UO Second Age

jackb wrote:i wrote this in another topic but it applies here as well:

Hi. Nice shard.

I appreciate you have different crowds to cater to. Im starting back up in UO. I play a melee character and I was reading that you are making it so melee cant effectively hit someone who is running.




The thing though is even though they didnt let the weapon re-timer charge while running until 2000 you have to appreciate that things were different before 2000. In the least technology wise, say in 1998 UOs servers werent running as fast, there were lots more people logged into the game, people were on dial up connections and on much worse computers.

Consquently when someone stopped to cast a spell back in 1998 the person stopped for much longer than they do now, also when people were running around with obstacles away from each they were actually stopping along the way because of slower systems and ping back then. So weapons not refreshing while running wasnt a big issue back then.

Now though with lower populations, much faster serverr/connections, much better pings and computers gameplay simply isnt like that anymore. Players run fluidly through the world and only stop for like split seconds to get a fast cast off then continue on. In this type of game play leaving gameplay mechanics like this is just deabilitating to melee characters. Which is the reason why they changed it back in 2000 because things were already getting faster back then.

This isnt a balancing issue although either way is still T2A legal its just a game mechanics issue dealing with faster speeds


So Id like to just add my 2cents that although you might have a crowd supporting one way, I cant play on this shard with melee being the way it is now as thats the type of character I play. Like I said I dont say this to bitch and moan on a free shard, just to let you know there are also dexxers who would like to play too and as it is now its game stopping for a dexxer. Also I highly doubt any mage players would quit the game because recharge timers were changed but you will lose melee players if they are not.

I think jackb has brought up a great point and made a good case.

We can't ignore the technical limitations of 1999 and previously, a similar phenomena was used to explain why players memories of the kryss being as fast or faster than a katana. (By the .25 ticks).

I remember when I moved up from dial-up to cable in late 1999 how the game instantly changed for me. Some fights were almost unfair against slower connections and the game play seem different against other fast connection.

((Much like when I started play Civ on my Mac Classic and switched to a Mac 660 AV. Besides the color my Civ game elapsed in 1/2 the time do to CPU speed! (BTW, I always played for total domination).)

But anyway, I believe that there is a point where the technical accuracy of certain era accurate game mechanics executed on 2009 machines and bandwidth will cause detraction from the feel of the real T2A experienced by players in era.

If this idea becomes accepted as valid phenomena and considered by the developers, then I'd strongly suggest that a convention be established and followed for dealing with this issue of time latency. Like some programming edict which spells out how the developers deal with this time/connection issue.
That way players can't try to use the '"well you made an exception for time/connection issues, I simply can't see why you can't make an exception for <insert pet project here>!!!!" type of argument to get neon pink sandals or some special item that makes pink weapons.

You know though, maybe the answer is in the 'ticks' of time?

No comments about jackb's idea?

everything jackb said makes sense to me. like i said im not a programmer but it definatly seems like the solution is right in front of us. something has to be done about melee or people will get frustrated and quit. i know this issue doesnt affect tank mages as much, which is why i think it has gone unaddressed for so long. this shard is like 80% tank mages when it comes to PVP. but im sure the staff realizes how important diversity in play styles is to this game. if dexxers start quitting, it will only make field PVP that much more boring. townfighting is almost nonexistant on this server, and im sure this is part of the reason. please consider what the players are telling you right now, we all care about this shard as much as you do. i believe this shard has the potential to be the most successful t2a freeshard EVER, but little things like this will just make people not want to play here.

i remember the day i found this server, i was so excited to get my char built and start pvping again. i spent a long time building my poison dexxer (not an easy build for a first character on a new server). i remember as soon as i 7x GMed him, i went with my friend CmaN to brit grave yard to look for a battle. i kept thinking i was mistakingly tabbing out of combat because i couldnt hit ANYONE in the 2vs2 battle we were in. the only time i got a hit off was if i was lucky enough to get a good swing while one of the targets had stopped to cast. at first i thought "maybe im just rusty, i havnt played UO forever". but then 5 months later i realize "shit, melee is gimped on this server". honestly i would not have spent the time developing that character had i known what i know now. the only reason i stay is because i believe the staff has the best intentions of making this server accurate to the era, and i love that. but during t2a, dexxers had their place in PVP. here they do not.

im not trying to bitch about anything here, so please dont take anything iv said the wrong way. im very grateful that the staff puts as much work into this project as they do. but you will not achieve your goal of recreating the true t2a experience unless the combat mechanics are properly working.

