Making an open source server for the community

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Hello everyone,

Firstly sorry, I haven't been active here for months because of my full-time developer job.

But I leaved it, and I am now working back as a freelance developer. I also bought a 64 GB RAM / 2x XEON E5 v2 (8 up to 48 threads) / 4 TB + SSD SERVER on ebay for cheap that could be used for development and server launching, without caring about donations ... as it is often what kills a server.

I mean guys, we all learnt tons of things and enjoyed days, months, years with the shaiya branch of epvp, and all its nice servers and releases. But the problem is that it wont continue if we don't change our community plans for attracting new developers, and new players.

Here is what I propose you :

• Creating one BIG server for the community that would be official-like, with tons of players
• PLAY TO WIN, I mean I want to host the server at my home to avoid server fees, so donations will stop destroying our servers.
• OPEN SOURCE, It's still time to change our individualism version of the community... instead having hundreads of majority crappy servers .. I propose you running one BIG, one GREAT server, with open source softwares. Everyone then would be able to fork it to improve it. And if peoples use our files to make their one servers, IT IS OK if they provide feedbacks or improve our open source files.

I own the shaiya.eu domain, maybe that it could be used for adverts.

Anyway, I just want to know what do you think about it AS SHAIYA PLAYERS, Which original EP should we use, which EXP rate seems you appropriate, which features would you like to see ? and so on.
Then, what do you think about it AS SHAIYA DEVELOPERS, should we rewrite all the server side using a node.js server ? (seems to be the easier framework for doing it)
Should we use official stollen server files ? If yes, EP 5.3 serverfiles ("germany") ? Maybe 4.5 ("kr") ones ? should we try to buy official ep 6 (or 8) from asiatic private servers (as they seems to have official ep6+ stollen server files)
Maybe that we should do both (I mean using official stollen server files, while creating custom server packets hooks using nodejs) ?

There is tons of question that we sould ask before even starting a recruitment. This why I didn't posted my message in the recruitment thread.

Thank you for reading me. Please leave a message and share your opinions about it, no matter if you are a developer, a player, or retired for our community.


I wish you a good day.

If there were a "mother" server (Shaiya US) and distributor for countries of another language would be extraordinary. Some people do not play in a different language. Example of the official shaiya, has the Shaiya US: shaiya.aeriagames.com and distributes to Brazil: pt.shaiya.aeriagames.com, each player in your region.

Forget about bad English. :handsdown:

Quote:

Originally Posted by elitonfarol9 If there were a "mother" server (Shaiya US) and distributor for countries of another language would be extraordinary. Some people do not play in a different language. Example of the official shaiya, has the Shaiya US: shaiya.aeriagames.com and distributes to Brazil: pt.shaiya.aeriagames.com, each player in your region. Forget about bad English. :handsdown:

Thank you for your reply !

Your idea is great, but I am not sure that we got enough private server players for a such split, I was more thinking about distributing the game client and the website in different languages.
But if we got enough players, then yes of course your idea would be better option :)

Regards,

I liked the idea, but ... there are many private servers, I'd think it would be better to seek knowledge before

Do you want to do something like [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]?
2 years to write posts about the successes in the creation, 3-4 times to change the programming language and start again, 1-2 times to lose their own source code, and then put on the github what can be done in 3 hours? :D :D :D

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would contribute a little :)

To many selfish DEV here on elite ,

if they don't earn money , they don't join this project

i'm wit you Trayne01,,but you have to be more present this time

The idea is very good, but I do not think it will work. Keeping a server online for a long time seems to be a challenge for administrators, but that does not mean that's all the players want. I'm going to give an example, in Brazil, I have an online server for 4 years, it never had lost data, resets or rollback, are 4 years extremely stable and with a players base of 150-200 online daily. Donations are only used for items that change the character's appearance. Even so, in Brazil, players like to play disposable servers, which last at most 2-3 months. It's their choice, it's not just the admins who are to blame for this "problem" in our community.

Very nice idea, but, this is far to be realistic. This will never happen as we all know Monopoly plays a big role here, no money, nobody will join. plus not everyone speaks the same language, that's why individual official/pservers are made and not everyone has the same taste of gameplays.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Dutra16 ...in Brazil, players like to play disposable servers, which last at most 2-3 months. It's their choice, it's not just the admins who are to blame for this "problem" in our community.

Not only there. Happens everywhere.
I think 'modern' players never played Oficial EP3 (no lapisia, very low stats, ultra hard to level up, etc). So they don't know what hard work really is.
They grew playing 'instant fun' online web games so they want the same instant fun on Shaiya, plus they get bored soon and move to another '2 weeks new server', no matter what the ADM do.

