direct prospective new users to? I can set up a client configured for TAKP with unneeded files removed and desirable default options set. We need to remove as many barriers as possible to sign up and play if we want to build a community. Most people who would play are 'on the fence' and won't tolerate jumping through a lot of hoops to get in the game. A wiki does not have to be hosted and maintained by staff. A trusted user can host it. I'm broke or I wouldn't ask.
I think a wiki would be a good idea, however doesn't the TAKP Alla Clone cover most of what a wiki would. The forums have a Guides and Aps sections shouldn't we have a sticky there on "Getting Started" and a sticky for "Development Help". However you have to be logged in to see those subforums, so maybe put the "Getting Started" section under the FAQ forum. Is a torrent necessary, I've been using the same google drive link since December 2014 and it still allows downloads. It's a clean set of files and I've never had any issues with desyncing, crashing on zoning or UI related crashes. The only problem is it comes with EQMule's 2.1 fix and not 2.2 (which fixes the graphics glitch.) It would be trivial to put EQMule 2.2 in it and rehost it on google drive. Would google eventually take the link down if a lot of people started downloading it? Anyways PM me if you want the link.
I couldn't agree more with Torven on this. A user editable wiki would be great for TAKP specific game information, but one of the biggest issues right now is getting a new player up and running. A separate site seems like the best place to have a proper detailed guide with links since this is against the rules here (understandably). Whether the link is a torrent or a google drive or whatever, the setup guide should be clear and accurate without sending new players on a wild goose chase. I don't have any experience in setting something like this up, but would certainly be willing to contribute to a TAKP wiki.
If you're talking about Abacab's client Surron, that client has several gigs of unused files and has his character logs/ui configuration files in there. (I think some with offensive names) Also one of the goals would be to configure a client with all the ducks in a row for the best possible user experience. A torrent makes sense because it's decentralized, and virtually everybody knows how use a torrent client. If somebody wants to also host it on Google drive, upload it to usenet, or whatever, that's up to them-- but I'd like to get a torrent running.
Torven, I was actually talking about issues new players would face on the server, and I agree, initial setup is a hurdle. Currently I send out links tp the google drive downloads via PMs as Speedz requested.. Here is the link to the thread just to make sure we are talking about the right download, 2nd post. http://www.rerolled.org/showthread.php?7738-Project-2002-The-Age-of-Al-Kabor-release-date-3-21-15. So I send out the links to the google drive with a few simple reminders and usually people are good to go. But it is still a hurdle and I am sure you could come up with a well tailored client package. It makes sense to explore other options then a wiki at first. A couple of articles could be posted on the forums or a small site, maybe Shortok's PoM haha? I would think that there would be a lot of overlap between allaclone and a wiki.
Here are some of the issues I have: 1) The 'how to get the client' post (which is a long post saying almost nothing) is buried in one of our dozens of forums, and requires signing up to read. Our setup guide should be a prominent link on the front page of takproject.net and not require signing up. 2) Posts on the forum about setting up a client mention all sorts of unnecessary/obsolete things like copying over emule files which are confusing new users. A guide separated from these posts would reduce or eliminate this confusion. 3) Requiring new users to PM a user asking for a client link in and of itself is a very large barrier-to-entry. I never would have played p99 or AK if I had to. 4) The client link you give out isn't even from our project. Why should they play here instead of there if we can't be bothered to set up our own link? It's terribly unprofessional and displays a lack of concern for the user experience. Do they seriously have to edit the hosts file to point to our server instead of p2002's? 5) A setup guide/client download page isn't the only page I want to write or see written, hence the wiki. Also the wiki format allows anybody to make corrections or additions.
I agree with Torven that setup should be made a lot easier. I was trying to find the address for the eqhost yesterday and being the newb self that I am, it literally took me 50 minutes to figure out it was under the technical subforum. Even if we didn't have a wiki or w/e, it might be prudent to set up a forum category called "set up for the server" that even supercedes the "news" category.
