Lost Company

People have been asking for this for quiet sometime, And now as promised being exclusively the only one getting this info here is an interview with Oplock.

LC: Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions we have as well as some we've gotten from our community at www.lost-company.info

Oplock: no problem. hopefully this will answer some of the questions ive gotten on sourceforge and get people excited about the project.

Oplock: heh yeah i've gotten that a bit as well. people want to know when it's going to be playable or finished and i'll give you the same answer: it'll be done when it's done. I can't give a better answer than that since at this point it is impossible for me to give an estimate that wont be horribly off by months and or years.

LC: Understandable, we've given a similar answer to that question in the past. :) Since you're obviously not releasing it tomorrow, what is the current progress on the server?

Oplock: well, the server has gotten to the point of the old demo you guys posted a while back: you can log in and run around. this is mostly done as a proof of concept and i've been working on a redesign to create a stable, versatile server that can support everything it needs to. this is requiring a lot of forethought and reverse engineering since we have to recreate a game that already existed. we need to know what kinds of items there are, stats, npcs, skills, etc so we can actually have those in our server when the time comes to put them in.

LC: It certainly is a lot of work (we should know). Since it is an open source project, though last time I checked the svn was empty, why haven't you elicited the help of the public?

Oplock: we certainly will ask the public for help when we're ready for it, you can be sure of that, but with the current state of the server we feel that releasing the code and asking the public for help would confuse our goals and obscure our vision of the first milestone. i would like to have a server with a functional database, functional character login and full multiplayer support before i allow any source to go onto the svn. For one, we dont want people to become impatient and take our incomplete work and run off with it and for another, we want what is on there to be something that someone can compile and actually run. i wouldn't want our proof of concept program to go up there since a lot will change and it will require a lot of restructuring and pretty much wiping most of the code out, but i can guarantee that when you see something finally appear on the svn, you will be able to download it and run a real server.

LC: The sourceforge project site doesn't seem to get updated much, is there any reason for this?

Oplock: we're all pretty busy with our own real life obligations so we dont get much time to constantly post on the sourceforge site. also the Lost Company website is already a great AC2 community site, so we've been considering just dropping our status there via you guys, just like we're doing right now :)

LC: So what has been the biggest roadblock so far?

Oplock: there have been plenty of those. fortunately from the Demo you guys put out, we've been able to figure out a lot of the stuff previously done by the LC team. the currently biggest roadblock is information. weve been decoding a lot of the client files for data on the game and it has proven to be quite rewarding. i wont say too much other than you will absolutely need your client files in order to run the server

LC: Does this mean you'll be hosting client files on the sourceforge project?

Oplock: hell no! we wont be hosting anything other than our own code and tools. there will be no copyrighted information being handed out. we'll provide the tools to allow people to extract the data the server needs to run from their own client files, but not the client files themselves.

LC: That brings up another question people had: can Turbine give you a C&D like the did with Lost Company?

Oplock: sure, they probably can. whether it is on sound legal grounding is another issue. since we're not hosting any copyrighted material nor are we using any trademarked material they have no grounds to issue copyright infringement claims. they can, however, nail us for developing and providing an emulator which is in direct violation of the EULA. this is a much lesser offense than copyright infringement and has failed to hold up in court in other cases where companies have tried to shut down emulators not to mention this is an EULA for a program that is no longer sold or supported so they can hardly claim damages.

LC: Will that mean that people can advertise what you're doing over on sourceforge?

Oplock: we cant stop people from talking, but we do not want to draw undue attention to ourselves if we can help it. if we do get under the legal gun, we probably wont be able to do much to stand up to it (aside from talking to the EFF). if people want to tell their friends about us that is fine, but we dont want people running onto public forums shouting about what we're doing.

LC: Some of the people in the AC2 community want to know what they can do to help move you project along. Do you have any suggestions for them?

Oplock: right now we've got our hands full with decoding and design but we're moving along just fine. mostly just support from the community helps bolster our moral and reminds us what we're working on this for. its encouraging to see such an active community for a dead game. if we need any specific help from the public, we'll definitely let you guys know.

LC: So you've mentioned "we" quite a few times; how many people do you have working on Pyreal?

Oplock: we've got about 4 people working on and off. everyone has day jobs so noone is on it full time (that would be nice if we were).

LC: Do any of you have forum accounts at LC?

Oplock: oh yeah, quite a few of us do though not under any recognizable name as we'd like to keep our anonymity. we figure that you guys can post the important stuff for us so that it gets the proper attention. :)

LC: So people want to know who your "primary contact" is at the Lost Company and what amount of influence we have on your work (obviously we know this but they do not).

Oplock: LOL, i'll bite. so i usually just talk to the LC guys through IRC, so i dont have anyone in particular i talk with (just whomever is online). and for the second part, of course LC has had a great influence on our work. you guys showed us that it could be done and gave us a reason to pick up where you left off after the C&D. as for currently influencing our work, we certainly ask for feedback and suggestions from the LC crew. it certainly would be a waste not to accept any help we can get from you guys.

LC: So this is the last one (I promise): Can you post more pictures?

Oplock: haha... yeah. we can post more pictures. i did get a video uploaded on youtube though i havent been able to link it on the sourceforge project site yet. you guys got the link so you could post it on your forums. i'll try to update that site more often with some enticing screenshots of crazy things we find as well as more videos of our progress.

LC: Thanks again for answering all these questions for the community. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear from the Pyreal team.

Oplock: no problem; they're the reason we're working on this in the first place!