Questions about rAthena and alternative uses.

[Talaysen]

Hi guys,

 

I've been away from the Ragnarok pServer scene for a while and I've been debating on diving into a new project, I wanted to pick some brains, first.

 

I've been contemplating the potential of the rAthena emulator for making a stand-alone game. I had looked at Stendhal as a potential option, but the gameplay overall is very clunky, character movement seems erratic.

 

Question 1 (Legal):

While I know Gravity doesn't condone or approve of private servers, they don't seem to tend to go after private servers from a legal standpoint with any sort of real consistency. It seems like a massive gray area, especially depending on 'how' your server is set up.

 

Much of the quests, combat mechanisms, and other materials in rAthena are designed to work just like Ragnarok Online, but where does this sit legally if you were to create a new type of MMO using rAthena?

 

I can't imagine rAthena operating as long as it has, if Gravity had a problem with it, or if there was a real risk of legal backlash.

 

Question 2 (Clients):

Beyond KeyWorld's HTML5 based web browser (which is just magnificent, by the way), I haven't seen anything in regards to clients that aren't simply hexed versions of the Gravity/kRO client. Has there every been any headway in creating an rAthena specific client?

 

Question 2b (Mobile):

Follow-up question to #2, has there ever been any headway in regards to the same question, but on a mobile scale?

 

Question 3 (Development): 

The development of a separate MMO specific to rAthena as an emulator would likely necessitate it's own client because of the different resources, maps, etc. How plausible is this?

 

Question 3b (Minimal Starting Point):

What would be the most minimal possible configuration for rAthena that would function as a building block? Essentially, one map, character, maybe an NPC, and a couple of passive (non-hostile) mobs?

 

Question 3c (Maps): 

It looks like BrowEdit is the go-to tool for editing maps. Are there other alternatives that are in-use? If anyone has any good links to guides on creating new maps from scratch, I'd love em.

 

Cross-Server Synchronization:

This is more of an aside than part of this idea, slightly out-of-scope, but one of the most common problems I encountered running RO servers in the past was that players from different regions experienced lag. If multiple servers could be syncronized (chat, major towns where there's no combat/significant load), player gameplay experience would benefit greatly.

 

Ideally, players in two separate regions (US East, Asia) wouldn't see each-other on a normal map because they'd be playing on servers in entirely different regions, but if two players from different regions wanted to play together, joining a party could pull one player or the other to the others server, or the server closest to the middle of the two players, to reduce any latency that might be experienced by grouping.

 

I have no idea what would be involved in such a process, I just wanted to put that one out there, maybe someone with more experience than myself could come up with the logistics on how it could happen.

 

Wrapup:

At this point I'm trying to gauge interest and plausibility. rAthena has so many fantastic qualities, and I think a modern take with new graphics, quests, storyline could be a very fun project. This is a 'speculation' standpoint, nothing more. Interest and feedback will determine whether I abandon the idea, or start planning on what type of resources I have available that could be allocated for such an endeavor.

 

If this is something I could get enough people interested in, if treated as a separate project, or maybe a branch of rAthena, but fully under rAthena's control (say, "rAthena Basic), I'd be willing to help provide hosting resources, along with time, and any aspects of the development that I could handle.

 

The idea would be that any maps, NPCs, events, quests, sprites, any materials involved would be open-source/GPL, to allow anyone to use them freely in any way they wished, all of which would be significantly different from traditional RO materials to ensure that the materials are original, new works, completely free from any claim from any group or individual as intellectual property.

 

 

If I offend anyone with the questions or information here, apologies!

[Mystery]

Clients we had back in the olden days were hexed ones. Clients used are RO-based and I don't think there is a way of changing that unless you pretty much create a client from the ground up. There are no other clients available. The best one so far for "mobile" would be what Curiosity is working on: https://rathena.org/board/topic/104827-wip-native-ragnarok-client/That's pretty much as close as you're going to get. Unless, once again, you create an APP from the ground up that has RO-like UI (i.e. Ragnarok Path of Heroes https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.us.ragnarok )

 

If Gravity wanted to, they would of taken down eAthena long ago. But I don't ever remembering them talking to RO Emulators.