Unfortunately on issues such as these, there is a very clear cutoff point that we cannot ignore. In this case it is the actual date of implementation of this particular mechanic. Even if it were arguable from a mechanical standpoint, the fact of the matter is that running swings are entirely out of era. To reaffirm this point, observe the date of the patch which noted this addition and compare its patch date with other patches released around it. The patch can be found here. Beyond that, while the technical limitations of UO during 1997 and 1998 were fairly stiff given the hardware available, by 1999 high and mid level computers were more than capable of playing the game at full capacity, and high speed connections had become widely available in comparison to 1998.

In any case, beyond the discussion of hardware, this is an out of era change. Unfortunately we can't justify its existence here due to that.

This is not an argument about the rule. I don't think anyone is saying that the rule of law you are using is incorrect. The point people are arguing is that you are protecting the law, but not the spirit of the law. If the point of the server is era accuracy, why is it we only protect accuracy on paper and not accuracy in practice. Reality is based primarily on observation of reality, and what you, Faust, and Derrick are telling us, is that you care more about the pretense of the t2a era, than the reality of it.

Faust continues to say that a Dexxer *can* beat a tank mage easily but I would really like to see Faust running around on a Dexxer for any amount of time to prove this is true. Noone is saying Dexxer's should be able to beat Tank mages in 1v1's because honestly I see this as the Tank Mages forte. What we are saying, is that in a 1v2, that is a Tank Mage vs 2 dexxers, or a Tank mage vs 1 dexxer and 1 tank mage, the dexxer should at least be able to contribute something. They don't. This is the whole point of the argument.

You can point to all the patch notes in the world, but if Dexxers can not contribute anything meaningfull to pvp then you have failed at Era Accuracy. Period. Thats the whole point. You are accurate on paper, but in practice, on the server, in the real gaming and pvp environment, you are failing as a staff at trying to achieve era accuracy. Perhaps this is a paradox. I don't know. I do know that this issue deserves some testing and time from the staff.

Right now this shard is growing, but never forget that so much of the competition really sucks. The average Ultima Online player is a very fickle beast and taking this shard's momentary popularity for granted could just bite you in the ass down the line.

true youre right april 2000 was UOR.

I still say this is clearly a hardware issue. Around this time period gaming rigs were getting faster, the UO servers were running better and internet connections were getting faster. Thus they patched it in Spring of 2000 to fix this. BTW if they thought it needed to be fixxed in Spring of 2000 how many times worse must this issue be in 2009?

This isnt a gameplay balancing patch change. Re charge timers re charged when the character turned or stood still which was more than enough back then. When they noticed this wasnt working with faster rigs they changed it. This was just an issue of them having to fix timers strictly because of hardware issues, that was big enough of an issue back in 2000 for them to warrant a patch fix. Its 2009 now.


Theres a bug that let people stop other clients from casting in t2a, that wasnt fixxed until 2000.. should this be left in for accuracy reasons?
No it was taken out here because it was game stopping to a very popular style of play(mages). Unless advertised no one new would even know. Same with this game stopping feature for melee. If it was fixxed new players wouldnt know and people who liked to play melee would be able to.

You can't lose a 1v1 against a tank mage in the field with a dexer. If you do you're not very good at all. I'm one of the best PVPer's here, and I literally can't stand fighting dexers. They are not this "mythical" breeze of ease as you clearly state they are.

PS
The bug that you are referring to "You must wait to cast a spell again." where you had to log off or let your 30 second spell delay elapse was fixed in late '98. This had nothing to do with clients stopping other clients though. The way this happened was by hitting escape to cancel your spell or override your spell target with another action that created a target.

ok faust I feel you are missing the point.

I also believe you show your own bias here because you dont like to play against dexxers but making it so dexxers simply cant function in pvp is not the answer.


As Senses articulated much better than me. in t2a melee users could absolutly hit people while moving(I should know I was there as were you). While the code or text rules may be the same from t2a the gameplay/spirit of the game from t2a is off.



As I pointed out in the other thread earliar not only could melee users hit a moving target in t2a but they also had access to a much larger cache of good magic items/weapons via mob spawns. Which I showed directly and greatly influences the power of a weapon user. Because say if a weapon user is 50% less likely to have a good magic weapon to use and thus is doing less damage, it would be like mage spells being 50% more likely to be resisted... Which I guaruntee you would protest.


