[DISCUSSION] How about we don't go to jail?

[Exynox 1523]

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Metin2Dev Airlines we would ask you to kindly follow this safety announcement. Please take your assigned seat, mentioned in your boarding pass. When sat down, please fasten your seat belt at all times, as turbulence can occur during the flight. We ask you to make sure that your luggage is properly stored in the overhead bins. In the unlikely case you won't like this topic, please take a moment and locate the nearest back or exit button of your browser. Should you be utterly disgusted at what I'm saying, a vomit bag is located in the seat in front of you. It's going to be a long read.

 

I think it's been almost 10 years since I first opened Metin2. Ten years! I was still playing Club Penguin at the time, I mean that's how I've heard about the game in the first place - from an ad on Club Penguin's page! And if I sit down and think of it, the game was 6 years old 10 years ago! I'm really curious, what other 16-year-old pieces of software do you guys use? If you do, how do you manage to use that piece of software nowadays? I know I've struggled a fair share to get Borland C++ 4.52 to run reliably in DOSBox.

 

My point is that in 2004 we didn't even have multi-core CPUs yet! The only way you could do multi-threading was by physically chucking as many CPUs onto a motherboard as you physically could. Or by distributing the computing load. The latter is what YMIR did. Initially, Metin2 was intended to run each core on their own server. One for the database cache, one for authentication, and a couple more for the maps (depending how far down you could reach in your pockets - we didn't have $5 DigitalOcean or AWS containers back then, servers were expensive). That's why nowadays we have to fiddle around with peer-to-peer TCP/IP configuration on all the Metin2 server cores. Metin2's architecture aged like milk.

 

To give credit where credit is due, parts of it were updated with time. But I'll bet you a coffee that libthecore hasn't changed much since the initial version. It's quite awesome that we actually can run this code quasi-reliably. Kudos to C++, in a world where JavaScript breaks backwards compatibility whenever wind changes direction.

 

Other than the dated architecture, the other problem I have with the Metin2 server is the code itself. I don't say it's easy to code such a dinosaur, but if you pay attention to the coding style and mistakes, you can actually see how YMIR devs improved over time. Which is perfectly fine, we all learn. The terrible part is that we can see their progress in acquiring this skill. They never fixed their silly mistakes, or did so very, very late (remember the /dice bug?).

 

The final nail in Metin2's coffin is BSD. At the time when they decided upon the architecture, Linux was nothing more than a toy, a fun gimmick like Docker and Kubernetes are today. Sure, you could have used Linux in production environments, but you would have been regarded a maniac if you did. Sure, some companies saw its potential and became early adopters. But the standard was still to use the tried and battle-tested, UNIX-certified BSD, which hails from 1977. In my country's 1977, we couldn't even talk about how dumb our leaders were without risking being beaten by the police, yet others were making huge technological advances. There's nothing wrong with FreeBSD nowadays either. It's just that it's way, way easier to code for Linux. It has become the de facto standard.

 

So we've got an old, half-baked and out-of-spec server on our hands. Great!

 

To me, working on the Metin2 server has become like one of those relationships in which you don't really like your partner, you fight all the time, yet you still stay together because you feel attached to them. It's plainly bad and it must go away. Just look at this forum, it's full of hotfixes, and whenever an actual feature release comes up, you have to find and replace tons of stuff and you don't even know if it will break any other system you have installed. Why can't we have some sort of plugin system so that we end this agony?

 

The topic of porting Metin2's server to Linux has come up numerous times here. Yet it has to be done underground, because God forbid making your code public, because daddy Gameforge is going to knock on your door like it's 1977. I don't want to get into this discussion, but it's their right. A light has shined before my eyes, though. Recently, a friend has asked me to help him out with hosting a Lineage 2 server. I don't know pretty much anything about this game, but I've found out one thing: there are two big classes of server software: the OFF, meaning the original server files NCSOFT developed, and L2J, a Java-written emulator for the same server files. And the thing is, people have been sued for running the original server files, but not for using the Java edition. Not to mention that the Java edition is publicly available in its various forks on GitHub and Bitbucket.

 

I guess you see where this is going. If we're all stuck at home, why don't we come together, join our efforts and rewrite the server in a more future-oriented, sensible way?

 

This would mean less risk of being thrown in jail by Gameforge. Not to mention that we don't need to do any reverse engineering as the source code is readily available, and this is a huge, a monumental advantage. The official Metin2 is going to be dead in a matter of years, but Gameforge not so much. This means that any future support and development for the game lies within the open-source community.

