Anyone have a link to where one can download the newest version of the 2D client from? I do have the CD's, but they're old and would require a day of updating just to get running.
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Downloading the newest 2D client?
- Thread starter Lord Chaos
- Start date
- Watchers 2
Thanks...only 900 Mb? I thought the classic client would be larger by now with all those updates.
dunno. My 2D folder on my harddrive is 1.6gb, so presumably it unpacks as you install it.
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Tazar
Guest
And you'll still have some large patches to do.
Yeah, so I noticed and the download speed is capped server side too :/
Nice in theory. But I can't install the enhanced client, and haven't been able to for months. I've tried repeatedly and it just keeps telling me 'can't unpack' and 'corrupted file on server'. At least the 2D client is installed and updating reliably.
Petra, can you mail your patch log to [email protected]. It's located here:
[INSTALLED FOLDER]\logs\patch.[DATE].Log
"C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Ultima Online Stygian Abyss" is the default install location.
Thanks
[INSTALLED FOLDER]\logs\patch.[DATE].Log
"C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Ultima Online Stygian Abyss" is the default install location.
Thanks
K
Kiminality
Guest
This was asked at the last HoC, or maybe the one before that.
Perhaps the one before that...
I don't know... But it was asked, and the answer was along the lines of - It would be awesome, the devs want it, but it's not overwhelmingly easy to do.
So it's basically on the table, but holding of breath is not advised.
consider yourself lucky ... hehe
Err... the advanced patching feature is part of what makes the Enhanced Client... enhanced.
The main reason we made the EC was to overcome long standing limitations of the old client. It's pretty obvious we didn't make many graphical changes. The old file types are not compatible with incremental patching. The EC patcher is actually the same patcher that was designed for Warhammer Online, which is so advanced that they are using it in the upcoming Star Wars game. I realize this isn't appearant to the player at home, but the EC is totally different under the hood... which is why some 3rd party apps don't work.
My personal dream is that we can get the EC good enough that everyone gets on board with it because (as a person working on the game) the old client is a real pain. If you noticed that the world building is more advanced and... I don't know... artistic in the Stygian Abyss expansion, it is a direct result of the tools that were given to us through the EC. I'm also able to prototype way easier in the new client. I can make a new thing and test it within minutes, where before the EC I had to wait a full day to see if it worked or if it broke something. So, what ends up happening these days is that I design and develop content in the new client and test it, then port it to the old client for the next day and then test it again.
I have seen other posts where people have said they don't like the fact that some of the monsters have been reimagined in the new client. In many cases I agree with them. I also understand that most artists worth having are not going to be content with just photocopying 100000000 monsters, they want to flex their own artistic ability. I really like the monsters our current art peeps made for the Stygian Abyss though.
To make a comparison to an actual contemporary of UO, when Everquest went from 2d to their version of 3d, they went from fairly weak, almost polygonal forms that were borderline cartoony, to something much more full featured in appearance, and something that would be recognized, without identification, even by the most hard core of UO 2d players.
On the other hand, while in the process of improving the UO client, and going 2.5d, someone has gone to the effort of taking arguably some of the best creature art in the genre, and gone to something beyond even cartoon land. Anyone that thinks the EC dragons are even in the same game as the CC, let alone the same ballpark, is smoking something far from legal, and far from healthy. That wasn't artistic license - that was artistic butchery. Whoever flexed their artistic muscle in that situation was obviously in spasmodic mode...
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Beer_Cayse
Guest
amen to that!
Not arguing. Also, I will say that all of the people who did that are long gone. I do not doubt they were WOW fans. The problem for us on the team now is getting EA to sign off on paying people to redo work that they paid people to redo 4 years ago.
