Everquest Server Emulator In Beta

Zummi writes: "The people at HackersQuest have released a beta of their Everquest server emulator. " Verant's reaction should be interesting to watch -- EthernalQuest looks cool, and will hopefully look better than the 1992 graphics of Everquest.

They will behave like Origin (UO) did...

When the Ultima Online server emulators came out, Origin threatened to cancel your subscription with the official service. This was explicitly written into the license agreement for the game. If you check the license agreement for EverQuest, I bet it's the same thing.

Origin also released several client-side patches which required additional reverse-engineering on the part of the emulator authors. Officially it was encryption to reduce "cheating". When I left the UO scene, it was bad enough that only certain patch levels of the client worked with the emulators, but were too old to work with the offical servers. Again, I'd bet the EQ folks will do something similar.

I've been playing EQ since April...

...and I fairly closely follow Verant's various actions as evidenced by what's on their boards. I don't think Verant is going to panic over this; they've known about it for a long time and probably will ignore it. For one thing, even if people do start playing on "public" servers, it's going to be a totally different experience from actually playing EQ on Verant's servers. Not much, if any, of the content is going to be there; basically it's a way of emulating the EQ engine. People will be able to run their own servers, sure, but without major hardware they aren't going to be able to support many players at once.

There's probably a lot more to be said about this, but I don't think Verant is going to freak out. There's not much they can do, and I don't think it's going to really affect their business anyway.

EULA

As of today, after the latest patch...


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Re:Free servers?

i pay over $100/month for lunch. i would never pay that much for entertainment!

Lawsuit? Under which laws?

I might be wrong, but it seems that the HackersQuest guys are actually european. If that's the case, good luck suing them ... since you should know that the European Union explicitly allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes ... which is precisely what this emulator is about. And not only do they allow it, but they also are very likely to sue a company who would try to prevent it for anticompetitive behavior.

It's also interesting to notice that to play Everquest, you have to buy the package AND pay a monthly fee ... this might fall under forced bundling rules if they don't allow people to buy the product without paying the subscription....

Re:Lawsuit? Under which laws?

It's also interesting to notice that to play Everquest, you have to buy the package AND pay a monthly fee ... this might fall under forced bundling rules if they don't allow people to buy the product without paying the subscription....

When I bought my Qualcomm phone, I did not get a free subscription to Sprint's digital network.

Same principle applies here. The software client is a product (from Sony), the Variant subscription is a service that lets you use that product.

(By the way, if the FCC allowed a bunch of Linux hippies to host a free phone network that worked with my Qualcomm phone, Sprint could not sue them and Qualcomm would not want to.)

It might be better...

I say this because Verant doesn't know anything about game balance. Pretty much everyone who plays EQ knows that a necromancer can wipe out a party of adventurers their own level, and can solo dragons. Other classes aren't really good at anything. For example wizards, who are supposed to be the masters of directed damage, consistently miss all the time, ok an exaggeration, with their spells.

Also because people were leveling too fast Verant made a stupid decision to put hell levels in, basically they are levels that take 2x the xp to get to the next level as the game would normally have you do when the better solution would have been to have the experience curve increase over all the levels instead of just 30, 35, 40, 45, etc.

There are problems and other bugs, like enemies attacking you through a stonewall, that Verant doesn't admit is a bug. Maybe if some REAL role-players ran things there would be more fun then sitting and waiting for an enemy to spawn so you can get one step closer to maxing your level which is all there is to do besides chatting with people. Really, chatting and killing the infrequent enemy is all it is. So it might not be the same experiance but I feel it couldn't be too much worse.
Molog

So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

Illegal

They're going to get blown out of the water. Everquest is a fully-copyrighted world where the majority of user data exists on the servers. What are they going to do, mirror a copyrighted hard drive? Even in emulation you're overstepping the boundaries of what's allowed (most emulation projects only get off the ground if the product hasn't been out for years and is no longer profitable, like MAME).

Besides, they're underhanding Sony and Verant's entire profit system. (Also, note to poster, the graphics in EQ have nothing to do with the server. They're rendered entirely in the client, with only very vague instructions to general placement of things. An emulated server won't improve graphics.)

Re:Graphics will stay the same

They're trying to emulate Everquest . . . It will look the same

(correct, afaik).

They wrote an eq server, which should have nothing to do with the quality of the graphics. If the servers did, it would clog up the bandwidth. The way this probably works (and all the UO servers did) was read the old files. All it is is a server, not a completely repackaged client as well.

although, fwiw . . . if you want to improve the graphics, crack their format (I don't have eq, but am assuming that it isn't just a straightforward known standard?) and change them. As long as you don't don't change it too dramatically, I'm guessing it would still work . . .

--

Re:I've been playing EQ since April...

