Vidar (Server Emulator)
Vidar was a server emulator which was released in 2003-2004 and became defunct on 18 August 2005. It was a server which largely ran as a GUI in Windows, and was almost exclusively distributed as proprietary compiled executable files and also had an PE EXE installer. It included a zone, account, map and char server, and also distributed what it explained as an "SDK" (Source Development Kit).
History
Closure
It appears that in 2005, the project started to stagnate on releases due to its sole developer, The_Harbinger ceasing work on the project with L0ne_W0lf posting that they had not seen The_Harbinger since January of 2005 but that they were sure that he would return, owing to the fact that they had several script releases within the project which had been completed and had a partially-completed release, Beta 7, waiting to be released[1].
By August of 2005, L0ne_W0lf had accepted the fact that The_Harbinger was not returning and posted a closure notice in the Vidar forums, stating that the project would be continued on with the emulator Prometheus which was originally based on the emulator Fusion, but there was not a migration path between Vidar and Prometheus, likely owing to the lack of a lead developer. [2]
The most likely reasons for the decline and end of Vidar are that it had a relatively top-heavy development structure which likely placed a lot of strain on the lead developer due to them being solely responsible for releasing software to the community. At the time, several of the posts for the releases received over 160,000 views[3], indicating that there was widespread interest in the project which most likely would have placed strain on the The_Harbinger's time. When the lead developer released his last piece of software, Beta 6 more or less coincided with the last time the developer was seen with the project.
Closed development structure
This, coupled with the closed-source nature of the project meant, even despite the developer's skill in producing releases along with others who wrote scripts, it placed a central dependency on a sole developer, meaning the project was completely dependent upon that person to continue forward. In comparison to other projects, for example, Athena, which had an open development model - much of the work was shared and also source code was published at regular intervals meaning likely the developers of Athena received less messages regarding new releases and thus were under less pressure to provide updates because the updates were already available to the public.
Thus this meant that when The_Harbinger had tired of being the sole producer of the software the project's organisational structures had no redundancy and thus, the project was forced to close.
Technical details
Release structure
The release structure of Vidar was somewhat unusual. Rather than following existing software versioning methods, each release was a numbered "Beta" release. Sometimes these beta releases would be released and then updated, in the case of Beta 6 which was updated several times.[4] Within the release, each individual component had its own version which in the Beta 6 release were listed as:
- vZone Component -- Version #8.3.0.0
- vCharacter Component -- Version #2.8.0.0
- vLogin Component -- Version #2.9.0.0
The reasoning for this is unclear but presumably this follows a semantic versioning structure for each component which was then manually bundled for release[4].
GM Commands
- GM commands were prefixed with #, and some / AEGIS-style atcommands were supported.[5]
Known Members
- The_Harbinger - Developer and founder
- L0ne_W0lf - Scripter
- Muad_Dib - Scripter
- The_ROCK
- Black_Dragon
References
- ↑ Archive.org. (2025). Vidar -> Set-backs. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20051102174053/http://www.vidaronline.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12116 [Accessed 25 Jun. 2025]. (Archive: https://archive.is/fK5pZ)
- ↑ Archive.org. (2025). Vidar -> The time has come. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20051218122510/http://www.vidaronline.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12893 [Accessed 25 Jun. 2025]. (Archive: https://archive.is/wip/tYj53)
- ↑ Archive.org. (2025). Vidar -> Vidar E.M.U. Releases -- Downloads. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20041207055001/http://www.vidaronline.com/forum/index.php?showforum=4 [Accessed 25 Jun. 2025]. (Archive: https://archive.is/wip/PMznt)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Archive.org. (2025). Vidar :: MMORPG :: Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20041216152623/http://www.vidaronline.com/ [Accessed 25 Jun. 2025]. (Archive: https://archive.is/wip/z0apr)
- ↑ Vidar (2004). Vidar GM Commands. [online] vidar.sigh.org. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20041214183429/http://vidar.sigh.org:80/forum/index.php?showtopic=191.