I dont know man its just too overboard the way it is now. If you played a melee back then and one now you would agree.

wether its due to lag or whatever i beleive you could easily hit on the move on a dexer during t2a and id like to test dexers b4 forming my opinion.

a perfectly equiped dexer with dp could trash mages in t2a [thus why most the famous pks played dexers]

Wow, this is amazing...

I show a bias because I dislike fighthing dexers? I show a bias because I go by the EVIDENCE and UO DEMO that supports this. It has nothing to do with my dislike of fighting dexers.

Apr 28 2000: (Note, this is a UO:R change that documents a change to combat that was within T2A and prior) wrote: "Players using melee weapons in combat will now hold their swing until their target is in range. Additionally, the timer that determines melee weapon swing times (combat timer) will now advance as the player is moving. Thus, melee weapon users will no longer be required to stop moving before swinging."

That is the patch note. This evidence has well beyond been established and verified on the UO Demo which was compiled a couple months before the t2a. This patch removed the feature during the UOR era. This shard is about replicating the t2a era as it was. This was part of the t2a and it will stay like that.

Faust, unlike many on this shard, I actually like you and think you do alot of good for this shard. Your one shortcoming though is that once you have decided your opinion on a matter, you cease to be openminded to any counter points and subsequently become impossible to approach on issues. You made your point. We all get it, and we all also understand that if its left up to you nothing will change.

The rest of this post isn't for you anymore so go argue with someone else. If there is anyone on staff that is still open minded and actually wants to achieve era accuracy, and not era supremacy, then please, just look into the matter a little deeper. The players aren't the enemy, they are just a bunch of people with alot of freetime on their hands who have spent hours and hours playing the very game you read about on paper.

How is removing this feature making a t2a shard accurate? Implementing a UOR feature into a t2a shard DOES NOT make a t2a shard accurate. You're doing nothing but modifying a t2a shard to be exactly the same as all the other failed shards in the past. If you collapse on one case it floods in other changes with an endless vicious cycle. I have been doing this crap for almost a decade now and I have seen it time after time. It just won't happen...

Again, my point on the topic is that the technical limitations of player computers were already much faster than was required during 1999. If it were such a pressing issue, it would have been dealt with during that time frame as opposed to being a change that was dealt with at the introduction of UOR. Beyond that, it is very clearly written that melee characters had to stop in order to swing, and because of that, we are bound by our promise of bringing as accurate a server as is possible. The rest of it, which is what you as the players do with this system is entirely player driven, it is a part of the community and culture of UO, and no amount of code will replicate that.

man its a shame because this seems like a fun and stable shard but the mechanics simply make it unable to play here.
its not a flame its true, if someone else who used to play as a melee finds this shard and makes a character I guaruntee he will tell you the same thing.

the code may be the same from t2a but without a doubt dexxers didnt have problems hitting moving characters and when a mage stopped to cast and the melee stopped beside him he would be able to swing to interupt the cast.
Here on this shard thats simply not the case.

Thats all I got for reasons or arguments on this subject so theres nothing left I can say. Ill try to keep checking back to see if Derrick decides to relook over this issue

Senses wrote:Faust, unlike many on this shard, I actually like you and think you do alot of good for this shard. Your one shortcoming though is that once you have decided your opinion on a matter, you cease to be openminded to any counter points and subsequently become impossible to approach on issues. You made your point. We all get it, and we all also understand that if its left up to you nothing will change.

The rest of this post isn't for you anymore so go argue with someone else. If there is anyone on staff that is still open minded and actually wants to achieve era accuracy, and not era supremacy, then please, just look into the matter a little deeper. The players aren't the enemy, they are just a bunch of people with alot of freetime on their hands who have spent hours and hours playing the very game you read about on paper.

I think Faust does a lot of good for the shard too and am glad he's on the development team. I don't mind when I have a difference of opinion with him or you Senses.

In this matter I think that Senses and jackb are right. Weather or not the 'code' allowed for swings on the run, the realization was that dexxers experienced swings on the run due to connection throughput limitations.

As jackb puts it. when connections improved the developers, probably too busy with nerfing up UO, fixed the issue after their project UO:R was put in place.

The way I see it... Derrick can do a number of things on this issue.. including...

Nothing at all and keep the letter of the 'law' in tact and fail to achieve the goal of the shard in creating a T2A atomosphere.

Attempt to correct the issue by developing some code and bring a T2A feel into the shard.

Or, use a AMD Athalon server.

I'm sorry, but I'd hate to see this shard become just another shard with a 'pre uo:r' tag. I think it's an ernest attempt at bringing back a certain era of UO and I wouldn't want to see it fail because of ignoring a correction to hardware.