So how are they doing smooth boat movement exactly?

[Velvathos]

Current boats as far as I am aware of, are made of tiles and placing a boat on water(which is also made of tiles) is like placing a house, so every time a boat moves on the water, it skips cause it has to replace itself with your character on the boat.

And with click to move boats to me it sounds like they are basically mounts on water rather than being tile based..

I remember I once tested it out on a free shard, if you change your character properties so they are "swimmable" they can no longer walk on land, you teleport to the water and you can run right across it, you can do the same with mounts..

Someone correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like the new boats are working as if they were a mounton water rather than a house on water..

 

[Yalp]

yeah. they said the current way boats move is they teleport from tile to tile, hence so choppy. During the new boat demo's there was some kind of (for lack of a better word) melding with the boat wheel, which then acted like a "mount". You couldn't operate the boat from just anywhere, you had to be standing at the wheel. I don't know the ins and out of the code.. but that might give you more info.

 

[Krinkle]

I do believe a new form of magic was developed to make boats move better. Of course, they are keeping this secret so that the new evil force that is rising does not gain control of it.

 

[legendsguy]

okay, but this is crazy. i know nothing at all about UO and coding, but the other night after learning about the boats i envisioned that they probably were just gigantic mounts! whoo for me

 

[canary]

It's MAGIC!

(at least thats my theory)

 

[Crysta]

They said the wheel mouse control was optional and that voice commands would still work. I don't think it has anything to do with making it like a mount.. if it were, Mesanna wouldn't have said they got rid of Seahorses because they were impossible to get working properly.

 

[JC the Builder]

There was a setting named jerkyBoatMotion = true. They found it and set it to false. If only they found it years ago.

 

[Mapper]

They said the wheel mouse control was optional and that voice commands would still work. I don't think it has anything to do with making it like a mount.. if it were, Mesanna wouldn't have said they got rid of Seahorses because they were impossible to get working properly.

I agree, I think it's maybe something where they have split each tile into pixels, then move it by pixel. They said it can work anywhere, so perhaps each tile is not just 32,32 but can be 32.1,32.6 for example.

 

[Merion]

They also said, that in theory, they could make wagons now.

I hope that will be in the next booster: Wagons for players, NPC merchant wagon trains traveling between cities to be raided bad karma players. Escorts for good karma players. Heck, even the gyspy could finally get their wagons moving, instead of teleporting from spot to spot (in ilsh).

In general I really like the idea of not adding more land but instead offering more to do in the existing areas.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

I seem to recall some mentioning of multi tile objects being able to be used in game thanks to some new movement coding...guessing this is part of that?

 

[Petra Fyde]

I wonder if this new ability has anything to do with the database upgrade they did recently.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Not likely, boat movement isn't database related.

 

[Taylor]

There was a setting named jerkyBoatMotion = true. They found it and set it to false. If only they found it years ago.

lol

 

[Harlequin]

I mentioned this in another thread, then I thought about it more. My original thought may be only a part of it.

Boats are/were stored on the same server as the housing server. So every time a boat moves, there will be a series of updates to the housing server as if a house was placed, removed, placed on the next tile, removed again, then placed again on the next tile. that means movement is always done by at least 1 full tile at a time when using slow forward. Normal forward moves it by 2 to 3 full tiles at a time.

Players are teleported along when the ship moves. Hence the jerkiness and also the rubber band effect when you try to walk on a moving boat.

I suspect they are revamping this so that the boats no longer need to be stored on the housing database server. Maybe the database admin is finding the constant updates to his shiny new database server just to move a boat is totally unwarranted.

Being able to group multiple tiles together and move them as one has great potential. It allows other muti part objects to moved too. Wagons are mentioned, ships we know. Other large objects I can think off are moving houses, flying carpets, hotair balloons etc.

As to the smoothness, if you examine how you walk from 1 tile to another, you will see that there are several frames where you are in between the tiles. (Or rather, the ground below your feet scrolls/slides a couple of pixels at a time) You don't teleport from 1 to the other. The filling in of these in-between tile movement is what makes the animation smoother.

 

[Merion]

Being able to group multiple tiles together and move them as one has great potential. It allows other muti part objects to moved too. Wagons are mentioned, ships we know. Other large objects I can think off are moving houses, flying carpets, hotair balloons etc.

Multitile Dragons! Where you can attack individual parts of the beast. Like, damage the wings enough, and he can't fly anymore. Damage the legs and he slows down, etc.

Also, good reasoning on the database stuff. Sound logical.

 

[Fink]

As much as I'm looking forward to the new ships, the possibility of a gypsy caravan seems just as exciting. A reward for GM Camping?

 

[JC the Builder]

Boats are/were stored on the same server as the housing server.

I very much doubt this for several reasons.

