The elephant in the shard.

[Hemperor]

The big dark thing in the corner that even most of the super accuracy warriors are scared to make eye contact with.

This topic will be of discussion of the pros and cons and if it will really change anything. There is a lot to be weighed and considered here.

I know that forcing an era accurate client for UOSA is now possible (albeit, probably a lot of work and testing). This has been brought up in the past and pushed aside by both staff and players for an assortment of reasons, but the biggest being that it will turn away players and potential newcomers.

This, of course, does not stand up to the test of accuracy like so many crappy things that have come already. We were told people would quit in the masses over:

• No events
• Bandage cutting one at a time
• Mount stamina
• The numerous PVP changes

If you've been here a few years then you know there's at least a dozen more to list that I can't think of at the moment which people used to fearmonger with, myself included. Through all of this UOSA still stands today, as strong as ever.

Now, to my knowledge, an era accurate client means no Razor and only UOAssist. The complex AFK macroers of today's epidemic will be disabled (for the most part, at least) and forced to turn to illegal, more complicated alternatives if they wish to continue. At that point they would stick out like a sore thumb and be much easier for staff to deal with.

To tackle the big complaint of this in the past, about this scaring off newcomers etc because of having to download a shard specific client, I say that's BS for the most part, nevermind irrelevant. Sphere shards were very popular (and still are) which used an assortment of older clients and login techniques. RunUO shards have only become so popular because of their stability, speed and customisation in comparison to other servers. It's really RunUO that requires the extra download when you think about it.

In my opinion, the shard should stick to it's policy which is employed on every single other matter over the years, other than this one. It is worth hashing this out completely though, I know Derrick will have a lot to add and hopefully Batlin as well.

How much will this fix?
What other problems might thing bring up?
Compatibility issues?

Anyways, I'm no expert on the subject, just trying to get the ball rolling.

[Blaise]

Don't forget to mention we can force light level filter blocking.....I know Derrick loves his light levels as much as I do!

I agree completely. I think one of the greatest burdens on the shard is the ease with which one can develop and accomplish what, in era, took a year or more.

It is vastly more complex to make it happen, but I do believe it's the best way to go if the mark is truly to be as closely accurate to a specific time as possible.

[archaicsubrosa77]

I know this shard is supposed to be strictly powered by razor , but is there a place to download UOAssist?

[Batlin]

I like what we have now

UOAssist is not available for free shards since Jun 20, 2000. Razor is the only option we have. Sure, an installer can be made enforcing an era accurate version of the client and installed in such a way it does not cause problems for players connecting to other shards, but is it worth it? Old versions can be found on the waybackmachine and even some shards out there provide UOAssist as download, but I'm not sure how legal those are...

Old clients have their own bugs and issues. Who's gonna fix/maintain that? Dagon, who made the great music patch and the new client installer, hasn't logged on for more than a year. (even I didn't play during the last year but still followed these forums).
Razor is maintained and kept up to date by the RunUO team.

The only plus side of using a UOSA specific client is that client encryption can be enabled and it can be made more difficult for players to use macro utilities which are forbidden on this shard. But then again, any binary patch made to an old client can be analyzed quickly and circumvented.

Don't forget that Light hack is almost as old as UO itself, so switching to an old client to avoid that is really pointless.

[Hemperor]

I like what we have now

UOAssist is not available for free shards since Jun 20, 2000. Razor is the only option we have. Sure, an installer can be made enforcing an era accurate version of the client and installed in such a way it does not cause problems for players connecting to other shards, but is it worth it? Old versions can be found on the waybackmachine and even some shards out there provide UOAssist as download, but I'm not sure how legal those are...

Old clients have their own bugs and issues. Who's gonna fix/maintain that? Dagon, who made the great music patch and the new client installer, hasn't logged on for more than a year. (even I didn't play during the last year but still followed these forums).
Razor is maintained and kept up to date by the RunUO team.

The only plus side of using a UOSA specific client is that client encryption can be enabled and it can be made more difficult for players to use macro utilities which are forbidden on this shard. But then again, any binary patch made to an old client can be analyzed quickly and circumvented.

