As you probably know by now, by reading our forums (you ARE reading the forums arnen't you?), I finally finished supporting the latest encryption changes in the post 1.68 client, pendragon version. What it means is that, starting next week, work on finishing the v2 release will resume.

This nice little surprise which was Mythic getting a 101 security course over the last few weeks have slowed us down a bit, but I'm now really confident in the future.

So what exactly is 2.0 going to support? All the clients, that's what we support. By leveraging the pluggable network API (code name spider) that I wrote a few month ago in anticipation of that kind of changes, we'll be able to support any version, be it today or tomorrow, without too much of a problem.

Some slight problems like the latest hard coded changes in the live version of the 1.68 game are posing a new kind of trouble, but the CoAD Client will take care of that. This small software that will be installed on everybody's machine, will let you use your game without modifying files, and will support a very simple way to connect to and find new servers. More about that in a few weeks when it's ready, and I'll post a few screen captures.

I want to thank Cap'nBry for teaching me so much in a night, and that i happened to lear i nearly worked with him on a project a few years ago. Thanks also to Kort of DOL for his help., and DrMC.

Once again we proove that coad is alive, kicking and doing great :)

As some of you know, i've proposed a merge plan to the DOL team. It seems that the discussion has come to a stop, because of objections from some members about coad being dead, and as such, me proposing this merge only to save CoAD. As I said before, this was true when i first thought about the ideas, but the plans changed a bit. As such, CoAD is going to continue on its own path. The new dev team will work on the 2.0 release, and the source code is going to be open sourced for the whole community to enjoy. When? I don't want to set a target date, but the day it will happen, you'll certainly know it, as a lot of things are going to change. The source will be opened on the same day as the 2.0 code being released. Developers who want access to our source code and join the new dev team before the opening of the source can still mail cassios or me at technoboy@coadserver.com. Thanks to all of you for your support, and for showing every day, by coming here, by IM'ing us, mailing us, that the CoAD community is still very much alive!

Lot of news these days :)

Did you notice we're playing around to find a new color scheme... A web designer is still welcome in our team :)

Please vote on your right about the merge proposal between CoAD and DOL. All the informations are in the general forum, which is available even if you're anonymous.

To end up, yes, that strongly suggest that we're back on the scene, and this time we won't let things slip.

I'm still looking for a couple of developers. There's still some positions for beginners and positions are always open for the coders out there.

I'm also looking at web designers and asp(.net) coders for the revamp of the web site for 2.0. Graphics designers all welcome as well.

As always, send all your mails to cassios, which is in charge of creating the new team.

Hello everybody, technoboy in charge talking to our beloved community. As you probably all know by now, the 2.0 release will be my last one. However, because most of you don't want to see coad die with me leaving, we are building a new dev team from the ground up. You'll join this new team with your own skills, and learn c#, object oriented programming and nifty voodoo dev secrets from the inside. My dear friend Cassios will be handling the creation of the group. Please send him an email on cassios@free.fr If you're already a good coder, working on another emu, or a beginner c# dev, or whatever you are, join now. With this new team, coad will go even further.

