Stealth and Snooping

[Elph]

Why is it that I reveal on a snoop when stealthed? I don't remember this ever being the case. To my memory, stealth was hiding with movement. It makes no sense, to me, for snooping to reveal when stealthed if one is not revealed snooping on a hide.

Is this era accurate or an attempt to make stealth thieves useless?

And also, why can I not even open my own paperdoll while stealthed without revealing myself? This seems to be either sloppy coding or a very prejudiced nerf of stealth.

[Apocalypse]

I didn't play my thief enough in era to comment on the revealing while stealthing. However, I just tested these things out. I see that I do, indeed, reveal when snooping if in stealth mode, but don't reveal if just hidden and not in stealth mode. Perhaps this mechanic needs to be fixed, but couldn't you also just use hiding as soon as you stealth up to someone to negate the problem? Obviously there is skill delay, but that could be worked around.

Regarding the issues with your paper doll, I was able to open my paper doll while stealthing by using alt+P without being revealed. I was also surprised to find out that I could dbl click on myself to do it while stealthing. Not sure why you're having that issue.

[Elph]

Hmm, not sure why I was having that problem with the paperdoll but it seems not to be happening now.

Having to rehide works, but it really nerfs any reason to have stealth as a thief. I don't believe it is era accurate, or if it was, I don't believe it was part of the era for any significant amount of time. Seems sort of counter intuitive that a player would train a skill meant to bolster hiding, and yet not be able to snoop while using that skill, having to use the lesser skill to do so.

With an extra 10 second delay, someone has to basically be AFK for stealth theiving to work. And at that point, all the fun of being skilled and quick on reflexes just flies out the window.

[Kaivan]

I give a very detailed explanation of why snooping reveals you when you're stealthing in this post. The background which is not explained in this post is a patch note from 3/28/99 that says the following:

• Stealth
  • Snooping will reveal you.

[Elph]

So I guess it did lead to revealing a player on non-Siege OSI servers for part of 1999.

I guess my question is this. Is this server dedicated to being a snapshot of December 31st, 1999, or is it dedicated to replicating the atmosphere that existed in the T2A era as a whole?

If the former, then I understand completely.

If the latter, then I don't see why the snooping while stealthed nerf was chosen to be added to the list of things this shard used to replicate the era. It seems to me, at least, that this change was in the direction of thinking that lead to Trammel and other changes which took freedom out of the game and began to confine players to "honorable" ways of playing the game. Something which, as seen in the developer's sticky on this forum, seems contrary to the spirit of Ultima Online. I say this because not being able to snoop while stealthed seems only to make sense in the light of thinking towards limiting the ability of thieves, rather than the line of thinking about the logical progression of skills and what they do in the UO world.

If indeed this shard is intended to be a replication of the way UO was directly before Rennaisance, then fine by me. However, if this shard is intended to replicate the T2A era as a whole, I think some decisions in the late T2A era are right to be excluded.

[mxmx23]

Is this server dedicated to being a snapshot of December 31st, 1999...?

Yes

[Kaivan]

UOSA has a target date of November 23, 1999 with a goal of replicating the mechanics available at the time.

[mxmx23]

Oops, I was off on the date. Sorry.

[Elph]

UOSA has a target date of November 23, 1999 with a goal of replicating the mechanics available at the time.

Well damnit. Can't say I agree with setting a date regardless of the sorts of changes that were made, but who am I to disagree? This place seems to be the last bastion of UO that even attempts to replicate the atmosphere I so enjoy. I suppose I'll have to tolerate some of the global warming.

[flokofcgulls]

UOSA has a target date of November 23, 1999 with a goal of replicating the mechanics available at the time.

Well damnit. Can't say I agree with setting a date regardless of the sorts of changes that were made, but who am I to disagree? This place seems to be the last bastion of UO that even attempts to replicate the atmosphere I so enjoy. I suppose I'll have to tolerate some of the global warming.

I was reading about this issue yesterday, and seeing this comment brought to mind an important concept that I took away from my years of experience with World of Warcraft.

I've come to the conclusion that a game needs a certain amount of imperfections in order to retain it's charm and personality. Especially for us technical folks, this can be a foreign concept, as our instincts compel us to fix everything we see. Going back to my WoW comparison, the developers attempts to make the game mechanically perfect, have indirectly resulted in the loss of a lot of the things that made the game so much fun in the first place.

I've been incredibly impressed with the dedication that Derrick, Kaivan, and whoever else makes up the UOSA team, has put forward in recreating this world that existed during this snapshot of time. The attention to details, like this snooping mechanic, is one of the things that really sets this place apart. While things like this might be somewhat frustrating at times to us as players, they play a vital role in the overall health of our shard.

[archaicsubrosa77]

I agree that a lot of the mechanics were involved to keep the new player base as there was big money in UO and they did not want to make things too difficult for new players especially since unless you paid you usually ran with one account. I doubt middle school children play anymore here without encouragement or adult mentor who knows this game well.

That said we should evolve gameplay to an adult platform and rid of the nerfs that take away the fun of the game that maybe was during the course of era allowed but later changed to cater to crybabies.

People play T2A for the mere sake of it being edgy, when the nerfs were implied here the player base started to dwindle. Effectively reliving the fall of the platform of this game.

maybe it should be T2A how it should have been

[GuardianKnight]

I wish I could snoop and steal from you when you are stealthing.

[Elph]

I wish I could snoop and steal from you when you are stealthing.

Doesn't make sense. If you can't see the person how are you supposed to snoop or steal form them? My argument from rationality has nothing to do with a want to steal, I can steal either way. It has to do with limiting stealth when its an advanced form of hiding. If I can move my feet while hiding, why not my hands?

[Apocalypse]

maybe it should be T2A how it should have been

I agree with the concept your aiming at here. The problem is that how it "should have been" is open for debate and would just cause more headaches for the admins. Making it "how it was", while it may have its headaches now and then, at least has some concrete evidence for the majority of topics and we don't have to debate EVERY aspect of the game as to how it "should be".

[GuardianKnight]

Taking this game and the topics we create here too seriously is the surest sign that you are going to stress yourself out and won't be here too long.