As I've said before in other threads, the current team is in a "play the ball where it lies" scenereo. The priority is to move forward. If we ever get enough art support from EA, we will re-examine the KR art. Some of them are pretty cool. I personally prefer the elementals in the EC. I don't like the new Dreadnaught. I do like the new gargoyles compared to the old gargoyles, but that is changed in both clients. I like the new wisps which are a particle effect. I like the new plant creatures, though I also liked the old plant creatures. As far as the dragons go, I always thought the old dragons looked too heavy to fly... they looked kind of like a brontosaurus with wings. The new ones look like they might actually be able to fly. I really like the art for the newest super dragons like Platinum, Crimson, and Stygian.
Mark:
This may not be your field specifically, and I may be asking a question far out of my league, but here it goes:
What is so difficult about manipulating individual art assets in the pipeline? If this new patcher is that advanced, why is it so difficult to make individual changes?
Take for example, a simple 2D flat sprite in classic. Saphireena has done marvels with simple 2D tiles. If we were to take one of her static objects, like a ground tile, is it impossible to simply swap out that one particular asset, allowing it to be redone one piece at a time with this very advanced patcher? Maybe even by community volunteers who give you the image, they sign some legal form, the team makes a decision weather to use the asset or not, and bam, you have an outsourced FREE art team?
Chaos and anyone else wanting to download the 2d client, be sure you get it from the UO site. I've heard rumblings from a few people that they've downloaded the 2d client from other sites, either because they had to reinstall or were coming back to UO, and seem to have gotten a copy that was manipulated in some fashion. They've told me about seeing certain things in the game that were not as they should be (e.g., certain types of monsters looking odd, NPCs without clothing, weird-looking building tiles, etc.). Unfortunately, I don't know which sites these people used for downloading their copies of the 2d client. Maybe someone else who has heard similar stories or actually experienced these problems can provide more details on which sites to avoid.
Well, it was a conscious choice to make them a little lower rez than KR. We were trying to get the download size down and trying to hit a "minimum spec".
We make a lot of decissions assuming a lot of our players have old computers.
So, to answer your question, there isn't anything keeping us from increasing resolution except that we want it to be a certain download size and playable on a certain level of computer. That and time, of course. I mean, it's a computer right... you can make it do pretty much anything with graphics if you spend enough time on it. You could build an engine that took a high resolution file and turned it into a low resolution file based on the limitations of the hardware it was loaded on, if you spent enough time on it.
Agreed, Those dragons are fantastic, However the EC dragon isn't even close to similar imo.
You say EA won't pay for the artwork to be redone, But could the EC dragon even just be increased in size? I'm sure thats possible.
I made this an official question in the Ask the Dev section, just an FYI, if you'd rather comment further there.
The issue with KR for a lot of us was that it may have been a higher resolution than 2D, but the style and palette of the art assets changed dramatically. There's a difference between a higher resolution image and completely recreating the image. Again, I'd point out the work done by Saphireena - She took 2D art, upsized it, cleaned it up, and you had high resolution 2D artwork with the same color palette and style as the original, and many agree, it was breathtaking. Some even started doing some of their own!
If it's a matter of system spec - Why not include an option at install, when they patch, to select a high or low resolution asset library? That way those with lower end systems can still play, but anyone with a PC made after 2005 can also enjoy the same world in crisp, high resolution? More importantly, can it literally be done one asset, one tile, one object at a time?
Again, as you said, you can do anything with a computer, given enough time and money.. Just curious if these types of things are even possible with the existing architecture.
O
omgmir
Guest
Mark, you might have access to better information than me, but in my opinion that's a very baseless assumption.
I very much doubt there are a lot of players who base their PC specs around what it takes to play this game.
I use the EC and by far the #1 thing that irritates me the most is the dragon model that everyone keeps mentioning. It wouldn't mean so much if I hadn't spent the majority of my time in UO as a tamer. To me the dragon is a symbol, a symbol that got artistically murdered in the EC.
K
Kiminality
Guest
But, rather than consolidating the graphics processing between GPU and texture memory, the enhanced client puts a disproportionate load on the texture memory - being largely texture-based.