Don't forget that Light hack is almost as old as UO itself, so switching to an old client to avoid that is really pointless.

The years between UOSA and OSI (UO:R) I played Sphere shards, always with old clients. I can't remember a single reoccurring bug, maybe you can fill me in. In my experience, the new client is far more prone to lockups and resource hogging, although this could be a later Windows issue.

We don't need Razor at all. It's the cause of the serious issues on this shard and the alibi for scripters. There are other "helpers" such as UOExtreme, which I'm not familiar with, but I know all these badass tank mages weren't dragging their hallys on.

I don't know the exact legalities but I can't imagine there being any issue in using older clients, we wouldn't be the first or hundredth to do it.

I would just like to emphasise my opinion that I think all this AFK BS that goes on on this shard is extremely detrimental, it really makes me not want to play and I know the same can be said for many others. It takes so much out of the UO experience and this is about all that can be done about it.

Again, if we would like to bend this policy due to convenience etc. then the same should be done for horse stamina, stables, bandages and the countless other things.

EDIT: I would just like to again restate, I'm a noob on the subject, a young boy in the era, Thanks for the correction on UOAssist. Anyone with good hard info on client issues or "helper" programs that would be available would be awesome.

[benny-]

Hear hear!

[Atraxi]

Hear hear!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When you comin back to see what we did with your guild!?

[Anon Emous]

The only way this would be fair is if you reset every players skills to 0 again. You cant really expect new players to do everything the hard way when everyone before has had that advantage. Even though Razor wasnt around then most elites had other programs to do the exact same thing. IE EZMacro, UOE, Etc. Programs that were designed to do the exact same thing Razor does but alot less tasking to PCs. Instead of running 4 programs you can run 2. Personally my belief on the whole era accurate thing is its great to keep to the times but many things that were changed were changed for the benefit of the players. IE instead of spending 2 hours cutting bandages you could cut once and be done in a second which translates to more time to enjoy the game and have fun. Whats the saying "Don't cut off your nose despite your face". I speak from experience. I have been a player 98-2003 on osi. Many of the changes that were made in the beginning were made to better the playing experience. I really think this is along the same lines.

[Hemperor]

The only way this would be fair is if you reset every players skills to 0 again. You cant really expect new players to do everything the hard way when everyone before has had that advantage. Even though Razor wasnt around then most elites had other programs to do the exact same thing. IE EZMacro, UOE, Etc. Programs that were designed to do the exact same thing Razor does but alot less tasking to PCs. Instead of running 4 programs you can run 2. Personally my belief on the whole era accurate thing is its great to keep to the times but many things that were changed were changed for the benefit of the players. IE instead of spending 2 hours cutting bandages you could cut once and be done in a second which translates to more time to enjoy the game and have fun. Whats the saying "Don't cut off your nose despite your face". I speak from experience. I have been a player 98-2003 on osi. Many of the changes that were made in the beginning were made to better the playing experience. I really think this is along the same lines.

This is the standard pervasive argument that comes up in about every topic on this shard... it's never meant anything before so I would have to assume it still holds zero weight. There are a number of advantages that vets here have had, many have made millions for little to no effort in ways that are no longer possible...This is how it worked on OSI as well, things change.

To my understanding, you can still macro... However macroing, moving around, selling, mining etc all AFK should not be possible unless scripting.

I'd hoping we can get staff (Derrick ) to clarify this: that player opinion of convenience etc. means nothing on the topic (as with every other change) and we should only be discussing if this is viable and will actually fix anything. Otherwise this topic will quickly degenerate like most other suggestion topics do, into a matter of opinion.

[Downs]

Awww crap, I agree with hemp


the "its only fair if everyone starts over " argument is crap. You used to be able to gm resist in town here, then thru resist parties. Now you have to do it the hard way.

Countless other things have changed like that as well.

By your logic, every step towards accuracy that makes something more challenging calls for a shard wipe.

The macros are kinda getting out of hand with reg buying, rare collecting, etc.

