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Update

Some users have reported me that the L2J Geodata Synchronizer  is no long working. This is due the fact that the web (HTTP) interface to the files are not working.

I'm currently developing a new version to work around this issue, and it should be out in a week or so.

If you want to know when the new version is out, please, send an email to pjondevelopment (at) gmail (dot) com.

Introduction

Last year (2006) I have been introduced to a very nice MMORPG , Lineage II. I have never been big fan of on line games, but this one got my attention.

The game, to put it mildly, is huge. It has a very vast map, and, like all the other games of this kind the only goal is the one you set.

To play the game, you have to create an account with NC Soft, the maker of the game, and pay a monthly fee around $15. So, because of this, and -- mostly -- because of the leaking of the game server, free servers, supported by donations, started to appear.

However, the use of this leaked server (called L2Off) is highly illegal, and -- according to Wikipedia -- several notes of "cease and desist" started to be sent from NC Soft to the various free Lineage II servers.

In order to avoid lawsuits and to be able to host Lineage II servers risk free, the on line community created L2J, a free, java developed, Lineage II server -- virtually multi-platform.

Installing a Lineage II server is not an easy task, and one that must be taken seriously for every single person who wishes to host one. There are, literally, dozens of files to download, edit and maintain, let alone the database -- a huge beast with dozens of tables and thousands of records.

But yet, the free servers prevail. Thank God.

The L2J comprises four distinct parts:

• The L2J Server itself;
• The L2J Data Pack, that contains the instructions to create the starter database;
• The Geodata, that contains the information about the Lineage II "physical" terrain; and
• The Pathnode, which describes how the Geodata interacts with each other.

The world of Lineage II

The world of Lineage II is a huge map divided, currently, in 176 regions, 11 regions wide and 16 regions high.

Each region is then divided in 256 by 256 blocks, and each block in 8 by 8 cells. When you think of it, the world of Lineage II is made of 738,197,504 cells.

And each cell can have layers, which are responsible, for instance, to create multiple floors of a building. Talk about maintenance hell. ;-)

The Geodata and Pathnode files

To work correctly the files for the Geodata and Pathnode must be placed in the proper sub-folders of the L2J main folder. There is a maximum total of 352 files, 176 for the Geodata and 176 for the Pathnode.

The guys working on the updates of the Geodata do it regularly, either to add new places that were added in a new version, or to fix some bug in the data.

So, one of the tasks of an L2J server administrator is to keep these files updated, which requires going to the L2J Geodata website and download manually each and every Geodata file available, and then decompress (the files are compressed using RAR) each file on the proper location.

The L2J Geodata Synchronizer

In order to help the L2J server admins out there, I developed this small synchronizer. It will then connect to the L2J Geodata website and download each file and place on the proper folder.

The version 1.0 works only manually, which means that the L2J server admin must still start the application in order to synchronize the files, but after that it's just relax and wait for it to finish.

There are two settings that the L2J server admin must inform:

• the Geodata folder; and
• the Pathnode folder

After informing these two folders, simply press the Synchronize button and wait.