The Edge of Chaos Expansion
The Edge of Chaos project is something that I have been working on (and off) for almost four years. The project was founded in patch 3.0.9, after my Hyperion project came to a close. The inception of the project began under the name: 'Kronos'.
The entire Kronos server was based around rebuilding Blizzard's world into my own vision, using the same gameplay and design concepts, but through my own content. We were all about quality - meeting or exceeding Blizzard's standards - implementing new and fun mechanisms that actually made the game enjoyable. Players who previously hated questing suddenly loved our server and really had a great time. This was quite a success, and was available to play as a server for quite a while. Then we saw some flaws in the design.
We marketed the server as a twink server since the level cap was 19; and it really is not. Furthermore, we had underestimated how quickly players could clear content, and there was a limitation as to what you could do once you reach the end of the game. And then we started encountering issues with our emulator.
This all led to the decision to close the realm and rebuild it, learning from our mistakes. This led on to the Edge of Chaos expansion. We decided to use client modifications to further aid our objectives and to extend the level cap to 30. This has allowed us to have our own maps, to use our own user interface, to use server <-> client communications, to use custom cinematic cameras, to use the Blizzard downloader and installer, to do what has not been seen before in the public emulation scene. We were quite excited about the product we were developing.
But progress was slow - as is always the case with large projects. Our staff literally consisted of two main developers. Two people to build a world that Blizzard did not. Our estimations kept getting later and later, but at the same time more and more progress was being made.
Most projects focus on client side work or server side work and never end up switching to the other nor mastering the other. We were working on both at the same time, and have achieved great success.
Some statistics of the content we have created:
- 275 scripts
- Level 30 cap
- Over 40,000 words in just quest titles + text + objectives alone
- 8 levelling zones that can be visited during the quest to level 30
- 8 tested and original custom dungeons
- Various world events
- 2 custom classes (Demon Hunter & Engineer)
- 1 custom race (Tuskarr)
- 1 custom battleground (based on The Hunger Games)
- Patch 3.3.5a
- Countless more facts that other servers would list as primary features
Some sample screenshots:
This project is open source but only supports Windows (it is hard to develop for OSx when it is restricted to Mac environments):
How To Download & Install
How to extract the archives:
The client and server data is compressed with 7zip. In order to extract it, 7zip is required. You can download 7zip from here:
Download
How to install Client Side Data:
Place the client side installer inside your WoW installation directory, the same location as your WoW.exe.
Run the installer. Once installation is complete and WoW is running, you can delete the installer.
If you get an error saying "... is read only!" right click on that file, go to properties, and uncheck 'read only'.
You can restore your WoW.exe with the original version here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...oW12340exe.zip
Only enGB or enUS clients are supported.
How to install Server:
Simply extract the folder with 7zip.
Now go to:
Edge of Chaos\
Run "Start MySQL.bat"
Now go to:
Edge of Chaos\Server\
Run logon.exe then world.exe.
Now the server is running. You can login once the client side patch is installed & you set realmlist to localhost.
If your worldserver crashes on start up:
Originally Posted by
RyokoX
Hey guys, I made an account just to say how I tackled the problem with the world server crashing.
It seems that on Windows 7 OSes as it is based on ArcEmu (I may be wrong, so please forgive me, I don't have the slightest idea about emulators and whatnot) it often gives that error (unfortunately I was unable to find out what causes it as.)
In any case the way I managed to run it properly and connect to the server was by using Compatibilty for Windows XP (Service Pack 2) (Using SP3 compatibility still resulted in an error after connecting to the Database), and running as Administrator.
I hope this helps some of the others who are experiencing this issue, as this custom expansion is definitely a masterpiece!
Kudos to everyone who worked on the project!
How to Login:
You can create a new account on the login screen.
Make sure realmlist is set to localhost.
All accounts from the old server with their characters exist. All passwords have been set to 'test'.
11/04/2014 HOTFIX:
At the moment the WoW client will close when you level up. This is due to a mistake I made because I'm stupid. Download & extract this tiny folder and put that folder inside your Interface folder inside your WoW directory to fix this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/.../EoC_Hotfix.7z
This was released to the public because university, work, and other interests have left me with not enough free time to be able to continue to develop this project.
Credits:
- Stoneharry,
- Eclipse,
- Terrorblade,
- Laurea (alexeng),
- Many other people who contributed during the lifetime of this project and of course to the emulator developers who created the foundations for our hobbie.