PSEmu - PlanetSide Emulator

Chord · 2015-07-17, 01:19 AM

Hey PSU community. I used to play PlanetSide regularly back in 2004-2007 but since the servers are empty there just isn't a way to recapture the same feeling. I know one day those servers will go down forever and never come back. We all know this. It's only a matter of time. I tried to play PlanetSide 2 when it came out, but it just didn't have the same feeling. It wasn't the same pace and there wasn't a goal.

I don't like knowing that a game that held so many memories for me could just vanish overnight. No more logins, no more classic music, or sound - nothing would be left except memories. That's why I'm here to ask what the old, new, and current PlanetSide players think about the creation of a PlanetSide 1 private server / emulator.

Work has already begun on making this happen. Regardless of player interest, this is going to open sourced for the public record within the next year. Our hope is to have an extensible server that emulates the old PlanetSide experience, minus the "ClientSide" parts. Cheat protection is a #1 goal of the PSEmu project as we all know that hackers played a big part in killing the spirit of this game. Although my investigations are early, we believe more server side checks could eliminate hacks such as the "pull", flying, and rate of fire. As the recreation effort moves forward, these features will receive a lot of attention.

Another vision we have is the ability for the server to support a scriptable bot engine. In lieu of large populations, bots could make fights playable instead of just plain empty.

That's about all I have to offer at the moment. A mere announcement/poll.
What features would you like to see if a new server could be created? What should be the primary focuses? So how about it - would you play PSEmu?

EDIT: Join the effort at http://psforever.net

OpolE · 2015-07-17, 03:17 PM

EDIT: PS Download link https://help.daybreakgames.com/app/a...il/a_id/28923/

Id be the first to say here... I'm in all the way with this! Lets see proper evidence that we are allowed to do this and a proper website dedicated similar to how SWGEmu has gone about it.

Could you PM me more information Chord.

If you were to add things like 'bots' Id recommend putting them only on specific islands or none at all.

PvP 100% In my opinion but il be with this 100% whatever the ideas.

p0intman · 2015-07-17, 11:01 PM

if you can get smedley/daybreak to be on board with this, i will chip in time to help out. im not much for coding, but i don't mind putting my knowledge to the task.

feel free to PM me here with more info.

Chord · 2015-07-18, 09:15 AM

Originally Posted by OpolE

Id be the first to say here... I'm in all the way with this! Lets see proper evidence that we are allowed to do this and a proper website dedicated similar to how SWGEmu has gone about it.

Could you PM me more information Chord.

A website will definitely be in order for the future. I'm not rushing to get one up just yet as I'm concerned about PS trademarks and legalities. SWGEmu is a great example of an emulator done right. A lot of pages can be taken from their book on how to run things.

Originally Posted by OpolE

If you were to add things like 'bots' Id recommend putting them only on specific islands or none at all.

PvP 100% In my opinion but il be with this 100% whatever the ideas.

I don't like the idea of running around with dumb bots myself, but it was just an interesting idea for the future. The only reason I could see for them in PSEmu would be for times when population is low. If this project has enough people, well, bots would become a side project. I do like the island idea though: Battle Bot Island maybe?

Originally Posted by p0intman

if you can get smedley/daybreak to be on board with this, i will chip in time to help out. im not much for coding, but i don't mind putting my knowledge to the task.

feel free to PM me here with more info.

Glad to hear you're on board.
I honestly doubt that anyone maintaining a current PlanetSide 1/2 trademark would be agree to something like this, but who knows for sure.

At the moment, I don't have a well organized source tree and things are still in their earlier stages, but I'll keep this thread updated with any progress I make. Currently I'm working on allowing the PS client to login to my custom server.

p0intman · 2015-07-18, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by Chord

A website will definitely be in order for the future. I'm not rushing to get one up just yet as I'm concerned about PS trademarks and legalities. SWGEmu is a great example of an emulator done right. A lot of pages can be taken from their book on how to run things.

I don't like the idea of running around with dumb bots myself, but it was just an interesting idea for the future. The only reason I could see for them in PSEmu would be for times when population is low. If this project has enough people, well, bots would become a side project. I do like the island idea though: Battle Bot Island maybe?