I mean no disrespect, but MediaWiki is uglier than a cold nut sack and has a high barrier to entry both for developers and editors. I'm having a hard time understanding, in the context of the information you want presented, why the distinction would matter at all. MediaWiki is made to run on server farms and serve extremely high traffic sites. A support site for TAKP will have neither high traffic nor thousands of pages to serve. You can register on the site and create the guides you want right now. WordPress as a platform is more usable than any wiki I have ever bothered trying to edit.
Well, I like MediaWiki's aesthetics, personally. I'm not sure what all the other wiki platforms are. (although if you want my opinion of ugly, see eqemu's wiki/CMS) I've also seen wikis for plenty of small projects. Wikis also have the advantage of not needing to sign up. Also, one of the goals is community involvement, which a wiki facilitates. As I mentioned, I wanted to write data collecting guides and write pages about the tools I've written and some of the discoveries I've made that would likely be edited several times after initial publication. I was also thinking it would be a good place for stuff like Elroz's kunark quest inventory so multiple people involved can update it as they test/work without having to channel it through one maintainer. Forums or blogs don't have the appropriate organizational structure.
I an very savy on eqemu and such. It was such a pain to set up for playing here. The only thing worse than the guides, were when ppl tried to help. There needs to be multiple ways to set up client for a pc. Example: Start with Titanium. Then do steps a, b, c. Start with eqevolution install. Then do steps b, c, d. My base install was actually the Gold client. It had the least amount of changes to get going. Many ppl on eqemu have a titanium build. Starting from that is probably what most ppl need. Dont care so much about wiki's, because they tend to be unfriendly for editing. H
I got so much crap its not funny. The exe in gold client looks like its from earlier in pop, before the skele models were changed. So with it, i got eqmule's latest, and the ske models, and a set of UI files, and it worked great. I had very minimal to add, and it doesnt have a ton of extra files either, since it had expansions only thru pop.
that sounds like the perfect base for a clean pc client installation. Is there any way you could make this public or host it somewhere? I have been searching the Internet for a while today and couldn't find any sources for it, only lots of scammers. Maybe this book can shed some light into it, but I don't have the money to buy it I just realized posting an amazon link converts it to a media link and ABP automatically blocks it (just in case you're wondering wth I'm talking about)
I don't think Lenas' site would be a problem at all. Although I dislike wordpress it seems like it can do a very good job of what you are looking for Torven. IMO though Lenas you should edit the css and remove the entire "Meta" section on the right hand toolbar. That will make it look a lot less wordpressy. I created a user and signed in and was immediately able to start adding Categories, Articles and edit existing ones. I think there should be some type of access system where a user posts here that they want wiki rights and then Lenas creates an account for them. But sign in Torven poke around, give it the go ahead and I'm sure people wouldn't have a problem adding guides.
I think there is a misconception here of what WordPress is and what it's capable of but that's okay. The theme I am using has nothing to do with blogging, it's made completely for Wiki type information. As far as styling, links, etc, well give me a little break... this thing is less than 24 hours old. This is certainly possible, but I left user registration open specifically because it was supposed to be wiki style where anyone can contribute. I've customized the default user role to only be able to write and edit content, same as they would on a wiki. If people had to wait for me to manually create or activate their user, they might be less likely to contribute.
As it was, all skele looked like they had cloth gloves and shoes on. I just grabbed something that worked. I didnt care.
Does anybody have a better Velious UI than this? http://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=6313 Or a better Vert UI than this? http://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=6315
I have one that i think is a combination of power of two and some remelio components. It has the huge casting buttons for us old foggies whose vision is going.
