SWGEmu Q/A 4/21/07

[Ramsey]

We had another, on the spot, Q/A tonight on IRC. Thank you to all that participated. I have selected questions that many people have asked and answered here.

Enjoy.


Q) Has the problem that occured at the last stress test been completly ironed out?

A) For the most part, yes.


Q) I was surprised not to see cell placement on the top 10 list, do you know when that will be implemented?

A) Cell movement is something that has been neglected and we will be paying more attention to in the near future.


Q) Has the current code base been stabilised enough for adding features, or is further testing still needed?

A) We are still in need of a few more stability tests, espeically when we get to clustering. We should emerge out of the stability testing stage anywhere from 1 - 3 months. (We still have to test clustering).


Q) What is the priority of crafting, and what , if anything, can we do to help with that?

A) Crafting research has a few major holes in it when it was last touched in November of last year. Crafting will not make it to core3 for quite some time (at least until are out of the stability testing stage).


Q) Do you have any current plans to, thoughts of, or even considered hosting your own EMU server when it is finished?

A) If we get enough community support for the idea, as well as an assurance for financial support, yes.


Q)Have you hit a point were develepment will speed up, or will the you continue at the same pace; aka will you be done in months or years

A) We are at a point in development where progress on ingame features are just ABOUT to speed up exponentially. We are still running rigirious stability tests on core3, before we bother with in game features. We want a nice stable core before anything else, quality > quantity.


Q) Are you still predicting to release the first version of Core 3 by the end of summer?

A) That is a very high possibility.


Q) Is it possible to protect against third-party programs, or is this something private servers will have to deal with?

A) We will do everything in our power to make sure 3rd party program's will fail to work on Core3 servers.


Q) You said 90% of JTL was done, is the last 10% hard to do?

A) JTL hasn't gotten much attention in the past few months. We will revisit the other 10% of JTL when it is ready to be merged into core3.


Q)I know SWGEMU has been on cygwin and not it's on freebsd, will only one os be supported by the emu? will microsoft os be suported by your team?

A) Core3 will have distributions for almost every x86 platform to date.


Q) Will SWGEMU make use of multiple processors?

A) Yes.


Q) How close are you to creature spawns and missions ?

A) Creature's are done, we just need to flesh out the AI for them a bit. Missions are a bit further down the road due to stability issues that surface the last stress test.


Q) What state will jedi be released in?

A) You mean Hologrind or Village or InsertCustomMethodHere? Up to the admin via scripting .


Q) When can we expect the top 10 to be implemented?

A) Almost immidiately after stability issues are fixed.


Q) Is our testing helping find bugs?

A) Yes! We appreciate the masssive numbers of people helping us on the boring test days. Hang in there, suprises & rewards will follow


Q) Will we see combat inflicting wounds and/or battle fatigue in the near future?

A) Yes.


Q) In regards to the Krayt that had spawned. When he did not recover when he was knocked down. How does a mob know to get back up after its been knocked down? Does every single Mob recover over X amount of time has passed. Or, does each mob, depending on what level it is have a certain amount of time before it recovers from a knockdown?

A) We just were not handling an AI KD event, which we should have done before spawning them hehe. The reaction to a KD will eventually be in scripts.


Q) Can you make a list of whats to be implemented and time estimates for them to be implemented?

A) As soon as stability issues are fixed, and the previous top 10 is complete (shouldn't take too long as I said above), we will introduce a new top10.


Q) Will crafting be play-tested on the TC by the community?

A) Every feature will be play tested by the community (includes crafting, professions, mounts etc).


Q) Have you decided on what kind of code to release to the public? binaries, etc.?

A) We are a closed source project. The Core3 source will NOT be released however we strongly believe that everything you need and want to modify will be satisfied via scripts and the DB. If you have to modify the source to do something, then you are approaching the problem wrong.


Q) How happy are you on the performance of FreeBSD as the development/test platform?

A) Extremely happy. Especially because cygwin had a 5-10% overhead on windows. Of course we will have native versions of core3 on all platforms so we dont have to rely on cygwin.


Q) What testing can the community do that is not dependent on features available on the test server (besides animations)?

A) For stability the best you can do is just be idle/running around/fighting as much as you can. We know its boring and we know you really want the top10, but stability just has to come first.


Q) Will NPC be implemented anytime soon?

A) Yes. very very soon.


Q) will there be CSR tools?

A) Of course.


Q) Has there been any progress with clustering?

A) Yes. Clustering begun about 2 weeks ago.


Q)What has the datapack team been working on, and what are some accomplishments of theirs?

A) The datapack team is hard at work adding and cleaning up their 7000+ NPC/Mob entries . A new member is also about to join that team which should speed up progress on their front.


Q) About how soon can we expect to be able to test professions would you give a really rough estimate, mostly due to how far you are on them?

A) They will probably make it on a top10 list in the next 1-3 months.

[Vastor]

Thank you so much for doing this Devs. It is greatly appreciated.

[StormZ]

Awsome, thanks for another Q/A!

[Ohmek]

awsome, great job guys

[Baron_Primus]

God bless Q&A sessions

[TwistedShot]

Thanks for not Glining me ^-^

[Sinear]

amazing work guys, i was on the test server today having duels with a friend like the old days (kinda...getting close to the old days :P )

keep it up!

[GalaxiesEnd]

Woot answered my question last ^_^


SWG's Stratics is such a JOKE!!

<3 Emu

[LordSniper]

that was nice and detailed

[Teweedo]

Nice Q&A, thanks.

[Vastor]

I forgot to add, cell movement is the so called "bug" when players are unable to see other people in buildings. This is just so people understand question #2.

[goldcrud]

woot I'm gonna have to say you guys rock and are really trying to keep the Public informed on what is going on. I love it

[Chorus13]

w00t w00t!!

[EVILJUDE]

definitely some good news, I just hope releasing a possible eta don't bite you in the butt (you know, the reason why you would not release an ETA before, people would hound you because you "broke your word"). I just wish you all the luck in the world on getting to be able to see that a reality.

[4NIC8R]

Thank you for the update!