1) There is absolutely no reason to have boats managed by the housing server.
2) It would require additional work to move boat management to the housing server.
3) You can place boats when the housing server is offline.

and the biggest....

4) Boats moved like this before there ever was a housing server.

 

[Silverbird]

Boats are/were stored on the same server as the housing server.

I very much doubt this for several reasons.

1) There is absolutely no reason to have boats managed by the housing server.
2) It would require additional work to move boat management to the housing server.
3) You can place boats when the housing server is offline.

and the biggest....

4) Boats moved like this before there ever was a housing server.

Hmmm ... why not.
I mean ... this all happened long before my time, but when i think of it, how different were those old tents from ships. (Let aside, that ships are moving.) Both have one chest for storage (400 stones, 125 items for the porch). Putting boats onto the housing server could regulate the boat decay, too. (Thought way faster than a normal house but I dont know how decay worked with/for tents.) The position of a boat doesnt necessaryly need to be stored on the housing server only its existance and the decay status.

 

[Harlequin]

Boats are/were stored on the same server as the housing server.

I very much doubt this for several reasons.

1) There is absolutely no reason to have boats managed by the housing server.
2) It would require additional work to move boat management to the housing server.
3) You can place boats when the housing server is offline.

and the biggest....

4) Boats moved like this before there ever was a housing server.

Actually, iirc, a dev stated that a while back. I can't find it though. So now I am not sure either.

You are right that it is unnecessary, and is extra work. I think they had the same views too and it was one of the things that prevented them from doing a ship expansion. Again, I can't find that post, so I may be mistaken.

With regards to placing boats when the housing server is offline. Good point. I never tried this. You got me thinking if they can track the position of boats without the housing server, why do they need to put it there in the first place.

As to the the last point, houses were implemented right from the begining. There may not be a consolidated housing server that checks/limts each player to 1 house, however, that doesn't mean there was no housing server then. iirc, the devs also mentioned that the old housing server was hosted on a pc.

Anyone else remembers reading these?

Hmmm ... why not.
I mean ... this all happened long before my time, but when i think of it, how different were those old tents from ships. (Let aside, that ships are moving.) Both have one chest for storage (400 stones, 125 items for the porch). Putting boats onto the housing server could regulate the boat decay, too. (Thought way faster than a normal house but I dont know how decay worked with/for tents.) The position of a boat doesnt necessaryly need to be stored on the housing server only its existance and the decay status.

Good points. House placement do resemble boat placement. The single built in container is similar to the tents.

Decay rate for houses initially was similar to boats as well. Players had to open the doors to keep it refreshed. It is only until later that they changed it to tie in with subscription info.

 

[Basara]

It didn't have to be ON the housing server, to use a modified version of the BASE CODE of the housing server, stored somewhere else (since boats are shard specific, unlike house ownership, it would be on the shard's server - possibly in the area used hor housing before the unified housing server that cross-checks all shards for house ownership).

 

[Fat Lip]

My uneducated theory is...

They gave the water tiles a special walkmesh specifically designed for boats so that the boats (and not people) could move along them. Then, they gave the boats the ability to 'walk' or move (whatever you wanna call it) on these specific types of tiles.

 

[G.v.P]

Interestingly enough, "falling" is yet another graphical lie - the server doesn't transition you from one height to another over time, if you fall, it's instant, but the client shows a falling animation (you can override if you keep running).

I love graphical lies ... I'm going to make some tables in an HTML document right now ;D

 

[G.v.P]

There was a setting named jerkyBoatMotion = true. They found it and set it to false. If only they found it years ago.

lol

nice

hopefully they'll find 2DHighRez = false as well ;D

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

hopefully they'll find 2DHighRez = false as well ;D

They did in the EC... except they changed it TO false.

 

[Zooithion]

It's MAGIC!

(at least thats my theory)

A mage did it. (who remembers that?)

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

"A Wizard did it"... Calyndryll... I think he was the very first community coordinator/community relations manager back before/during UO:R. Many many moons ago.

 

[Harlequin]

I would hope it would be something along the lines of how actual player and NPC movement works.

When you think about it, inside, UO has no conception of "movement between tiles". If you're at (1024, 345) and you take a step "north" then the server:
* Receives walk request
* Calculates new coordinate based on direction (1024, 344) now
* Does terrain checks, collision checks, etc
* Accepts the movement and records the new position

Meanwhile, the client goes:
* Send walk request
* Calculate coordinate
* Does client-side terrain, collision checks
* If okay, moves, and animates the character to make it look smooth
* Eventually receives confirm/deny from the server (which is why rubber-banding can occur!)

So... really, what they may have done is smooth over the graphical transition for moving between tiles for multi-objects like ships, and tightened up the movement code to handle it more like walking. But who knows?

