On bugs / "Era Accuracy" and other stuff..

[Ophidian]

To preface this, I was previously a RunUO dev and understand the underlying code quite well. I am by trade a software developer and have been for a number of years. I previously worked on running shards using T2A / PreUOR combat rule sets.

The biggest issue I see with the game (performance wise) at the moment is aggressive without line of sight. I can't cite the era accuracy nor do I care.
This is an issue regardless of era accuracy or not. It has a severely negative impact upon server performance.
Why one might ask?
The idle function that runs on all NPCs is straight forward and simple. Very little performance required to do this.
When you add agressiveness without line of sight (LOS) everything in an area goes apeshit regardless of LOS. This is a problem because there is an actual pathfinding algorithm in the game that EVERY NPC begins to run when it goes aggro.

Now let's step in to Ter Keep and watch EVERYTHING go nuts. 10 or more mobiles will go aggressive and every one of them begins to constantly run the pathfinding algorithm because most of them can't get to you. This appears to the user as simple. They move up and down a wall. The pathfinding algorithm is quite simple on this server but it is still a magnitude or two more complex than the idle algorithm. Present me the code if you beg to differ.

On being "Era Accurate"
The idea of era accurate is appealing to players who want to play UO like it was in 1999 as of Nov(?). This is both an advantage and a detriment. The reason this is detrimental is the nitpicking over how accurate something is and not fully realizing that the game should be fun. The shard I personally worked with was OSI Pre UO:R and we made a lot of changes to accomodate the playerbase to make the game FUN as well as maintain KEY aspects of the accuracy. If you continue down the hole of accurate eras then you will not address the desires of the players for things such as new content.

Let's look at "Era Accurate" for a moment. The DEVELOPERS should be era accurate as much as the code. While this is not possible they should share a similar vision of increasing the playerbase and making the game better, not worse. Time is being wasted on minor accuracy issues when gameplay issues could be worked on to increase positive player experience.

Here is question : Do you want more players or PERFECT era accuracy and no-one playing?

I feel as if (from reading many threads) that the latter is being chosen and I, for the life of me, can't understand why.

Some other random notes,
All kill DID work. I played OSI in 99 and had a GM tamer. It required a high level (100) of taming to make all your pets obey. Your anecdotal evidence of it working and not working is purely based on the fact that you cannot prove any of those people were GM tamers. There was mention of one player with 27 polar bears using all kill to destroy a dragon. Dragon won but the player tamed the dragon. He obviously had a relatively high level of taming. Beyond that there is little mention of how much taming/lore a player possessed. I know this feature worked beause I killed kids in Deciet and Destard with dragons on Sonoma quite frequently. People bitched that tamers were overpowered. Tamers were also the HARDEST class to level and play. Losing a dragon isn't like losing a halberd. There isn't a store where I can just buy a bag of 20 GM dragons.

Stamina is not on par with your "Era" rules. You can claim they came from some formula but anyone who used a horse at that time knows that they didn't drain as fast as they do. I am NOT in favor of giving infinite stamina to horses. Nightmares also puzzle me because they have a very high dex compared to other creatures and thus quite a bit of stamina. Why a Frenzied Ostard can outrun a Nightmare is beyond me at this moment. Era accurate or not, it's illogical. Stamina should be probably increased somewhere between 30 and 50% or the drain should be lessened by an equal percentage.

Also, I saw someone note that item bless deeds were ineffective on weapons. This is completely false. I had a katana/halberd both blessed (vanqs) and I tested them on OSI to check durability. It never went down. Blessed weapons didn't break.

Listen, I miss playing UO as much as anyone. One of the saddest days of my life was when I sold my account for well over 2g's on ebay at the end of 1999. I spent copious hours from the age of 13 (when I started playing the beta) until I finally sold my account. On a lighter note, many months later I recieved an email from EA noting that my account had been banned permanently. Given that I had a GM tamer / GM thief / 2x GM hally mages - that sucked for him.

