These are two things that didn't exist on Al'Kabor, will they exist on this project? I think most people can agree the lack of melody/autofire was pretty silly. Edit: Along with this, arrows lost in walls? Archery is very strong dps in PoP era but was killed by corner tanking on Al'Kabor, would love to see this fixed too.
Those two fixes would see armies of boxed bards and rangers hehe. And the arrows lost in walls made you have to adjust your positioning/strategy if you wanted to utilize ranger's trueshot disc on the fight. With the ease of getting a haste item (Swiftwind), an EP Bow (atleast through bazaar), and the 50~ AAs required to make ranger Trueshot DPS awesome... /autofire being a functional command would just generate groups of rangers on raids who are boxed for autofire. Same deal with bard, boxed bards on raids typically were AFK singing 1 song... mez on pet, chorus on raid, rizlona on wizards, etc. Allowing melody just lets bards function near the capacity of a non-boxed bard. I feel like those sorts of fixes would just make the server further from AK. I loved em on PC, used the hell out of em on my ranger with headshot and my bard. But not so sure I'd like to see that functionality on TAK. I just feel like it makes boxing those classes much easier and decreases the value of an actual single player behind em.
This was bought up before http://www.takproject.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=35&p=129&hilit=melody#p129. They will not be implemented here.
So, the arguments for Bard's not getting melody are more valid than rangers not getting autofire. I agree, it allows you to box a bard much more efficiently; but at the end of the day a bard running melody on 4 songs isn't going to come anywhere near an actual bard worth anything. The arguments against autofire, not so good. Answer to no autofire on mac? A few quarters sitting on the key. The same thing will happen. No autofire/melody are huge shortcomings. This project is starting to sound worse and worse with box limits and outdated features being kept in the game. To play devil's advocate, how could you ever prove if I run a bard on his lonesome on one PC and automate his twisting? Using a keystroke program that isn't tied into EQ at all, you can't.
If a GM sends a tell and no reply even tho casting is happening. that is a dead ringer. If you say have a stack of quarters on a key and you see a tell, remove the quarters and reply, thats another thing. Former is unacceptable, the latter is evidence of a "live person" actually at the keyboard in some regard. Which is pushing the boundaries but acceptable. PeQ has a similar rule even tho they are quite relaxed compared to most emu that have been around a while. If you have the quarter thing going and need to go take a leak, walk the dog, feed the kid....w/e it is safer for your future continued play to remove them when not at the screen watching. Also as far as limits on boxes. read up on the debates among players here. This is not something that the management has pushed upon anyone. We consider both sides of the coin. But in Alpha there has to be a limit due to network/code stability and real bug testing.
Well yeah, any automation while you're not at the screen is always a good way to get caught Just playing devil's advocate here. Had 5 bards on AK because melody didn't exist, if it had .. 2 would've been sufficient, seems that leads to more boxing
That's my point, with /melody you really wouldn't need multiple bards .. one could handle it, thus reducing the amount of boxes
Also have to keep in mind with what we can do is limited to what the client would allow us and that including autofire and melody. We have opcodes and such to use with these commands. /shield for warrior is one of them.
Did you guys build the server from some EQ Mac files? I had assumed you used titanium build or something from eqemulator
this is build from the ground up using the eqemu code as a base. We are using the opcodes and structs that are use to emulate the server to work with the PoP era client and that including the eqmac intel client. Titanium is an altogether different client even tho we are using the files for zones and such. I used the files from Evolution. The EQmules files were hacked to work with that era. I'm not entirely sure how it was hacked in begin with.
Fascinating, I was not aware, I had just assumed you guys were running a sort of 'stock build' and molding it to AK. But, I guess that would have no native mac client? Spiffy.
This wasn't implemented until December 14, 2004 : http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches-2004-2.html Yeah , the native eqmac client will not work with the eqemu stock build.
So, we pick and choose the things we're interested in from that patch? I know Hobart had tried to update our PoTime, and the 85/15 rule was supposed to be in effect(although, it didn't function properly .. it did work some places, and sometimes 15/85). Either way, it was supposed to be there - and people welcomed it.
