Working SEQ alternative

[cavemanbob]

Attached is the source for a program that implements most of the seq features that i found useful. This is provided as is and I will provide NO support for getting it running or compiled whatsoever, and just assume that any bugs that you may find are already known. I may or may not finish developing this I haven't decided yet.

The server is writen in C and reads the spawn info directly from memory and transmits the data to the server. The server is completely written in managed C#. As such the .NET framework and a C compiler that has the windows platform SDK is required to build this.

Once compiled, just start the server on the EQ machine, set the proper IP address on the client (127.0.0.1 if it's the same machine) and hit GO...

http://alteria.sf.net/myseq.zip

EDIT: Almost forgot, put the seq maps in a directory called maps with the client exe

EDIT: Small update to the code to fix the annoying flickering and mostly fixed threading bug... has been uploaded now

[Sixes]

Originally posted by cavemanbob
As such the .NET framework and a C compiler that has the windows platform SDK is required to build this.

Fancy posting binaries for those of us who work exclusively with gcc and make? Yes, I'll trust you not to do naughty things.

[cavemanbob]

Binaries: http://alteria.sf.net/myseq-bin.zip

[sauron]

Wow this proggy looks pretty sweet!

In the Nexus, it works perfectly, but I quickly noticed two problems.

#1, I go to PoK, and it says it can't find "PoKnowledge.map" but the map *is* there.

#2 (big problem) when I am in PoK or Great Divide, the NPC list on the left keeps reseting over and over, redrawing the spawn names... It never comes out of it until I zone (and no updates are drawn to the map either).

I know it's released unsupported so I don't except any fixes whatsoever ( <--anti-flame disclaimer), but since this thread is talking about this proggy, I wanted to leave feedback here as to what I found.

All in all, if the "list redrawing" problem is fixed, this thing looks a LOT like SEQ did! Really nice work!

[cavemanbob]

The map thing is due some of the old showeq maps being having some invalid lines in them... I have a set that are fixed, but haven't uploaded them or fixed the map loader to ignore these problems. I'll likely fix it later tonight, as for the list thing I'm almost positive I have the problem nailed down to a race condition with the net thread... Hopefully the scroll bars will work shortly as well

[cavemanbob]

OK, new version up, map not loading thing *should* be fixed for all maps except twilight.map which has 2 lines that have newlines in the middle of them.... If any except twilight don't work let me know as I haven't tested them all yet. The listbox doing weird stuff should be fixed for good as well as a bunch of non thread safe junk. Next 2 things to get done are the scrollbars and making the scaling work in a more sane way.

The binaries are included with the source this time as well

http://alteria.sf.net/myseq.zip

[EvilNecro]

Great Job Cavemanbob!

I've been looking for a reason to poke at C#.

Is the flicker in the map re-draw cause direct x isn't implemented yet or because I have slow video and cpu in my second linux/windows pc?

At any rate it's awesome as it is, thanks for sharing!

[cavemanbob]

The flickering was because I was drawing directly to the GDI surface and it should be gone in the newest version, let me know if it's not.... I tried using DirectDraw, but it wasn't really any better given the low redraw rate and such.

As a sidenote there's still a bug where mobs don't dissapear from the listbox when they should... I'm going to hunt this one down tomorrow I hope

This was the first bigger thing i've tried in c# and I've been impressed with it overall other then the current dependence on windows (not that big a deal IMO). I've found it to be very similar to java in many ways, but much faster and the libraries are much more consistant. There are a couple of bugs that really annoy me though, especially one in the string class hehe

[seqcleric]

Heyya caveman, got some questions, i know you're not officially supporting this yet, but i'm hoping you can tell me what i'm doing wrong.

I load the server on the machine I play EQ on. There is nothing else to do to this machine, right?

Then, I load the client which is found in the folder that i created and popped all my seq maps into.
(Note, could you zip up the maps YOU are using and provide a link to them as well? This may be part of the trouble)

I've gotten the map to populate the spawn list on the side but can see no mobs in the actual map part of the program. Also, i've only gotten the spawn list to populate once. Then, after i zoned, it never worked again.

Now, the questions:

First, do you have to manually load the maps yourself or should the program load them for you?

Is there anything special you need to do to the server part of the program?

When you zone, should it repopulate automatically?

Is there any special OS I should be running? (Like what do you run? I'm using Win2K)

Is it possible that I need to compile the stuff on my side instead of using your ready made Bin's, is that a possible reason why it's not working?

Thanks in advance for your time, this looks like it's going to be a GREAT viable alternative!

Sincerely,
Seqcleric

Edited to clarify some of my questions

[Sixes]

This is excellent stuff. Thank you, CavemanBob.

One question, nothing to do with ShowEQ so a little cheeky. In order to maintain our web-based guild-management tool, I have to copy the data shown by the in-game tool manually. How difficult would it be to get the server to read this data and have it available to a client process, perhaps on another port? It would save me (and probably most guilds) vast amounts of time.

[Amadeus]

Well...on my main box the client works fine. On my other box, which is running the same OS, I Get this message:

The Application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.

[sillypuddy]

You need to load you framework .Net Files for the app to work. Download the below and give it a shot.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[cavemanbob]

Adadeus: I suspect sillypuddy is correct, sounds like .NET isn't installed, otherwise if it's on there let me know and I'll look into it

Sixes: I'll look into this, could be a cool feature....

seqcleric: I run Win2K as well, latest service pack, so that shouldn't be a problem. It should repopulate and load the map when it's started or when you zone and the server jsut needs to be started on the EQ machine. What may be happening is the data stream is getting offset a bit and never getting back on track. At the default settings the server is transmitting quite a lot of data, so you may want to try increasing the sleep time to 500 in there. It's running around 6.5Mb/s by default which isn't a problem for me as I have 100Mb nics, but it might be a bit much for a 10Mb LAN with other traffic on it... I'm going to upload the maps this afternoon, I'm sick of trying to get the loader to load some of these mangled files.

And of course on patch day if they patch the executable, it's going to be broken till the new offsets turn up


EDIT:
New Links:
http://alteria.sf.net/myseq-1.0.zip
http://alteria.sf.net/myseqserverc-1.0.zip
http://alteria.sf.net/seq-maps.zip

All these maps have been edited to fix errors and they all work as far as I know, the other 2 files haven't been updated since last night, just renamed so it's easier to track what versions of each people have... There's a couple of small changes coming later for the server to allow the update time to be changed.

[eqtryin]

This is real nice work, so a small thanks before i ask you to support something you said you had no intention of

The only problem i have is the list just resetting over and over and basically never fully *decoding* the zone. Seems to happen in zones with a lot of different mobs anyhow great work. Using your latest download as well if that helps.

edit by different mobs i meant to say a lot of mobs say 200 or more, one for sure is the bazaar its will keep resetting the list everytime (this is just an example)

[cavemanbob]

Yeah it's because mbos are removed from the list if not sent again from the server within a certain period, but if it comes in shortly after it gets added, then removed and so on... Increasing the Form1.ditchGone variable from 5 to 10 might help, but it'll tkae longer for stuff to disapear from the list. I have a better solution in the works that I'm currently testing.