Well, I think I should shed some light onto this subject.
Artemis wrote:Ok, Ive been thru 3 other shards all trying to do this same Era over the last 6-7 years. Allow me to enlighten you all.
The title should read "The sad truth . ." LOL
-When trying to cast with a weapon in your hand you would simply not be allowed to cast your, weapon NEVER unequipped automatically. I blame razor and other programs for this massive inconsistency.
During T2A, you are correct that auto un-equip would not occur. However, during UOR, when precasting was re-enabled, you would auto un-equip. Much of what you see on current T2A freeshards, is a bleedover of the UOR version of insta-hit onto the T2A version and vice versa.
Artemis wrote:-Yes you actually could equip your weapon while casting BUT EVERYTIME YOU DID IT it caused a bug that prevent you from casting until you logged off and logged back on. Sometimes the weapon would actually get stuck in your hands an you would not be able to unequip it, and when you logged off and logged back on the weapon would automatically be un-equipped in your backpack. Even if you managed to unequip your weapon after equipping it during casting you would keep getting the message your hands are full you cannot cast, ect. until you logged off and logged back on. The only way to effectively interrupt your own casting and not screw yourself was to use a trapped pouch.) Which I came up with that idea while macroing 8th level summons and having a Pk recall in next to me.
There is no information which indicates that when you equip during casting, you become bugged on any resources that are available. Back checking with the only source that we
do have available to check that mechanic, the T2A Demo, no bug occurs when you attempt to equip during casting.
Artemis wrote:-No Spells did damage(not even field spells) in town during this era, but you could gain resist from casting on yourself an yet take no damage, but the resist gains were much, MUCH slower in town than outside town as a result.
During the early portion of T2A, you could still gain resist in towns despite the fact that spells did no damage, however when the Thieves Guild patch went in, that ability dissapeared.
Artemis wrote:-Dexxers owned tankmages for breakfast lunch and dinner, it was just so few ever tried dexxers because since the begginning of the game everyone used magery. They knew you could move around the world with it, heal, and damage with magery so everyone used it. For many gaining magery an resist was a mystery, no one new jack for the longest time. No one knew effective ways to gain resist, cause back in the day gaining it was near impossible other than exploits. It was all about learning the game, so few people even knew there was a stat cap, a skill cap, what every skill even did until more than a year after the game was released an even then few got good enough to find out 1st hand. Resist An magery was such a bitch to raise the skill and to raise cash for, that most ONLY had melee weapon skills so they could make money without cost(reagents, arrows) so they could use all profits to use to gain magery. An you only had need for 5 skills, Magery, Resist, Melee skill, Tactics, and Hidding. There was no stealth, no meditation, no Eval bonus, no Anatomy bonus, healing skill sucked much ass and Dex fighting didnt exist. When those skills an dex fighting got patched in so few wanted to risk losing that magery that took your left nut to raise. Hidding was uber powerful BEFORE stealth. Stealth fucking suck donkey dick compared to old hidding skill ability.
Everyone had magery, resist, Archery, melee skill, tactics, hidding, and wrestling because there were no skill locks, people didnt choose to take wrestling to keep from getting hit during casting, lol. They couldnt prevent wrestling from gaining when getting hit while casting because of no skill locks so they were forced to take wrestling to keep their other skills from atrophy from default wrestling gains. Wresling and resist were the sole purpose of skill locks being implemented, those 2 skills could not be effectively "turned off" an caused constant unwanted skill atrophy.
I'll have to comment on this in a listed format since you covered quite a few things here.
- Assuming that dexxers were much better than tank mages was a matter of personal opinion. While the game's mechanics of that time, and the limitations of most people's connections at that time favored mages, each playstyle was largely dependent on the skill of the individual behind the character.
- In terms of gaining, and understanding magery and resist, these skills were far from mysteries. An example of such, is the guide to magery which can be found on the archives. The last modification time marked at the bottom of the page is from 2/18/99, only 4 and a half months after T2A came out. The understanding for resist was even quicker. The archived resist page, and the resist chart mention the changes to resist that were still on the test center, meaning that there was a clear understanding of how that skill worked before it was even oficially released.
- In terms of skill and stat caps/gains, the stratics archives also show that the information was known for a good deal of time (in fact if you actually read the stat cap page off of the stratics website, you get an idea of how certain skills gained, the fact that different skills gained at different rates, and a description by DD himself for what is believed to be the RoT system that was used on Siege Perilous).
- While it is true that during the beginning of T2A there were none of the newer skills (or they simply didn't have an effect), for the majority of T2A (starting in about April to May of 99), the game's system for what is considered "T2A" was in place, and stayed in place for nearly the entire duration of T2A.
- Skill locks weren't put into place solely because of Wrestling and Resist. Up until the time of the skill locks, there were many skills that were considered "learn on sight" skills, that were popular griefing mechanics used by players. Overall, it is simply conjecture to assume that no one valued resist and wrestling on their characters and fully intend for their characters to have the skills.
Artemis wrote:-Dexxers used plate as the introduction of GM made items, GM plate was VERY popular.
Plate was generally considered a popular tool for dexxers during early T2A because your swing speed was based on dexterity, and not on stamina. When the swing speed calculation was changed, plate armor fell out of use for dexxers, and also for mages due to the lack of meditation. Also, the "GM" bonus was simply a marker's mark and was a mid to late T2A addition. It had no effect on armor whatsoever, and was purely a cosmetic change. Plate armor was abandoned as the preferred armor for dexxers long before that patch.
Artemis wrote:-Townies had no magery or resist since spells did no damage in town, hence the name townies cause they were only effective in town, meaning 2 more skill slots freed up
You are absolutely correct on this.
