Future development plans

[Stormy]

Since the launch of December 2001 was successful, it makes sense to extend RSC Sundae with support for 2002 content.

By doing this, we can launch a separate "2002scape" progression server based on the existing database. Player progress will effectively be "forked" and they can choose to either continue in December 2001 or move onwards into 2002 (or both ). Updates will continue into 2002. We probably won't go as far as Agility or Fatigue, sources for content become increasingly harder to get after that point. Both are unpopular content.

Potential target revisions

Code: Select all

10 December 2001 (mc110 config46 maps27) what sundae is already based on
18 March 2002 (mc127 config52 maps31) world ends at camelot castle, herblaw
^ missing config52, have config51
28 March 2002 (mc131 config55 maps33) world ends at seers, fletching
23 April 2002 (mc132 config56 maps34).jag family crest revised demon location, lava dungeon, catherby certer
28 May 2002 (mc136 config59 maps37) world ends at east ardougne, thieving, monks friend
17 June 2002 (mc137 config60 maps38) fishing guild, temple of ikov, clock tower
[...] west ardougne, tree gnome village, coal trucks, holy grail, fight arena...
24 September 2002 (mc155 config67 maps38) king black dragon, waterfall quest, dragon med

Initially I wanted to start with a 127 server, but due to the missing config file it makes more sense to start with the launch of fletching. It's not much more content!

Mid to late 2002 is sadly where archived runescape versions tend to become less, and the gaps between usable revisions becomes bigger.

By September 2002 the members' world map is quite messy, with the fight arena, monastery, tree gnome village all pressed together next to Ardougne!

Work required

I've extended my tooling for the following features:

• Converting from the compressed post-2001 map format to the "original" (server-side) map format.
• Noting down NPC locations when they respawn in Wireshark packet captures.
• Noting down NPC bounds (the extents of where they move) in Wireshark packet captures.

Work is ongoing to re-create the RSC server config files in their original format: https://git.sr.ht/~stormy/rsc-config

Support for all 2002 client versions has been added to RSC Sundae. Dueling will obviously be a fairly big engine change.

Moderation... Herblaw in particular places players in great competition against each other, and causes a lot of problems.

Far future - sharing the work

Eventually it should become possible to re-base the RSC Preservation 2003/2018 re-creation on the RSC Sundae code. This will ultimately be necessary due to the unsuitability of the current code when it comes to accurately replicating RS1.

[Rin]

Sounds great Stormy, looking forward to seeing the progress and the eventual content releases.

To be honest the current state of the game (mc110) is my favorite version and overall the most nostalgic for me, when the game was sort of simple enough for anyone to jump in and get comfortable but at the same time had enough content to keep you busy for a while. The game was social, growing, skilling was fun because you didn't have to deal with herblaw yet, combat was approachable, untouched by some of the seemingly hastily put together or poorly thought out p2p content. Finally of course, the players hadn't yet suffered the consequences of botting and cheating in the form of fatigue, an unfortunate mess that ultimately did little to nothing against actual cheaters and remained as a massive thorn in the side for the rest of the community. And, yes, agility sucks for the simple fact that it had absolutely no use whatsoever.

That said, I would say that February-March 2002 is probably my second favorite period of the game, perhaps as far as mc136 or in other words up to about May 2002 but less so after that. There's no denying that, despite some of the dubious content it would bring, on release and early on p2p was a blast, exploring the new areas was awesome and they were pretty well done too. Catherby and Seers quickly became a mainstay for a lot of players and Lost City along with Hero's quest were something new to shoot for. Mixed feelings on the new skills but 3 out of 4 did have an actual use so that is probably fair enough.

Anyway, I'm glad to see more development plans, future intentions, stuff like that. I think, obviously, most of us are not so keen on big changes, I mean we're playing a niche release/version of an already extremely niche game at this point so it seems to go without saying. With that, I believe the most important component is that the releases beyond mc110 are indeed "forks" and separate from the mc110 release. It appears you already have that covered so that's really great to hear.

Thanks for the update.

TL;DR: current version mc110 is best, newer releases up to mc136 are nice too, keep any versions beyond mc110 separate.

[Stormy]

Don't worry, RSC Perfect is my perfect version as well.

[Rin]

That's reassuring and wonderful to hear. heart

Keep up the great work!

[metalpenguin]

Super exciting, thanks so much for working on this!