[Scythian Quest] The quest towards a silkroad online _clone_

[Aurus77]

Hello everybody,
Its been a looong time since I've been here. Unfortunately I no longer have access to my OG account but whatever
This year has been quite interesting and somehow I got back to silkroad online (one of those new corona hobbies I guess)
But not just that, I wanted to do something that I've always wanted to do but back then (who knows how many years) but I just didn't had the skill.
So this year I've tried again (or at least started to)

Long story short I started working on a silkroad online clone and called it Scythian Quest (a name that actually has some "silkroad lore" in it^^) . It is literally supposed to be a clone NOT a remake with new assets etc.
Actually it is simply using and reading the original files.
This is essentially a much different approach to the reverse engineering master mind florian0 and his
I think his approach is a much quicker way of allowing changes to the original game especially short term, while scythian quest aims more for the longer term goal.
I'm sure both projects can in someway or another contribute to each other and in fact I pretty much silently learned a lot from florian0s posts about reverse engineering. (Btw. you can visit if you also want to learn a bit about reversing silkroad)



Even though the silkroad community is getting smaller and smaller I still feel like this project has a chance to succeed and build up a community if done right.
You might ask why would I waste my time like that? Well just like all other hobbies - because it is fun - thats it. There are probably tons of things you could
spend your time on but sinking back into those nostalgic memories of silkroad is just really enjoyable and game development on top of it just makes it even better.

Anyway I've created a small video doing a little faq + showing a little bit of what I already have. Its pretty much my first time creating video content so
there is certainly lots of things that could be much better. But you gotta start somewhere right? And if I speak to slowly for you just speed up the video

Video

TL;DW FAQ

• What the hell is scythian quest?
  See above, basically creating a clone game from scratch.
• What is the current state of the game?
  Base framework has been built and has support for main file resources.
• What is up next?
  Engine optimziations and restructuring
• Can we support or help?
  Absolutely just discuss and share. More later.
• What engine are you using and in what programming language are you coding?
  No public engine (self written) and Rust.
• Will it be open source?
  No, at least not yet
• Will there be support for modding?
  Oh yes, community driven content is the only thing that would make this project survive long term anyway.

Other than that feel free to discuss here or in discord and for the mods: I'm not entirely sure what section this post belongs to so feel free to move it if you
think you know a better place.

Also for us devs depending on how well the idea works I will provide a list with TODOs where you can help and join the project.

Anyway, feel free to discuss I'm very open minded to any suggestion / critics / feedback etc.

[Mc-Diesel]

A great effort to make the community more active, but I think the only way to make Silkroad reign on the throne of Gaming again is to have the source code .. Good Job And keep going

[qq909047432]

The source code of Silkroad Online has been leaked, but they don’t share it.,, you must buy them at a high price

[Aurus77]

Absolutely source code would certainly help, but even then I don't know how easy it would be to make additions / bigger changes. Who knows what mess that is^^ Seems like even joymax don't really put that much effort into it the actual engine anymore expect creating new models, skins etc.
And of course it would be far far from being legal

[JellyBitz]

Silkroad Online needs gameplay like rolling back, jump, miss skillshots, gameplay about ability not just click & key.
Also more freedom about choosing races & skills, maybe adding factions instead. But clonning it like many tried before?

In short, I don't see anything interesting here.
Any real project out there to actually see your skills?
I mean, to see the commitment not only on patreon and game branding?

At any case looks like you want to remake the wheel, "a nostalgic experience" can be made with vainilla server using original files.

[Aurus77]

Any real project out there to actually see your skills?

Why would I need to show anything? I don't want nor do I need to proof my skill. Creating a patreon account is free an anyone can do it in no time, so I did. Whether people care to support or not is on a different note, and time will tell. The "branding" you are talking about is basically a logo right now. Branding is so much more than that. I've done logos for projects that were never meant to be seen by anyone and I still did it because its nice - thats all there is to it.

At any case looks like you want to remake the wheel, "a nostalgic experience" can be made with vainilla server using original files.