 

If we're going to do this, we should aim for the future. We should take into account the architecture of current systems. We should think of built-in redundancy in case one of the server crashes. And as much as I like C++ and its power, with great power comes great responsibility. It's simply too easy to make mistakes in C++. Not to mention the hell you must go through to simply include a library (In a way, it's a good thing since it forces you to think, not blindly include another library for adding two numbers like you would do in JS). C++ is one of those toxic relationships and I suggest moving to a tool more fit for the job. A language like Rust would do the job, for instance. It compiles down to machine code, it includes a network stack by default, it can read JSON and XML files, and it has many more features I didn't hear about yet. I never wrote anything in Rust, but it's just syntax. Real programming is about tackling problems, not about syntax.

 

I'm open to any ideas or suggestions. Maybe I'm talking sh*t and Metin2 deserves to die.

 

But I'm looking at you, Vanilla, Shogun, MartySama, Sanchez and all others who genuinely contributed to the community with original work but I can't name because I'm a stupid prick with 32kB of memory. What do you think? It's a huge task, yet manageable if we all give our best. Don't take anything I wrote here for granted, if you come with a good reason on why we should rewrite the game in MIPS Assembly and run it on PS2s, I'm open for it.

 

Thank you for choosing Metin2Dev Airlines.

[Macaroni Cheese 77]

3 hours ago, Exynox said:

But I'm looking at you, Vanilla, Shogun, MartySama, Sanchez and all others who genuinely contributed to the community with original work but I can't name because I'm a stupid prick with 32kB of memory.

 

Man... you let marty release v10 first.

[Ayslow 6]

6 hours ago, Exynox said:

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Metin2Dev Airlines we would ask you to kindly follow this safety announcement. Please take your assigned seat, mentioned in your boarding pass. When sat down, please fasten your seat belt at all times, as turbulence can occur during the flight. We ask you to make sure that your luggage is properly stored in the overhead bins. In the unlikely case you won't like this topic, please take a moment and locate the nearest back or exit button of your browser. Should you be utterly disgusted at what I'm saying, a vomit bag is located in the seat in front of you. It's going to be a long read.

 

I think it's been almost 10 years since I first opened Metin2. Ten years! I was still playing Club Penguin at the time, I mean that's how I've heard about the game in the first place - from an ad on Club Penguin's page! And if I sit down and think of it, the game was 6 years old 10 years ago! I'm really curious, what other 16-year-old pieces of software do you guys use? If you do, how do you manage to use that piece of software nowadays? I know I've struggled a fair share to get Borland C++ 4.52 to run reliably in DOSBox.

 

My point is that in 2004 we didn't even have multi-core CPUs yet! The only way you could do multi-threading was by physically chucking as many CPUs onto a motherboard as you physically could. Or by distributing the computing load. The latter is what YMIR did. Initially, Metin2 was intended to run each core on their own server. One for the database cache, one for authentication, and a couple more for the maps (depending how far down you could reach in your pockets - we didn't have $5 DigitalOcean or AWS containers back then, servers were expensive). That's why nowadays we have to fiddle around with peer-to-peer TCP/IP configuration on all the Metin2 server cores. Metin2's architecture aged like milk.

 

To give credit where credit is due, parts of it were updated with time. But I'll bet you a coffee that libthecore hasn't changed much since the initial version. It's quite awesome that we actually can run this code quasi-reliably. Kudos to C++, in a world where JavaScript breaks backwards compatibility whenever wind changes direction.

 

Other than the dated architecture, the other problem I have with the Metin2 server is the code itself. I don't say it's easy to code such a dinosaur, but if you pay attention to the coding style and mistakes, you can actually see how YMIR devs improved over time. Which is perfectly fine, we all learn. The terrible part is that we can see their progress in acquiring this skill. They never fixed their silly mistakes, or did so very, very late (remember the /dice bug?).

 

The final nail in Metin2's coffin is BSD. At the time when they decided upon the architecture, Linux was nothing more than a toy, a fun gimmick like Docker and Kubernetes are today. Sure, you could have used Linux in production environments, but you would have been regarded a maniac if you did. Sure, some companies saw its potential and became early adopters. But the standard was still to use the tried and battle-tested, UNIX-certified BSD, which hails from 1977. In my country's 1977, we couldn't even talk about how dumb our leaders were without risking being beaten by the police, yet others were making huge technological advances. There's nothing wrong with FreeBSD nowadays either. It's just that it's way, way easier to code for Linux. It has become the de facto standard.

 

So we've got an old, half-baked and out-of-spec server on our hands. Great!

 

To me, working on the Metin2 server has become like one of those relationships in which you don't really like your partner, you fight all the time, yet you still stay together because you feel attached to them. It's plainly bad and it must go away. Just look at this forum, it's full of hotfixes, and whenever an actual feature release comes up, you have to find and replace tons of stuff and you don't even know if it will break any other system you have installed. Why can't we have some sort of plugin system so that we end this agony?