Glad to hear you're on board.
I honestly doubt that anyone maintaining a current PlanetSide 1/2 trademark would be agree to something like this, but who knows for sure.

At the moment, I don't have a well organized source tree and things are still in their earlier stages, but I'll keep this thread updated with any progress I make. Currently I'm working on allowing the PS client to login to my custom server.

soe/daybreak has done crazier shit before. tbh, it probably can't hurt to find smed's email and give him a good faith conversation just to try. whats the worst he can do? give another solid commitment he fails to keep his word on? (Hi PS2 2.0 update). I doubt he gives much of a shit about ps1, and it wouldn't shock me if he wanted to unload the task of that version of the game to someone else.

http://massivelyop.com/2015/04/29/ev...with-daybreak/

https://www.everquest.com/news/project-1999-daybreak

OpolE · 2015-07-18, 03:53 PM

I don't really have any PC knowledge to give but my enthusiasm will do wonders for this.

I guess you could get a website and people on board - Big people. I remember a youtuber video where one player had modded PS1 and made trees 100x the size and all sorts of things

Progress how we could redo PS1 without repercussions.

Let the word grow while its worked on.

Easiest thing is get rights to the game and it would be very rapid from there. Roll back a few features and spend time fixing it up while advertising and getting everyone back.

Small future developments to be 'Roadmapped'

I was never into SWG but I followed it and saw it grow. Same things needed here.

BOOOO YAAAAAAAAAAA

QuiCKaNdDeaDLy · 2015-07-18, 08:31 PM

As far as I know there is allready a working PS Emu which is about 10 years old now made by Secant (Markov) which never went public because SOE wouldnt allow it.

Leet · 2015-07-19, 10:37 AM

This is something I've been waiting for, so thank you for putting in the time and effort to do it. All it really needs is a couple of roll backs (BR 20 max, no BFR's or wasps) and a few tweaks.

I never understood people's gripe with clientside. It's something every player could take advantage of and for me was just one of the quirks that made Planetside...Planetside. No bots was another Planetside thing. Personally I have no interest in playing the game if I'm not playing against somebody else in the world.

Chord · 2015-07-19, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by OpolE

I don't really have any PC knowledge to give but my enthusiasm will do wonders for this.

I guess you could get a website and people on board - Big people. I remember a youtuber video where one player had modded PS1 and made trees 100x the size and all sorts of things

Progress how we could redo PS1 without repercussions.

Let the word grow while its worked on.

Easiest thing is get rights to the game and it would be very rapid from there. Roll back a few features and spend time fixing it up while advertising and getting everyone back.

Small future developments to be 'Roadmapped'

I was never into SWG but I followed it and saw it grow. Same things needed here.

BOOOO YAAAAAAAAAAA

You're thinking pretty far ahead, which is good, but for the moment, development will be a bit slow. The groundwork still needs to be laid.

Oh the videos you're thinking of are:

A collaboration between Radant, Tangent, and Secant.

Originally Posted by p0intman

soe/daybreak has done crazier shit before. tbh, it probably can't hurt to find smed's email and give him a good faith conversation just to try. whats the worst he can do? give another solid commitment he fails to keep his word on? (Hi PS2 2.0 update). I doubt he gives much of a shit about ps1, and it wouldn't shock me if he wanted to unload the task of that version of the game to someone else.

http://massivelyop.com/2015/04/29/ev...with-daybreak/

https://www.everquest.com/news/project-1999-daybreak

I wasn't aware that Project 1999 had such success! That's good news for the future. We'll see where this project goes in the meantime. I'm sure the support is there and I'd love to see some of the old outfits/players return. Lots of work to be done before then though...

Originally Posted by QuiCKaNdDeaDLy

As far as I know there is allready a working PS Emu which is about 10 years old now made by Secant (Markov) which never went public because SOE wouldnt allow it.

I've looked in to it myself there isn't any code available. There's just that old video showing Secant logging in to his own server. The precedent is set for a cease and desist for PSEmu, so that's concerning. Then again, that was when PS1 was still active.

