Dedicated Forum Section/Subsection for Granado Espada Development

[Eiskalt]

Greetings RageZone users and staff!

First, I'd like to thank you all for all the years, so far, as well as those to come, of game development resources and tools that I've used to develop many of my own projects. The skills that I learned here have taught me so, very much, about game development, as well as hardware, networking, programming, and the interactions between software and various hardware. A few years back, I had the privilege of using many of those skills to work on, the now shut down, Renaissance Granado Espada private server. Luckily, during this time, I was able to learn everything I needed to know from the server's owner and administrator known as "bit" or "rndbit" back in the IRC days. During my time there, everything was kept private, meaning that there were only a few people oustide of IMCGames who knew anything, at all, about GE development. Without the skills I learned here, as well as the skills I had to learn to make things work correctly on my own, and what I learned from bit, I would not have been able to perform my duties as a developer, nor would I have, likely, ever had the chance to work with the game in a development role, as I did, for now, almost 10 years (6-7 years at rGE, and nearly 2 on my own since the shut down).

Once it had become clear that rGE was likely to shut down, I suggested and requested that we publicly release the server files so that GE could be immortalized through private servers and that development could continue on after the death of the rGE server. Bit, graciously, agreed to release the server files, as well as many of the tools he had developed over the years and posted them here on RageZone. After, now, almost 2 years, there still doesn't exist a place for people to share GE development resources, and while I have my own website, I think that a widely used forum would be a much better option so that people can more easily locate those resources and learn, just like I did, how to set up the server and work with the files, as well as share their own contributions of ideas, tools, and anything else that they feel could further the community's development capabilities for Granado Espada.

So, with all of that being said, I would like to forumally - (ha ha) request a dedicated section be created for Granado Espada Development. I have no preference as to whether it falls under the MMO Server Developments section, or simply as a sub-forum under Legacy MMORPG Zone. As long as it's got a couple sub-forums such as Releases, Tutorials, Requests/Help, and Developments, to itself to keep things organized, that'd be great. If it's too much to ask of existing forum mods, I'd also be willing to help with moderation of this specific forum section to keep it tidy.

Anyways, once again, thank you RageZone users and staff for all the resources and tools that have been shared here and made available to the public so that all of us can continually learn and become better developers. If there's any questions or concerns regarding this request, please do not hesitate to reach out to me here or via a direct message. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to many years to come of game development resources here at RageZone.

~Eiskalt
rGE Dev Solidus

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Currently Available GE Server Files:
v18 - Source Code & v28 binaries+database+tools - I had a part in these files, and I can confirm their validity and functionality.
v32 - chinese leak binaries - I had no part in these files, nor do I take any credit for their leaking, I simply found these through some investigating as I was looking to get my hands on v32 files, I am currently working on confirming the validity and functionality, as well as database compatibility with v28 for upgrading v28 -> v32. USE THESE FILES AT YOUR OWN RISK

Tools:
v28 Server Daemon Customizable Config SQL - SQL I wrote to facilitate load distribution for various server hardware setups.

My GE Tutorials Thread

 

[Eiskalt]

I'm really reluctant to, but I'll go ahead and bump this and add a bit of extra, relevant information/observations of mine.

v32 Files have been leaked for over a month now, so there's now 3 versions that are currently available to the public (Including a version with source code), and it would be very nice to have a place (that isn't just a discord server) to organize relevant information for each of the available versions. If not here on RageZone, I'll have no choice but to look elsewhere, which I think would be a great disservice to many of the would-be GE devs out there, as RageZone has much farther reach than any forum I'd build. It would stand to reason that a GE development area would fit best on one of the largest game development forums on the internet, and yet there's been crickets on this forum post, for the most part. As for the effort required to create a section under the MMO development area, I know that it merely involves a few clicks and a handful of keystrokes to create, and the requirements on the hardware back-end is minimal (unless there was somehow just a massive amount of data dumped into that section - which I doubt, as all the leaks/releases are hosted on Google Drive and Mega), so I really don't see why this has gone nowhere in the past two and a half weeks. I'm not trying to be the squeaky wheel here, but I don't think that this request is asking very much.

It's disheartening to see that, lately, the majority of staff involvement regarding forum suggestions is mainly centered around emoji suggestions and rainbow themed scroll bars and other silly ideas and not the "MMO Development Community" that the site self-proclaims. And if the concern is moderation, I'd refer back to my original post and offer myself, once again, to do what I can to assist.

Again, my apologies if I'm a bit out of line, but I'm really not sure what else I should be doing in order to have a place to organize relevant information and help point new developers in the right direction for information that will help them with their own projects.

 

[MrSensei]

I'll give my personal opinion about this.

Whenever it comes to any kind of MMOs to get their own section fairly quickly, 1 out of 2 things should happen - a massive release (Usually either source, or finished emulator, or even retails files that are latest at that time) happens while the game is still riding its popularity wave or just closed down, or there is a fairly big input made by the members, which gains attraction and it leads to a birth of new section.

My question would be why, rather than waiting for a section to be made, not posting said tutorials and guides or anything else in MMO Plus and that way sharing it with the community?
I do think it would be equally valuable if it was there and at the same it might encourage community's engagement - because that's what it's all about.

Don't get me wrong though and I don't want you to be discouraged by my reply either, I'm same as you, like everything to be organised and in order. You're a valuable member of this community who's contributing towards a game that you enjoy and want to bring more attention to, so it wouldn't die out completely or be monopolised by someone, but I personally believe that there are ways to approach this in a more professional manner (and it's clearly visible from the way you made this suggestion, that you're more than capable to do so), rather than showing dissatisfaction publicly.