 

The topic of porting Metin2's server to Linux has come up numerous times here. Yet it has to be done underground, because God forbid making your code public, because daddy Gameforge is going to knock on your door like it's 1977. I don't want to get into this discussion, but it's their right. A light has shined before my eyes, though. Recently, a friend has asked me to help him out with hosting a Lineage 2 server. I don't know pretty much anything about this game, but I've found out one thing: there are two big classes of server software: the OFF, meaning the original server files NCSOFT developed, and L2J, a Java-written emulator for the same server files. And the thing is, people have been sued for running the original server files, but not for using the Java edition. Not to mention that the Java edition is publicly available in its various forks on GitHub and Bitbucket.

 

I guess you see where this is going. If we're all stuck at home, why don't we come together, join our efforts and rewrite the server in a more future-oriented, sensible way?

 

This would mean less risk of being thrown in jail by Gameforge. Not to mention that we don't need to do any reverse engineering as the source code is readily available, and this is a huge, a monumental advantage. The official Metin2 is going to be dead in a matter of years, but Gameforge not so much. This means that any future support and development for the game lies within the open-source community.

 

If we're going to do this, we should aim for the future. We should take into account the architecture of current systems. We should think of built-in redundancy in case one of the server crashes. And as much as I like C++ and its power, with great power comes great responsibility. It's simply too easy to make mistakes in C++. Not to mention the hell you must go through to simply include a library (In a way, it's a good thing since it forces you to think, not blindly include another library for adding two numbers like you would do in JS). C++ is one of those toxic relationships and I suggest moving to a tool more fit for the job. A language like Rust would do the job, for instance. It compiles down to machine code, it includes a network stack by default, it can read JSON and XML files, and it has many more features I didn't hear about yet. I never wrote anything in Rust, but it's just syntax. Real programming is about tackling problems, not about syntax.

 

I'm open to any ideas or suggestions. Maybe I'm talking sh*t and Metin2 deserves to die.

 

But I'm looking at you, Vanilla, Shogun, MartySama, Sanchez and all others who genuinely contributed to the community with original work but I can't name because I'm a stupid prick with 32kB of memory. What do you think? It's a huge task, yet manageable if we all give our best. Don't take anything I wrote here for granted, if you come with a good reason on why we should rewrite the game in MIPS Assembly and run it on PS2s, I'm open for it.

 

Thank you for choosing Metin2Dev Airlines.

The plan is to make a Metin2Dev files ?

I totally agree with you but that's a really good amount of work and i don't know if someone who have the skills for that want to spend his time on it for free (i don't have the skill for that) but it's not impossible and it would be really nice to give a second life to our old school loved Korean Game 

[Shogun 4478]

FreeBSD is the best decission YMIR made. I don't get the obsession with porting it to a system just because it's more popular. There's a reason Netflix, Apple and Sony use it.

[Exynox 1523]

1 minute ago, Shogun said:

FreeBSD is the best decission YMIR made. I don't get the obsession with porting it to a system just because it's more popular. There's a reason Netflix, Apple and Sony use it.

 

Don't forget WhatsApp. The point I was trying to make is that their only realistic options were Windows Server 2003 and FreeBSD. Of course they made the right decision. The thing is that it's better to have the option to install the server to whatever operating system you wish. A rewrite would pretty much solve that. Just imagine actually developing the game on Windows and behaving the same on FreeBSD. No weird RNG bugs, no skill issues, it would just work.

 

52 minutes ago, Ayslow said:

The plan is to make a Metin2Dev files ?

I totally agree with you but that's a really good amount of work and i don't know if someone who have the skills for that want to spend his time on it for free (i don't have the skill for that) but it's not impossible and it would be really nice to give a second life to our old school loved Korean Game 

 

I'm up to it, but I doubt I could do it alone (and still be sane after that). That's why I'm asking to see if there's an interest for it.

[Hunger 464]

To be legal is not enough just to re-write the game i think. I remeber The days when i was using old tribal wars leaked version. You need to change the game design too. 

[tierrilopes 448]

I was reading until i saw this mentioned: "java". See ya.

[numNum 36]

4 hours ago, tierrilopes said:

I was reading until i saw this mentioned: "java". See ya.

 

There is a game called Lineage 2 , it is a way bigger than Metin2 and there are many private servers using java emu ,

but yeah you will be limited ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by jeddawee

[Akronis 3]

 

Spoiler

On 4/18/2020 at 9:16 AM, Exynox said:

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Metin2Dev Airlines we would ask you to kindly follow this safety announcement. Please take your assigned seat, mentioned in your boarding pass. When sat down, please fasten your seat belt at all times, as turbulence can occur during the flight. We ask you to make sure that your luggage is properly stored in the overhead bins. In the unlikely case you won't like this topic, please take a moment and locate the nearest back or exit button of your browser. Should you be utterly disgusted at what I'm saying, a vomit bag is located in the seat in front of you. It's going to be a long read.