Artemis wrote:-no one used stealth, it was only useful in color wars on Abyss/Test servers
This is not entirely true. Many people used stealth on several character templates to do dungeon crawls, break into houses, and generally move around un-detected.
Artemis wrote:-Meditation almost single handedly changed the game into skillful play, before this skill there were no duels as anyone today knows them. Spell interrupts arrived with this skill as before everyone would conserve ALL mana for strickly big damage and/or healing in fights an never even considered interrupting casting other than with lucky melee swings. An honestly few even knew casting could be interrupted with well timed spells for even a while AFTER this skill was implemented. Before this skill any fight would last less than 2 min guarenteed.
Of course the hidding change was also a huge factor in fighting survivability as well.
Much of what you are suggesting and talking about is part of the early portion of UO, however no one here who has had any T2A experience would say that spell interruption was the way the game was played at the time, and the meditation skill was an early addition to T2A. Also, in terms of understanding the disruption system, the system existed for more than a year before meditation went in. As with other mechanics, it was undoubtely pulled apart to understand it more effectively within a few weeks of it's introduction.
Artemis wrote:-Pure mages had never existed until much later expansions where introduced. Magery was so weak on low skill levels an so expensive to raise that magery alone was never even an option for this era. Not to mention insanely hard and a mystery to raise. There were so few effective skills(but those few where overpoweringly effective) for this era that most characters eventually used the same skills and stats. The only skills for magery in this era was magery and resist, no other skills augmented magery ability.
Again, you seem to confuse pre-T2A and early T2A with the majority of T2A. Meditation was added on 2/2/99, T2A came out on 10/1/98, and UOR came out on 4/14/00. Meditation was part of T2A for over a full year, while it didn't exist for only 4 months of T2A's existence.
Artemis wrote:-This era was full of bugs and rampant, blatant cheating of a scale like nothing Ive seen in all the games Ive played since. Within 5 mins of my 1st time playing this game I was macroing even before macro programs existed. I abused numerous bugs to GM magery, archery, resist, gain strength stats on multiple characters, was jailed numerous times and had one account banned only to start a new account simply because I knew of great bugs that would allow new characters to be made almost effortlessly. All the while seeing other players struggle just to survive.
Yes, there were several bugs during this era, many of which were fixed in era.
Artemis wrote:-You could never cast a spell with an item in your hand unless it was a wand you were using or your spellbook. Only around UO:R I believe the glacial staff was the only item I know that allowed you cast with it equiped.
No one is really suggesting that you could do so. Even into and on to the end of UOR, you couldn't effectively cast a "spell" (in the sense of a spell from a spellbook) without first being unequipped or holding only a runebook/spellbook.
Artemis wrote:-Exp,Ebolt,Hally hit- the myth the legend. Truth be told if your resist was 70 or lower(as what most people had at the time) and you had less than 90 hps you were dead meat on the spot. Few people had that high a hps too, which was a major factor in making people think it was more powerful than it actually was. High resist before Eval bonus was godly, after eval bonus high resist took a beatin', so again a give an take. Spells did a bit more, but by that time more poeple had higher hps and higher resist. And a halberd being a 40 point wrecking machine? LOL, try 15-80 dmg stompage from GM made halberds with GM anatomy, 100 str , GM tactics, if your target was naked, but the damage was always so erratic you couldn't rely on it.
Spell damage was lowered across the board with the introduction of Eval (again, the whole early T2A versus late T2A deal). Overall, resist was made into a more effective skill, encouraging mages to pick up Eval (otherwise why pick up a support skill when you can simply broaden your options). Halberds never intentionally did any damage greater than about 55 damage, 80 is far beyond the possible calculation for any weapon under the combat system associated with T2A.
Artemis wrote:-Having tutorials on how to gain skills? Bad idea, learning that shit is half of what this era was about. An while you were stumbling around figuring it out you got into fights an learned who was figuring it out faster.)
It isn't unusual that tutorials exist. Stratics was opened very near the beginning of T2A, and it provided basic tutorials for how to play the game and get started.
Artemis wrote:Maybe you should try actually watching some of the vids still on WTFMAN.com.
The couple vids there showing dexers owning mages an was set in this era. If a VID proving me right isnt enough I dont know what is.
Under the Flash movies section
Dex Monkey vid
Commando vid
The dex monkey vid might actually show the exact patch # that made dexxer fighters good.
I think it's important to elaborate on the fairly hypocritical statements made within that video. First off, the video claims that dexxers are a class that don't take skill. While I personally withold my judgement as to how much skill any one particular class requires, I will say that claiming that a particular class is skilless is a very byast opinion. As for dexxers "owning" mages, a bit of back story is needed to explain exactly what this video is
really showing.
In short, during the first few month's of UO's existence, there was an issue with the weapon system that was in place. The issue was that the weapon system that was in use was creating some out of range values for magical weapons (the early UO magical weapon scale and combat system were much different from the current one). Until a more effective system could be created - which eventually became the one we know today - on 2/12/98, all weaponry had a "balancing" pass done to them. This pass was intended to make each weapon skill competitive, and to decrease the overall damage that the "better" weapons did. This also attempted to provide a temporary fix to the instant kill weapons that were floating around at the time (which didn't really work) and effectively nerfed dexxers fighting capability. At the beginning of T2A, on 11/10/98, the new weapon scale was released (including the new magic weapon scale, and combat mechanics). The new scale increased the damage of weapons across the board to make them have the effective output that was intended for them. Finally, when the bonus to anatomy was added in on 2/2/99, the new combat system which existed from that time to the end of UOR was in place.
Overall, the "dex monkey" video on wtfman, is simply a video which shows their disagreement with the patch which un-nerfed the dexxer class, which came with a multitude of other balance changes that shifted some of the power from particular classes to other classes.