50%? but thats arbitrary too

why not add to svn?]

*cough* conflict of interest *cough*

"The only programmers who don't use revision control are those that never tried it"
I'm pretty sure I read a quote like that in a book once... I wish I could remember which. Point stands, once you try it you don't go back, there are just too many advantages with practically no disadvantages.

If you want to do heavy modification to the base engine then create a branch to work in. That way you can still profit from fixes and stuff going into the base and the base can benefit from things you do as they can be merged back in there.

ok, i'll learn the SVN.

so your saying, as I make modifications we still help eachother.   I can benefit from modifcations that others make as well as other people benefit from modifcations that I make right?

I hope it works.. I've create a whole new folder for war3source (all the source code copied to another folder).  Somehow i have to figure out the "switch" method of SVN...

Reason:  I'm setting up war3source to be either 4 or 8 levels, and more focus on shop content.   Increasing the XP system to include more reasons to give XP, and making gold harder to earn.  Modifications to the Races via the new leveling system.   Will include updates to all my current races, and new races that i have in development.  I'm planning on at least 20 new races.  Maybe a shopmenu3 for the special gear that will require much more gold to acquire.

I've watched level 16 players play against level 1 players on war3source, and they usually dominate.  The setup of war3source is for domination, and I'd like to setup something with more fair game play and yet still have fun as hell.

I am planning on updating the content regular so that it never gets old.

I have a couple of friends whom are working with me to create fun and exciting content.  I love war3source, but I truely think it needs a revamp or a different way of playing it.

Time and time again, I see that players whom work really hard to get to level 16 are asked to change race or class, just because they are dominating the server.   Why?  Because its not truely balanced.   There should be no reason to punish a player whom is playing a mod the way it's made.  I've come up with a theory with me and a few friends based on how many other games that work really well is setup.  And I plan to work this into the war3source mod to make it a much more fair game play and still be fun as hell.

My main concern is the level gap.   Can you imagine a level 16 player against a level 1 player?   Just think about that large gap... If its a level 8 vs a level 1, thats more balanced than a level 16 vs a level 1.  Some admins increase the XP that it is required to get to level 16 as a way to discourage players from leveling up to level 16, but that is only a patch and not a solution. There is much more to this than just levels, so I'll work on the mod and explain later.

On the gold side, the more players that play on the server, the greater to gold reward.  This will encourage more players to play.  It will not include bots into this calculation.

I will post when I have a stable version of my version of war3source.  Until then, you may want to watch the SVN when I post to it from my branch.

We have actually thought of a way to make the game more fun and fair at the same time.  How?  Just think about those 8 levels.

I have been talking to friends and we have regrouped our thoughts.  More levels is always more fun, more stuff is always more fun, more players is always more fun... so in the attempt to keep from modifing war3source too much, we will be running 2 servers to start out.. hoping on 3 once people get enough levels.

Since another war3source server owner has said he has already tried this way, I'm not worried about explaining this method.   He said he has tried a similar method and it did not work for him, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't gone as far as to modify every race and create new addons so that this can be done:

NGUCLAN.COM's server will have only well known "non-OP" races on server 1 and a max level of 8.  Without saying too many details... the only way to get to level 16 is to go to our server #2.   Server #2 will host level 8 - 16.  if you are still level 5, you will only be able to play that level 5 race on server #1 or until it is level 8 to play on server #2.   Players will still have the same races they leveled from server #1, but will only be able to play the races that are level 8 thru 16 on server #2 including some brand new races I have been holding back that will start at level 0 and be just like level 8 starting out.  Server #2 will allow some OP races on its server.  Server #3 will have levels 16-24. and include special maps, new races, new money system, special items, etc.  Boss fights in a PVE type of game play, Quests, etc.

There is alot that we are not telling you that we are holding back until we know its finished.  We just want to give you an idea how this will develop.  We may expand sideways (that is expand servers to make more #1s or more #2s as needed).