 

I think it's been almost 10 years since I first opened Metin2. Ten years! I was still playing Club Penguin at the time, I mean that's how I've heard about the game in the first place - from an ad on Club Penguin's page! And if I sit down and think of it, the game was 6 years old 10 years ago! I'm really curious, what other 16-year-old pieces of software do you guys use? If you do, how do you manage to use that piece of software nowadays? I know I've struggled a fair share to get Borland C++ 4.52 to run reliably in DOSBox.

 

My point is that in 2004 we didn't even have multi-core CPUs yet! The only way you could do multi-threading was by physically chucking as many CPUs onto a motherboard as you physically could. Or by distributing the computing load. The latter is what YMIR did. Initially, Metin2 was intended to run each core on their own server. One for the database cache, one for authentication, and a couple more for the maps (depending how far down you could reach in your pockets - we didn't have $5 DigitalOcean or AWS containers back then, servers were expensive). That's why nowadays we have to fiddle around with peer-to-peer TCP/IP configuration on all the Metin2 server cores. Metin2's architecture aged like milk.

 

To give credit where credit is due, parts of it were updated with time. But I'll bet you a coffee that libthecore hasn't changed much since the initial version. It's quite awesome that we actually can run this code quasi-reliably. Kudos to C++, in a world where JavaScript breaks backwards compatibility whenever wind changes direction.

 

Other than the dated architecture, the other problem I have with the Metin2 server is the code itself. I don't say it's easy to code such a dinosaur, but if you pay attention to the coding style and mistakes, you can actually see how YMIR devs improved over time. Which is perfectly fine, we all learn. The terrible part is that we can see their progress in acquiring this skill. They never fixed their silly mistakes, or did so very, very late (remember the /dice bug?).

 

The final nail in Metin2's coffin is BSD. At the time when they decided upon the architecture, Linux was nothing more than a toy, a fun gimmick like Docker and Kubernetes are today. Sure, you could have used Linux in production environments, but you would have been regarded a maniac if you did. Sure, some companies saw its potential and became early adopters. But the standard was still to use the tried and battle-tested, UNIX-certified BSD, which hails from 1977. In my country's 1977, we couldn't even talk about how dumb our leaders were without risking being beaten by the police, yet others were making huge technological advances. There's nothing wrong with FreeBSD nowadays either. It's just that it's way, way easier to code for Linux. It has become the de facto standard.

 

So we've got an old, half-baked and out-of-spec server on our hands. Great!

 

To me, working on the Metin2 server has become like one of those relationships in which you don't really like your partner, you fight all the time, yet you still stay together because you feel attached to them. It's plainly bad and it must go away. Just look at this forum, it's full of hotfixes, and whenever an actual feature release comes up, you have to find and replace tons of stuff and you don't even know if it will break any other system you have installed. Why can't we have some sort of plugin system so that we end this agony?

 

The topic of porting Metin2's server to Linux has come up numerous times here. Yet it has to be done underground, because God forbid making your code public, because daddy Gameforge is going to knock on your door like it's 1977. I don't want to get into this discussion, but it's their right. A light has shined before my eyes, though. Recently, a friend has asked me to help him out with hosting a Lineage 2 server. I don't know pretty much anything about this game, but I've found out one thing: there are two big classes of server software: the OFF, meaning the original server files NCSOFT developed, and L2J, a Java-written emulator for the same server files. And the thing is, people have been sued for running the original server files, but not for using the Java edition. Not to mention that the Java edition is publicly available in its various forks on GitHub and Bitbucket.

 

I guess you see where this is going. If we're all stuck at home, why don't we come together, join our efforts and rewrite the server in a more future-oriented, sensible way?

 

This would mean less risk of being thrown in jail by Gameforge. Not to mention that we don't need to do any reverse engineering as the source code is readily available, and this is a huge, a monumental advantage. The official Metin2 is going to be dead in a matter of years, but Gameforge not so much. This means that any future support and development for the game lies within the open-source community.

 

If we're going to do this, we should aim for the future. We should take into account the architecture of current systems. We should think of built-in redundancy in case one of the server crashes. And as much as I like C++ and its power, with great power comes great responsibility. It's simply too easy to make mistakes in C++. Not to mention the hell you must go through to simply include a library (In a way, it's a good thing since it forces you to think, not blindly include another library for adding two numbers like you would do in JS). C++ is one of those toxic relationships and I suggest moving to a tool more fit for the job. A language like Rust would do the job, for instance. It compiles down to machine code, it includes a network stack by default, it can read JSON and XML files, and it has many more features I didn't hear about yet. I never wrote anything in Rust, but it's just syntax. Real programming is about tackling problems, not about syntax.

