UO Second Age

Hello Developers and Staff, I hope you can help me with this request. I do not think it is of to much trouble, since I am sure you hold different folders in your hard drives that back every change that has been established on the server seeing as how the public, such as myself, are eager to see pertinent factual information that supports the rules of the server. The only area that I care to see is your PvP links/information that would have displayed for everyone to read why PvP is the way it is on this server. I know I have been fed an RUO bullshit system for many years so I would like to read the research you all have done to back the system that is enabled on the server. I have searched forums as well as T2A wiki and have yet to really find a reliable piece of information for some of the claims that is enabled on the server. Specifics that I would like to read about are:

-Self Disrupt: (I see that Derrick said this will be changed but would like to see the information he has read that has changed the rule on the server that will be implemented shortly)

-Running Timers: (Seems that if you run you cannot swing and have to stop completely to swing)

-Equiping Weapon Reset: If you equip a weapon before the timer is up, your insta hit timer is reset to 2 seconds thus ruining your instant hit.

-Spell Damage: Main focus is EB's +1 second delay

-Circle Disrupt: % chance on circle casted to disrupt instead of just disrupt factor being based on timing.

-Auto Defend: I believe this is correct but like the rest, would like to see a link or some piece of information backing it.

-Poison Tick: The timer seems to hit way late but could possibly be accurate.

This is all I can currently think of now. I know this has probably been debated back and forth but I found no sticky and a search through the forum usually resulted in rant threads rather than facts. Any support you all can give me would be greatly appreciated.

I will respond to this in exactly 3-4 hours with each bit of information for this. I could only "explain" the changes without links, etc... This is the case because I'm at work in a government agency that has everything on lock down with their firewall. The majority of this information falls into that category. However, if you will be patient I will tell you everything there is pretty much about each of these items. The majority of this is in the patch notes listed on our wiki web site though. Also, each of these topics has been discussed here repeatedly and can easily be found through the search option. Playing around with the demo also will demostrate many of these mechanics too.

While waiting, much of the info and patch notes upon which the current system is based is referenced here:
http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1638

I appreciate the hasty reply by both of you and of course there is no deadline for you to reply to this thread. I do appreciate the 4 hour ETA though, will check up on this after work then.

Here goes...

Self Disrupt: (I see that Derrick said this will be changed but would like to see the information he has read that has changed the rule on the server that will be implemented shortly)

Read... http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5414

-Running Timers: (Seems that if you run you cannot swing and have to stop completely to swing)

You don't have to stop to hit if your swing is ready. However, you do have to stop to allow your swing to become ready.

Mini-Update Apr 28 2000 3:30PM CST
"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."
http://update.uo.com/design_195.html

This was also confirmed to exist on the Ultima Online Demo, and the only weapon type that did not follow the movement restriction on the combat/swing timer was archery.

-Equiping Weapon Reset: If you equip a weapon before the timer is up, your insta hit timer is reset to 2 seconds thus ruining your instant hit.

This isn't a correct statement either. Equipping a weapon with an active combat/swing delay will reset the delay according to the weapon's delay that you equipped. Not convert it to two seconds as you suggested. That is the unequip delay that has two seconds.

Here is the patch note for the introduction of this game mechanic...

12/16/97 - Combat
"Equipping a weapon in combat will restart your weapon swing. "
http://wiki.uosecondage.com/index.php?t ... atch_Notes

This was confirmed to be in use on the Ultima Online Demo and still exists in modern UO. Here is a patch note that indicates that it also existed during the t2a era.

Renaissance Publish Apr 28 2000 10:28AM CST
"The long equip delay for all bows will be tweaked."
http://update.uo.com/design_196.html

Now we know that it existed during the t2a era for obvious reasons. If it was active during the pre-t2a era and the uor era it's obvious that it would be the same case for the t2a era, especially since there is a patch note indicating that it was tweaked during the uor publish...

A reasonable question can be asked for this though... How can you insta hit if there is an equip delay when you equip a weapon? This is quite simple... The delay is only applied when your swing isn't ready.

-Spell Damage: Main focus is EB's +1 second delay

This was confirmed on the Ultima Online Demo and in modern UO. There is a simple test anyone can do for this. Cast a fireball on yourself(wait the recast delay if it exists. this currently isn't the case in the ultima online demo) while casting another fireball instantly after targeting yourself. A fireball spell takes 1 second and if you don't get disrupted this obviously means the delay is more than one second. It was possible to cast a fireball EVERY single time, but a great heal that sits at 1.25s wasn't possible.