I'm all for being accurate gameplay wise. I'm also much for the experience. I like to PvP but it gets boring and sometimes you can't get a fight. I like to carebear it up sometimes and the hardest thing I can tackle is an Ancient Wyrm and well, they aren't that bad.

I'm happy to have a population of Pre UOR players. I'd also like to see that population flourish and grow. I give newbies stuff because I want them to stick around so I can kill them later.

I think I'm done. You can try and flame me but it's rather pointless. I also have a "no troll feeding" policy.
I'd really like to see a GM / Admin weigh in on this and discuss it. I want your shard to succeed for my own selfish reasons of playing it.

Ophidian

[tekai]

Hi Ophidian welcome to the server.

According to my tally sheet, you are the 17th person, myself included that played a tamer main during the era in question, and agree that all kill worked. Yes, perhaps 2 of 6 dragons would say "no" to the command, shake his head and not move, but using all kill twice or perhaps 3 times would for sure cause all your pets to attack. This is a fight I have poured countless hours into searching the internet for some holy grail of information to prove it. People like Faust, who didnt play a tamer in era, or Hemp who was 8 years old were the reason we do not have it. There isnt even any proof that it didnt work, only that "The command wasnt listed in stratics or on the patch notes" we all know how accurate patch notes were.

People on this shard refuse to believe in stealth nerf / patchs, and it is slowly killing the "fun".

I have not played much recently, due to not wanting to play the hally mage game anymore. After the house changes, I think that will be a rather big nail in the coffin for me.

[potamus]

On being "Era Accurate"
The idea of era accurate is appealing to players who want to play UO like it was in 1999 as of Nov(?). This is both an advantage and a detriment. The reason this is detrimental is the nitpicking over how accurate something is and not fully realizing that the game should be fun. The shard I personally worked with was OSI Pre UO:R and we made a lot of changes to accomodate the playerbase to make the game FUN as well as maintain KEY aspects of the accuracy. If you continue down the hole of accurate eras then you will not address the desires of the players for things such as new content.

I feel the divs/admin do a relatively good job bringing fun ideas that are outside the realm of era accuracy; daily events are a good example of this. Sadly that is the only thing I can truly site, and I wish there were more creative ones that lean more towards gathering, say fishing competitions. Being said, this is hardly a thread for my wants to be expressed. I have fun playing and I have fun reading and experiencing any sort of obscure patch note that gave 1999 its old quirky feelings. I am also under the impression that Derrick and crew will definitely start bringing some fresh ideas while staying within the t2a era (edit) once they feel the era has been completely replicated to the best of their abilities.

[Ophidian]

Hi Ophidian welcome to the server.

According to my tally sheet, you are the 17th person, myself included that played a tamer main during the era in question, and agree that all kill worked. Yes, perhaps 2 of 6 dragons would say "no" to the command, shake his head and not move, but using all kill twice or perhaps 3 times would for sure cause all your pets to attack. This is a fight I have poured countless hours into searching the internet for some holy grail of information to prove it. People like Faust, who didnt play a tamer in era, or Hemp who was 8 years old were the reason we do not have it. There isnt even any proof that it didnt work, only that "The command wasnt listed in stratics or on the patch notes" we all know how accurate patch notes were.

People on this shard refuse to believe in stealth nerf / patchs, and it is slowly killing the "fun".

I have not played much recently, due to not wanting to play the hally mage game anymore. After the house changes, I think that will be a rather big nail in the coffin for me.

Good, so I'm not insane.
It was rare for me to have pets disobey so long as they were A. Happy B. Fed.
If both conditions were met, they obeyed 100% for me. Which is why I find all of this nonsense strange.

I don't honestly care about "Proof" or some "holy grail" or "rosetta stone" for Era Accuracy. As far as I am concerned it is a matter of gameplay mechanics and common sense. Apparently it's not common. All it does is help people out and cause less headaches. At the moment my tamer uses "A kill" (last target) followed by B and C as a razor macro. I shouldn't have to resort to that stupidity when it could just be FIXED. I know where in the goddamn codebase it is likely to be found even, unless changes were made and it is moved somehow...