Originally Posted by Leet

This is something I've been waiting for, so thank you for putting in the time and effort to do it. All it really needs is a couple of roll backs (BR 20 max, no BFR's or wasps) and a few tweaks.

I never understood people's gripe with clientside. It's something every player could take advantage of and for me was just one of the quirks that made Planetside...Planetside. No bots was another Planetside thing. Personally I have no interest in playing the game if I'm not playing against somebody else in the world.

What features to keep is certainly going to be thought of. As for clientside, yes it's responsible for most, if not all of the familiar quirks, but it's also the reason hackers killed PS1. Pull, CoF, RoF, speedhacks, etc. are all because the server trusts the client. That's what I mean by fixing "ClientSide".

OpolE · 2015-07-19, 04:06 PM

Awesome yes. Those are the videos.

My mate played the EQ Emu a lot! So yea based on history with SOE/Daybreak now it's not an impossible feat.

TopDawg · 2015-07-19, 04:57 PM

If this ever takes off, might I suggest for balance:

BR20 (no extra cert points - can keep armor color from BR25)
No cert combinations/pooled certs
No BFRs
No WASPs
Either remove or adjust the Gal Gunship
Keep the nerfed rocket pods for Reaver (and reduce its armor to what it was supposed to be before they never fixed it from an event)
Keep the nerfed plasma Thumper (and nerf hand held plasma grenades to match that nerf)
Get rid of 120 health (always 100, all the time)

I'm sure there's more, and other adjustments that could easily be made (Cycler buff, Beamer buff, Mosquito nerf against infantry, etc), but that seems like an okay baseline to build from. And if it has to be a specific patch, sometime before BFRs is the obvious choice.

Chord · 2015-07-19, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by TopDawg

If this ever takes off, might I suggest for balance:

BR20 (no extra cert points - can keep armor color from BR25)
No cert combinations/pooled certs
No BFRs
No WASPs
Either remove or adjust the Gal Gunship
Keep the nerfed rocket pods for Reaver (and reduce its armor to what it was supposed to be before they never fixed it from an event)
Keep the nerfed plasma Thumper (and nerf hand held plasma grenades to match that nerf)
Get rid of 120 health (always 100, all the time)

I'm sure there's more, and other adjustments that could easily be made (Cycler buff, Beamer buff, Mosquito nerf against infantry, etc), but that seems like an okay baseline to build from. And if it has to be a specific patch, sometime before BFRs is the obvious choice.

Do you happen know of a place that has been keeping track of previous balance changes like this? A job in itself will be to gather damage tables for weapons, effects, vehicles, etc. My goal will be to get things as close to what they are today (for feature completeness) and then deciding what the balance point should be.

KingFeraligatr · 2015-07-19, 08:31 PM

This looks interesting and I'll follow this, but I doubt we can get this to work with SOE without a monetary contribution as well. If this can get off the ground a start sailing, I'd definitely try to play it. We could actually get GMs and balance passes. And the bots sound interesting. Also, would we be able to keep our current characters or would everyone start from scratch? Anyways, good luck. Would like this to succeed.

And here is a place to get patches in order and in detail: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...?title=Patches .

Chord · 2015-07-19, 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by KingFeraligatr

This looks interesting and I'll follow this, but I doubt we can get this to work with SOE without a monetary contribution as well.
If this can get off the ground a start sailing, I'd definitely try to play it. We could actually get GMs and balance passes. And the bots sound interesting.

Yeah I have my doubts as well!

Originally Posted by KingFeraligatr

Also, would we be able to keep our current characters or would everyone start from scratch? Anyways, good luck. Would like this to succeed.

Unless SOE/DBG gives us the PS1 database, nope. It's technically possible to make a tool that given a username a password would "download" all characters along with certs and awards. Haven't put that in to action, but from my understanding it could be done. With a new server, starting over wouldn't be too bad though!

Originally Posted by KingFeraligatr

And here is a place to get patches in order and in detail: http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...?title=Patches .

Thanks for the link.

QuiCKaNdDeaDLy · 2015-07-25, 01:09 PM

As far as I know all the Server Code is unprotected on the Beta CDs...