Post by DreamerHorse on Oct 2, 2017 23:32:32 GMT -6
The beginning of the update posts. I plan on posting them all for players to reference to instead of having to go through Alicia Online's Game feed. It will take me a long time however, so be patient!. ^.^
Questions and answers.
Who we are.
We are not official page of Alicia Online. We do not work in cooperation with Alicia Online team, although we would love to, of course. We got a professional programmer, designers and translators in our group, but we do not represent and we do not work together with the official team. After the official Alicia Online server has been closed, we tried to contact Alicia Online team several times, but we always got the same official answer: "We have no plans to re-open Alicia, and unfortunately, We don't have any planning to service to overseas country".
As there seemed to be almost no chance for original Alicia Online to come back, we decided to recreate it ourselves. During this February we collected a lot of data from the original game server, while it was still working. Although most of this data is heavily encrypted and encoded, technically it contains almost everything we need to recreate the most of the original server functionality. The only problem is that this is a very hard work, which takes a lot of time.
We completely understand, that this game and all its functionality fully belongs to the Alicia developers, therefore it would be very wrong to make any profit out of it. So from the very beginning our only intention always was just to get Alicia back, we are not going to make any profit or personal gain from it. This approach makes the development much more difficult, as there are just a few people out there who got the required skills, who love the game and are able to spend most of their free time for server programming. So this process fully depends on the players support.
When Alicia comes out?
Our estimation is that for one professional programmer the whole recreation process would take not less than 6 month considering that he is working full day. If there are several programmers, the time decreases. Currently there are no people who have enough free time to do all this full-time work for free. Maybe with your help we can find some enthusiastic programmers who would help with the development.
In any case, this is not like we need to wait for all the functionality to be implemented in order to start the game. At the beginning we might have a simple version of the server, where you can just enter your ranch and ride your horse around. Later some other functions may appear, like chat and inventory, cleaning and breeding. Some time later - individual races. And if all goes really well, we will finally manage to implement the multiplayer races, as it is the most complicated part. Today we are not able to tell exactly, when the first server release will be available, or when the game will be fully implemented. Maybe in the nearest weeks situation will get a bit more clear.
Do I need my old login and password to play?
No, you don't need your old login and password anymore. They were only valid for the original server. You will have to create a brand new account on our server when it opens.
Can I get my horse back?
The server data that we have collected also contains some information about several characters and their horses. Capturing the horse data was not the priority task at that time as you may guess, so only some part of the horses can be precisely recovered from that data.
But even if your horse hasn't got into the log, you will still be able to reconstruct it yourself manually using a special editor with the variable set of parameters (your screenshots gonna help you a lot). In such case your horse might not appear precisely the same as it has been in February, but on the other hand, you horse could really have changed a bit during all this time while you were away, it probably has got/lost some weight, or it might grew up a bit =)
Should I pay to play?
It depends on many factors. Total expenses consist of:
- Cost of the server development (the most expensive): If we find enthusiastic programmers who would help with the development for free, then this part may also be free. If we do this completely by ourselves without any help, then it might take much longer, but it still may be free. If we hire additional programmers, then it gonna be very expensive, so this variant should not really be considered, as our server is not supposed to be commercial, so that would be the very very very last resort.
- Server maintenance (monthly payment): If we create a standard fully functional server, then we should pay for it monthly. However, it is also technically possible to create a system without any global server (similar to the torrent network). If we manage to develop such a distributed-server system, and if it works well, then this part may be almost free.
- Designers work: I guess there are many people who would do the design work for free.
How can I help?
If you are a highly skilled programmer, you have free time and you wanna help us to get Alicia back, you may join our team and help us with the server development. Current tasks include p2p networking (c/c++), chatting system, database interface (php) and much more. Also, if you know somebody who might be interested in such development, feel free to invite them to our group.
Questions and answers.
Who we are.
We are not official page of Alicia Online. We do not work in cooperation with Alicia Online team, although we would love to, of course. We got a professional programmer, designers and translators in our group, but we do not represent and we do not work together with the official team. After the official Alicia Online server has been closed, we tried to contact Alicia Online team several times, but we always got the same official answer: "We have no plans to re-open Alicia, and unfortunately, We don't have any planning to service to overseas country".
As there seemed to be almost no chance for original Alicia Online to come back, we decided to recreate it ourselves. During this February we collected a lot of data from the original game server, while it was still working. Although most of this data is heavily encrypted and encoded, technically it contains almost everything we need to recreate the most of the original server functionality. The only problem is that this is a very hard work, which takes a lot of time.
We completely understand, that this game and all its functionality fully belongs to the Alicia developers, therefore it would be very wrong to make any profit out of it. So from the very beginning our only intention always was just to get Alicia back, we are not going to make any profit or personal gain from it. This approach makes the development much more difficult, as there are just a few people out there who got the required skills, who love the game and are able to spend most of their free time for server programming. So this process fully depends on the players support.
When Alicia comes out?
Our estimation is that for one professional programmer the whole recreation process would take not less than 6 month considering that he is working full day. If there are several programmers, the time decreases. Currently there are no people who have enough free time to do all this full-time work for free. Maybe with your help we can find some enthusiastic programmers who would help with the development.
In any case, this is not like we need to wait for all the functionality to be implemented in order to start the game. At the beginning we might have a simple version of the server, where you can just enter your ranch and ride your horse around. Later some other functions may appear, like chat and inventory, cleaning and breeding. Some time later - individual races. And if all goes really well, we will finally manage to implement the multiplayer races, as it is the most complicated part. Today we are not able to tell exactly, when the first server release will be available, or when the game will be fully implemented. Maybe in the nearest weeks situation will get a bit more clear.
Do I need my old login and password to play?
No, you don't need your old login and password anymore. They were only valid for the original server. You will have to create a brand new account on our server when it opens.
Can I get my horse back?
The server data that we have collected also contains some information about several characters and their horses. Capturing the horse data was not the priority task at that time as you may guess, so only some part of the horses can be precisely recovered from that data.
But even if your horse hasn't got into the log, you will still be able to reconstruct it yourself manually using a special editor with the variable set of parameters (your screenshots gonna help you a lot). In such case your horse might not appear precisely the same as it has been in February, but on the other hand, you horse could really have changed a bit during all this time while you were away, it probably has got/lost some weight, or it might grew up a bit =)
Should I pay to play?
It depends on many factors. Total expenses consist of:
- Cost of the server development (the most expensive): If we find enthusiastic programmers who would help with the development for free, then this part may also be free. If we do this completely by ourselves without any help, then it might take much longer, but it still may be free. If we hire additional programmers, then it gonna be very expensive, so this variant should not really be considered, as our server is not supposed to be commercial, so that would be the very very very last resort.
- Server maintenance (monthly payment): If we create a standard fully functional server, then we should pay for it monthly. However, it is also technically possible to create a system without any global server (similar to the torrent network). If we manage to develop such a distributed-server system, and if it works well, then this part may be almost free.
- Designers work: I guess there are many people who would do the design work for free.
How can I help?
If you are a highly skilled programmer, you have free time and you wanna help us to get Alicia back, you may join our team and help us with the server development. Current tasks include p2p networking (c/c++), chatting system, database interface (php) and much more. Also, if you know somebody who might be interested in such development, feel free to invite them to our group.
