Horses in the wild

[kill drizitz]

i dont remember this, but its baller. did they not appear in the lost lands either? just in-town stables?

[Frozard Hyromantle]

Shocking but true:
http://web.archive.org/web/200003100508 ... horse.html

UnFortunately they do not appear in the wild, because they tend to be rather expensive.

Thanks guys.

Does anyone have any information on when they did begin appearing in the wild?

NOt sure when they started appearing in the wild. Not even sure if they do appear in the wild in the regular lands on current OSI. If so, I would guess it wasnt until pub 16 that they started appearing. As far as the lost lands I believe they were there but VERY VERY rare during t2a era. You almost never saw one.

[Kaivan]

After a good amount of research, I have found some definitive information that shows that horses did indeed spawn during T2A. This will likely be a somewhat long post, so bear with me on this.

The Proof

The first piece of evidence that I found was the minimum taming requirement for horses. This number is specifically stated on the Stratics archives from October 1999 all the way until the page was updated to reflect the UOR changes in late 2000. The taming difficulty for a horse had been recorded at 30.1 skill. The earliest link to this information can be found on the October 1999 Animal Taming page. Keeping with Stratics traditional lag period of approximately 6 months behind the actual patch, this patch can be linked to the changes to taming that occurred between February and May of 1999 (check the wiki for the specifics).

In order to give any significance to this information, a second piece of information needed to be tied in with the above information. The task was proving that horses were among the recommended taming animals during the same time that the zero re-tame skill method of transferring animals also existed. This information is supported by a very out-of-date skill gain guide on Stratics. The guide from August 2000 on Stratics, located here, lists horses among the animals suggested for taming at around the 50 taming skill level (when cross referenced with the October 1999 taming requirements page, the recommended animals all reside in the 30-35 minimum skill range). The guide also makes mention of the zero re-tame skill method twice within the guide. It also specifically mentions the fact that an animal that goes wild or is released is subject to the same result. From the guide, we can place the taming of horses and zero re-tame skill at the same time.

With that in hand, we now need ask the question: When was the zero re-tame method present on OSI? This is answered using a third resource. A website known as the taming archive is a website that was dedicated to taming all the way up and until AoS. One of the sections of the website is dedicated to documenting how each patch affected taming at the time, starting in 2000. Through that particular page, we can see that the January 24, 2000 update was the update that removed the zero re-tame functionality and replaced it with the owner listing. With that, we can pinpoint the above guide's time of reference to some time during 1999, thus showing that horses spawned during T2A.

What this means for other information

While the above information shows that horses spawned during T2A, it does not actually cite where they spawn. A few other pieces of information that surfaced give us an idea of where horses probably spawned during T2A. As a small note: The Stratics description for horses and pack horses is an erroneous description. The description, which is present on Stratics pages up until late 2002, is noted as an incorrect description by several other resources. The description likely talked about pack horses only, due to the fact that it was possible to find horses in the wild at the time.

While all of this information is far from definitive, the first piece of information is from the UO Guide, circa June 13, 2000 (the March archive is not working) lists the description for horses as follows:

Horses are, of course, the primary means of quick travel about the land. It is believed that wild horses are extinct in Britannia, although rumors persist of a herd being spotted in this or that remote spot. Although rightly famed for their faithfulness and stamina, horses are also excitable creatures of no great intellect, and prone to panic at any danger, if not under the hand of a strong and experienced rider.

This description can also be seen on the current UO Guide (on live servers, horses spawn all over the world, and this is 100% confirmed information). The above quote suggests that horses did spawn in the old lands, but were fairly infrequent at the time.

In order to give the assumption that the UO guide was hinting at the availability of horses in the mainland, I needed to find some information regarding the recommended locations to find horses. An archived version of the taming archives from July 2001 gives a description of the locations where horses can be found. While the information is not directly from the time frame that we are concerned with, this shows that the Stratics information about the available locations for horses is inaccurate for over an entire year after the taming archives, and over 3 years out of date with information found in the taming guide on Stratics. It also gives validity to the fact that the UO Guide suggested that horses spawned in the mainlands of UO.

Overall, the information guarantees that horses were available during T2A, however it does not specify the frequency nor the exact locations of horse spawns during T2A. The only information citing locations of spawns is some time after T2A, but it is likely that the spawn did exist in the mainlands (and possibly in the same areas) due to the UO Guide description, and some of the information in the Stratics taming guide, but the spawns themselves were likely very infrequent and out of the way.

P.S. Many of you will undoubtedly be interested in the zero re-tame functionality. I have already discussed this with Derrick, and in the future we will be almost certainly be making some changes to the way that taming works. Just give us some time to compile the necessary information and pin down the specifics of how particular mechanics worked at the time.

[Derrick]

Wow, again incredible research. Great post. Thanks Kavian!

This seems to jive with just about every recollection cited. I too do remember horses spawning, of course it was 9 or 10 years ago now and I don't remember where, but I also don't remember them being all too common in the wild; although my guess would have been the same as a poster above, that they were just over farmed. Especially since no one has any doubt, or has ever suggested that pack animals spawned in the wild, I think we can certainly at this point say that regular horses did.

Please do continue discussion of this, if anyone remembers anything about areas the horses did or did not spawn please post. I would like to take some action on this soon.

[RoadKill]

I remember that island off of Trinsic (the one you can walk to over the bridge) having a horse spawn location on it.