• New startup procedure. You'll see a lot more information about what the server is doing when it's starting. The whole procedure has been cleaned out. Whenever you start the server, everything is loaded and ready to be used, but you'll have to start manually each server (please note batch files can help you do that).
• You'll get much more information about every single error that happens when trying to start. For the scripters, you'll get more detailed data about it. Hopefully that means no more "The server could not start. Deal with it".
• Script isolation. Scripters will get a list of the exceptions generated by their scripts. A new manifest file for scripts will also enable linking between script units, and sub folders in each script unit folder will let you put your code in the same unit, while still keeping a clean hierarchy.
• REST based HTTP API interface. You can access anything you can get from the console from the now included HTTP engine (still need performance improvements). Concurrency on account modifications is ensured by locking an account when you access it from either of the administration tools.
• Graphic tool to manage your servers, supporting a plug-in architecture to manage the server. Will be shipped by the treeView plug-in letting you see what you have today on the console in a graphical way (and as always, access properties and actions), and a message manager to read whatever the server has to tell about itself (think EventViewer). This tool is going to be open sourced on source forge. Authentication is done through Digest. Early feedback from some of the people who saw the app tells me this is going to be a killer feature.
• Memory reduction by reducing the amount of unused uncollected objects from memory. That means the footprint is going to get down a bit.
• New IsolationMode property that lets you decide if each server is loaded separately or if everything is packed for efficiency in the same logical unit. The IsolationMode.Strong will let you hot deploy a new server version with very low down time, the IsolationMode.None will give you the smallest memory footprint and best performance.
• Translation system in the full system, including the base class library (CoadCore.dll), so that everyone can have what it needs in different languages.
• Yeah, might be interesting for some, you can zone (It is not as simple as it seems).
• Mobs are happily running around, but merchants and sellers are not implemented yet.
• Account groups and administration flags are there, each command can be restricted based on these flags. You'll be able to define each administration group that you want (Users, Administrators, GMs, whatever), and each script will be able to create its own flags.
• The code has been reviewed and modified heavily to support things like the Turkish language (sorry for our turkish friends). Feedback on these international aware changes will be ver valuable.
• You can now select if your server will allow an account to have characters on multiple realms (Off by default).
• You can now select if your users have to go through the login server before connecting (On by default).
• The old logging architecture has been removed entirely, so there will be no more log files being generated on release builds (which also means no more file lock problems)
• The datalogger is ready, together with a new PacketLogging infrastructure. Supports plug-ins as well, and sends back the data to our servers directly (Don't know if we'll make that available immediatly or not).
• Our internal packet analyzer has been rewritten to use the PacketLogging infrastructure, and rewritten as a better multi threaded application. Now loading a 15mb dump only takes a few seconds, including isometry tests (this is an internal tool).
• From the 1.2 code base, a few bug fixes for script compilation (missing dll references, Timer and SingletonBase had missing functionnality)
• From the 1.2 code base, auto account creation can be done, needs to be activated (Off by default).
• From the 1.2 code base, the coadserver can be installed anywhere you want, you're no longer restricted to putting it in c:\coadserver.

• Selling system (Vendors and merchants)
• XP system (simon have some code on it, we have to try and merge it back)
• client-version specific configuration files to provide for zone localization and coord validation. Nearly all of it is working, still need some feedback on the dataloggin part, the client extractor, and a few missing routines to detect the correct version. As a debug hack for the moment you have to define which client type each account is using, as it considers classic as the default.
• Dumping the old patch server to integrate with the current architecture AND the new HTTP module system that is introduced in 2.0.
• TOA support, didn't get any log files yet to regenerate the spider engine (Spider is the code name for our new network engine that can adapt to multiple protocol versions for the game server).
• Forgot to add, a small tool that can open all the files associated with the coad server when you download them from the web. This includes .csu and .coad files (the former let you hot deploy script units, the second let you reconfigure your game automatically to go to a new server, and optionally start the game).

• Server Outage (Lost one of my primaries)
• Current Project Status (moving from M3 to M4 why, how long . . .)
• Donations (What is a donation lol)

Server Outage:

Well let me first say that I am very sad today. I have lost one of my old dear friends. (No not a person) The Server that I used to host our SQL Server, IRC Server and Email Server on was one of my oldest boxes. Last week she finally gave up the ghost. You should have seen me trying to resuscitate her. It was pretty pathetic. Well I have migrated all the functionality from that box on to another old box that I had lying around here and have restored what backups I could. The SQL backups went fine and while there may be a day or two of messages lost, the majority of everything is there. The interesting one was the IRC while I had good backups I could not get the system to accept them. So you all are going to have to re-register your nicks and such. FYI We still need to do a more extensive upgrade of these servers.

Current Project Status:

Most of you do not know may not know how we are marking time with our project. We are using a milestone method. We have a concept of what needs to be incorporated in the product and the accomplishment of that marks a milestone. The following is a short list of the high lights from previous milestones.

• M1 – Formation of team. Initial breaking of the encryption.
• M2 – Creation of a sustainable walk around world. This was accomplished in our Alpha Test where we Setup and ran a server where we were able to have 20+ testers on at the same time and running around seeing each other with some very limited functionality.
• M3 – A technical upgrade including a rewrite of the network layer and the inclusion of the scripting engine. This was a huge undertaking and I would have to give an equally huge thank you to Technoboy for all the major contributions he has done in this mile stone.
• M4 – Ok, this is the current working milestone. The release of this milestone will be our first public binary release. Just so you know we have several team members that are away this week. When they return we will begin testing M4 and for release. I have done the initial compile and am working on a deployment model for the release. When you persistently ask. All I can say at this point is, just a few more weeks tops.

Donations:

Oh gawd this is where he asks us for money. Quick close the browser.

