DCEmulation

I was talking with Syn yesterday about this subject. We both play GC PSO over at l33t serv and we think it has much to offer to the GC PSO community. We thought that it would be a great idea to merge both servers and make the ultimate PSO experience.

Sylverant is the best for previous versions while l33t brings many quests on its deck for the GC versions. The staff over there seems friendly enough and Syn believes they wouldn't mind joining forces with Sylverants server staff.
Besides all this, it seems they are working on a possible ep. IV port to the GC! How awesome is that heh?

What do you guys think? Wouldn't it be awesome to have the best of both worlds working together thus gathering the remaining PSO community even closer?

First of all, it all boils down to what their staff/administration want to do. I certainly wouldn't mind discussing things of that nature (after all, Sylverant was started by basically merging my fledgling test ship Iselia with Vega from DCT and the community behind PSO Palace). It would be more of a question of logistics and how we would work such a thing out, really.

I'm assuming that l33t doesn't use the Sylverant software. I think that they were using some version of Fuzziqer's server software, if I recall correctly? The two pieces of server software aren't directly compatible with one another, and Sylverant is probably a bit more difficult to configure (although, it also has many features that work reasonably well with their default settings or other features that work only partially-configured). Another thing that's a bit more tricky about Sylverant than Fuzziqer's server is that I don't distribute binaries of Sylverant, mainly because its still relatively constantly being updated. Its not particularly hard to build and all, but it is relatively undocumented (partially laziness on my part, and partially lack of time).

I don't know much about l33t, other than the fact that it exists and that they cater to PSO for GC (yes, I knew both of these things PRIOR to this thread). I'm not sure what their policies on various things are, and whether or not they'd mesh with those at Sylverant. Some of Sylverant's policies regarding PSO for Gamecube may well not mesh with how they operate over there (mainly regarding the requirement to register to use PSO for Gamecube on Sylverant to guarantee a unique Guildcard number for each Gamecube user).

If the administration at l33t wants to speak on such a subject, let them know I'm open to the idea. They are welcome to contact me if they want to discuss it.

Sylverant supports GC already, if quests is the only reason then you can simply ask for the files, make your own quests or even use the ones available online, in this last case you may have a nearly functional quest, but it may be better then starting from scratch.

I get the idea and it isn't a bad one, problem is, both entities will have to work things out and as far as the rules go, no disrespecting authority is one, trolling punishment here and there are different, hacking related punishment is also different, both are ok by me, but you can't have them both at the same time, one must be chosen and that's up for the administrators to discuss.

Some players don't seek features, they seek a place to play, excluding some versions (bb and xbox) players will simply pick the best they can find, merging 2 servers is a nice idea, because it will add players and ppl will have a place to stay, but if the rules change one way or the other that will be enough for players to flee, yes there are ppl that like (in a blind matter) 2,3,4,5 versions of the rules, but you can't guarantee that for your friends, they think with they're own head and that's not something you can control as easily.

If they feel that they lose benefits then the merging will cease and it wouldn't be all that great having a merging that lasts a short amount of time, similar to a "test drive".


Trust me, most will be silent on the matter.

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I don't see how the "rules" would be an issue at all. More important than that is keeping everyone together and approach server developers to each other so they can interact, learn and share knowledge to ultimately improve the server.
I believe that rules should ONLY be discussed between the ships admins and set accordingly to each ship's owners taste, really.

I understand that, you agree with anything really.

like i said
"but you can't guarantee that for your friends, they think with they're own head and that's not something you can control as easily. "
Yes it will be discussed between the admins, but they are all different ppl, i don't know what will they agree.


That is hard.
Both servers work on different speeds, sylverant already has a ton of features but the server only progresses thanks to bluecrab in the most part, many things such as events on specific ships didn't happen because there is a certain lack of interest, leetserv has a lot of potential and the admin has lot's of ideas and really wants to go forward, the donation system is a nice example, with the right ppl to oversee all transactions, but on a lot of issues i personally felt that things were running slowly from the beginning, there was no real discussion between the gms and basically no one knew what to do, it took me several PMs with questions and situations to actually even draw a set of guidelines that i enforced when i was a gm, it felt a burden, i eventually got to know things but it took time, A LOT of persistence and A LOT of chatting.
Sharing ideas, questions, situations all seems great right? but on practical terms with so many ppl, GMs, mods, admins it will become hard to transmit the idea to everyone, this forum can be useful but there are things that can't be discussed publicly, not because they are bad but because they are private.

Is there room for improvement? sure, a private GM/Mod subforum would do i guess, that may help when transmitting the ideas to everyone.
Just my opinion.

What can i say, i have one.

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Now the first thing that came to mind was sylverant and L33t...


anyways I would love more activity on the server have it bustling with people.... then again... I am one to talk... how long did it take me as a gm to play on the server actively *cough* 2 years *cough*


Rawr!

While I respect all the work and development done here so far (Blue Crab, I tip my hat to you for all that you've done here and with PSO in general), I must respectfully refuse any merger between the 2 servers. It's not that I have anything against Sylverant, I just don't think it seems prudent to merge.