Thats definitely true - I am kind of reinventing the wheel. I'm totally aware that there are other ways but this is just the way that has the most joy for me personally.

[vietnguyen09]

Originally Posted by qq909047432

The source code of Silkroad Online has been leaked, but they don’t share it.,, you must buy them at a high price

Looks nice, where to buy it or who can you point me?

[AceSpace]

I really like the idea and appreciate the effort behind this project. However, it would be much better to improve the graphics rather than use the same old textures/graphics.

Providing a new improved client with better graphics is a much preferred option than cloning the current one cause as you said yourself, florian0 provided an easy way to modify the sro_client as it is and introduce new features if needed.

Hopefully you take my suggestion into consideration.

[Aurus77]

Originally Posted by AceSpace

I really like the idea and appreciate the effort behind this project. However, it would be much better to improve the graphics rather than use the same old textures/graphics.

Providing a new improved client with better graphics is a much preferred option than cloning the current one cause as you said yourself, florian0 provided an easy way to modify the sro_client as it is and introduce new features if needed.

Hopefully you take my suggestion into consideration.

Absolutely! One thing I noticed is that the client doesn't even use the highest texture resolution of their resources at times, so only that can make it look even better. I even played around with ai upscaling algorithms for textures that also seemed quite promising.

Another thing that I will definitely do is proper lightning and shadow rendering. Its crazy how the same models with just better lightning and shadow look so much different. So there is a lot of potential to improve graphics just by using a more modern rendering pipeline.

[Ferpa_]

Originally Posted by Aurus77

Absolutely! One thing I noticed is that the client doesn't even use the highest texture resolution of their resources at times, so only that can make it look even better. I even played around with ai upscaling algorithms for textures that also seemed quite promising.

Another thing that I will definitely do is proper lightning and shadow rendering. Its crazy how the same models with just better lightning and shadow look so much different. So there is a lot of potential to improve graphics just by using a more modern rendering pipeline.

any sneak peak?

[Aurus77]

Originally Posted by Ferpa_

any sneak peak?

I'll try to post something next week. Didn't make as much progress as I wanted to last week

[qqdev]

I like that you are developing your own engine. Rust is also very nice. I would do it exactly the same.

Good luck!

PS: You must be brave. Developing such a game is extremely time consuming.
PPS: What are you using for rendering? Vulkan? OpenGL?

[zlatan124]

Oh my ***, what you did is simply amazing! I am a junior .NET programmer at the moment and making my own game own silkroad ahaha was always a big dream for me. My first question is, could c# replace rust in your project? And the second what is your experience in programing?

[Aurus77]

Originally Posted by zlatan124

Oh my god, what you did is simply amazing! I am a junior .NET programmer at the moment and making my own game own silkroad ahaha was always a big dream for me. My first question is, could c# replace rust in your project? And the second what is your experience in programing?

Thanks, really appreciate it In the end programming language is mostly a personal preference. C# actually used to be my favorite language before rust
I'm not into the latest versions of .NET and its compiler/runtime but I think for game development it should be fast enough anyway so it could totally be used instead of rust. My experience with programming is now something around 9-10 years, but most of that is not related to game development or reverse engineering, so I'm definitely still a nooby in that field^^

I like that you are developing your own engine. Rust is also very nice. I would do it exactly the same.

Good luck!

PS: You must be brave. Developing such a game is extremely time consuming.
PPS: What are you using for rendering? Vulkan? OpenGL?

Thanks a lot! It certainly is time consuming but what hobby isn't right?
I'm using vulkan (although to be fair I'm using wgpu which is basically a vulkan style api on top of all graphic libraries)

[notHype*]

Don't waste your time on such a project. SRO is a dead game with a braindead community - it's done for. It's simply a game for those who have an IQ of 10 or more who can manage to open a server and milk some quick bucks.

People don't care about backend restructuring, engine modifications, and whatnot. The community will never stop playing vsro1.188 servers with a high and solid population that lasts 1-2 months. Been like that for quite a while; will probably never change.

The community doesn't deserve such time and effort.

Cool concept tho.