 

I'm open to any ideas or suggestions. Maybe I'm talking sh*t and Metin2 deserves to die.

 

But I'm looking at you, Vanilla, Shogun, MartySama, Sanchez and all others who genuinely contributed to the community with original work but I can't name because I'm a stupid prick with 32kB of memory. What do you think? It's a huge task, yet manageable if we all give our best. Don't take anything I wrote here for granted, if you come with a good reason on why we should rewrite the game in MIPS Assembly and run it on PS2s, I'm open for it.

 

Thank you for choosing Metin2Dev Airlines.

 

I totally agree with you.

I myself, not long ago, tried to port to Linux with another person (who turned out to be totally unreliable), and I would gladly help you with this open-source project.

I think that Rust-Lang is the `one-and-only` language we should use, in order to achieve high performances and memory safety. I've already done some project with it, it's really awesome and clean.

 

Hope to hear something more about this project!

Hype mode: ON

 

------------ EDIT 1 ------------

Using "Rust-Lang" would also be a great idea for its integrated documentation maker, which we should also pay particular attention to.

 

------------ EDIT 2 ------------

Wrong quote

Edited April 21, 2020 by Akronis

[Exynox 1523]

On 4/21/2020 at 4:08 PM, Akronis said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

I totally agree with you.

I myself, not long ago, tried to port to Linux with another person (who turned out to be totally unreliable), and I would gladly help you with this open-source project.

I think that Rust-Lang is the `one-and-only` language we should use, in order to achieve high performances and memory safety. I've already done some project with it, it's really awesome and clean.

 

Hope to hear something more about this project!

Hype mode: ON

 

------------ EDIT 1 ------------

Using "Rust-Lang" would also be a great idea for its integrated documentation maker, which we should also pay particular attention to.

 

------------ EDIT 2 ------------

Wrong quote

 

Awesome! I'm a bit busy with university & work right now, but I'll try to come up with a development plan in the days to come. I'm thinking of implementing only the features up to 2011-2012, with plugin support for those who want the newer maps and mobs. Having a custom client is pretty much necessary in order to make any meaningful progress, and having its code public might be tricky. Maybe we'll use an invite-only Git repository for that.

 

Also, maybe it's a bit too much to ask now, but it would be nice to have a standard client for all servers, and based on the plugins installed on that server, to have the client download only the files it needs. That would mean the end of downloading a thousand clients. Of course, if somebody doesn't like it, it could be disabled.

 

I'll stop now, I have a lot of ideas and I know a lot of them mean really hard work. I'll set up a GitLab/Gitea instance.

[Akronis 3]

Hi @Exynox,

I'm glad to hear that.

 

In order to make a real good job, we must follow a rigorous software engineering process.
Before even writing a single line of code, we better start thinking of a proper design for this project (it would be great if we could make some UML diagram, requirements analysis and all the other stuff).

 

The time we spend in this, is gonna be saved for the next steps.

[Vanilla 1449]

Interesting, but big project.

 

I do agree with some stuff, but highly disagree with other points.

In fact I do like the c++ part. I don't have any experience with rust but I do know that a mighty c++ version along with current standards is not a disadvantage at all. Things like memory management were an issue back then. Today with stuff like smart pointers you even have more tools to avoid memory corruption. Though yes, Rust is definitely not bad at all and a rust-port would be interesting to see.

 

What I don't agree is the "rant" about BSD. It doesn't matter if there was no big choice back then. If you wanna rewrite the game then it's mandatory what matters today, not in the past. And nowadays FreeBSD is a very stable, fast and reliable system. Yet I even happened to catch more errors in linux than in BSD (like faulty pkg installations and stuff, but that doesn't matter much for this project). What matters is: Speed, security and reliability. So, why the heck should BSD be an issue there? Why even bother porting it to linux if BSD does the job quite well? I often see people not setting up their system correctly and then wonder about issues they wouldn't have if they read a bit about it. Heck, even now many people are still using BSD versions from years ago.

 

Though yes, a complete rewrite that actually focuses on more stability and speed, utilizing the more recent tools we have (threading, etc.) would be very benenificient for this. But it's also a big task and don't be fooled - if you rewrite it from scratch, there WILL be bugs. A game project as big as a metin2 server will potentially cause bugs. Where there are humans, there's also error. That's a fact and yeah, you can obviously fix those. What I wanna say is: I'm reading this text like "hey, let's all get together and set up a project" but I think the project isn't thought through well enough. And to completely rely on the devs makes it sound like "I wanna create something huge, come all devs and help me do it". Don't get me wrong, it's not bad to somewhat unite the people who know about development. But it makes the project sound kinda fishy.