Of course I wouldn't be opposed to working together on a few things every once in a while. Perhaps in light of the Olympics we could have a PSO Olympics, which I'm sure Larva over at Ultima BB would be interested in joining such an event too. Of course these are just examples of things we could do and such.

At any rate, I woke up from a nap and saw a few messages in my PM box on my forums about this and figured I'd come here myself to make sure nothing happened. (i.e: Communication errors, false info, nuclear holocaust, etc.)

Well, I think that's about it. See ya everyone and keep up the good work on Sylverant.

~Kroniedon~ L33tserv PSO Head (or High King now I guess as I changed all the staff titles to reflect Germanic/Norse/Skyrim titles because I was bored. =P )

Count me in!

Since Kroniedon decided to join the discussion, I'll post my two cents as well. I also figured a merger would be relatively pointless at present, seeing as Kohle's software provides adequate features for GC players, and there is little reason for him to want to merge with a server that primarily caters to people who can't integrate with his player base; however, such a merger could theoretically be useful in the future.

Since BlueCrab is still actively working on the Sylverant software, new features that GC users could find useful enough to warrant a software change could still be added. The most likely addition to happen in the near future would be the GC implementation of the server-side drop system, which would enable GC to have variable drop rates for events the way BB can. Future features that have been discussed but aren't likely to happen nearly as soon would possibly include a common bank to transfer items between characters, full Ver.2-GC compatibility in Episode I, and Episode III support. Should any of these features come to fruition, they might provide enough incentive for Kroniedon to switch software, since Kohle no longer maintains his. Perhaps BlueCrab and Kroniedon can discuss joining forces at that point, but until then, we can each continue to do our best to support our respective player bases.

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"Fear the HUnewearl."

Many players are only interested in a place to stay and play, features may draw some players but may "scare" others if a merge happens.
(this because the rules would have to change slightly)

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You don't know when to stop do you? You've been banned or rushed out pretty much from every PSO community around and you still keep coming back.
The RULES ARE SET and they're NOT changing. How difficult is that to understand? God dammit dude.

Whoa! He's not asking for the rules here to change. He's merely stating fact that the rules for Sylverant and l33t aren't exactly the same. They're pretty similar, especially since a few things (the list of approved mods) don't actually apply to GC since none of them exist there, pretty much.

Its all good. I figured this wasn't an idea floated directly by the administration, and thus was just a user suggestion.

Cooperation is of course always welcome. We should get together and discuss things in the future to see what fun stuff we can come up with.

Thanks for your input on the subject! Perhaps one day in the future, as Aleron Ives suggests, it may be more prudent to have such a merge. I can certainly understand the reasoning not to do so though (especially since our community does tend to mainly focus on v1 and v2).

Btw Kroniedon, could you explain us how are you planning on porting ep. IV to GC? You discovered a way to port maps and items? Will the bosses be included as well? How's the process? Just curious. Thanks in advance.

Haha, not even that would sway me over. I guess it's little known at this point, but I'm only using Kohle's software as a temp measure right now until I find the time to really get to work on my new software. It's a Java based server so that it can be ran on just about any OS, in case server funds run dry and I need to switch our VPS over from windows to linux etc etc. It'll only support GC though, except for PC.v2 lobby support so that I can moderate while I'm away from my cube.

As far as server sided drops go, that's a feature I really don't want to see added to my community. As I'm sure you all have noticed, the PSO community (excluding BB) are very very fickle when new features are added. If server sided drops were forced on my community, several people would genuinely love it... but at the same time, other users would hate the fact that I forced something upon them without taking their play style into consideration, thus a lot of PSO drama would ensue ultimately ending with a split of the community, some users who felt betrayed, and a much smaller community. I'm not saying it's a bad idea by any means, as several users would love to see that feature added in. I just don't feel that it's right for my community, as it violates my ethics of player choice.

However, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand on the project if you'd like, just I myself wouldn't be using it. It seems like it wouldn't be all that complicated, depending on what you'd want to do with it. If you wanted one universal drop chart, just pick a section ID to use across N,H,VH, and Ultimate, edit an ItemRT.gsl file to remove all other section ID info, edit the server's section ID to your liking then path the files to be drawn from both the party leader and the server. Theoretically that would either work, or one of the drop charts would take precedence over the other or just cause one big confusion loop and you'd get no drops at all or an FSOD. You could always force them to drop like Schtserv does for PGF from Olga Flow, though admittedly I don't much about that as I haven't actually seen the code behind Schtserv and I sincerely doubt that I ever will.

Anyways, since I don't want to force server sided drops onto my community, what I'm doing instead is releasing a 2 part expansion pack for download. Disk 2, or .gcm 2 will be a mock ep.4. It's basically just a reskinned ep.1 with the map files being replaced with the map files in ep.4 and some of the enemy data being ported around, along with the BB items. Admittedly, I will have to replace some of the items in existence for it to work, but that shouldn't be too big of a problem as there's plenty of useless items such as the proof of sonic team. Disk 1 will be a patched version of Ep.1 & 2 to accommodate the new changes. There may even be a 3rd disk with new section IDs and a few other new weapon idea's I've been playing around with, such as a gunblade. The most that I've really been working on this is the Mr.Ninja event I have going on over at my server which sports a new drop table for anyone who joins a game that Mr.Ninja is the leader. I haven't had much time to do much else.

