Dawn of Light

Im working with most of the dol members now above 10 years but latetly i have more and more the feeling dol splits. At these days most admins start their projects and bury all their work with their project.

I dont want say dol is crap i just want tell to the particular dol members share stuff you do its not only to help dol project at one day you want come back and your work is saved in the project,

Please please help dol grow couse dol is the most amazing project of hobbyist and freetime scripters on the most amazing game in the last 20 years. Dol is allready nice but only if we hold together we can stay that nice think on it we all have the same target.

To be honest, it never was different. I wished it would have been.

I can't count the times we tried to find fair solutions for that situation. Its just not easily possible. Examples of ideas are "Supporting servers" section and credit points for sharing code or database (which was never realized). Somehow its inherent to the free server scene to have and keep an edge. Its not only the case for DOL. Its a competition around numbers of players since MMO's can only really work if they are "massive".

DOL currently has one developer with real dedication (in my opinion) and that is Leodagan. It would require some more of this type of dedication to bring DOL into shape and even more to investigate, test and correct all wrong formulas & server mechanics. Another problem is that DOL has a "moving target" in form of DAoC which changes in every patch. So what is it that DOL should provide? Which patch level should be taken to implement formulas? Should DOL implement each patch level and let owners choose? That complicates things even more.

I would say from my personal point of view that DOL should be seen as a raw gem that has to be polished and cut by server owners to fit their vision. Its not an out-of-the-box software which you can start and have full DAoC without further effort. We have seen over the years that DAoC has transformed alot, even more in recent times. Each admin has to define for himself whats the goal of the server, whats his audience and work (hard) towards it.

And even if that additional effort (polishing the DOL gem) is to be shared back there will be difficulties to integrate the changes back into existing code since they target a different version/goal or code base changed so much that its nearly impossible. Thats why Leodagan works more on the framework side than on formulas for example.

Lets see if Uthgard can revive the interest in DAoC emulation. That can be good for all. I did not expect that there were still that many DAoC players on the side lines waiting to play on a free server.

Very true but i posted more couse if you do an own server why you dont do first the fixes that are livelike (that are part of your server target) share it and then do your server based stuff.

Couse i for example doing that way atm even if it still takes alot of work^^

But anyhow about the patch state the problem is dol never targeted a patch state so they have nothing done but fragments from every patch.

Dol would progress much better if they would pick and state like 1.113 and focus it til ites done so they can really ''Patch'' as lives did.

Thanks Blue for your clear explanation, I hope Uthgard will draw some new blood to the project !

It's right that I do not focus on game mechanics in most of my developments for multiple reasons :

- Too much debate around game mechanics depending on the targeted server play style / goal / patch level (Classic Style, ~1.109 patch level, latest live-like...)
- A lot of testing is needed to make sure there is no regression and no glitch in the mechanisms, we don't have much testers around to target new features regularly, and doing it myself is longer than even coding the mechanics.
- DOL Framework is pretty old (if we can call this a Framework) and it's not modular, Game Server Scripts are not really the ultimate answer and mainly allow shard admin to store their code apart from the official Repository, so I'm pretty sure that future development will change this Framework and make most newly developed game mechanism obsolete sooner or later.


@ PlanarChaos :

What you are asking is an "Asset Manager" for your World Content, mixing code sources or scripts from different people is not a hard task in development, there are a lot of tools and workflows meant to bring customized software to public, but when you want to mix data you're targeting a different kind of problem...

There is not "One True Value" for the database content, for most of the In-Game Content you can't reliably target data records with a unique field (NPC's, Mob's don't have strong identifier, same for items, loot lists, merchants list...), some of the database values will depends on your specific server properties (Keeps Config, Specific Skills, Some Mob AI Behavior) and if you distribute the data without giving the according server properties switch you will probably see some complaints

For example you want to distribute a Mob or NPC, you need to give NPCTemplate record, make sure it doesn't collide with other identifier in database, with this NPCTemplate record you probably need a NPCInventoryTemplate to display correctly armors and weapons, then you want this Mob to be lively so you want him to self buff and use style which you need to make sure that skills exists in the targeted database and the server properties are set correctly to handle this, and lastly you will encounter bugs if you don't enforce some values (like weapon holding hand) to work around known DOL flaws...