My god, what a pointless deal over something that is simple and should just get implemented. Why so much resistance? This isn't about "era accuracy" because even if it was, it would be wrong. lol..

Ophidian

[tekai]

Is there ever a reason? people fight to nerf playstyles that are not their own.

Tamers lost all kill

Theives lost stealing runebooks and house deeds

Poisoners lost Poison

We use the count system that gives counts to para and mana drain.

Alchys and trap makers lost purple pots affecting other purple pots.

I could go on and on and on, but our target date of nov 99 is awful. do away with runebooks and potion kegs and give us a non trammel t2a. UOSA is not T2A its "pre-rennasance" becuase the nov 23rd patch and several before it were in preperation for trammel.

The vocal minority want this to be "hally mage online" and heaven forbid a tamer with his true potential might kill a hallymage with a 6x dragon all-kill


PEOPLE THEY WROTE A SONG ABOUT IT

it was called "all kill no skill"

[Derrick]

I appreciate your enthusasim for Second Age.

There are a lot of topics here, and issues such as targeted all commands should probably be addressed in the context of the threads and discussion that already exist. [or are newly created]

The goal of this shard is mechanical accuracy not to redesign the game to make it more fun. It's an honor to have so many here enjoying the shard, but that was not my goal in creating it. There are many many shards out there run by people much more creative than me who are redesigning the game; but that has never been our focus.

As much as we can we try not to upset the applecart much, but the drive towards fixing mechanics, even the "little stuff" does continue to progress and matters much (to me anyway). If we don't fix the little stuff, I doubt anyone ever will.

CPU cycles due to path-finding is of very little significance in actual exercise. I don't think we need to compromise mechanics to satisfy efficiency. That being said though, the creatures are still doing more complex path-finding than they should, and that is intended to be addressed.

[Pro]

*tears*

dude quit youre whining and get good at the game it's been out 12 years.

[Ophidian]

I appreciate your enthusasim for Second Age.

There are a lot of topics here, and issues such as targeted all commands should probably be addressed in the context of the threads and discussion that already exist. [or are newly created]

Your assumptions in the thread aren't correct for reasons I've discussed. The arguement you hide behind is not falsifiable nor is it provable. It's basically a theory that cannot be proven either way. (See "Religion" for similar examples)

You never seemed to have PLAYED a tamer within the age you are forcing upon the players yet seem to know more than them based on anecdotal evidence. For one moment consider all of the unknown information WITHIN your anecdotal information. You do not know the Animal Lore nor the Taming skill of the players. It is no-where cited in the quotes. Even if you are ENTIRELY correct, you have to realize that in your posting you admit that "all kill" not working is in fact a bug as it is considered "Fixed" later.

Under this last part, you are simply admitting that you allow era specific bugs. This is a terrible path to walk. From a developers standpoint of a shard much larger than your own, I ask you to try and see that. As a developer your wish to replicate the era is great but your job to fix bugs that existed should also be paid attention to. If you want to stand behind having era specific bugs then I know this forum has a lot of horrid abuses of the system they would like to see implemented.

The goal of this shard is mechanical accuracy not to redesign the game to make it more fun. It's an honor to have so many here enjoying the shard, but that was not my goal in creating it. There are many many shards out there run by people much more creative than me who are redesigning the game; but that has never been our focus..

Well you're currently not meeting your goal then. Horses are broken and the honor you feel in having people enjoy your shard is quickly dwindling. You only need to make a newbie character, run around and talk to people as well as simply read the forums to know that. This isn't about creativity. There is no wildly creative side that has to be harnessed to fix some simple stuff. I know you want to do events and all that jazz but there are more pressing issues. Your current horse situation is a nightmare and not the type you tame. I just got off the phone with a friend who plays this server AND played during the T2A era (he played well in to UO:R) and he recalled chasing someone on horse for a LOT longer than this server currently allows. This is broken. Probably a priority to be addressed. Your happy little halberd brigade would like it too.

As much as we can we try not to upset the applecart much, but the drive towards fixing mechanics, even the "little stuff" does continue to progress and matters much (to me anyway). If we don't fix the little stuff, I doubt anyone ever will.

