Update needed for 2D/CC

[Hannes Erich]

As a few pics above suggest, players on gray shards often use a UO Assist-like program with an option to force a larger play window onto the client (1024x768, for instance---which seems to be the sweet spot, before edge-of-screen black spots begin to appear). The program can be set up to play on our official shards, but I'm not brave enough to try. But I did some research. What did I find? A foundational design principle of that program is to help shard operators prevent cheating, not assist players in it. (Which, for all the demonizing of those shards, I did not expect.) Gray shards have many points against them; they lack the resources of a full-time studio for one thing.

But in this case, dear friends at Broadsword, I think it's been 17 years, I think someone has done the work for you, and I think you should approve this third-party program, or turn the other cheek while your players enjoy the quality of life that it could bring to your game. Players build tools like this because they love UO. That's a selling point of your legacy, you silly monkeys.

 

[Christina Kardos]

This may sound stupid but why dont you guys drop screen resolution? This is what I do and it feels like I am back in 1999

 

[AtlanticRealtor]

This was asked last night to Mesanna and the devs at the Greet and Meet"


UOAssist is no longer supported for over 2 Years!
We current on 2015 and We have so Many "Tools" to make us that play 2D (CC) our life better!!

Can We use Razr or UOSteam without getting in Trouble??

Mesanna: How About you guys submit to us a "List of Softwares" that you want us to Approve and we go from there!!!!

 

[AtlanticRealtor]

so uhhh Ultimaholic and UO Houses.... what ya doing to get that window size? definitely rough around the edges but good enough. that third party program mentioned above?

UOSteam and couple Others allow you "By Default" to choose your game size Screen!!

I hope they approve us to use those without any fear!!!, all We want is to play on a bigger screen than a miserable 8" Inch Square, If you are using a huge Monitor!! lol

 

[DJAd]

People would complain about Pinco UI automating things too much but this UOSteam is on another level. I wish it worked with the EC.

 

[arkiu]

Silly question I'm sure but can someone post the link for uosteam? I read they stopped maintaining it a year or so ago and can't find the original uosteam webpage.

 

[Smoot]

Silly question I'm sure but can someone post the link for uosteam? I read they stopped maintaining it a year or so ago and can't find the original uosteam webpage.

we should probably have clarification from @Mesanna on this because currently just nameing them is against stratics tos.

at this point in the game, plus given the current dev teams stance, i see no reason why we cant use the programs.

yes they are "cheat" programs, but with similar functions in EC, and no upgrades to CC, i think were at the point where they should probably be allowed.

What would be ideal, if if the dev team would engineer their own program, so they could tailor into it exactly what and would not be allowed. This of course would require work / time, something i dont expect to be completed in the current state of the game.

 

[arkiu]

I agree Smoot. So maybe a new in game interface with increased functionality over the macro tab in options? Even setting a self heal macro in the current CC options menu seems to take too long.

 

[The Zog historian]

Look.. you all know I don't do the EC versus the CC thing.. I play them both..
so look perhaps ya'll don't understand what I'm saying.. This is on my main comp.. I run a 2009 GeForce GTX 660 not that new..

you start here..



Soon as CC loads and you see your game screen hit Alt+Enter..
and you get this



It does look a little stretched.. and maybe a little pixellated.. but it's full screen..

Sorry it looks a little sideways I'm not that good with the camera..

Stretched (technically described as losing aspect ratio) is one of the things we definitely don't want, and it's not just "a little pixellated." It reminds me of the EC botched graphics from sewing kits to lobster traps.

I myself don't mind the smaller pixels on my monitor. What most of us are talking about is a genuinely 1024x768 play window, not the total UO window, which would show more of the surrounding world, and on modern monitors we'd still have plenty of blank area for gumps. UO's play window for a long time was only 640x480, and at some point (AoS?) we could have 800x600. See the difference? The pixels are the same size, therefore toons and NPCs and objects remain the same size, but the "field of vision" is greater.

 

[Ludes]

Stretched (technically described as losing aspect ratio) is one of the things we definitely don't want, and it's not just "a little pixellated." It reminds me of the EC botched graphics from sewing kits to lobster traps.

I myself don't mind the smaller pixels on my monitor. What most of us are talking about is a genuinely 1024x768 play window, not the total UO window, which would show more of the surrounding world, and on modern monitors we'd still have plenty of blank area for gumps. UO's play window for a long time was only 640x480, and at some point (AoS?) we could have 800x600. See the difference? The pixels are the same size, therefore toons and NPCs and objects remain the same size, but the "field of vision" is greater.