Variant's server farm hosts a couple thousand players on each machine, so you are right that it would be difficult for a home brew job to handle the traffic of just one of the official EQ servers... But what might come about is something closer to the old MUD culture... hundreds or even thousands of mini-EQ servers sprining up to support, oh, say 100 players at a time.

For a hard-core EQ player (as I once was), the idea of having a private server, just for your own guild, is quite appealing.

Also, server owners will be able to express some creativity of their own, possibly building new worlds that are every bit as intersting as the standard one, if not more so.

This could be the one thing that gets me to start playing EQ again. I would totally get into the chance to play on a server that isn't busting at the seams, jam-packed with players all competing for the same spawning points. Some of the most fun times I had playing EQ was during off-peak hours, when I could go to a less popular zone and find only two or three other players there.

Re:Illegal

Sphere (formerly called TUS formerly called greyworld), Ultima Online Experiment (UOEX) and a bunch of others have done a great job of surviving until now, I don't see why Everquests emulators would not bee able to.

Intellectual Property...

First of all I'd like to qualify these comments with the statement that I'm part of the WorldForge [worldforge.org] community so my opinions are probably worth what you paid for them...

In concept something like this is a wonderful thing however reading the FAQ fills me with trepidation. Let me elaborate...

In order to run the emulator you have to own the game so the emulator can rip all the artwork and music out of the game. I'm sorry but this is just plain illegal and unethical. The /. crowd runs around foaming at the mouth for any perceived, slight derivation from the GPL but not a whimper about anyone else's property rights. This is just plain ridiculous. You cannot use someone else's artwork, music what have you without the author's consent. The developers claim that the emulator is legal because "it's 100% reverse engineered" is just plain wrong minded and and illegal really. If they used their own music, artwork I would be cheering them on and even looking into cooperation between our two projects but this just is just disturbing..

How do you expect anyone to respect the (rights of the) GPL or the FSF when you trample on everyone else's rights?

-Jason

Everquest graphics/Paying

Yes, Everquest graphics are a bit behind, but this is Massive Multiplayer game, they perhaps don't want to limit themselves to a small group? Kunark uses higher end graphics, guess what, most people still play on the original Island becuase, since it uses older style graphics, it runs much faster on lower end machines.

EverQuest is fun. It isn't the best graphics, but it has a lot of people, it's good graphics, and it runs smooth on a 24000 baud connection. (I have 2 machines running EQ behind 48000 baud connections with no lag). Most people don't realize why certain games takeoff, I think people are angry that EQ is popular even though, in their very tiny minds, it has everything wrong with it. Dated graphics, per month charges, etc.

It's FUN, and Verant constantly adjusts play balance. It's as simple as that. EQ is a graphical LPMud, and to that end, they are still #1, and untouched.

To do a game like EQ, you can't do the best graphics, because you are going to cut out a chunk of society that doesn't have the latest wiz-bang hardware, and for a TRUE massive multiplayer game (not Unreal/Doom style Multiplayer) the more people you get, with a wider range of personalities, the better.

I don't play EQ just for the graphics, I play because there are constantly people from all over the world that I have actually gotten to know over time, just like the original MUD/MUSH/MUCK servers.

When I have a problem with the game, I have a GM assist me, or I can work with them on bugs. I have to pay per-month, but I also haven't purchased another $50 game in the past 15 months. I used to buy a game every two weeks, beat it, buy another. EQ has many levels of fun, and I doubt it's going anywhere soon. To get a server up and running, and keep it running costs money. If you spend 6 months building a character, I would find it a bit annoying to find that Oh, sorry, I didn't feel like supporting this server anymore, so I disconnected it, good luck, which is bound to happen with free servers. This is a persistent world, not a short one. It's not the same as Doom/Unreal, etc. Look at MUD/MUSH/MUCKs, and how many come and go.


-- Keith Moore

Re:Illegal

This is kind of a bizarre point of view. Let me see if I've got this straight. I sell you a piece of software which you can then use to connect to my server (for which I charge you a fee) and do some stuff. Then, someone else comes along and writes (using entirely his own code) a work-alike server and says, "Hey, you could use your program with our server instead; we think it's better than the original anyway." Now, how can this be a copyright infringement when in fact nobody has copied anything? Or, to put it another way, how can Verant claim a copyright on code they never wrote, or on data of someone else's devising?

You also say:

Even in emulation you're overstepping the boundaries of what's allowed (most emulation projects only get off the ground if the product hasn't been out for years and is no longer profitable, like MAME).

This seems like a dubious statement as well. As I understand it the legal issues surrounding emulators stem not from distributing the emulators per se, but from distributing the ROMs that go with them. The ROMs are definitely copyrighted, and making copies of them is definitely an infringement. The emulator is just a piece of software, and its copyright belongs to whomever wrote it, not to whomever wrote the thing that it is emulating. In fact, MAME is an interesting analogy because, as I understand it, it is perfectly legal to use MAME with a video game ROM that you have acquired legitimately. In other words, the owner of the copyright on the ROM cannot force you to run the programs contained therein only on hardware of their choosing; you are allowed to run it anyplace you can get it to run. Why should contemporary software be any different in that respect?