[Frozard Hyromantle]

I remember specifically calling staff on OSI and them telling me horses did not spawn on the mainland. Its still my belief that they didnt. Back then I lived and breathed UO and there wasnt a spec of ground I hadnt ran across and I never once in all that time ever saw one single horse in the wild. They simply were not there. I believe that people are either getting mixed up with newer era's or freeshards. I never EVER saw anyone selling horses at the bank, the only things I saw people selling were Ostards and llamas. There were no horses on the mainland.

[Kaivan]

I remember specifically calling staff on OSI and them telling me horses did not spawn on the mainland. Its still my belief that they didnt. Back then I lived and breathed UO and there wasnt a spec of ground I hadnt ran across and I never once in all that time ever saw one single horse in the wild. They simply were not there. I believe that people are either getting mixed up with newer era's or freeshards. I never EVER saw anyone selling horses at the bank, the only things I saw people selling were Ostards and llamas. There were no horses on the mainland.

If you saw people selling ostards and llamas at the bank, then that would have happened after the change which allowed the two creature types into the main lands was allowed (unless done ilegally). If that's the case, there is substantial definitive proof that shows that horses spawned in the old lands during 2000 and later.

[Frozard Hyromantle]

I remember specifically calling staff on OSI and them telling me horses did not spawn on the mainland. Its still my belief that they didnt. Back then I lived and breathed UO and there wasnt a spec of ground I hadnt ran across and I never once in all that time ever saw one single horse in the wild. They simply were not there. I believe that people are either getting mixed up with newer era's or freeshards. I never EVER saw anyone selling horses at the bank, the only things I saw people selling were Ostards and llamas. There were no horses on the mainland.

If you saw people selling ostards and llamas at the bank, then that would have happened after the change which allowed the two creature types into the main lands was allowed (unless done ilegally). If that's the case, there is substantial definitive proof that shows that horses spawned in the old lands during 2000 and later.

There were no horses on the mainland during t2a.

[BlackFoot]

not on mainland but on islands?

[ClowN]

There were no horses on the mainland during t2a.

there were definatly horses on the main land. as i said in a previous post, i made alot of money taming and selling them not far from britain. this was within the first 2-3 weeks of me playing the game. i started playing literally a week after t2a was released, and i quit within a month of UOR being released. my memory is not wrong. i am NOT confused about the era that i played in. i am 150% positive horses spawned on the main land. you my friend are wrong.

[Faust]

If I remember I'll look in the UO Demo decompilation code to see any possible spawn interactions involved with horses. I remember taming horses during pre-t2a and t2a.

[Jaster]

http://web.archive.org/web/199902181015 ... m/hunters/
Commonly Found: Bought in Cities
National Velvet this is not. Beasts of burden in every sense of the term. UnFortunately they do not appear in the wild, because they tend to be rather expensive.
-1999 Hunters Guide

http://web.archive.org/web/200008181203 ... m/hunters/
Commonly Found: Bought in Cities
-2000 Hunters Guide



Hope that clears it up for everyone ...

[Kaivan]

http://web.archive.org/web/199902181015 ... m/hunters/
Commonly Found: Bought in Cities
National Velvet this is not. Beasts of burden in every sense of the term. UnFortunately they do not appear in the wild, because they tend to be rather expensive.
-1999 Hunters Guide

http://web.archive.org/web/200008181203 ... m/hunters/
Commonly Found: Bought in Cities
-2000 Hunters Guide



Hope that clears it up for everyone ...

If we follow that line of thinking we can also say this:

http://web.archive.org/web/200106090449 ... m/hunters/
Commonly Found: Bought in Cities
-2001 Hunters Guide

http://web.archive.org/web/200008181203 ... m/hunters/
Commonly Found: Bought in Cities
-2002 Hunters Guide

The problem with the above information is that it clashes with much of the available information from other resources, and with resources from the animal taming guide hosted on their own network. There is a heavy indication that the hunter's guide is simply wrong in this case (not something new with regard to stratics).

[Faust]

I took a glance at the UO Demo for any information regarding spawns for horses. Here is the code that sets region limits for this creature's spawning.

Code: Select all

<region         { ZOO_PLAINS HORSESMALL 0 HORSEMEDIUM 0 HORSELARGE 0 FORESTNEARTOWN 0 FORESTNOTNEARTOWN 0 HORSE 0 NEWBIE 0 WINDFOREST 0 } >
<regionlimit    { ZOO_PLAINS 1 HORSESMALL 15 HORSEMEDIUM 25 HORSELARGE 35 FORESTNEARTOWN 25 FORESTNOTNEARTOWN 45 HORSE 1 NEWBIE 10 WINDFOREST 8 } >

This suggests that they were in fact spawnable. The reason for this is because when I took a look at a pack horse it had absolutely no region limits suggesting that they didn't spawn. This makes good sense because everyone knows pack horses never spawned in the wild.

[Jaster]

Just because something is listed with a tameable skill doesn't mean it spawned as well. Keep that in mind. Horses can go untamed that are purchased from a stable master and they have to be able to be retamed.

Tamers Guide really doesn't exist until 2000 (which doesn't specifically list horses as an animal used for skill gain), and then in 2001 (it shows them in the mid 30s range?) ... by 2001, we are out of T2A, and even that page for 2000 is from November I believe, which is also after T2A.

The reason the 1999 Hunter's Guide is different than the others is because of this line in particular ...

National Velvet this is not. Beasts of burden in every sense of the term. UnFortunately they do not appear in the wild, because they tend to be rather expensive.

That under horses ... some may argue thats for pack horses only, but it is not specific. It shows pictures of regular horses with this line near them.

That would undoubtedly lead me to believe that they didn't spawn.