Well let me say a couple of things concerning donations. We have now close to 5000 members registered to the WEB site. That is absolutely amazing. I love providing this community for each of you to use. I love doing the work itself. We have been providing this community for almost 2 years now. That is also amazing. Time really fly’s does it not? To date I have received $50.00 in donations. So even if only half of the registered members are active, that means that on average we have received over the past year 2 cents from each of the active members. While in truth the $50 can from 2 separate donations of $20 and $30. But I can’t help to think that if each active member were to give just $1.00 a month (did you see that $1.00) we would be able to upgrade the server. Upgrade to a T1 ($600./month) and still have some left over to buy beer for all the developers once in a while.

Now I have no illusions that this is going to happen. But I would say that the crash of one of my servers this week has put a crimp in my budget. Several months I put a note on the WEB site’s donation button that we need to replace this box. We are still in the same boat. I really need two servers. These would update my aging primary servers. My internet connection alone is $200/month (this is a dedicated SDSL line not your normal ADSL line)

So bottom line I am asking for the help of the community with getting these boxes upgraded. What happens if I don’t get the communities help . . . well nothing I am not an ass. I am not going to take my ball and go home. I will continue to do the best I can with what I have.

I know that many of you have been following this project for quite some time. We “The Development Team” greatly appreciate your support and dedication. The following is to let you know what we are currently working on.

The M3 build (M3 stands for milestone 3) is coming together nicely. Technoboy is working on firming up the network layer to increase performance. Smany is working on a rewrite of the Patch server and moving it to a point that it can be implemented as an NT service. This will also merge it into the current server architecture. Simon, jocool and tarcon are all working on the initial scripting for commands and in game functions. As for Ivel and I we are working on some additional site tools that we will need up and running once we are ready to deploy. This includes build processes, deployment tools and bug tracking.

Just so you know, I get many emails that I just can't respond to asking for the status of the project. I appologise if you are one that has emailed or messaged me asking for information. I try to keep the news here as up to date as I can to be able to answer those questions for you.

You are going to start seeing new items added to the web site including documentation and additional tools. These are being created in preperation of starting regular releases.

As you may have noticed the past month has been rather slow around here. Both Techno and I have started new jobs so that has been consuming our time. The rest of the team has been taking a break and dealing with their life as well. It looks like we are about to start to kick it back in.

I would like to welcome several new programmers to the team.

• simon
• jocool
• smany (hmm this one looks suspicious lol)
• tarcon

Well in the past month the servers have gone to hell. Hopefully I have gotten things back under control.

First I lost my PDC and the BDC would not promote so I had to create a new domain forest and migrate everything over to that new domain. This has caused some security access issues that I am still fixing.

The IRC software just took a nose dive this week as many noticed. The issue was that some how the license for the program I use reverted back to the shareware 10 connection version. It took me several day to locate my license information but that issue should now be resolved.

BIG NEWS – I have upgraded the WEB site to a new version and this version supports some enhanced features. One of the big ones I have been asking for is “the remember me” function. The site should also be a bit more stable due to some better handling of the data file access. FYI we are currently up to 3805 registered members for the WEB site.

Well that is all I have for now. I will try to do a better job of posting regular update to the site. Make sure you all visit the message boards and join in the discussions. (Hitting the payPal link once in a while would not kill you either lol)

Just wanted to do a quick status. Things are progressing very well on M3 of COADServer. But as is the nature of things just as we are getting down to the wire life steps in to shake things up a bit. Technoboy, Ivel and myself are all away from home this week and so things are on hold till we are all able to return. I would expect things to get very interesting for COAD next month. (note: for now I have taken down the prior Alpha 2 test system. With me not there to babysit, it would not be stable enought to leave running.)

We will be changing the release notation from the Alpha 1 / 2 ... type of notation starting with this next release. Our new release notation will be based on milestones. The upcomming release will be M3 . . .

Initial M3 Internal Testing

I have started the internal testing of M3. At this point the server and datastore seem very stable. The following is part of my initial testing report. Thought you all might be interested.

Initial Test Setup:
Updated from CVS using the M3 branch
Did a Debug Compile on the Solution and all 12 modules compiled
Setup my test Dir Structure as:

C:\CoADServer
C:\CoADServer\CoADConsole
C:\CoADServer\GameServer
C:\CoADServer\PatchServer
C:\CoADServer\PatchServer\root
C:\CoADServer\PatchServer\root\patcher
C:\CoADServer\PatchServer\root\patcher_uncompressed
C:\CoADServer\PatchServer\root\product
C:\CoADServer\PatchServer\root\product_uncompressed
C:\CoADServer\WEB
C:\CoADServer\xml
C:\CoADServer\xml\game
C:\CoADServer\xml\login
C:\CoADServer\xml\servermanager
C:\CoADServer\xml\XSD

Test Scenario 3:

Well at this point I had gotten further then I had before and thought I might have screwed up something with the CoADConsole messing around. I shut down everything then I restart just the GameServer and then launched 'The game'. With this fresh start I was able to get all the way into the login, Server Select, Character Creation and finally into the game. So this third try was a success.