It could be argued that even much older games such as Neverwinter Nights accomplish a much higher quality of visual appearance, with the ability to scale the demands on the system to a greater degree. Not to mention making the matter of new animations and such things a great deal easier than it is with pre-renders.
Graphics cards are generally intended to balance poly-counts with textures, but when you're running a handful of polygons with a relatively gargantuan texture... That's just not right...
Also, I'm with Guido to a degree.
Some of the best-designed creatures were effectively massacred in KR/EC.
In much the same way that some of the best designed creatures were massacred when renders of the Third Dawn artwork replaced the originals - such as the low-poly anorexic unicorn.
He doesn't have a baseless assumption. While many peoples main machines could run the EC client, many people also use netbooks, laptops and older machines to play UO on as well and enjoy it as such.
Also it attracts the crowd that doesn't upgrade their machines very much.
I'll talk to the art guys about the dragon. It seems to me that changing a specific few mobs will be an easier sell than saying "when you get a chance, can you redo them all?"
While you're at it, try and look into the excellent suggestion of offering "low resolution", "high resolution" and "extreme resolution" versions of the EC?
The LR would be useful for low end machines, laptops and netbooks.
The HR would be for medium to higher end machines.
The ER would be for high to extreme end machines, like my main, which when I am done will be a 980X i7 watercooled, 12 Gb RAM, SATA-3 6Gbps Crucial SSD, RAID 0 Velociraptor 10K drives on a dedicated HW raid controller and 2x480GTX watercooled SLI. I would like to burn some high res crysis-like (kidding, heh) UO.
The LR would be useful for low end machines, laptops and netbooks.
The HR would be for medium to higher end machines.
The ER would be for high to extreme end machines, like my main, which when I am done will be a 980X i7 watercooled, 12 Gb RAM, SATA-3 6Gbps Crucial SSD, RAID 0 Velociraptor 10K drives on a dedicated HW raid controller and 2x480GTX watercooled SLI. I would like to burn some high res crysis-like (kidding, heh) UO.
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Agreed, one of the aspects that I loved about KR and even early beta EC was that everything was still high resolution.
As of now, the resolution in EC has been gimped so badly that even as an EC supporter, I can't really defend the distortion and pixelation.
In KR, zoomed in, a player's character had a visible face, in EC it's like they're being pixelated to protect their identity.
Kind of negates the concept of having a zoom feature if the game only looks presentable in one or two zoom levels (x1 and x2 (if you don't mind the pixels being large)).
Agreed, one of the aspects that I loved about KR and even early beta EC was that everything was still high resolution.
As of now, the resolution in EC has been gimped so badly that even as an EC supporter, I can't really defend the distortion and pixelation.
In KR, zoomed in, a player's character had a visible face, in EC it's like they're being pixelated to protect their identity.
Kind of negates the concept of having a zoom feature if the game only looks presentable in one or two zoom levels (x1 and x2 (if you don't mind the pixels being large)).
Personally I'd like to see everyone adopt the EC because it would kill all of the cheats currently available for UO. Every single last one of them. I have no doubt that if the EC became the only client someone would try to recreate at least some of those cheats for the EC, but my guess is, they would have a hard time.
...
While it would be nice to get rid of the openness to cheats that 2d offers, even as a fan of the EC, I'm by no means under the impression that if the EC were the only clients that cheats would not exist. It would simply be a matter of time, ESPECIALLY if they allow an external program like UOA to be made for the EC.
But as it is, the EC really has no need for an external program as the ability to customize the UI has allowed us to do a LOT with the client itself.
Still, the EC is no guarantee against hack programs outside of simply being the lesser utilized client.
While it would be nice to get rid of the openness to cheats that 2d offers, even as a fan of the EC, I'm by no means under the impression that if the EC were the only clients that cheats would not exist. It would simply be a matter of time, ESPECIALLY if they allow an external program like UOA to be made for the EC.