All kill falls within a fix in broken mechanics. I can quote your other quote from the link but I don't feel like it.
Horses fall within broken mechanics.
You admitted the pathfinding falls within broken mechanics (later in your quotations).

Fixing the "little stuff" is important but you have to also pay attention to the playerbase. Your focus is taking tunnel vision. It's a bit sad that I found this shard and I might have to watch another good T2A server with a robust population die. You have to keep your eye on both the little stuff and the stuff that may seem inconsequential but players want.

CPU cycles due to path-finding is of very little significance in actual exercise. I don't think we need to compromise mechanics to satisfy efficiency. That being said though, the creatures are still doing more complex path-finding than they should, and that is intended to be addressed.

Ah. So little significance. That's how every nightmare of software development start. "Oh yeah, we have a bug but it's of little consequence". So what has the reason been for the massive lag occuring the last few days? A network route issue? All players seemed to be experiencing it. Apparently you haven't seen a "little significance" problem turn in to a big one in development before. It's much akin to the stacking of percentage error rates.


Derrick, take a moment and READ what I am writing. I am TRYING to help you as a fellow developer who has BEEN in your position. I'm not some nutcase PVPer that wants halberd mages to rule, nor do I want them to disappear. (I like my halberd mage) I AM however someone who is trying to offer you the best advice if you want to continue to be "honored" by the number of players. I would love to see those numbers go up. Something like 600 unique IPs would be CRAZY cool.

I'm on your side. I'm just the more matured version of your view. I hate to say that and sound condecending but the shard I worked on had a larger population than this one. Eventually we took out mounts entirely to tell you the truth. I believe we also blessed rune books to make up for the fact that mounts were removed. We also implemented code to prevent the use of recall scrolls stored in the runebook while in your bag to fix potential abuses.

Ophidian

Edit: I forgot to note that in your "era accuracy" you failed to implement stat loss for reds. It existed at the time you are talking about. I know because one of my mages was red and I clearly remember dying while on a roam with my PK crew on Sonoma. Death wasn't fun.

[Derrick]

Again, I appreciate your passion for the game, but i feel that much of your post is based on presumptions that indicates an in-familiarity with our shard and this community, which has never been typical of the freeshard community in general.

Your specific premise that bugs fixed later should mandate a fix on UOSA flies in the face of the basis for this server, and the logic of what OSI considered bug to begin with, in one simple example, pre-casting was considered a bug by OSI as stated in their patch note in it's removal.

I find the candor of you post somewhat inflammatory and condescending. I hope that you are able to explore the information on existing topics a bit further before recanting.

Edit: I forgot to note that in your "era accuracy" you failed to implement stat loss for reds. It existed at the time you are talking about. I know because one of my mages was red and I clearly remember dying while on a roam with my PK crew on Sonoma. Death wasn't fun.

We do of course have era accurate stat loss on Second Age.

[fooka03]

From the point about stat-loss I gather you're just grasping at straws to try and prove a point. Please stop. I loathe the hally mage crowd myself but the best I can do is keep doing research and suggest things as I come across them to make this shard better for all, not just certain cliques. If you want help tracking down patch notes or other evidence then ask around. But raging on the forums is going to make few friends, and garner fewer results.

[Ophidian]

I'm sorry if I seem condescending. I posted that I wasn't trying to be quite specifically. I am not raging on the forums at all. I'm trying to provide insight in to something I've done before. The shard I worked on (which won't be named) died for other more political / personal reasons. Not because we screwed up the mechanics.

There seems to be a certain unwillingness to change on this shard and Era accuracy holds importance over all. If this is the absolute truth of the matter then I will let you sink with your ship. I stated before and I will state again, I am trying to help. I think you've done a brilliant job of making UO accessable to a portion of people who didn't know or have experience with free shards. That is BRILLIANT. I WISH we had done the same. The installer package is extremely well designed. It was the first thing I noted when joining your community.