If this catches on, we will continue to expand as long as people have interest in playing our servers.   We know it may take about a year before people really catch on to what our servers have to offer and we are willing to wait it out.  Any thing you do that relates to server game development can take alot of time for it to work.

We are still finishing up the development, and our server website will be here:  http://www.nguclan.com/

We are still working on setting up the website, forums, etc.   Once we have everything ready we will open up a server.

If our branch of war3source becomes fun for you, we will ask you to help us further develop it if you are interested.  Will post it via SVN when the product is stable.  Its the least we can do since war3source is open source.  Without war3source, we couldn't do this.

Why automatic redirects required??

If people want to stay in server 1, that is up to them.  The server will notify them when they can move to server 2.

We have ways to motivate people to move to server 2 without kicking them or banning them or whatever.  It will be more physiological.   You know about the addon that redirects if they type !servers right?  We'll just let them redirect themselves when they want to upgrade.

We have researched many game servers and figured out how they motivate people to move up in level, or to another server with higher levels.  We hope that our research proves to be good.  Only time will tell.

We could create a branch where there is unlimited levels, and when they reach level 8, on level 9 they are moved back to level 1 (so to speak), but stronger than level 1 slightly, and they think they are level 9.  This wouldn't be really right.. but it would give them a sense they are leveling..heh.

So they would always stay within level 1-8, just the numbers would change going up and up.

We think that over time, a person of level 32 may end up figuring out what is happening or figure out they aren't getting anywhere.. and say WTF?  On top of that it wouldn't be right.

I've read thru many forums on games where people actually request to start back at level 1, when they are level 16.  Maybe we need to implement a user code that can allow them to reset their own levels?

BUT WAIT.... WE HAVE A SOLUTION:

My best-friend who plays many online games suggested that we create a emblem or rank system that would keep going on the XP, but they could somehow put a special tag on their name that would give them some kind of rank beyond level 16 and keep them at level 16.  How we suggest doing this?   We copy the XP system as the RANK system.   Then rank system would be a complete copy cat of the XP system, but would not longer level them.  It would give them +1 to their ranks.  Maybe only copy the last two levels for the ranking system, in otherwords how long it takes to level from 15 to 16 and repeat every rank.  Or let the admins decide how much XP it takes to make 1 rank.  It would be more like a "Show and Tell".   So you'll know how long a player has been at that race for.. like a level 16 night elf with rank 24 would be [16:24]Playername.   [level:rank].   Then people could see the level and the rank of a player.   Maybe even have a tag [race:level:rank]  where it would be like [NE:16:60] Nightelf level 16 rank 60.  Make it where the race is 2 letter tag only.  Unlimited ranks, or until integer is maxed.  OOOORRR.. [race:rank]playername... like [NE:50]  Nightelf rank 50.. and the only way to see the ranks tag is if your level 16.  So everyone will know your level 16 when you get your first ranking tag [NE:1].

We'll work on a version of this, unless someone here says they've got it.

my website www.nguclan.com

I current have 2 servers, one for development, the other is lagging behind in development.

You can login to my forums to keep up to date with improvements, or different / new ideas.  I will post any races / items that I have fully tested for war3source on war3source.com.  Any races / ideas in development will be posted on my forums.  There maybe some races I hold back for my own servers (I want keep a few to be different).

I don't expect to expand to 2 or 3 online servers until my player base is bigger.  I'll be working on the level 16-24, or 16-32 races in the mean time.

I don't think any bigger slots will matter to the database, as its just a integer that is moved higher up.  if you want more slots, you just make the integer bigger.  Your race / item interpets the integer into skills and such inside the source.

Also of note is the fact that War3Source SHOULD only have one connection (maybe two or three, of Ownz never provided a way for different engines to share database handles). And frankly the way you write MySQL queries matters more than the host in a lot of cases.

That's why I started off saying one, because I thought that that was the most likely scenario, but not necessarily the only one