Can new content be made?

Jack Pipsam · 15-01-2010, 01:37 PM,

hi its Jack here Wink

i don't know much about programing and as i know the idea is to make a emu of MXO. but i was thinking is it going to be that new content (e.g missions, skills and areas) could be added or is that not possible?

Gerik · 15-01-2010, 02:16 PM,

Maybe.

Bayamos · 15-01-2010, 02:28 PM,

My two cents, as someone who's not actually working on the code at all <_<; It honestly depends. Technically, I would say that nothing is impossible -- the real question is 'what new content would be relatively straightforward; what new content would be excrutiatingly painful to attempt to implement?'

It would be relatively simple to _modify_ existing content such as clothing and items, to a certain extent. All the item stats are defined in gameobjects.pkb, and we know the texture format (but not the models), so some appearance changes could be made along the lines of "The Patch." Ability behavior is to an extent also defined in gameobjects pkb, but more along the lines of "this icon sends this hex string to the server." The actual implementation of what that abilityID _does_ to the characters involved was entirely on the server, so that could in theory be changed as well. It's more a matter of deciphering all the packet structures and communications protocols... afterward, comes the ability to do computation on the server for custom things.

New missions would probably be similarly alright, because missions were pretty much entirely dependent on the server version, and not stored in the client. New skills, areas, items I think would be a pain. Even if the respective file formats for METR, MGA, LOD, COD, MOA, etc were deciphered so that new things could be made, the real pain would be getting things to register in the engine. As it stands, there are currently hardlineIDs for each hardline. Abilities have abilityIDs, gameobjects have itemIDs, rezIDs for resource components, etc. You can call Discovery Engine methods that print some of these out. Currently we don't have all the list information, and the ones that are available... we have the info, per se, but don't quite know how to change those lists to register new content.

HD_Morpheus · 15-01-2010, 02:37 PM,

Bayamos pretty much explained it all very well.

Skill usage and some other things are driven by the server response (i.e i can program that /bow response is /beckon and you will /beckon) and missions seem to be the same. As i could have changed "Assasination" theme for "other text" and the packets we have stored showed that mission text is sent by the server (i expected something closer to receive the ID and with that get the mission data on the client).

Maps could be done, if we do like lego. We could put there the pieces, but will be the same pieces, no new ones. And i am not sure if we know how to place the blocks.

So... to resume mostly no. But missions, as could be redone (and that's still on the air untill more research)

Jack Pipsam · 16-01-2010, 02:14 AM,

ok thanks for the info

Skyscream · 16-01-2010, 06:43 AM,

Making new things like areas or *cringe* items would be incredibly difficult and time consuming for people basically doing this in thier spare time and for no money.
The mission system should be straight forward, relatively speaking, and maybe adding some mission giving NPC's with some story to them could be done with time and effort.

I'm not the one doing all this though .. so take it for what it's worth. A talking ape with an opinion. hehe.
Big Grin

Valaro · 16-01-2010, 08:43 PM,

Ok so anyone hacked the FBI server here? Good now go hack Monolith servers and see if they have a stored copy of Discovery there LOL Kidding. And I was off topic. Apologies

Jack Pipsam · 17-01-2010, 02:38 AM,

yes that was very random

Trinity · (This post was last modified: 04-02-2010, 12:50 AM by Trinity.)

I would be happy to just have the exact game as is be revived, same missions etc starting a new character etc.
I miss PVP the most though.
Thanks to all the web programmers for trying to keep the MXO dream alive

spazztastics · (This post was last modified: 09-02-2010, 10:58 AM by spazztastics.)

As everyone before me pointed out; those who work with trying to revive MXO does it in their spare time without any paychecks. Adding new content now would be a waste of time. They will have enough to do on their hands when the servers up plus day jobs as it is. Be glad that we actually might be able to play the game once again. That's more then enough to keep us satisfied.