I'm sure the ships are still based on tiles, but now movement, like you said, is more like being on a mounted mob.

Interestingly enough, "falling" is yet another graphical lie - the server doesn't transition you from one height to another over time, if you fall, it's instant, but the client shows a falling animation (you can override if you keep running).

That throws out my housing server theory. Good explanation, esp the part about the client was the side actually doing the calculation and animation for an object to travel btwn tiles.

You should post more
(I know there are things you probably can't reveal, but it's still nice to have someone that knows first hand on how things work point us in the right direction)


The instant calculation thing also explains the out running fireball myths. Damage is done and calculated instantly, no matter how far a player tries to out run it. That's just the client trying to do the animation.

 

[Lady Storm]

Yep!

Fun fact though: you used to be able to outrun arrows, fireballs, corp pors, etc - way back in the beginning, at least if memory serves.

I'm assuming that the client was responsible for sending a packet back to the server that said "okay! I hit the guy, you can do damage now!"

Of course, soon they discovered that teleporting, crossing server-boundaries, etc just completely broke that dynamic, and made damage instant instead.

The above story is somewhat apocryphal cause, honestly, it was 13 years ago and I may have just been a total noob.

It might have just been the problem with teleportation and area server boundaries that made them switch from a "realistically hits after X seconds" to "instant".

Either way, it really was possible to dodge ranged attacks =)

Yep I use to do it alot back then.... only way to live. hehe

 

[Jhym]

Yep, I once ran on the east Britain road, midway to the swamp, all the way back to town with a fireball trailing me. Almost like the fireball/arrows were considered separate objects by the server and tracked as such, which would sorta make sense.

Funny, though tactically interesting, I wouldn't mind them putting some of it back in again.

 

[Jhym]

I was always pretty sure it was possible, since there were a few multi-tile items that were movable (though not mobile.)

We forgot to suggest to them to show multiple players/npcs moving on the boats though. I want to see the effect if I'm a passenger and as the owner. If it's just as smooth and seamless on both sides I will be more impressed.

 

[Amren]

It didn't have to be ON the housing server, to use a modified version of the BASE CODE of the housing server, stored somewhere else (since boats are shard specific, unlike house ownership, it would be on the shard's server - possibly in the area used hor housing before the unified housing server that cross-checks all shards for house ownership).

LOL , you guys are reading way to far into this. I "seriously" doubt that it requires multiple servers to create 1 UO "shard"

If you think about it, a single blade server could run all "shards" and still have power left over for some UO and WoW server emulations.

 

[lucitus]

Yep!

Fun fact though: you used to be able to outrun arrows, fireballs, corp pors, etc - way back in the beginning, at least if memory serves.

I'm assuming that the client was responsible for sending a packet back to the server that said "okay! I hit the guy, you can do damage now!"

Of course, soon they discovered that teleporting, crossing server-boundaries, etc just completely broke that dynamic, and made damage instant instead.

The above story is somewhat apocryphal cause, honestly, it was 13 years ago and I may have just been a total noob.

It might have just been the problem with teleportation and area server boundaries that made them switch from a "realistically hits after X seconds" to "instant".

Either way, it really was possible to dodge ranged attacks =)

Another intersting i want to know here is, movement is serverbased, we all know the Enhanced client is not shown correctly for 2d people.

Means that the EC is sending other distances to the server? And the server answers yes it is the EC collosion is right distance okay, send it out to all players?

Which the 2d client cannot display because there are other distances between the animations and maybe this is causing the bunny hopping in the 2d client?

 

[R Traveler]

It might have just been the problem with teleportation and area server boundaries that made them switch from a "realistically hits after X seconds" to "instant".

Either way, it really was possible to dodge ranged attacks =)

So this explain why new ranged weapons (throwing) sucks. They not made instant damage.

 

[Babble]

LOL , you guys are reading way to far into this. I "seriously" doubt that it requires multiple servers to create 1 UO "shard"

If you think about it, a single blade server could run all "shards" and still have power left over for some UO and WoW server emulations.

The setup is probably still the same, is why we have serverlines in the world.

 

[Warpig Inc]

Pixel Grease

 

[JC the Builder]

LOL , you guys are reading way to far into this. I "seriously" doubt that it requires multiple servers to create 1 UO "shard"

If you think about it, a single blade server could run all "shards" and still have power left over for some UO and WoW server emulations.

Each shard is made up of about 20 servers called subservers. While it is true today that a shard could possibly run on a single server, 14 years ago this was unthinkable. So the game area was divided up. But each shard is still divided up into multiple servers. This is still good as if one server is overloaded, it won't slow down the entire shard. So big player battles in Felucca won't hinder someone bank sitting in Britain Trammel.

It is definitely not possible for a single server to run every UO shard though.