Equipping while casting

[dren]

This is an old post but for the sake of it I'm going to mention it because this is something that's bugged me.

1. if you had your weapon equipped while casting it would give you a message of some sort and say you can't do that
2. if you equipped your weapon too soon after casting (before getting the target cursor) it would interrupt and either fizzle or throw you a message - i'm pretty sure it fizzled but that could just be me playing UOSA TBH - (timing was everything here, a big part of pvp was timing when to equip your weapon - as soon as the target cursor came up so no time was wasted)
3. once you had fully casted you were able to equip your weapon 4. you could disarm your weapon and then target (at some point you could do it without disarming)
5. Spells timed out after 30 seconds (but didn't pre-t2a?)

e.g. para, target, explo, target, ebolt, equip weapon (hit), disarm (not needed pre/early-t2a?), target.

It seems, this is how it is here currently so that would make this accurate. I don't do much pvp these days, but I did A LOT of PvP during T2A and I did the above example all the time.

These posts from August 1999 (this is outside the window of Oct-Nov but in the server window of May-Nov) have quite a bit of info on precasting which supports things the way they are now:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 5ae333fa9e

[BizzyBeast]

Being fairly new and not having finished my tank mage.. I am certain during this era on OSI, you could cast, equip, and fire at a target without doing anything additional to target whatever.

Whats hazy is if it auto disarmed weapon or just fired. Im pretty sure it just fired off as I remember getting some lucky double hits and pretty much instant killing people in duels. I was called a cheater for that crap a few times. Overall precast was considered to be a bug, but a fun one for those of us who liked to PvP.

[Faust]

Auto unequipping upon targeting a spell was a UOR feature when pre-casting was reimplemented. Spells could not be triggered with a weapon equipped and this is clearly present in the original OSI code during mid to late '98.

There are two logic statement checks in the original code.

1. When the spell initiates the casting phase.
2. When the spell finalizes the casting phase.

The system message that would be displayed was the "Your hands must be frree to cast spells." in the red noto/future murderer hue which was later updated to "Your hands must be free to cast spells or meditate." when the skill was patched into the game.

The first check is very simple and just checks if your hands are occupied with objects like a weapon, etc.. when you first start a spell.

The second check is performed when the spell actually is casted rather it's an automatic spell like magic reflect or a targeting spell. If the logic statement fails the message gets displayed along with a fizzle animation when the bad spell state fails.

The actual casting phase allowed you to equip a weapon in between these two phases at your discretion. This was the old form of precasting before it was reimplemented in 2001 during the UOR era. The new form of precasting would nullify the spell casting sequence during the casting phase UNTIL the spell target formed.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Does having something in your hands affect passive meditation?

[MatronDeWinter]

Does having something in your hands affect passive meditation?

I just tested it, and no, it does not look like it makes a difference. Drained of mana, two equally intelligent people seem to regenerate at the same rate, if one has a halberd equipped.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Thank you, I knew sheilds did because of AR. I was uncertain of weapons however.

[MatronDeWinter]

Not saying that's correct though.

[archaicsubrosa77]

You Mean EA or IG?

[hectorc2w]

i just found this:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... NUpd0J9TwJ

"On 13 Aug 1999 00:56:53 GMT, mad...@well.com (Adam Burr) wrote:
>In article <37b33a4a...@news.direct.ca>,
>Austin <007...@direct.ca> wrote:
>>
>>Cast, get cursor, equip weapon, unequip, target, no spell shoots.
>>Simple."


so this guy is saying that he waits for the cursor to equip a weapon, which would be the opposite of what is currently happening on UOSA.

I know the demo and most of the evidence points to what we currently have to be accurate...but most if not all people that played back then remember otherwise. I've been through most of my screen shots and i have yet to find 1 evidence of someone casting and equiping a weapon. every screen shot i have of people casting shows them casting hands free.

i'll post as exemple a screenshot of 2 guys dueling and casting without weapons equipped.

http://pages.infinit.net/canac/UO0081.jpg

now i have 2 questions that needs answering:

1.why is noone equiping their hallys when casting?
2.why have wrestling if you could just equip your weapon when you'd start casting.

I had an average of 20-30 ping back then in 98/99 and lag was not an issue for me. It would of been dumb for myself and my guildmates with low ping to have wrestling if you could just have the double advantage of taking another skill(like anatomy) and just equip your weapon everytime you cast to negate the slow moving 95% population trying to hit you with weapons that had 300 ping.

:/

[the bazookas]

1.why is noone equiping their hallys when casting?

When I PvP, I do this all the time, but only when the hally timer is ready. In fact a common "move" is to wait until your opponent is running at you, start casting explosion or ebolt or harm or whatever, and immediately equip your weapon so they get whacked when they step next to you (and you have a spell ready almost right after).

2.why have wrestling if you could just equip your weapon when you'd start casting.

Two reasons: one is the 1 second object delay (you can't immediately have your weapon back up if you take it down) and two (and probably more importantly) is that due to the cycling mechanic, you would mess up your swing timer all the time by equipping a weapon everytime you were in danger. Bonus reason: It's also another thing to worry about.

[nightshark]

it's an extremely difficult one to find any written evidence on. if equipping while casting was a thing, or whether it wasn't, nobody wrote anything about it either way.

personally i started playing in apr 99, almost immediately started playing a tank mage and i remember no period of UO where equip casting was a thing (except shields, there was definitely a period in UO:R where equipping a shield did not disturb).

that said, i dont think the equip casting here is a bad mechanic.

[hectorc2w]

if nobody wrote evidence why was it changed? because of the demo? i'd take the memories of an overwhelming majority over the demo that was clearly pre-t2a

[Ganklord]

I Do Not Remember Rain As Well In T2A. Are We Sure We Have Era Accurate Weather?

[nightshark]

if nobody wrote evidence why was it changed? because of the demo? i'd take the memories of an overwhelming majority over the demo that was clearly pre-t2a

because patch notes can be interpreted in a way that shows equip casting was not removed until precasting was re-added during UO:R. since there's no better evidence to work from, it's what we have here.

[Kaivan]

Our position on equipping and casting comes from the fact that the demo clearly shows that you can cast a spell and then equip a weapon during the casting animation. This functionality was a direct result of the January 20, 1998 patch which added in the full casting delay. Between that time and the January 24, 2000 patch, there are no documented changes to spellcasting that are relevant to whether it is possible to equip a weapon during the casting animation or not. Of course, we do recognize that not all changes are adequately documented, and it is possible that a change went undocumented. However, we have not seen any direct evidence that suggests that such a change happened (the fact that people describe using pre-casting one way does not actually mean it was the only way to do so). Until we have compelling evidence showing us that it was not possible to equip while casting and to continue casting, we are forced to go with our best evidence, which is the demo.