Oh snap, it's on its way! (Patreon)

Hello sustainers. I want to give you a project update. This is a more detailed version of what was posted in #development channel on Discord and contains some more technical information, as well as what we're up to. Additionally at the bottom is an update for patrons who have yet to receive some of their rewards.

AIM (OSCAR): As it stands right now, we are maybe 2 or 3 weeks (maximum) away from initial alpha testing. This will only be for AIM 1 - 6.1, for a few reasons. While we do have 6.2.x - 7.5.21.5 support, we will need to make a patcher to fix hard coded URLs to assets (which we have, thankfully) and also have it accept our SSL certificate. On top of that, we will need an individual reverse proxy to handle the MD5 SSL connections as that is considered outdated and our modern servers cannot accept it. So that's extra work and right now we just want to get it all up. This will be a priority after launch, however.

AIM (TOC): As this depends totally on OSCAR, this will actually be the first launched after AIM because it provides an easy test-bed for how we can translate things into OSCAR which will be used for AOL and other services. The TOC protocol was AOL's original open protocol that was used by a lot of third party clients and some devices, and this will be the first time it has worked since it was shutdown in July 2012 -- TOC was actually shutdown years earlier but TOC2 worked until then. This includes both TOC and TOC2 since they're almost identical anyway.

ICQ (OSCAR and TOC): These are clients created after AOL purchased ICQ (see ICQ Corp below for the older ones). These will work initially as well, and users can already register ICQ numbers on our web site. Users who have screennames are allowed to register an additional ICQ number if they wish under the same email address. Note, however, some features may not work initially, especially later (and poorly documented) ones but as people use the clients we can more easily profile the traffic and add anything missing. They will be more complete than currently offered ICQ options such as KICQ.

AOL: Unlike in the past where AOL was its own totally separate infrastructure, in order to save time, effort, etc we will be building it in such a way that features it shares in common with AIM will work on top of it. That does not mean we can immediately launch AOL as even though the traffic (instant messages, chat, buddy updates, etc) can route, it takes a lot more to actually make it work within AOL. 

Having said that, we do now have essentially all the 4.0 and 5.0 assets (images, scripting logic called FDO) we will need to complete it, but there's still more work to do on that front so that will come later, but at a faster pace since there will be an infrastructure for it to be built upon. The most difficult parts are complete, it's more of a situation of just getting it done at this point.

This does not mean they will be limited in features or anything like that. Whatever cannot work on top of OSCAR will be built out separately so it functions as close to the original as possible, with some fun changes and additions.

QLink and CS Classic: These are delayed until we get the more popular services up, but we have them essentially working though some things need to be redone to cope with our new infrastructure. In the end they will work like AOL does, essentially piggy backing on everything else, but with an authentic experience (as best we can provide).

ICQ Corp (ICQ 99b and older): We haven't even started on this, and demand is low, but we will get to it at some point. The protocol is totally different from anything else we're doing and will require a lot of extra work. We have all the documentation we need, it's more of a time constraint problem right now.

Escargot-specific updates are also in the works but what's going with that I can't get into right now, but you will hear from us somewhat soon on that, but there's no timeline I can provide, but it is being worked on as well. These updates do include support for WLM 2011 and 2012 as well as being able to communicate with AIM/AOL/ICQ users. Right now the priority is primarily AIM/AOL as we have Escargot Classic still running and that works just good enough for now -- even though it's not all that good.

We're through a lot of the hardest aspects, in no small part to contributions thanks to patrons such as yourself. Your contributions help pay for servers and, including additional donations help us work on this project as close to full time as possible to get it going. Right now we are working on it full time with no other projects going on in hopes that it will bring in some more patrons and donations to help further development after it launches.

Thanks a lot for all you've done.

P.S. I didn't realize some of you hadn't received your awards such as the poster because Patreon didn't tell us until after last month's payment that money had to stay in the account to pay for it. So this month we will postpone taking the money out of the Patreon account in hopes that it will fund those rewards earned. I tried to find a way to put money back in, but apparently that isn't possible, so we had to wait an entire additional month for it.

P.P.S. If you wanted your web site and/or name listed on the donation page, as is your reward for being a Patron, and we haven't added it yet, please send us a message with the name you want displayed and your optional web site (please no adult material).