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AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

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Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#41

Post by jwells89 »

netbioserror wrote: post #39
jwells89 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that an underrated element in the success of early WoW is how it’s not all that complicated or technical and generally didn’t take itself that seriously (if even if some players did). Modern MMOs are almost the exact opposite, especially in raids where insanely complex encounter design has become the norm. That’s great for the handful of people who enjoy that but not so great for the wider playerbase. Old WoW…

The tradeoff has been in time investment. It takes very little time to get the gear and materials needed to start working on Mythic Dragonflight raids, while Heroic and Normal can get started even faster and are actually quite easy by comparison. Meanwhile in Classic, the skill ceiling is low but the time investment is through the roof. My first time in Classic was SoD and just leveling to 25 was damned exhausting. I…

The thing about Classic is that it doesn’t work well if one is trying to race to cap and raid readiness. Leveling and gearing up is as much “the real game” as endgame raiding is. As such, it works a lot better when played at a relaxed pace with less of a focus on the destination, as the majority of players did back in 2004-2010.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#42

Post by TylerE »

whartung wrote: post #34
TylerE wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally impossible as they (especially python) is a fundamentally much less performant language. It's like expecting a clapped out rental car to beat an F1 car in a race. This is a multithreaded server supporting dozens to hundreds of players simultaneously. All the game logic runs server side (else the players cheat).

But why is this so performance bound, particularly for just a couple of users? I mean, sure, if you're hosting 1000 of your closest friends, I can see the potential issues. But for you, and a small party, it shouldn't be that awful. Large groups, close together, are the largest load factor on a server like this because of the explosion of interrelated event broadcasting. "Oops, Lulzmage just cast Blizzard on a pack o…

Even on a tiny instance, that efficiency could be the difference between needing a $5/month server and a $50/month server. (or being able to run it on something like a Rasp Pi vs a server-grade computer)

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#43

Post by nerevarthelame »

I can't wrap my head the enormity of reverse engineering a WoW (or any MMORPG) server. It just seems like there are so many possible types of inputs to the actual server, with so much of the logic happening in Blizzard's black box, that it wouldn't be possible to come up with a decent server emulator. Impressive work.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#44

Post by lairv »

mikedelago wrote: post #10

Hey, I'm on the contributor team for AzerothCore, mainly focusing on maintaining the docker images and linux build CI! Cool to see it here. AzerothCore's "killer feature" is that it has a module system, where the game server can use C++ code to hook onto events. It's pretty slick and works quite nicely. One of the things I've been interested in working on is setting up dynamic linking for the modules so it's easier t…

I can't wrap my head on own hard it is to make such a project, what's your view from the inside, is it a massive thing ? In term of complexity, lines of codes, people involved, etc.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#45

Post by Rexxar »

mikedelago wrote: post #10

Hey, I'm on the contributor team for AzerothCore, mainly focusing on maintaining the docker images and linux build CI! Cool to see it here. AzerothCore's "killer feature" is that it has a module system, where the game server can use C++ code to hook onto events. It's pretty slick and works quite nicely. One of the things I've been interested in working on is setting up dynamic linking for the modules so it's easier t…

Do you know if it would be possible to create a new client and create something completely different than wow or is it fundamentally tied to wow gameplay ?

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#46

Post by bombcar »

nerevarthelame wrote: post #43

I can't wrap my head the enormity of reverse engineering a WoW (or any MMORPG) server. It just seems like there are so many possible types of inputs to the actual server, with so much of the logic happening in Blizzard's black box, that it wouldn't be possible to come up with a decent server emulator. Impressive work.

Surprisingly large amounts were offloaded to clients especially early on - iirc early pvp was a madhouse because “accurate correct line of sight” and other things you should never trust the client on were only done server side in instances.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#47

Post by bombcar »

jwells89 wrote: post #41
netbioserror wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tradeoff has been in time investment. It takes very little time to get the gear and materials needed to start working on Mythic Dragonflight raids, while Heroic and Normal can get started even faster and are actually quite easy by comparison. Meanwhile in Classic, the skill ceiling is low but the time investment is through the roof. My first time in Classic was SoD and just leveling to 25 was damned exhausting. I…

The thing about Classic is that it doesn’t work well if one is trying to race to cap and raid readiness. Leveling and gearing up is as much “the real game” as endgame raiding is. As such, it works a lot better when played at a relaxed pace with less of a focus on the destination, as the majority of players did back in 2004-2010.

That’s the biggest difference - I played classic and there were entire guilds (including mine) who never even bothered thinking of trying to do an actual raid. We had a few raiders but they were independently contracting with bigger guilds as subs.

And we were totally fine with it.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#48

Post by bombcar »

wkat4242 wrote: post #18

Nice! So this is WotLK? I'll try it out. I left WoW around Cata/Pandaria. Especially the panda thing I found stupid. It was so childish Kung Fu Panda style. Would be nice to go back and visit some of the forbidden areas like gamemaster island and the hidden area under ironforge

I didn’t mind the pandas as much as the continued … wotlking of the world.

It was all better when there wasn’t as much of an overarching story that they really felt they had to force you into.

And dailies. Fuck dailies. I already have a job.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#49

Post by polski-g »

bombcar wrote: post #48
wkat4242 wrote: post #18

Nice! So this is WotLK? I'll try it out. I left WoW around Cata/Pandaria. Especially the panda thing I found stupid. It was so childish Kung Fu Panda style. Would be nice to go back and visit some of the forbidden areas like gamemaster island and the hidden area under ironforge

I didn’t mind the pandas as much as the continued … wotlking of the world. It was all better when there wasn’t as much of an overarching story that they really felt they had to force you into. And dailies. Fuck dailies. I already have a job.

We call them wizard chores.

Re: AzerothCore: Self-Hosted World of Warcraft 3.3.5a Server

#50

Post by bombcar »

polski-g wrote: post #49
bombcar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t mind the pandas as much as the continued … wotlking of the world. It was all better when there wasn’t as much of an overarching story that they really felt they had to force you into. And dailies. Fuck dailies. I already have a job.

We call them wizard chores.

I understand every single step in the progression to them, and I still hate it. Literally drove me away from the game, barely ever to return.
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