Conclusion:

• The current gameserver and datastore seem to be stable.
• There appears to be some problems with the remote command console and the new structure.
• There seems to be no degradation of performance

Ok, few more things have been completed:

API and preliminary script support
DataStore rebuild

Sure, that's only two things, but as you can guess, with the API ready for script, the rest can be completed any time now. Also, as a side note, simon was able to compile the server in mono. For those of you who do not know, this means that the CoAD server, that has been written in C# will run on a Linux box w/o us maintaining a separate codebase.

Score for CoAD

Also, with the API and DataStore items being completed, this means we will be getting a new version of the server online for you guys to play with. For the last few weeks we have been running the same server src, hence the down time and nothing new for you to see. We will probably have a few days worth of internal testing to go through, but as of Friday, the entire code base was compiling. Since then, techno has found a few bugs here and there, and has worked through them all. The server is back to the point of being able to login into and walk around... now it's just a matter of converting all of the existing functionality that we had hardcoded in the previous version to script files. At that point, we will more than likely be releasing the server package that you can download.

Not makin any promises there, cause we still need to talk it over as a group, but we'll get a post up here soon so that everyone has a good idea of when they can download and start playing with the server.

Thanks CoAD Team

• Debug class for debug builds (will not be released to the public)
• Clean code and document
• Rebuild of the entire DataStore

• API and preliminary script support
• A real fix for the fall into nowhere bug
• The beginnings of items and inventory/vault (ie: dragging items, dropping them, trading them)
• Leveling
• Every X hours of game play gets the player a new level
• Each level gives the player:
• XP multiplied by Y
• one new item
• Some money to play with

It has come to our attention that many people are associating the CoAD project with illegal copies of the game. CoAD in no way supports the use of STOLEN games. Due to the large number of hits our site has received from different warez sites, we will ask that our community no longer posts links to our site on any warez sites and/or forums. Also, to help protect the intellectual rights of the games owners, we will be looking into enforcing the use of a valid CDKey.

On a side note here… those of you who are too cheap to go out and buy a $30 game need to find a new hobby. The CoAD server will give you flexibility that you never had before… the least you could do is buy the damn game.

Going forward, the discussion of CDKeys, Warez, etc… will not be allowed in any IRC channel, forum or webpage on the CoADServer.com domain. No warnings will be given.

Hope to see many of you heading out to Best Buy to get your copy very soon…

P.S. No, we are not here to watch you, track your information or anything of that nature. We do not, and will not be reporting anything to anyone on this subject. We simply do not agree with the use of stolen software, and do not need that headache tagged onto us. And no, no one sent us a letter, or asked us to post this msg.

We have implimented a new patch server. It is more robust and provides some features we were needing. But it does require a change in the content of your update.dat file.

Please make the following changes to your update.dat file to connect. (remember no spaces at the end of any line and no blank lines at the end of the document.)

Mythic Patch patch.coadserver.com:2323/mpatch.dat patch.coadserver.com:2323/mpatch.dat patch.coadserver.com:2323/mpatch.dat

Notice the change in the .dat file name at the end.

We have been getting a lot of error reports concerning the patcher. All most all of them are in the nature of 404 type errors. These are all caused by placing spaces at the end of one of the above lines or having an extra blank line at the end of the file. Please make sure you are following the direction exactly.

If you need a new account for the Alpha Test server, please use the Create Account link in the members section of this WEB site.

We are moving into Alpha 2 open testing.

I would personally like to thank Technoboy for his hard work in getting the major bugs worked out for the Alpha 2 release. We did some heavy testing this weekend and are ready to move into the Alpha 2 phase. I will be implimenting a new account creation tool from the web site here this week. Till that is up and tested you will need to communicate with one of the dev's in IRC to get an account established. Once this new account process is setup all accounts will be wiped and each person will need to follow the new proceedure.

Specific instructions to connect to the COADServer Alpha2 Test:

• Make a backup copy of the file update.dat ( You will need the original configuration of this file to connect into the real servers.)
• Edit the file update.dat to read as follows:
  • Mythic Patch
  • patch.coadserver.com:2323/patchinfo.dat
  • patch.coadserver.com:2323/patchinfo.dat
  • patch.coadserver.com:2323/patchinfo.dat
• There should be no extra spaces or lines other then the ones listed above.
• Until the auto-account creation process is in place you will need to talk to one of the Dev's in IRC chat (irc.coadserver.com) and have them create a new account for you. Just pm them with your user id and password. (DO NOT use the user id and password that you have for your real account on the real servers.) let me say that again (DO NOT use the user id and password that you have for your real accounts on the real servers.)
• Start the game as normal using your new user id and password.

Many of you have expressed a desire to give CoADServer a hand in the development process. We are currently looking to add up to two new developers to our team. Please read the following list of requirements and see if you are a match. If you feel you would be a fit then please send your resume to newdev@CoADserver.com.

Requirements:

• C++ or Java development experience of 2 years or more
• A working knowledge of C# and the .NET platform
• Experience with XML and XSLT
• Experience with CVS Version Control
• Able to work in a group and take direction
• Able to devote a minimum of 10hrs a week to this project
• Able to converse and express your ideas in English

Would be nice:

• Network Layer Experience
• Prior EMU experience
• Experience with codedom
• Scripting Server Implementations

As some of you who stay involved in the irc chat already know, we have found a few bugs with our Alpha2 implimentation. This is delaying the start of our open testing. The new structure of the application is designed so that the login server and the game server can be controled from a common console application both locally as well as remotely. At this point we are having some problems with the network communications layer between these processes. Be assured that we are working hard to get these bugs fleshed out. We are very excited about what this new design will all us to do with the server. I will try to give you a more accurate timeframe for the startup of Alpha2 as soon as I consult with all the Dev's.

The COAD Server Staff and Developers would like to wish you the best of luck in 2003. It is going to be a very productive year for us. We would like to thank those of you that have been following this project for you support and contributions. We hope to have some very exciting news to give you very soon. (as in very very soon) For now I hope you are enjoying the new pictures we have created from withing the COADServer testing we are doing.

Hi everyone. Wanted to stop by and get a little feedback on the project we have been workng on for the last few months. The thought has come up time after time about moving our server to .Net and wanted to get some feedback from users of a .net built EMU.

If it were to happen, we would basically follow the same path that RunUO has taken. C# using the C# codeDOM for the scripting engine. I've never personally used RunUO (uninstalled UO a long time ago) but love the fact someone has finally broken the EMU dev mentality of "A .Net server could never work for an EMU"

Anyways, come vote on our survery, and feel free to post in our forums pros and cons that you see with staying in a c++ project vs moving to .net.

Well, this week has been a sad week for CoAD. fyck, our lead developer is taking some time away from CoAD to focus his time on family and a new job. fyck, with the aid of others, did a tremendous amount of work on the server getting it to where it is today. Without the work fyck has done, there would not be the slightest possibility of a CoAD release this year. Work is still being completed daily on the server, and Corillian is now in the lead developer role. Cor has extensive knowledge of the script engine (next piece to be added into the server) since he wrote it, and has been working with the team since day one.

In addition to this, Blasti has completed almost all packet documentation for the server. This means the road to a usable, scriptable server is getting clearer and clearer by the day. We are still shooting to have beta 1, with all of the features listed below, completed by the end of the year. But if it looks like we will be able to get the script engine in before beta 1, we will take the extra time, if it is needed, to add in the script engine and some basic classes.

So that everyone is aware, we will have 2 Alpha test runs hosted by us. The first, Alpha 1, will be a closed session test run where we invite in some of the regular CoAD visitors and some other people from the EMU community to test the server. Provided no issues arise, we will then open the server to the public allowing anyone and everyone to test. The reason for this Alpha phase is so that we are able to a)find bugs we missed and b)Stress test the server and watch CPU/bandwidth usages. After that is complete, the server package will be released.

oh, we will contact you for Alpha 1. DO NOT contact us. If you do, you will not be allowed in the Alpha 1 testing no matter how long you have been visiting our site.

btw, egg has provided some very useful links for you all to check out... First we have the paypal link in the upper right where you can send your favorite people some funds to help support the things you love... then you have the amazon.com link in the lower right where you can buy super duper people stuff for the holidays..... and last but not least., you have the buy.com link in the lower left where you can also send your favorite peeps stuff.