 

I'd love to see such a project come to live. But to do so it takes more than a bright idea. Or, to quote a well-known meme: "One cannot simply rewrite a whole game". You'd think this through and if there's a plan, a concept and if you brainstormed well enough then the project has a chance of success. For now it more looks like an idea, something you had in mind and want to present. But it lacks the core thoughts about it. The first post is more about "ranting" about the stuff the old source has - supposedly - done wrong and how to fix it. And yes, some points do count. But there's high disagreement on other things and as much as it'd look cool to have e. g. a linux port.. It's basically pointless given what we already have. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say, no offense intended here.

[Exynox 1523]

@Vanilla,

 

Sorry if I got the wrong idea through - I do not see anything wrong with FreeBSD and I really quite like it. I had to implement some new kernel syscalls as a university project and its simpler structure really appealed to me. As I said, it stood the test of time, and that says something in an ever-changing world. My rant is not about FreeBSD in itself, but that we don't have the option to run the same code base on multiple operating systems. Of course, you could port the kqueue code to use epoll or maybe libevent or Boost.ASIO (I tried using it once and it felt like masochism).

It's not a dealbreaker though and more of a "nice thing to have".

 

I'm also a very big fan of C++ and I tend to use it quite a lot for projects where I need high performance. I suggested Rust-lang as a language to rewrite the server into for the following reasons:

1. It would force a complete code base rewrite since you can't simply borrow code from the existing server. Hence, no (obvious?) copyright infringement. I'm no lawyer but it seems fine to me.
2. If we do manage to complete a working rewrite, but in C++, people will be tempted to re-use the existing code for all the systems we see on this forum. And to put it lightly, there's a lot of code that's poorly written. I do trust myself to only use memory-safe containers, but I can't trust everybody who forks the code to do the same. It's a choice for the greater good of not having buggy servers in the case the port gains popularity.
   
   Yes, I know that people will be weirded out by the new language, and that's why have in plan to write a well-documented Python API so that everyone could write plugins without the fear of breaking the code. Maybe some of the more unnecessary stuff in the game could be rewritten for this API, like for example the OX event or the pet system. Or maybe even the quests!??, though I think it would break too much stuff and it wouldn't be nice to require everybody to rewrite the quests. At any rate, this would give people some examples to get started with.
3. The amount of tools Rust provides out-of-the-box are quite impressive. From what research I've done, I can quite safely say that it's as good as Python in this regard. And it's a good thing, because any library you include is another point of failure.
4. It compiles down to machine language, yet it's cross-platform. This means that I write it once on Windows and be certainly sure that it's going to also work on Linux, FreeBSD, be it x86, AMD64, MIPS or ARM. (It would be funny to see the Metin2 server running on a Raspberry Pi.)
5. Multi-threading seems to be fairly easy to do, and I really want to make use of this, now that CPUs with 10+ cores are fairly common.
6. It achieves 2-4 with little difference in performance compared to C++.

Yes, it surely has its downsides and I feel guilt not to do it in C++. It's going to be a learning experience nonetheless.

 

1 hour ago, Vanilla said:

What I wanna say is: I'm reading this text like "hey, let's all get together and set up a project"

This is exactly what it is. A call to action to see if people are interested in seeing something like this happen. And what better way to push people into replying than ranting about things? I really appreciate your advice and be sure that I'm well aware of the hurdles that await. If anything, this is firstly a learning experience, like everything in life. I will write a thorough development plan now that I saw there's some interest in this. Thank you for your feedback.

 

@Akronis,

 

Sure, as pointed above by both Vanilla and me, this is basically doomed to fail without a really, really good and thorough plan. I plan to document the architecture and the features the server will have. I'd like to keep only the base mechanics in the game itself and have all the various other systems (e.g. marriage, costumes, pets) be written in Python. This would mean that the server won't be bloated and can focus on the performance of what's performance-sensitive, and can leave the other stuff to the slower, albeit more versatile API.

 

[Suspect 64]

I've been long gone from the Metin2 scene however, today I decided to take a look at Metin2Dev and this thread was a joy. I do feel the same as @Exynox and I gotta say, you took the words out of my mouth, what you've said, word by word is what I feel about the Metin2 server core.

Just as a context, I was a Metin2 Player since 2007, been in the private server stuff since the release of the Metin2 Rain Files, been author and "ghost" author of several metin2 servers, been through every process (client, server, website, quest's), a lot of different programming languages, however 5/6 years ago I decided to leave and focus on my professional career. Nowadays  I work in the IT field, been working professionally in several different roles since 2016 (Golang, Javascript/Typescript, Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, Code Review, ...) This are all terms of my day to day life.