And some weeks later I could Fix some of these bugs, and you'll have to change the data record again because you don't need ugly workaround anymore


The purpose of DOL is to provide an open source implementation of the DAoC Client Protocol, with as much features we can reverse-engineer whichever client version you want to work with, I don't see why we should target any game patch or common goal with about 3 or 4 active contributors that can't reach to even maintain a "Game Server" aside from working on code

Absolutly true leodagan but that wasnt what i tried to say ofc npctemplate can be used for make mobs casting spell and you need find your own way to remove combat timer from mobs so they can cast in combat and someone make work script proper and you need redo it thats all correct.

The main reason for my post was :
16 servers fixed so far dragon items to be fully livelike same as dragonslayer bot noone of em shared em so i mean if you you fix your db stuff please share it so your work dont get lost and is saved up in community ofc changes may be needed but items dont have to be redone again couse the base is allready in db.

Now directly to you Leodagan:
You allready found a way to make housing specific npcs only realm based like make able mid place apprentice merchant with only mid items without alb h ave ever the chance to get same items from that merchant by having its own version couse on my server work it broke my brain i tried 16 ways to solve it without change code but if i would it wouldnt merge with dol anymore so i dont.

I don't remember touching anything in Housing...

I'm not even knowledgeable enough of the original game to understand what the housing mechanics you're describing are used for (I left the game before ToA)

And for the Content of Freyad it's frozen for years, so maybe someone in my former team fixed what you're describing as a problem, or maybe the old revision of DOL running there with a pretty much outdated public database didn't have the problem to begin with...

I just made a huge post to explain I'm dedicated into fixing and improving the game server Framework and you come at me for fixing merchant realm or game housing mechanisms ?

You're not helping there...

You should try to explain clearly what you need, and give example of what results you expect, if you believe I play this game mindlessly for 15 years knowing every skills every items you're wrong, I'm just a computer enthusiast that work on DOL to keep some nostalgia alive from an old game I played 2 years in my life

There was no ofense even if it look cleary like you felt some.

I just asked that is all.

But if you want know the issue i can xplain:

You can buy lot it offers you houses (based on realm n such) but now in the house everything goes wrong like:
You buy an apprentice merchant and you place it he get gambled from 3 versions you cant make it possible to have realm specific versions that sell only hib craft mats for hib....

Basicly housing never changed since public db1 following issue still exist:
Not possible to define a realm based hookpoint merchant list not able to place more then 4 vaults to an house that should allow 8 and not able to use an omni teleporter (1 item 3 diffrent npctemplates)

The teleporter is same issue then merchant its necesarry to create an script that ask for item realm and only place npc of same realm if npctemplate have multible entries with diffrent realms.

This is partially fixed on my db

Im using a mix of yours minimouse dol pub db and sniperwolfs (if he was called so ) even a few aspekts from whiria dbs)

But thanks for response i gonna check if anything changed since i downloaded yours a few days ago^^

...

Blue absolutely nailed it.

The purpose of DOL is to provide an open source implementation of the DAoC Client Protocol, with as much features we can reverse-engineer whichever client version you want to work with, I don't see why we should target any game patch or common goal with about 3 or 4 active contributors that can't reach to even maintain a "Game Server" aside from working on code

Also nailed it. No surprises there from two very astute and capable people!

To add, specifically to Leodagan's words; part of the difficulty in uniting people around a common goal is that DAoC doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Some played only for RvR, some for PvE, some left before SI and some left after Darkness Rises. The style and focus of the game-play has shifted dramatically in this time, and a team trying to emulate that first has to agree on what that definition is. That's part of* the success of Uthgard.

Leo says it best:

The purpose of DOL is to provide an open source implementation of the DAoC Client Protocol

It's the only thing that means the same to everyone.

*only part of - do not underestimate the extreme effort and devotion that has gone into that labor of love. Congratulations on a very successful launch and I wish you all the best for your hard work.

That is completly true Dinberg besides of the part that everyone have a diffrent understanding of daoc couse it have nothing to do with the thing i wanted to point on (ok yeah i even grabbed a offtopic part on the housing for example too but its something that got fixed multible times allready too and isnt still in public db). For sure we all have an diffrent idea on daoc but that dont change the thing all servers after an specific patch need same stats on a few items and no matter if your server stay for a while or long as uthgard other peeps need such stuff too and so it would be wise to share it couse:
I did si chests once then due to an fatal hard drive error i lost all my work but couse it still existed on dol forum / community i dint had to do it twice and some peeps even used it so everyone won that need those items.

So in short words: if you fix anything share it please couse at end it can even help you not only others like me example shows.