1.1 General Questions and Answer about PReloaded, FOClassic and this guide.
First of all, please note that these are my views and experiences, and that they may differ from PReloaded and FOClassic creator's views. Consider their comments or answers in this regard.
Q: Why make this guide?
A: For same reasons I did the Basic and Advanced FOnline tutorials. First, because I tend to forget stuff, second because I believe in the laziness of people. If you put a step-by-step guide in front of them, the likelihood for them to try or not give up after the first/second pitfall, is much higher. This doesn't mean that we will get flooded by FOnline devs, it's just people get an easier time passing the first few tests..
Q: Who is this guide aimed at?
A: People who would like to see/test/mod FOClassic along with engine source. As far as I know, only FOnline Reloaded uses FOClassic as engine base, however the engine source should help anyone figure out stuff, that was not possible without external help before, as long as the code they work with is close to the 4.12 version of the engine. Also, as every guide I made, is aimed for myself as well, I get long breaks between FOnline devving, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel or bother people with same questions all the time.
Q: Why PReloaded?
A: Because the other options are getting a 4.12 version working from the SDK, and adding all the FOClassic changes up to the latest version which at the point when this was written which is V7. In short, it is very easy to set up FOClassic using the PReloaded example for the first time, however it has some pitfalls to be aware of, hence the guide.
Q: What does PReloaded contain?
A: It contains features from FOnline Reloaded, without the actual content. It's useful for testing, setting up FOClassic for the first time, but mostly for that only. Actual content has to be added to be playable, which is a lot of work. If you have mods, new content or new features you coded yourself, you can use PReloaded to share it, keeping it up to date with FOClassic, thus helping anyone depending on FOClassic features.
Q: How does this help me as a server owner?
A: I don't know to be honest, it's just a general setup. If you have difficulties setting up FOClassic, at least this was you have a working example and maybe you are able to solve issues comparing yours to this. Also, I believe that the old server owners are familiar with this stuff, I highly doubt they will ever need to use this guide.
Q: Shall I use FOClassic, Reloaded or the original SDK to start a new server where I want to implement my own ideas?
A: If you have 0 experience with FOnline, you better check out the Reloaded source on the other tutorials as that's the easiest to start out with. That also has a lot of content available, compared to this one. Next step would be to install and use FOClassic, and import any content you want to keep from the Reloaded source, or from the SDK. This was you will get a lot of experience with it, and have better control. Engine wise, either go with SDK or FOClassic. I do not have much experience with the SDK, so you might ask someone else about that.
Q: What is the purpose of FOClassic?
A: That is answered elsewhere, but if you want to know my opinion, I look at it like this: Server owners main concern should not be Engine changes, for this, you got FOClassic devs. Server owners main concern should be managing the server (keeping rules, up time, etc) and adding content to it. This leads to the conclusion, that FOClassic should be the solution for hardcore changes or improvements for those servers who cannot afford such features themselves but are obviously desired by most iterations. In short, solving the underlying structural changes to have a less hard coded interface, readable sized text, etc.
