Idea to make our lives easier

[kilkenny]

I hope im not going out of line by suggesting this, if I am, excuse me.

Anyway, we always have problems getting stats for mobs right, getting the drops right and so on. Those of you who have done spawnlists and droplists know its very time consuming work. And NC changes stats, locations and drops with each update.
Now there are programs like L2WH but also bot programs that show exact locations of mobs, what they drop with chances, what skills they use. So my idea should be possible (feeling the excitement already?).
If we could make something like L2WH, that exports the data it collects into a database which can be used for our own L2JDP database, we would always have correct and up-to-date stats for mobs, items and whatever more. All we need then are people who play retail while running the program.

Only problem for me is that I have no idea on how to make a program that interacts with Lineage, so all I can do is to bring up the idea hoping someone sees something in it and can make it.

[Fulminus]

There would be no problem writing some sort of converter which takes legally published data and exports it into an L2J database format. However, writing our own bot or sniffer that logs into the retail servers and gathers such data might not be legal.
Well, I am not a lawyer and this isn't a topic that is discussed every day, so I do not know the extend to which such an activity is illegal, borderline/gray-area, or legal. However, I would personally rather stay away from it unless someone with good law skills ensures me it's ok ^_^

[kilkenny]

Well, after what you said I have been digging around. Well not much digging, went to the source for my idea, L2WH and checked what they say about L2WH, and according to the person who build it the Sniffer isnt legal. Dont know if there still would be a way to get it done legally then...but i guess thats it for that idea, back to manual labor i guess :p

[izzy]

simply ask is legal but if its a way that works.. beats me

[Fulminus]

I had once written another tool (I had shared it in this forum but it will no longer work with the current l2jdb structure). My tool was merely a little helper in adding drops. The interface was simple:

Code: Select all

TEXTBOX_mobname [search_button]      TEXTBOX_itemname [search_button]
LIST_mobID_mobname                          LIST_itemId_itemName

chance,  min,  max,  isSweep           [Next_button]
[Exit_button]

Basically, one could enter a partial mobname and search. This would give a list with the id and name of all matching mobs. The user could merely click on one to select it. Similarly for the itemname.
For chance, one could either type 1/xxxxx, or xxx%, or xxxxxx supporting all 3 formats for entering a chance. Then put the min and max amounts. At the time, we didn't have categories, so there was simply a checkbox for drop/sweep. Clicking on "Next" would save the entry in a temp file that was created at the start-up of the program (and the filename was time-stamped). The temp file saved entries in an L2JDB friendly way. Essentially it was like the contents within a set of () for a set of values. Also, clicking on the Next button maintained the npcId and sweep flags since users generally work on drops 1 mob at a time and they usually added all drops first, then all spoils, then to the next mob. So one could save a little time by not having to retype and re-search the npcId...
On the other hand, upon pressing the Exit button the program would finalize the format, generating 1 file for normal drops and 1 file for spoils. Each file was a perfect SQL, ready to be ran on an L2J server or pasted into the droplist.sql...for example, it looked like:

Code: Select all

INSERT INTO droplist VALUES
(21221,57,1000,3000,0,700000), 
...

Also, the reason I had split up the normal drops from the spoils was because spoils often require much more guessing for the chance than normal drops. So having it in a separate file was helpful, allowing us to commit the drops and keep the spoils aside for further review.
That tool did not require a DB connection (that was one of my specs since I was building it for volunteers who didn't have mysql installed). As a result, the npc, weapon, armor, and etcitem lookup tables were hardcoded into the program.
You should still be able to find my post in this forum. It was written in Delphi and I believe I had posted the source code. So one should be able to take it, update the npc and item lists, change the isSpoil checkbox to a textbox for the category, compile, and run it. It shouldn't be hard to do, though updating the lookup tables is tedious (and the reason I haven't done so myself )
Anyway, that program is perfectly legal (all it does is take inputs manually written from a user and generate l2jdb sql). It doesn't automate anything, but it really speeds up the droplist generation since it speeds up the npcId and itemId lookups.

If you cannot find the original post, let me know. I should have my code somewhere in my PC still. I can re-post (as long as someone is willing to update it for Interlude). It was written in Delphi, btw...