Writing a plugin

[vbnewb]

I'd like to write a plugin but it seems that mq2 source no longer contains the offsets (i believe) to build for live servers. I am told that I should write a plugin for test submit it to mq2 builder etc etc. My concerns with the mq2 builder workflow:

#edit#
i think i was looking for patchday.

 

[dewey2461]

The source for live servers got pulled because some folks were bypassing the truebox protections. What they have in place works well enough as long as you don't have to debug crashes on live.

 

[Fry]

Offsets is easy part to update, data structures and UI changes is the hard part. MQ2IC also has spawn data structure hidden that have to be reverse engineered too.

Truthfully unless your a reverse engineer genius with a bunch of free time it's next to impossible. I've been doing MQ2 updates for almost 15 years now and we don't have the tools to update MQ2 data structures. EQMule is the only one with the tools to do it and hes spent years developing them.

I hate to say it, but writing it for test server is your only option at this stage. There is a project being worked on to get full MQ2 source released again, but I'm not sure when or if this will be done.

 

[vbnewb]

Thanks everyone, test workflow it is.

 

[dewey2461]

Thanks everyone, test workflow it is.

I am curious what you want to make into a plugin. I've written a few myself.

 

[vbnewb]

Initially, I just wanted to play around a bit. I haven't been 100% happy with a macro and thought to convert it would be simple enough and I could get around to finally doing a plugin this go around on EQ/MQ2.

I am pretty disappointed with what happened with the production source files in the spirit of open software in general though but I'm not sure I am willing to pay the cost to undo that "wrong".

 

[dewey2461]

I can understand that. It took me a while to get used to not having the source for live. Pretty much completely stopped work on the plugin I was developing for a while but eventually made the switch to test server for debugging.

Its a bit of a PITA since I hate 'wasting' time on test characters but I understand why it was done.

 

[Chatwiththisname]

Keep in mind that creating your plugin to work with the builder will require that the entire plugin is self contained in a single .cpp file. Otherwise you'll have to contact eqmule to get any additional files added to the builder so that it will find the include files, with the exception of plugins.h anyway.

Building for test can be a nuisance if your intent is to play on live. I can agree and have been down that road. But honestly, building for test isn't much different than building for live and if what you produce is useful to the community I'm sure that if you wanted your work could be added to the mmobugs build once you decide on what it is you are making, and get the functionality worked out. Then sans any issues it would have the ability to get updated with mmobugs as part of the release.