But as it is, the EC really has no need for an external program as the ability to customize the UI has allowed us to do a LOT with the client itself.
Still, the EC is no guarantee against hack programs outside of simply being the lesser utilized client.
Can you please add hiryus to the list of creatures that need an art change for the Enhanced client? The stunted wings, the doohickey on their head and the way their various hues were handled were very disappointing.
Enhanced Client
Legacy Client
No point in arguing about it, but I think there's more to it than that. I say there's no point in arguing because the devs aren't going to discuss anti-cheat measures and functionality. I'll just repeat myself, I think it would be much more challenging to create a third party cheat app like that app which shall not be named for the EC that it was for the classic client.
I'm not saying it couldn't be done, or that it won't be done, I'm just saying I would be very surprised and disappointed if the EC weren't a much harder target than the classic client.
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Tina, I don't think it was put into an FoF or EC patch notes, I believe we remember it from the beta forums, but I do remember being VERY unhappy at that part of the patch at the time. I don't know if they ever reverted it or not.
Tina, I don't think it was put into an FoF or EC patch notes, I believe we remember it from the beta forums, but I do remember being VERY unhappy at that part of the patch at the time. I don't know if they ever reverted it or not.
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Beer_Cayse
Guest
Yuh ... and game design isn't the only industry where there's never enough time to do it right, but somehow there's time to do it over. Too many projects I've been on have been "damn the <insert something here>, stick to the schedule!" And I bet it was like that during that period as well!
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Beer_Cayse
Guest
One can eat an elephant ... one bite at a time. This seems like the best approach. Tiny little nibbles.
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Beer_Cayse
Guest
I forgot about NWN and I have the Platinum edition. Absolutely correct ... NWN graphics were no strain on my older system which was seriously underpowered for the EC.
And ... unlike the EC I didn't have eyestrain after playing for a bit due to the indistinct edges, etc.
Eh, there are quite a few cheats that works in the EC as well as 2D.
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Beer_Cayse
Guest
I would certainly take the learning time for the EC if the graphics got improved to where I didn't have eyestrain headaches from them! I keep plugging away at it but just cannot get my old eyes to handle what I consider blurry and hazed-over graphics.
Not to mention movement and the treatment of mobs in many instances (dragons ARE the worst IMO).
Not to mention movement and the treatment of mobs in many instances (dragons ARE the worst IMO).
And we already know that you think they are perfectly fine.
Great! If they need to re-work the art, let them make something that looks, proud, and strong, like
instead of...
I don't use the EC and I consider the whole EC to be one big cheat.
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Um... wow. Just... yeah. K... backing SLOWLY away from that one.
Um... wow. Just... yeah. K... backing SLOWLY away from that one.
O
omgmir
Guest
Let it roll off your shoulders, have you seen any of his other posts?
Kid's cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
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Beer_Cayse
Guest
Yuh ... best move for that remark.
Hehe all excuses, anyone one with a photoshop programm and a bit knowing of xml files can edit the art using. I dont say you are stupid! No i dont want to blame anyone, but it was there and it could also be there if you didnt cancel it. Even the the files are also there in the UOSA directory Textures.uop
I am not really angry but i think it is sad that you use the KR screenshots on your EA Store Website to present Stygian Abyss
because everyone new seeing this EC screenshots is saying what a ugly game! And i also have to say UO were much better without KR development, Third Dawn was not more worse than that, a 2d Enviroment with 3d model arts, with the exception that Third Dawn was finished and had also brown Dragons 
You know iam telling the truth and by the way who cares about patch sizes if the client is crappy.
But all i want you todo is to sit on your back and play the enhanced client, then you would see the problems and its easy way to fix, because the art is there, you only have to intigrate and resize it right. Changing the rendering is another thing, but first of all i would make the client completly before changing the core system... also please remove the double effects 2d textures for fields and gates, this should also be not such a big thing
.Attached are a few screenshots how it could look, nothing really impossible i would say...
Now and how it could look:
