Ok so I started looking into this today and so far things aren't going well.
First of all my 137 client wouldn't work on it's current build. Got that fixed by using a slightly older trose.
Then I had to find a patsy to test it all out on. Probably should be in Zant since the 137 AP is different than a lot of other server/clients
Wanted to use somebody who doesn't have a massive CON file already. Lena looks like a nice candidate. NOPE. Her CON file broke my frickin CON editor.
I'm thinking idiosel the teleporter except that if you are following along with this and are using a later evo client, she likely doesn't exist.
Also my CON editor is kind of outdated and not as good as I would like it to be. Apparently earlier this year I began to update it to a newer version but I never completed it.
One of the problems I'm encountering with 137 files is that my CON editor is loading the LTB incorrectly. It looks like the language layouts are different in this version.
I could do the mod in KTRose pre-evo but that wouldn't really be all that helpful i think.
The reason I'm testing with pre-evo or 137 is that both of them have the ability to load resource files directly so i don't have to mess about putting my CONs and LTBs into the VFS. I hate VFS editing.
So I'm left with a couple of options here.
1) rework my CON editor so that it works properly and has all the necessary bells and whistles, then share the tool and do the mod.
2) Hit this thing from a completely different angle and write some code (a free standing program) to introduce virtual players/NPCs who will issue buffs like they did in Akram. There are a few potential obstacles in the way of this method but nothing huge. just stuff like how to set the virtual players in-game position. If I use the normal player spawning code to create them they would end up in the respawn areas rather than in fixed positions around the world. The plus side of this is that with a minimum amount of work, you could run this program in parallel with any existing server. You would just need to edit your database manually to add each buff dude as a player with an account, level, HP, available skills and so on. Another potential downside of this is that it would be essentially a BOT program that can log into any rose server and I'm not really sure i want to go there.
3) Similar to option 2 but actually built as an add-on to the existing server. The downside of this is that the new code might end up reaching tendrils of code quite extensively into the existing code so it would be difficult to adapt to other server versions.
option 2 or 3 actually plays into some of my longer term plans to revamp quests and stuff.
Either option is going to take a while. A few days at minimum.
What are your thoughts?
for the moment I'll be working on the newer version of my CON editor. That will always be useful anyway