Spirited

Eh, sort of. I have a tutorial on how to reverse engineer the client for packets: But if you're looking for something a bit easier, then maybe try downloading Impulse's base 5165 source. He doesn't do screen despawning correctly, but it's a good reference for packets at the very least. I totally get you on the complexity stuff though, it's weird that Conquer Online uses the same packets to spawn monsters as it does players. It can be pretty confusing when first getting started. If you get stuck reading through Impulse's source, just let us know. You can also post your packet code if you get stuck as well, and we'll try to lead you in the right direction. Good luck!

Yeah, for sure. It's all about just trying new things and seeing what works, right? As much as Blizzard got Hearthstone down really well, the new paid WoW mounts and the old D3 real-money auction house are just examples of poorly received microtransactions that haven't worked out well (in my opinion of course). It'll be interesting to see how they monetize Diablo Immortal... I have a lot of mixed hope and fear with that. Anyways, sounds like you're thinking in the right way. Just keep trying to see what works / what sticks.

That's a good call out. I totally agree there. Microtransactions in a free-to-play game are sorta inevitable, but there're definitely better ways to approach it. If you can describe a purchase as a way to save time for those who work and can't farm materials easily (assuming those materials are realistically attainable), then that's probably a good transaction to put up. What you probably want to avoid is exclusive equipment purchases that have better stats than what you can realistically obtain in the game, or items that overpower players. There's definitely a balance to be struck between the paid players (your customers) and free players (your potential customers and game content).

Well, you've got alliteration on your side. So that's something. Hopefully you put in a Crab Rave event.

Interesting server name. Any reason why you came up with Crab Conquer in particular?

Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea this was added... or I just don't remember. I'm surprised it's on that patch.

Eeeeeyyy! It's progress! Yeah, those pesky offsets.

Yeah, fore sure. I don't have a huge amount of experience with it either, and I definitely don't blame them for not sharing. I'm an advocate of free and open source information, so hopefully they'll come around to sharing details on how they did it. But until then, it's a good showcase of what's possible by the community. Older patches and newer patches of Conquer Online don't require flash, so we're not blocked at least. In the worst case, I just bump the version for my project super high.

Oof, yeah. I read about that update way back in January. Installing flash at this point could be dangerous. I'm really not sure what I'll do if I get back into Conquer Online development. Asking players to install outdated / possibly exploitable software on their computer doesn't sound like a reasonable solution... though it is a solution.

Yep, you're very welcome. Thanks for being so detailed with your question.

Did you change the PlayerFace category in common.ini? [Playerface] MaleFaceAmount=101 FemaleFaceAmount=89

Good luck with your server! I might hop on your Discord when I have time.

Generally, it's not a good idea to add delays on any processing threads. That's how a denial of service tool gets made (something I was deeply considering for all modified Trinity sources back in the day). I can't say I've ever seen this happen before, though. Does it happen every time, or just randomly? It might be worth logging the observer's packets to see if packets are arriving out of order, some mystery packet is resetting location, or anything weird like that.

Yeah, I have a guide for that here:

Yep, that was my big push for getting those old projects on GitLab. I'd add Comet to that group as well if it didn't break existing URLs. But yeah, a few key people in the community have access to the group and maintaining repos.

If you're willing and create a pull request with those changes, I'll review merge them into his project: https://gitlab.com/conquer-online/servers/cops-v6-emulator-enhanced-edition

Yeah, interesting. And you were able to check the monster's type id with the monstertype.dat file and confirm it has an id and name? I don't see why it wouldn't if it's showing the mesh correctly, but might be worth double checking.

Oh, I didn't realize that message wasn't controlled by the server. Then again, I haven't touched monsters since 2013... so oof. I'd be interested to know what the problem ends up being. Just out of curiosity, what ID range are you giving monsters? I know that matters in terms of how the client treats the spawn as well.

Oh dang, I haven't heard anyone call me Fang in a while now. Not that I mind. If you end up looking over Comet, please feel free to ask questions or let me know if there's anything I can better clarify. I also wrote up a little article on multi-threaded game server design for Comet if you wanna take a crack at extending it. If you're just after the sockets, then be warned that there's a known denial of service exploit I need to merge tomorrow. Best of luck, and have fun.

Holy crap! I was not expecting that much progress to be made so quickly! That's so freaking awesome!!

Great job, and good luck with your other server upgrades!

Sure thing. Just shoot over a pm with your Gitlab username and what you want your repo name to be, and I'll set that all up for you.

If I ever get a server up, I actually have some friends who might be interested in working with me for quest writing, map illustration, and 3D modeling. If the tools are more available / flushed out by then, then I might just bring them on to help out. If not, then it's just going to take me more time to construct that tooling (if I ever get around to it.... lol). Open information and tooling is such a huge enabler for talent in every game community. I really hope we can get there someday. It's why I created the wiki and open tooling area: https://gitlab.com/conquer-online Oh, and let me know if you wanna move your project there. I can totally help with that and give you some ownership.

A friend reached out and pointed out an obvious stupid mistake I was doing. Was not even using the correct encryption (blowfish). I should have guessed as much. Thanks for your patience Spirited. Ahhh, yep. That'd do it! Glad you were able to figure it out!

Very cool! I can finally use my Conquer Online character in VRChat. Lol But seriously, really cool stuff here. It'll be cool to see what people do with this.