If you've given a summary of the releases on ragezone, a small insight in p.servers, interest of the game from general gamers community and variety of other relevant information, that would have been a better response, which would have been a fairly solid and positive "bump" of the thread, speaking in forum terms.
While the biggest impact would have been sharing of your knowledge in the general mmo plus to begin with.

I can assure you one thing - your suggestion was not ignored, its definitely on the agenda of discussion of the higher ups and Mental. The forum just undergone a big change and there is a lot of stuff going that are still being worked on, reforms being made and many other things, which is why it might take a longer time to get response about it.

Lastly - there is definitely no issue in regards to moderation of the game section or keeping it clean if it came to be realised.

Once again, don't take this response as a discouragement, but a simple constructive criticism from a fellow forum member.

 

[Eiskalt]

Firstly, I'd like to thank you for your reply, at least knowing that this thread has been seen and discussed/pending discussion goes a long way to helping me not feeling like I just wasted my time and efforts writing my original post.

Whenever it comes to any kind of MMOs to get their own section fairly quickly, 1 out of 2 things should happen - a massive release (Usually either source, or finished emulator, or even retails files that are latest at that time) happens while the game is still riding its popularity wave or just closed down, or there is a fairly big input made by the members, which gains attraction and it leads to a birth of new section.

In this case, the v18 (upgraded to v21) source code (retail files) was released, alongside the v28 binary-only version (also retail files) that I worked on with "bit" for rGE. As for the v32 files, I'm currently investigating them, cautiously, before I confirm with any certainty that they're safe. They do appear to be a chinese leak, and the filestructure looks good, as well as the few scripts and datatables that I've looked at, so far. Once verified, I'll look into procedures to upgrade v28 to v32. Also, regarding latest game version, v32 is the current version of all retail servers aside from the korean version, which, as I'm not a korean national and therefore lack identification used by many services in the country, I am unable to access that version.

My question would be why, rather than waiting for a section to be made, not posting said tutorials and guides or anything else in MMO Plus and that way sharing it with the community?
I do think it would be equally valuable if it was there and at the same it might encourage community's engagement - because that's what it's all about.

While I understand your point, my concern would be that posts I'd make would get buried under the mountain of garbage (my opinion, of course) poorly designed, money-grubbing, unoptimized mobile games and the like. I have thousands of hours of experience developing GE, as well as tens of thousands of hours of playtime in the game, and all of that information is kinda just bumping around up in my head, so it's rather difficult to keep things organized. So if I'd already have a hard enough time keeping track of things, at least having some level of ordering and garbage collection would be extremely helpful in terms of writing up guides and explanations for how things work with the game. And yes, that's all personal preference, I'll be the first to admit it.

Don't get me wrong though and I don't want you to be discouraged by my reply either, I'm same as you, like everything to be organised and in order. You're a valuable member of this community who's contributing towards a game that you enjoy and want to bring more attention to, so it wouldn't die out completely or be monopolised by someone, but I personally believe that there are ways to approach this in a more professional manner (and it's clearly visible from the way you made this suggestion, that you're more than capable to do so), rather than showing dissatisfaction publicly.

If you've given a summary of the releases on ragezone, a small insight in p.servers, interest of the game from general gamers community and variety of other relevant information, that would have been a better response, which would have been a fairly solid and positive "bump" of the thread, speaking in forum terms.
While the biggest impact would have been sharing of your knowledge in the general mmo plus to begin with.

I can assure you one thing - your suggestion was not ignored, its definitely on the agenda of discussion of the higher ups and Mental. The forum just undergone a big change and there is a lot of stuff going that are still being worked on, reforms being made and many other things, which is why it might take a longer time to get response about it.

You're right, though I also had no way of knowing if any staff had read the original post. Even a "This is pending review, currently a lot of changes are taking place on the forums, and we'll get to this when we can." And perhaps this presents a second suggestion for the forum, at least in terms of handling topics like this one.

Lastly - there is definitely no issue in regards to moderation of the game section or keeping it clean if it came to be realised.

I'm glad to hear it, I just wanted to ensure that I wasn't just dumping a bunch more workload on anyone, hence I offered to do it, myself, if that would have been an issue.

Once again, don't take this response as a discouragement, but a simple constructive criticism from a fellow forum member.

I appreciate your response. Again, just knowing that this topic isn't just gonna blow away with the slightest breeze, never to be seen or heard from again, is encouraging.

Regards,
Eiskalt

 

[MentaL]

I will review everything when I have energy.

 

[Eiskalt]

I will review everything when I have energy.

Much appreciated, thanks!

~Eis

 

[Eiskalt]

Just a little update, I'm currently out of town, due to a family emergency, which is why I haven't been too active, but when I do get back, I'll look into writing up some guides on file modification and database editing. I'm, certainly, no expert on a lot of the technologies used, but I've been learning and I can try to share what I do know with the community. As I said, that'll have to wait until I get back home and get everything done that I need to with my own development/administration. I just wanted to give a public heads up as to the situation with me and why I've been radio silent since my previous post.

~Eis

 

[Eiskalt]

It's been a wild past few months, my apologies for lack of updates here, but I've really had a lot going on with life. I'll see about writing up some guides or maybe make some video tutorials in the coming days and weeks.

~Eis