What exactly are we picking and choosing out of that patch? This is much after PoP for even PC. I would think it's not really an issue.
Melody/Autofire vs. 85/15. Will 85/15 be in affect on this server? On AK it more or less wasn't. Al'Kabor got a few updates there in the last year, bringing out PoTime(And other things) up to circa late 2004, iirc. Edit: - A new implementation of the 85/15 rule has been introduced into Planes of Power zones including the Plane of Time. This should resolve the outstanding problems that occur from time to time with the current 85/15 implementation. Missed the 'new' perhaps a bit of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Edit 2: Looking through patch note highlights from the past: January 9, 2003 --> Song Buff Window ---------> AK DID NOT have this February 24, 2003 --> 85/15 Rule -----> Hobart attempted to introduce the 85/15 rule on AK in the last couple years, but it wasn't very successful April 23, 2003 --> AC, Hollowshade, Grimling Forest revamps ---> AK DID NOT have this May 14, 2003 ---> Bankers no longer take items ----> AK DID NOT have this August 26, 2003 ---> Divine Resurrection from 36 hours to 18 ----> I believe we did have this, I thought our DR was 18 hour reuse but am not positive, any confirmation? May 5, 2004 ---> /surname /rewind introduced ---> Did we have /surname /rewind? I seem to remember being able to use the /surname command. August 11, 2004 ---> Raid windows allows leader to lock/unlock raid, and put players in different groups ---> I'm 90% sure we had this, I remember moving people around Was just a sort of quick peek through the highlights of those patch notes, trying to see if we had any of the later patch items. I'm pretty sure we had /surname and raid lock/unlock, though.
Eslidor, Al'Kabor was a bit of a Frankenstein's monster as far as patch history is concerned, but the short version is this: Primarily, AK was a clone of the state of the PC game from PoP's release (Oct. 29, 2002). Significant changes beginning in the very next week or two were not implemented, such as the ability to invite 72 players to a raid (the original PC limit, and Al'Kabor's, was 60). We didn't have any of the later stuff you ask about (shortened Div Rez timer, improved raid window functionality, ability to use /surname to clear or change an existing surname). We did have some post-2002 features. Our spell data was from sometime in the summer of '03 (exact date was somewhere between July 10 and August 6). Our item data, which included LoY items, may have been slightly post-PoP release, though Time itemization was still incomplete. To that code base, Hobart made two rounds of "custom," EQMac-only modifications. The first round happened very early on, and it involved updating at lease one PoP zone (Tranquility) to a later state (probably mid-2003), as well as implementing level-based access to several locked planar zones (not identical to EQPC's version of same) and a server-wide experience bonus. In the final year or two of the server's life, Hobart made a second round of updates, primarily consisted of updating a number of PoP zone files from their October 2002 to their July 2003 states. These changes caused the 85/15 rule to start working for Sol Ro's chamber inside ToSR - the only case in which the rule was successfully implemented on AK (save for a very strange bug with HoHb, present from the beginning). He also made a few more "custom" changes, fixing a few bugs and exploits and adding in one or two post-Al'Kabor features (MGB for beastlords is the one that springs most readily to mind). When it comes to game, client, and class features, however, it's usually a safe bet to assume that if it didn't exist in 2002, it wasn't on Al'Kabor.
Stumbled upon this thread while researching autofire & your logic is flawed. AF is not OP compared to a bard melody. A bard doesnt need lvl 60,38aa,a decent bow (min. primal),a crafted arrow (pita),a crafted quiver (pita) to be efficient afk bot. Lets not forget that theres only a few bosses not corner tanked or pushed into a wall making archery obsolete so afk AF is allowed on what seru,AL,XTC?? Not sure why all the hate for ranga dps on this server,almost make me think the devs were once wiz/mnk's & #Jelly ; )
Not a dev, but lifetime Wizard player and I can say I've never been jealous of rangers. I've found Rogues to be damn impressive in PoP, but rangers (and monks) were only 'competition' if I was slackin'.