The choice of the Rust language is for sure the best bet, did some small projects back in the beginning of 2019 and it's for sure a language that deserves its credit.

I was just wondering if any progress was made, unfortunately I don't have the time I would like to put a decent amount of effort into this, now a days the free time that I have (not much) is just to enjoy life outside.

[Finnael 461]

Is having a completely rewritten server enough to not get sued by Gameforge though? Even if you do rewrite the client side from scratch, you are still gonna use their 3D models, textures, sound effects etc. If you use these without permission that should be enough for them to sue you. And if you have plans to remake those assets too why don't you just make a new game at this point? I don't know but this doesn't sound like a project two or three hobbyist can do in their spare time.

[Distraught 5711]

Hmm, interesting. If you can assemble a team for it you can count on me too.

[sheinfeld 1]

On 8/8/2020 at 1:10 PM, Finnael said:

Is having a completely rewritten server enough to not get sued by Gameforge though? Even if you do rewrite the client side from scratch, you are still gonna use their 3D models, textures, sound effects etc. If you use these without permission that should be enough for them to sue you. And if you have plans to remake those assets too why don't you just make a new game at this point? I don't know but this doesn't sound like a project two or three hobbyist can do in their spare time.

 Let me tell you a story about a game called “Metin2Master” that was completely rewritten into new game called “Magic2Master”.

 

They lived for about a year, that was until GF sue their asses of for copyrights.

 

The problem here is that you wouldn’t just need capable team. You would need a lot of cash to fight them in court for copyright infringement...

 

The lesson is: Be creative enough to create your OWN GAME.

 

No disrespect meant!

[Ace 3145]

Spoiler

Why can't we have some sort of plugin system so that we end this agony?

The problem is that the metin2 scene doesn't stick together.

no cohesion

Edited July 22, 2021 by Ace

[Distraught 5711]

On 11/14/2020 at 11:51 AM, sheinfeld said:

 Let me tell you a story about a game called “Metin2Master” that was completely rewritten into new game called “Magic2Master”.

 

They lived for about a year, that was until GF sue their asses of for copyrights.

 

The problem here is that you wouldn’t just need capable team. You would need a lot of cash to fight them in court for copyright infringement...

 

The lesson is: Be creative enough to create your OWN GAME.

 

No disrespect meant!

Actually the copyright problem was after they registered the trademark of Metin3 which GF tried to buy from them first but they said no. After this GF sued them and took everything else too. Magic to Master was just after everything (it was gonna be Metin3), they had to release it as a half-complete game because of money issues after the GF stuff. They tried to sell the game to the Metin2 community but they didn't really like it so they went bankrupt.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Distraught

[SnKoOo7 1]

In my opinion, there is no way to escape from this, you are facing a powerful and well-known company that, of course, has lawyers and money to destroy you.

[4XCIRCO 47]

An ambitious project and once finished a perfect base for highly costumized metin2 servers.

GameForge is a german company, thus I assume they would take legal actions against any unprohibited distribution of their product in front of a german court.

What I would like to mention is a part out of the Act on Copyright and Related Right (Urheberrechtsgesetz – UrhG).

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_urhg.html#p0018

As far as I understand, the final product of the above metioned project would be a copy of the game metin2. In our case, we cannot (even) bring to proof that we own a licence or any other evidence in which a right to reproduce, alter or copy the original game is metioned. Rewriting the code base would only make all participans to authors of their code base, but put together with GameForges assets we would have an altered product. Altered on the code side.

 

-----

Section 3
Adaptations

Translations and other adaptations of a work which are the adapter’s own intellectual creations are protected as independent works without prejudice to the copyright in the adapted work. The insubstantial adaptation of an unprotected musical work is not protected as an independent work.

-------

Section 7
Author

The author is the creator of the work.

------

Section 25
Access to copies of works

(1) The author may require that the owner of the original or of a copy of his work make the original or copy thereof available to him insofar as this is necessary for the production of copies or adaptations of the work and does not conflict with the legitimate interests of the owner.

(2) The owner shall not be obliged to surrender the original or the copy to the author.

---

Section 69f
Infringement of rights

(1) The rightholder may require of the owner or proprietor that all unlawfully produced or distributed copies or all copies intended for unlawful distribution be destroyed. Section 98 (3) and (4) shall apply accordingly.

(2) Subsection (1) shall apply accordingly to means the sole purpose of which is to facilitate the unauthorised removal or circumvention of any technical device which may have been applied to protect the computer program.

