Patch Simulation

[sotrans]

Back when we played on the OSI shards T2A was not just T2A, but it was always in movement while OSI published several patches to fix exploits, to balance skills, while some of this patches caused other possible exploits and other imbalances in exchange.

I experienced it as fun, when a new imbalance caused x-bows to be the non-plus-ultra and half of the player-base started to grind archery, when an exploit allowed to train resist in no time, or when a bug caused everyone with full leather armor to be immune against dragon's and drake's breaths until the next patch. It added some mystery to Ultima Online, some special secrets to find out about, limited periods of superman-dominance and certainly some additional variety.

And that's what i suggest: OSI patching simulation for the worse and good!

[BobDobbs]

So.... you're proposing random bugs be implemented to keep things interesting?

I'm not sure I understand.

[sotrans]

Yes, you understood, that's exactly what i suggest!

[Mikel123]

(a) that would be a major code undertaking, to essentially break things that have been fixed already, and then re-fix them
(b) what do you do when you run out of time? If we're replicating May to November 1999, we could do this for 6 months, but then what? Revert back to May and start the cycle all over again?
(c) we essentially have this now, except instead of fixing OSI's mistakes, we're fixing RunUO's mistakes (for our era). About 8 months ago, a fencing-dexer was probably the best template. I'm not a great fighter, but I killed hundreds of people with mine, including some people who consider themselves to be excellent pvpers. And I never died once. Since then however, a number of changes have made this template utter garbage. My fence-dexer is now essentially a purple-potion thrower who carries a kryss to look cool.

And by the way, you're forgetting one aspect of 1999 bugs that is not desirable, which is the ability for someone to exploit them to break into and loot houses, duplicate gold and other items, etc. We have here many of the most ruthless and sophisticated players of 1999, plus a bunch of players who sucked back then but are pretty sophisticated on UOSA. Introducing bugs "on purpose" is just plain begging for exploits and server reverts.

[BobDobbs]

I don't really see the point in introducing random and potentially game breaking bugs into UOSA.

[sotrans]

(a) that would be a major code undertaking, to essentially break things that have been fixed already, and then re-fix them
(b) what do you do when you run out of time? If we're replicating May to November 1999, we could do this for 6 months, but then what? Revert back to May and start the cycle all over again?
(c) we essentially have this now, except instead of fixing OSI's mistakes, we're fixing RunUO's mistakes (for our era). About 8 months ago, a fencing-dexer was probably the best template. I'm not a great fighter, but I killed hundreds of people with mine, including some people who consider themselves to be excellent pvpers. And I never died once. Since then however, a number of changes have made this template utter garbage. My fence-dexer is now essentially a purple-potion thrower who carries a kryss to look cool.

And by the way, you're forgetting one aspect of 1999 bugs that is not desirable, which is the ability for someone to exploit them to break into and loot houses, duplicate gold and other items, etc. We have here many of the most ruthless and sophisticated players of 1999, plus a bunch of players who sucked back then but are pretty sophisticated on UOSA. Introducing bugs "on purpose" is just plain begging for exploits and server reverts.

a) Honestly, i have no clue about how changes are done for UO, respectively what can be done by configuration or data-base-wise and what had to be coded. Of course, if it's a lot of work it wouldn't be worth it.

b) I didn't think about cloning the bugs - this would spoil the secret and mystery, since everyone would know which bugs would come with the next patch. I thought about introducting new bugs. Of course bug is the wrong term, in this case the bugs would literally be features, not a malfunction in the code (i thought that's obvious).

Personally i would consider the introduction of a feature that allows house-looting to be a gamebreaking feature - or a real bug. I bet the admins would be more reasonable. I'm sure there are reams of possible "bugs" that would add to an accurate atmosphere, but not break the game, e.g. those i mentioned in the first post. And not to forget: They're meant to be temporary and to be fixed or changed with a future pseudo-patch.

[Guerrilla]

Bob Dobbs said:

I don't really see the point in introducing random and potentially game breaking bugs into UOSA.

*hits mount macro : all follow me*
ouch , still feels broken :/

[Derrick]

It seems to me that I've been pretty adept at simulating botched patches without even trying

[sotrans]

I revoke my character on friday and thus missed all the patches, so can't say how good you did. If you have the time to implement some more bugs: My wish-bug is, that all characters named sotrans become invulnerable.