Really, I'm trying to help. I just become frustrated sometimes at the lack of willingness to adapt and change when it means survival. I would also like to note that I've sat and read your forums. I did so for a while before joining to make this post. I felt as a member of the community it was partially my duty to point these issues out.

We have statloss here? Right on. I wasn't aware as no-one has ever mentioned it to me. This would be even better if perma red were implemented as planned.

Ophidian

[Derrick]

It's good to have you here, and I do appreciate the feedback. The majority of work here, both in research, publicity, and even the cool installer is done by the players. While I do I guess make the final decisions, it's done so with immense participation from everyone, and we have moved very slowly. We have of course not met the goal of 100% mechanical accuracy so it's very easy to pick things out that aren't right, and I encourage it fully.

I didn't start UOSA to compete for players, and that's never been the goal. UOSA will survive even if our client count is 10. We've have more clients online and we've had less, but we've always worked in the same direction. We don't intend to change core aspects of era mechanics for the potential satisfaction of players, and it's a widely held belief (here) that it's not a viable strategy to try and do so. This of course undeniably is contrary to common development and design principles of online gaming, but it's what we do here.

To answer your question about the lag, it's garbage collection due to low memory. We intend to resolve this fast; and we are in no way lacking for spare CPU cycles. So far Moores law has served us well beyond it's own projections and I expect it will continue to do so.

I'm glad that you are enjoying the shard, and understand that no one can be expected to be satisfied with every aspect of UO as the depth of the game mechanics are unrivaled.

I encourage you to challenge any misconceptions you feel we have about era mechanics, but please do so with the deserved notice and respect to those who have spent so much time on the issues prior to your arrival.

Welcome to Second Age friend.

[nightshark]

Ophidian, I almost feel it's kind've a joke that someone should come in here and ramble some ignorance about all kill and stat loss, then claim they're the developer of a failed shard and they can foresee the apocolypse of a shard that was not created in the same vision...

[Ophidian]

Ophidian, I almost feel it's kind've a joke that someone should come in here and ramble some ignorance about all kill and stat loss, then claim they're the developer of a failed shard and they can foresee the apocolypse of a shard that was not created in the same vision...

I'm glad you think it's funny. The truth is that pretty much every shard dies out, or goes dim for long periods. It lights up for various reasons and if I had the resources at my disposal I would be out running a shard myself. I did however find this one mentioned somewhere and came to see what it was about. Fun stuff. I like it. Sure it needs tweaking and as Derrick pointed out, it's not done.

I AM a developer. Take whatever "claim" you want. The shard I worked on is surely failed. I designed and managed largely economic and gameplay (think fun) aspects of the game. I wanted a stable economy as well as a fun experience doing so. Creating new stuff to kill even if it wasn't era specific was fun. Turn off provocation and add in some uber rare chances of getting a rare. Then write some custom code so that it hits pets for more damage so when you invisibly watch it on your dev character it slaughters the 4 tamers that thought their dragons were going to massacre it. Also adding smart casting to NPCs was another fun addition. I.e A lich breed that knows how to explosion / flamestrike you after you've been weakened. He was nasty. The base code for spell casting is rudimentary at best. It has been changed on this server I noted as something paralyzed me which isn't in RunUO standard code I believe. It has honestly been a good amount of time since I have looked at the newest version of it.

I have no ignorance about "all kill". After all, I played a tamer in the era in question as noted above. Sorry if I spotted an inaccuracy that seems to have a strong refusal to fix.

I haven't been ON this server long enough to go red or hear anyone even talk about it. I don't sit in the vent or IRC so my mixings with those people for conversation on it is limited. I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the posts I've read on the forums either. I guess you guys happily accept it. Most people cry about statloss so I am rather suprised. I have heard quite a bit of bitching in game about the lack of perma red though. I got this when some provoker wanted a spot I had locked down and he killed me at a low point after standing around for a while. The person who was also there noted this problem.

In the end, I don't personally care what you think. Laugh if you like. I'm a developer and I'm sorry if you can't fully realize that. Your ignorance is your problem I guess. I tried to help.

Ophidian

[yossarian]

nightshark was right....just more rambling.