----

Section 96
Prohibition of exploitation

(1) Illegally produced copies may neither be distributed nor used for the purposes of communication to the public.

------

Section 97
Right to require cessation of infringement and to damages

(1) Any person who infringes copyright or any other right protected under this Act may be required by the injured party to eliminate the infringement or, where there is a risk of repeated infringement, may be required by the injured party to cease and desist. Entitlement to prohibit the infringer from future infringement shall also exist where the risk of infringement exists for the first time.

(2) Any person who intentionally or negligently performs such an act shall be obliged to pay the injured party damages for the prejudice suffered as a result of the infringement. When setting the damages any profit obtained by the infringer as a result of the infringement of the right may also be taken into account. Entitlement to damages may also be assessed on the basis of the amount the infringer would have had to pay in equitable remuneration if the infringer had requested authorisation to use the right infringed. Authors, writers of scientific editions (section 70), photographers (section 72) and performers (section 73) may also demand monetary compensation for damage which is non-pecuniary in nature provided and to the extent that this is equitable.

 

P.S: I am not a lawyer

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by 4XCIRCO
wtf

[Exynox 1523]

I consulted a lawyer and pretty much came to the same conclusion. There's no legal way to operate a Metin2 server without infringing on the trademark and intellectual property. And I think it's for the better, these laws have a purpose and it's only natural for a company to (be able to) protect their work and their business.

(Well, maybe operating in a country that doesn't really care about foreign intellectual property could be an option, but I doubt anyone would like to do business with Russia and China right now, not to mention the crappy ping times)

Growing older and wiser, I realised what a waste of time a complete server rewrite would be, and moved on to other, perfectly legal endeavours.

This game still lives in my and my friends' hearts though. I'm also still being inspired by the core rewriting efforts on this forum (especially looking at Vanilla's core, the QuantumCore project, and other "clean" serverfiles projects).

Therefore, I worked on and off in my free time to collect as many original files and try to recreate the game (Website + ItemShop + Game + Client) as it was at the end of 2013, where I personally think Metin was at its best (also because it implies the least amount of work).

The idea is to have a ready-to-go all-in-one solution to spin up a server when I feel like playing with my friends, and maybe do some improvement work on the original "kraizy" leaked files. The network stack was already ported to linux (under WSL) and it kinda works, but I'm still dealing with some weird bugs that need squashing:

For now, I'm using some random files and client I found on my computer, but I'll for certainly revert everything back to the GF original files.

Some other ideas:

• Adding GitLab CI/CD flows for automatically building the server binaries and Docker images, the client binaries and automatically packing the .eix/.epk files
• Removing unnecessary code
• Merging all tables into one singular database
• Rewriting the configuration system to use .env files
• Rewriting the weird way the protocols handles IP addresses (and therefore requiring the configuration of "public" IP addresses and "private" IP addresses for the P2P communication). Maybe also TLS (i removed all packet encryption to make my life less miserable) & IPv6 support, it should be pretty easy with libevent.
• Making use of an archive system I wrote years ago in order to yeet YMIR's EterLib/EterPack overly-complex crap. Just a simple file table header that points to the data (stored raw, using lz4 or zstd). For all I care, maybe a better idea would be to just use .7z archives and call it a day if the speed is tolerable, it's not like any of these files are secret anymore.
• Maybe upgrading the client to 64-bit? I do have pretty much all needed SDKs in 64-bit debug/release formats, but they are newer versions and I guess it's going to take some trial and error.
• Possibly upgrading the python interpreter to 3.x. I did that years ago and it went surprisingly well.
• Trying to use DirectX 9 - but it's a deep rabbit hole...
• Rewriting the server's admin API to a REST API.
• Maybe writing a plugin API for the server in Python or something so as to make the process of adding systems much easier (and to circumvent bad C++ code from crashing servers). This is a titanic project in itself though, and who is going to write plugins if this doesn't become a widely adopted gamecore?
• Also banning all C-style pointers, strings and functions. Passing smart pointers and using references is much safer and hopefully won't lead to weird undefined behaviour.
• Releasing the source code when I deem this ready for the public (not necessarily including all those things above). The thing is that I'd like this hosted on some publicly accessible Git repo, so that the community could work on it...

... but it's copyright infringement all over again. It's pointless, all of it.

The copyright pretty makes our work irrelevant, and I don't even have hope that anything will come out of my work.

[Denizeri24 35]

Granny, Miles and SpeedTree libraries are licensed and cannot be used without a license. Additional libraries of the Miles library, such as the MP3 decoder, are also licensed separately.

 

All GR2 models used in the game are licensed by Ymir. But I don't think Gameforge will bother with you unless your server reaches a lot of people (like rubinum / aeldra)

Edited November 26, 2022 by Denizeri24