[Bobafett]

I have an idea that might be doable if I can muster up the effort. In theory it's disgustingly simple. So simple that nobody's tried it yet.

Decentralized game logic... I might work to port some of the existing IN quests to a server (or multiple) hosted on Azure or AWS. In theory, I could publish a very simple script that other runuo servers can install on their instances that basically turn their servers into proxies. Packets for registered users would be forwarded to my server for processing and injected into their stream on whatever server they play. Servers would obviously have the choice of which quests to "import"

Basically two players standing next to each other on the same server might see different things. One might see a mobile that provides a quest while the other sees nothing. The script I write, which would be disgustingly basic, would forward packets for registered users near that mobile to my server to execute game logic...

In theory, it could be extended to include user submitted quests, tournaments, ladders etc ...I could provide different game modes. I could even run 100% different combat logic while the user is connected to their favorite server. I could pit servers against each other for rankings :O

Even better, I could easily provide low-cost servers in any geographic region so latency isn't an isn't an issue using AWS or Microsoft Azure. And cost would stay low since RunUO instances would spawned and shut down by load.

It doesn't just persist IN features. It unites the entire RunUO community.

//pipe dreams

Well if i can suggest anything to your model, injecting packets and hacking a protocol may not be the best way to handle the features you want to implement. Being on a .net architecture would easily let's you have a NasirComunityService running on WCF and handling some common managed business logic..

One big problem with the central logic approach is that it would give you an authority anywhere your community service has an endpoint , making everyone dependent of your servers and giving you the ability to grant unwanted privilege for you and your friends.

With your suggestion in mind, i think a good solution to re-use comunity work would be to have open source extensions DLL loaded trough reflection. That way you can have several different community projects with know release version where everyone can add references to the feature they want. It gives the ability for everyone to fork the project for their custom needs or suggest features that will be available for everyone on next release. That way , it would be possible to design a whole class system into a versionned DLL where every features of it could be modified from your app.config file.