Ok, I have a 'release candidate' of sorts for a polished windows client. I need people to test it and provide feedback. Here is how I configured it: Virtually all unnecessary files removed. No zones beyond PoP. Client size is 2.06 GB. All character files, logs and client settings deleted. Client is about as clean as it gets. EQMule 2.2. (nVidia glitch fix) msvcp100.dll and msvcr100.dll included from the Visual Studio 2010 x86 redistributable package (required for EQMule hack), eliminating the need to install it. UIs included: Luclin Default, Power of Two, Vert. All UIs made fully compatible; no more red UI error text when zoning. Missing strings added to eqstr_en.txt. readonce.txt edited. eqhost.txt of course points to TAKP. eqclient.ini is completely default save for: Velious armor textures enabled. Alliance chat autojoin. Keymaps for WASD, auto attack = q, duck = x. Target Group Buffs turned on. ShowAlarmWindow set flase. Anybody who wants the client to either test or just to play, PM me and I'll give you a link. Don't worry about making conversation-- 'client link please' will suffice. I need people to check for problems of any kind. Any imperfections. Suggestions for things to include or default settings to set are also welcome. I did not include a Velious UI because the ones I found were simply not of sufficient quality and fixing them was not a trivial endeavor. The Vert UI however is from an old 2002 archive and I added the few things that needed to be added to make it fully compatible, so it looks good and runs well. Please test the UIs. You'll have to '/loadskin <UI folder> 1' to load them as the options window UI loader button doesn't work.
It ran fine for me but I have some experience setting it up. There are a few things that may improve the the setup experience. I think the most challenging part of getting running is setting up the UI windows into something that isn't totally unplayable. I also play on 1600x900 (goofy laptop resolution) rather than 1920x1080 or any of the default options, so I can't set the resolution in game and need to modify the eqclient.ini manually to do this. If it was possible to include a single character file (e.g. UI_PutNameHere_loginse.ini) that had a semi-coherent UI set up for both of those resolutions (or some of the most common ones) and some of the character settings cleaned up it would make setup a lot easier once the game is running. Another issue that I run into is that the game doesn't recognize all of my ram, so I can't enable any Luclin models in game. I need to go into the eqclient.ini file and set this manually. The Raid and Help windows both appear by default and both appear to be broken. If possible, these could be closed by default. I'm thinking a readme or setup guide would be great to include with some of the better tips for getting up and running (.txt / .doc / .pdf / whatever). These would mostly be optional steps since the client should be ready to play, but would greatly ease the transition into classic EQ which can be a hassle to get running comfortably. This could be in the zip but outside the TAKP folder, and could also reference links back to TAKP and possibly boxing tools, new player info, etc. I guess my point is that if we want a complete, easy to use package, a little more adjustment to make it immediately playable and a one stop shop with setup and running guide might be worthwhile. "Download this, follow the instructions in the PDF."
Was able to download & extract files to my PC desktop. Did have to read Yinn's post in "PC Client" to figure out how to actually get it to work. Is so very odd to see the server screen again ! eqw.exe Was not able to get into testserver with this, though I did try checking the box. Agree with Dranthor's suggestion of a "Download this, follow the instructions in the PDF."
Also have downloaded and tested PC client. Small file size and very easy setup. The initial splash screen is a respectful and professional addition. This client package represents the server well. Once the PC setup guide is up I will bump our thread over on P99 OT. Others should link to other gaming communities that they participate in.
Can we also get lenas' site added to a few places on the forum, or on the website portion itself. Having it be very prominent is important to easily guide new players to the client dls and instructions.
This client is definitely a little different than the one I normally use though so there are some minor differences. Nothing that seems to be a problem except some oddities with the UI. I didn't find anything totally wrong or broken with the UI. They would be fine I think. However, the vert ui definitely has a strange set of items in the hotbutton window. The inventory clickies seem totally random, as do the gear slots. The inventory slots (numbered in the order things autoloot, or that food is eaten) are 1, 5, 6, 8. The items are right ear, face, arms, right bracer. Range, ammo, primary, and secondary are also there and make sense. In comparison, the vert version I currently have running has all stats (only resists show here), items, and inventory slots (although I'm not actually sure what version of vert this is since when I tried to copy vert from my client to this one it doesn't work the same). Maybe the vert issue is due to the client? I was able to log onto the dev server fine with this client. I'm going to do a fresh install and write up a simple step-by-step to get the game logged in. I changed my mind about the UI since there are simply too many possibilities and personal preferences. Instead I'll give a tip that setting the UI up at the start as best as possible is worth the time. Then also how to copy this to other toons. I agree with Sketchy, even if we don't call it a DL link can we call it a "wiki" in a setup guide ? The wiki site is unaffiliated.