I'm with hemp on this one. I feel something should change, but am a clueless boy in the field of running ahards

[Blaise]

I wonder how many vets would start new characters if the control changed....
I'm most certain I would. I'd love to be a newb running around casting night-sight in dungeons or ACTUALLY USING TORCHES!

[the bazookas]

The only way this would be fair is if you reset every players skills to 0 again

Although some things have gotten more difficult, the fact is that there are many vets who can (and do) hook you up with knowledge on character development and even gold / houses (assuming you ask them for help). Honestly, enough know-how is spread over the wiki and this forum to get gold quickly and to develop your characters quickly. It might be a little bit more difficult than it was before, but it's seriously not that bad.

e.g. you can create have a 5x GM warrior character (not GM healing, but CERTAINLY at least 60 or greater, and of course, resist takes more resources) in a matter of a few days (practically completely unattended) with something like 5,000 gold (which you can get very quickly if you follow some guidance from others on this forum)

If you know what you are doing, a 5x GM warrior character can be pretty mean in PvP, even with low-end gear--particularly if you are running with another person. However, you can't macro gameplaying skill--you have to actually play the game to develop that particular skill.

Macroing resist isn't even that bad to GM; you just have to be more established and have a good income (again, not hard), and even WITHOUT GM resist you can do just fine.... my "main" bazooka is at 85 resist, and there's not many people on this shard who could beat him 1v1 (if you care to differ, PM me for a duel )). And getting 85 resist--that can be done in only a few days of macroing following the wiki's guidelines (if I recall)

As for the idea of reverting to UOAssist, it made me somewhat nostalgic--not for the days when I had UOAssist, but for the days when I had no such program and you couldn't even click on a name bar to target somebody. Trying to target a running target--now THAT took skill... It was also really annoying, though

[Anon Emous]

Forgive me my point was never that i wanted a server wipe. My point is you have no idea how hard it would make life. Since UOA is out to get rid of Razor would be detrimental to life as most know it. Not to mention it would kill new players from starting up here. I would imagine 1 week of playing like that and most would quit for lack of progress. Granted there are other programs to do everything that Razor does but why? We have it all here in one place. As for the comment Hemp made about the hallies being able to auto equip you could do that with UOA and in my opinion it worked alot better. UOA came with auto disarm and reequip when ever drinking potion, or casting. You could also set hot keys to equip different weapons in a matter of seconds. I agree with you Hemp I to believe that things like bandages, horse stamina, etc should be changed but as you stated it really only matters if this Topic gets noticed by people who matter.

As for your comment bazooka:

Macroing resist isn't even that bad to GM; you just have to be more established and have a good income (again, not hard), and even WITHOUT GM resist you can do just fine.... my "main" bazooka is at 85 resist, and there's not many people on this shard who could beat him 1v1 (if you care to differ, PM me for a duel )). And getting 85 resist--that can be done in only a few days of macroing following the wiki's guidelines (if I recall)

The idea here is to get rid of razor or revert to a more Era Accurate program like razor. So imagine doing resist and having to be at your computer actually clicking your char when casting to gain resist. Possible but not very fun which is why we play the game.

[Blaise]

Haha, imagine you wouldn't be safe in your home gaining resist but actually fighting magic casting monsters or players?
Much could be done if we actually required the use of Razor because then it could have settings forced upon it by the server.

Derrick doesn't even use Razor from what I understand, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

There's an inherent problem in forcing it, because for players such as myself, I played with just the client for a month or so. I finally started using Razor so I could stop asking my friends to cast Night Sight on me.

It was a slippery slope from that, to crafting characters from nothing to 7x GM without ever leaving the safety of my home.

So yes, if we limited AFK anything like OSI and effectively blocked the ability to auto-train, all newcomers would be at a disadvantage to the vets with 15 7x GM chars already.

I'm totally in favor of it because I'd love to have that 'hard gains for all' feeling of yesteryear. I'd even forgo all of my finished chars (far fewer than the real vets) to start anew, providing I could transfer off key inventory first. If not, just shard wipe .

The more I automate with macros, the less this feels like what I remember of UO.

[Light Shade]

It would be nice to see people get back to actually playing the game.