A server sided common bank would be something that I'd be interested in launching inside my community and a feature I plan to work on. The way I see it, there are 2 real viable ways of doing this. In both ways, you'd need a database tied to the server. Now for the first option, set the database to organize by Guildcard# and put the function in the login menu. I guess the best example of this currently is Chaos's recovery server, which if I remember correctly saves the data of the item you recovered to the user for faster recovery later on.

The second option I see would be to make it in the form of a quest. The only problem I'd have with that is writing from the client to the server, which admittedly, I haven't figured out how to do, but maybe you all have?

Again, I'd be more than happy to offer my help here if you'd like it, but quite frankly my database skills suck.

As far as v.2-v.3 cross compatibility goes, I'd rather not delve into v.2 too much on my server. I'd like to focus on just GC. As far as I'm concerned, Sylverant is the authority on v.2 in the PSO community and I'd like to keep it that way and not encroach on any of your territory. Again though, if I can be of assistance, don't hesitate to ask, as I'd be more than happy to lend a hand if I can to help out the PSO community.

With Ep.3 support, I'd very much like to see it in full operation, and I was toying around with it the other day.. but it's hard for me to develop without an ep.3 disk xD. I'm actually waiting on one to come in the mail sometime soonish. I had an Ep.3 staff once upon a time, but I had to close the project due to the staff. I was just a college music ed. student at the time with a 24 credit hour schedule. The Ep.3 staff wanted to whine incessantly about how terrible the forums looked (which they really did look like crap at the time because I had no time to really fix it up looking nice) so after a particularly taxing day on me, I closed the project on the spot and fired all of the staff except for Kayak. Once I get the new software built, I'll try working on Ep.3 again, after I speak with Kayak of course and invite him back into the project. If you'd like to pool info about it or work together along side with us, that'd be more than great.

Anyways, I apologize for this being such a long post. I just wanted to make the point that I don't consider Sylverant a rival to us, and that we don't wish to be seen as a rival to Sylverant; that we're just 2 servers working towards the same goal. Rather than being rivals or a big ol' merged server, I think an alliance would be a benefit to us all.

The way I see it, the more server options, the better. With V.2 and V.3 we have something that BB doesn't have. We have the power of choice. The more choice the player has, the more interest they are in playing the game. That's the concept that I've built L33tserv PSO around. If it holds true, then that means if the benefit of choice outweighs the perks of BB, we may just see a revival of the console versions. The only way that the benefit of choice will be the end winner is if we all work together for the common good of the PSO community as a whole. That entails diversity in our projects and diversity of our features to allow the player to have choice in the way they want to play. We can help each other with these projects as friends, not as rivals who want to see the other capitulate before them.

I would never agree to a merger... but I would more than gladly accept an alliance and a partnership should you wish to accept my offer.

~Kroniedon~

Also, I was writing my last post since 8am, so I apologize for not taking any other post past 8am into consideration in my last reply.

only been banned from 1 place, continue like that and i'll report the posts
Whatever reason you may be pissed, that doesn't really help when you didn't even bother reading the rules, either that or you don't understand them.
You don't see me supporting my opinions with "you don't even play" do you?
So me quiting here and there doesn't matter, you don't have a grasp on the rules, don't blame me for that.
Move along and drop the nonsense.

You may simply play, but some players like to know in what conditions they play, so please, take them in consideration before making a post.


well, sylverant is a recent proof of that unfortunately.

In the end a balance between choice and population must exist, all in one place and choice is low, all spread appart and population is low.
Beeing PSO V2 and GC old games, ppl playing it often seek choice and not lot's of players.

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Threatening will get you nowhere, seriously...

... Please, drop it, everyone.

Reporting the posts would only direct me to look at them, which of course I already do.

I never said they were mandatory, and the current server-sided drop system for Ver.2 isn't even the default. Players have to opt-in to enable it. We don't believe in eliminating player choice, either. We just like to provide options for those that want them, which is one reason we have multiple ships. Some have new quests for the players that want them, while others are mostly limited to the original Sega content.

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"Fear the HUnewearl."

From what I gathered from what I was told by others, I had assumed that when it was active that it was active for all players server wide. I apologize for my assumption. I only check here maybe once every few months so everything I know of the actual mechanics here are based upon my own knowledge of PSO plus what travels through the grapevine. I'm glad that's all cleared up.

The Sylverant software is pretty impressive. But using it still wouldn't be nearly as fun as creating my own software.

Also, I didn't mean for it to come across that I felt that Sylverant had no player options. I was just giving my reasoning for why I wouldn't want my community to have such a feature, based on what I knew of how it worked. No harm intended.