I also confirmed the delay by recording every single spell that had a delay into a video. I loaded this video up into a video editor program where you could break each frame down to 7/100 of a second. There was a one second damage delay... Try both of these for yourself on the demo and even modern UO.

I use this method for just about every single timer that needs confirmed on the demo.

-Circle Disrupt: % chance on circle casted to disrupt instead of just disrupt factor being based on timing.

Easy...

1/20/98 - Magic
"There will be a chance of the casting abortingif the mage is struck during his casting process. The chance is based on how much damage you took, and your ability at magery."
http://wiki.uosecondage.com/index.php?t ... atch_Notes

The exact formula was stripped from a decompilation of the Ultima Online Demo.

-Auto Defend: I believe this is correct but like the rest, would like to see a link or some piece of information backing it.

This was also confirmed on the Ultima Online demo... All agressive actions performed an automatic auto defend. This was tested by several different ways. Using a tamer telling a pet to attack yourself after tabbing out. Also, a mage dragged outside of town that would cast spells performed auto defends. You can also use an aggressive monster and "peacemake" it to stop attacking. If you tab out it eventually will re-attack and make you auto defend once more.

There is also text inside of my Ultima Online Second Edition t2a cd starter guide book on page 36 under the "Fighting" article that states this exact phrase below...

Ultima Online Starter Guide Booklet - Page 36
"Any time you are attacked, you will counter-attack automatically, whether or not you're in War mode."

This is the second edition that was sold in mid '99 when they first introduced the 800x600 client with all the new macro features like arm/disarm, attack last, last target, target self, etc...

-Poison Tick: The timer seems to hit way late but could possibly be accurate.

Confirmed by the Ultima Online Demo... The timer for poison wasn't changed until UOR when they allowed the tick to hit 5 seconds for lower and 3 seconds for higher levels of poison with the new poison changes.

There are two different timers for poison ticks. The initial tick and the repetitive ticks that come after the initial tick. During the pre-t2a and t2a era the initial tick did not exist.

Anything else?

Faust wrote:

-Circle Disrupt: % chance on circle casted to disrupt instead of just disrupt factor being based on timing.

Easy...

1/20/98 - Magic
"There will be a chance of the casting abortingif the mage is struck during his casting process. The chance is based on how much damage you took, and your ability at magery."
http://wiki.uosecondage.com/index.php?t ... atch_Notes

The exact formula was stripped from a decompilation of the Ultima Online Demo.

How is this formula different from heal interruption?

Cortez wrote:How is this formula different from heal interruption?

What a great question. We're currently using the default RunUO heal interuption, which is a straight slip every time you take damage. There's been no verification that this is accurate (although it very well may be). It certainly warrants looking into.

I also confirmed the delay by recording every single spell that had a delay into a video. I loaded this video up into a video editor program where you could break each frame down to 7/100 of a second. There was a one second damage delay... Try both of these for yourself on the demo and even modern UO.

Mind posting this video? I have been told by staff and others numerous times that no further testing other than lightning was ever done.

I only have one video that I sent to Derrick from this computer involving the 100 dex wrestling delay for a previous test. My system that I used for the demo has been fucked for a little over a week now, and I lost all of my data for testing on that PC. If you really want to confirm this for yourself feel free to accumilate the scrolls from the NPC mages for all of the spells. It isn't all that hard but just very time consuming. There are numerous tests that you are probably not aware of... It's not like the first thing that I rush off to do is to message you and tell you everything that I just did.

PS
The lightning delay was confirmed by two sources. One was the demo itself and here...

http://uo.stratics.com/content/aos/combatchanges.shtml

"Lightning - In addition to dealing its damage in energy form, this spell now affects the target instantly when cast. Previously, there was always a short delay between the time the mage cast the spell and the time the damage was done to the victim."

I remember the delay on lightning, and it was there with each individual bolt on chain lightning.

EDIT: I should add that it didn't seem like the delay was that significant with chain lightning, and I remember noticing this because I used that spell *a lot* to farm groups of nobles outside of Skara Brea.

I would also like to note that Kaivan tested this on the current OSI servers the same time that I was testing it on the demo. Modern Ultima Online still uses the same 1 second damage delay for all spells too.