Oh, wait, I know. It's in the license agreement, right? You can't use the client with any server emulator. What a load of bunk. Since when does copyright give you the right to say how a person who has legally purchased a copy of something is allowed to use that copy? Copyright gives you the sole right to distribute copies and give public performances, and that's it. What the customer does with his copy is his business.

Finally, you observe:

Besides, they're underhanding Sony and Verant's entire profit system.

Just so. The problem with the old saw about "giving away the razors and selling the blades" is that you always run the risk that someone will come along with a compatible blade and undersell you. That's capitalism; you put your product on the shelves, and you take your chances. EQ has had a good run already, and there's no reason why they can't continue to do so, provided that they have a continuing commitment to improving their service; after all, they have a huge head start on any upstart emulators. If, however, they try to sit back and soak their captive audience, they will be surpassed by the new competition, and they will lose. That's as it should be.

-rpl

Re:Lawsuit? Under which laws?

True, but were you forced to use only Sprint's digital network

Yes. Sprint's digital network is proprietary, so my phone is no good for AT&T service. This is not a problem for me, because I got a better deal than AT&T offers. (I bought the phone that matched the service I wanted, not vice versa).

There is no question that more people would play EQ if either the service or the software was free, but sales and subscriptions of EQ completely blew away their wildest expectations. Why ask for less money when you have so many customers willing to pay more?

My point remains the same, they are selling you two things, a product (the software) and a service (the hosting), and feel they have the right to charge for each.

If you don't like their pricing scheme, you have the right to spend your money elsewhere, and/or participate in the WorldForge [worldforge.org] project, which may lead to a free EQ-like game.

Hmmm.... anyone else tried it?

All of the previous posts that I have read dealt with moral ramifications, possible action on Sony and Verant's part, and the quality of EQ's graphics.

I play EQ regularly and can safely say that while I don't enjoy paying around $10 a month, plus $40 for the game alone, It's something that I've come to terms with; they don't call it EverCrack for nothing. It would be nice sometimes, to try something a little different, ie, different NPC's, different item's, and locations.

Curious, as most /.er's usually are by nature, I decided to try out the Hacker's Quest server. Hacker's quest has already gained notoriety for an app that they created called ShowEQ, which sniffs the packets and logs them allowing you to find out specifics of the game that Verant doesn't want you to know. It's pretty nifty, although it does kind of cheapen the experience, IMHO.

Once, I logged on to the Hackersquest server (affectionatly titled) Nine Inch Gnomes ^_^, I made up a new character, as one would expect to do when joining a new server. Once I actually got into the game, I noticed that everyone else started as the same race and level, in the same area.... it's a beta ok... I can cope.

I looked around some more to find that there were no NPC's, enemies, spells, or anything vaguly resembling gameplay.... underwhelming again. What did redeem this server is that they added some extra commands, that allow you to take the form of any NPC in the game; to spawn any item in the game. This was pretty nifty, I could take the form of giant hands or spectres, or try out the most expensive equipment in the game.

Verdict: Hacker's Quest has a long way to go... without any gameplay, well it is boring as Bill Gates' wardrobe color scheme. It does have a little novelty value, but a game without anything to do is not worth noticing.

Sidenote: Sony/Verant will take legal action, it's just their style. ^_^

bitpusher

Re:It might be better...

A bug is when a program doesn't work as it intended to work. The designers/programmers have explicitly chosen to allow monsters to walk thru walls. Call it a bad design choice, but not a bug.

I didn't know about that choice, I'm sorry for my ignorance. It was a very bad design choice, and the players shooting through windows makes since if enemies can do it too. Ok, so necros have been brought back down to earth since I left, which I suppose is good. The Hell levels are the result of bad design then. There is no reason for an Exp formula to behave like this at all.

Doesn't change the fact that the GM events suck and that the only thing to do is max you levels while chatting to people. I will never look back to trying to get into a group just so I could waist hours at a time waiting for stuff to spawn every 10 minutes or so just to gain a very small fraction of experience points. I believe the current average to get to level 50 now is 80 days (1,920 hours) play time. I wonder what percentage of that is waiting for an enemy to spawn? I would say probably, from my own experience, around 80%.

I suppose one could argue that this is similar to many other RPGs out there where you mindlessly fight stuff to raise levels but at least in those there was an achievable goal besides just becoming the most powerful being. There was an enemy to fight, a kingdom to restore or something along those lines that made this a means to an end. There is nothing for the players to strive for, except to be more powerful then everyone else and that gets too old too soon.
Molog

So Linus, what are we doing tonight?