Now, on topic, sounds good but, I don't know if epvp is the right place for 'open source' stuf, many coders doesn't like the word 'free'.

Thank you everyone for sharing your opinions!
I am pretty impressed by all your pessimistic visions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Dutra16 The idea is very good, but I do not think it will work. Keeping a server online for a long time seems to be a challenge for administrators, but that does not mean that's all the players want. I'm going to give an example, in Brazil, I have an online server for 4 years, it never had lost data, resets or rollback, are 4 years extremely stable and with a players base of 150-200 online daily. Donations are only used for items that change the character's appearance. Even so, in Brazil, players like to play disposable servers, which last at most 2-3 months. It's their choice, it's not just the admins who are to blame for this "problem" in our community.

I'm glad that your server is working that well with a such decent donation system :) Unfortunately servers like your can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with fewer players than they deserves. (It wakes me think about BodySalvage's perfect server with his brillant website and server features, with so few players)
And yes, you are absolutely right. The problem seems to be often players thereself. In my opinions this could be solved by attacking more players, both new and old ones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sominus Not only there. Happens everywhere. I think 'modern' players never played Oficial EP3 (no lapisia, very low stats, ultra hard to level up, etc). So they don't know what hard work really is. They grew playing 'instant fun' online web games so they want the same instant fun on Shaiya, plus they get bored soon and move to another '2 weeks new server', no matter what the ADM do. Now, on topic, sounds good but, I don't know if epvp is the right place for 'open source' stuf, many coders doesn't like the word 'free'.

In my opinion, players should have the choice between instant PVP and leveling. Some mmorpg have this feature (GW1 have instant leveling, WOW have battlegrounds, and probably more). But leveling should still make the character stronger else it would be useless, especially in the highest level PVP area.
The ideal would therefore be a compromise on this, although it could scare the more hardcore players.
It is true, many coders doesn't like the word 'free', but I'm just hoping that is doesn't mean every one.

Anyway, I will give it a try this summer. :)

If you want to face legal problems by the part of the game owner for multiple violations of the laws, continue. Sooner or later the laws apply to everyone, yes, it is open source, but you're reversing a copyrighted product. I do not understand yet why all the users of this forum do not think about the legal problems that they can face with all this. When companies will decide to start legal processes agians private servers, well, I do not think that all owners of private servers can face the legal costs, charges and all other related things. They are corporations, giants, with huge legal teams. Here we think that never will happen but maybe is a matter of time who knows.

Some companies like NCSoft are more agressive with some pservers, but I think Aeria will do nothing unless they start losing all their players base (and AP buyers). And if that ever happens will be because the game is too old and players get bored. Hell, if it wasn't for PServers, the game would be forgotten already.

OTOH Aeria has now the full original game source code, they could even reinvent the game. But looks like they aren't doing so much with it (or don't wanna spend money on more developement, don't know).

If you start a Github repository for this project, feel free to send me the link and I'll happily contribute code in my free time, though first you should define clear goals for this project. If it's something you ever plan on hosting for people to play on, then I'd reconsider using NodeJS. While it's great for quick prototyping, it'd be less than ideal for more CPU-intensive operations such as the entity update loop (which would include pathfinding for NPCs).

Quote:

Originally Posted by xNOP If you want to face legal problems by the part of the game owner for multiple violations of the laws, continue. Sooner or later the laws apply to everyone, yes, it is open source, but you're reversing a copyrighted product. I do not understand yet why all the users of this forum do not think about the legal problems that they can face with all this. When companies will decide to start legal processes agians private servers, well, I do not think that all owners of private servers can face the legal costs, charges and all other related things. They are corporations, giants, with huge legal teams. Here we think that never will happen but maybe is a matter of time who knows.

Reverse engineering the game client and writing your own server software is not illegal. The only thing that is illegal, is redistributing the game client and it's assets, which is copyright.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hronolight Do you want to do something like [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]? 2 years to write posts about the successes in the creation, 3-4 times to change the programming language and start again, 1-2 times to lose their own source code, and then put on the github what can be done in 3 hours? :D :D :D

I did it as a side project, I never intended to host it, sell it, or even open source it. It was a hobby project that I worked on every now and then when I had the free time after working a full time job. I enjoy trying different things, and I learned a lot while doing it. Few can say the same - you might talk down on it now, but until Zsoszo and I started working on reverse engineering the server protocols, not many people had even considered about giving it an attempt. We did it for the fun of learning how it works.