Yeah you have a good point.. it's certainly not an "eye pleasing " fix..
It helps me a little cause I'm an old guy and really have trouble seeing the native 800x600 on a postcard size section of my monitor..

 

[Hannes Erich]

The program name being thrown around here (against Stratics TOS) isn't the one I read about. The one I read about is still definitely being maintained.

I disagree that we should seek a new, in-game UI from Broadsword for the CC. From a coding perspective---today's tools with two decade-old technology---that makes zero sense, and they're never going to cludge something like that together. Believe me, my "dream client" would be the CC with a more customizable play window and the EC's UI, but it's exactly that, a "dream". Never going to happen on this Earth. I love UO, but that means I accept the warts that can't be changed.

An out-of-game client, running alongside it, that's not only possible, it's proven. Players have built a handful of launch and/or macro assist tools over the years. I would love to see the official studio make their own contribution one of these days.

From what I've read in the past few nights, a prevailing (and growing) sentiment among freeshard players is that freeshard devs spend more time working on UO than Broadsword's devs. I've always resented that sentiment, but only half as much as I did before a few nights ago. Freeshard players nowadays apparently get to enjoy in-game email, friend lists, levelable pets with their own skill point allocation (ala Torchlight), rentable townhouses in cities (i.e. the NPC houses that sit empty), houses that don't IDOC after just three months, in-game achievements and badges, customizable player-made dungeon instances, and higher skill caps---true RPG-style adventurer characters who can wield a sword and hunt for treasure effectively, for instance.

I would go on but that was starting to depress me. Last year, Richard "Lord British" Garriott visited a few of UO's biggest, most innovative shards while promoting Shroud of the Avatar (an ingenious bit of promotion---from what I hear, he never even mentioned SotA, just roleplayed as LB). Why didn't you hear about that? Not a one of them was an official shard.

Despite losing about ten houses on Great Lakes over the years, I'm invested in that shard, and I'm asking this as a fan of Broadsword and every other studio of the week---"Sup, Broadsword?"

 

[arkiu]

Boom

 

[Mervyn]

Stratics itself has caused a lot of problems with the non approved programs in UO.

By not being allowed to mention or debate them, we've never been allowed to address any issues.

I really don't get it, i know for a fact that certain players use non approved programs but don't receive any punishment. I don't get it...

What's the point in having Approved and non approved programs when they let anyone use anything whenever?

What's the difference between approved and non approved? Why am i only using approved?

And yet they let Pinco's ui and other EC UIs have countless scripts and they ARE approved?

CONFUSED.COM?????

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

And yet they let Pinco's ui and other EC UIs have countless scripts and they ARE approved?

CONFUSED.COM?????

External programs that work with the CC have to decrypt the client files and actively hack the client's datastream to perform their functions. Because of this, only a few that are well vetted and established are considered approved to use.

UI Mods in the EC are not programs into themselves, but changes made to the game's UI files which are open for player modification. KR/EC were intentionally created in a manner to allow the players to do this.

 

[Silentfury]

If I remember correctly, in the 3rd Dawn 3D client, you were able to grab a corner of the game screen and pull it to the size you wanted. Why can't this old code to incorporated into the 2D client? Just a thought.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

If I remember correctly, in the 3rd Dawn 3D client, you were able to grab a corner of the game screen and pull it to the size you wanted. Why can't this old code to incorporated into the 2D client? Just a thought.

Two reasons:

1. When you dragged the screen wider than 800x600, it zoomed in automatically to keep the visible area the same. 2d has no zoom feature.
2. Non-compiled 3d client code on the dev's side is probably LONG gone considering it's been almost 9 years since it was shut down.

 

[Thrakkar]

And yet they let Pinco's ui and other EC UIs have countless scripts and they ARE approved?

The non-approved programs support loops (while, for, etc.), conditional branches (if, switch) and fetching as well as manipulating every value. And that's exactly the reason, they're not approved.
EC doesn't support this. Neither does Pincos, since his UI is built upon the official API.
There are some things, you can't do in the EC and there are some things, you can't do in the CC/UOAssist.
So I guess they're even...

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

To be fair, you can build the macros in the EC to loop for quite a long time, you can also build them on a MUCH more complex level than with the CC and maybe even some of the external programs. You can't run a script that moves your character along a pre-determined path to accomplish certain things while you're away with the EC, but you can, for example, create a single hot-key based macro that will mine a spot, upgrade the ore, then mine a number of times and smelt any ore mined on your Fire Beetle.

I can understand some of the concern on the EC's UI in this regard, as it does seem that line between acceptable and exploiting does get a bit blurred with some of the more complex EC UI possibilities.

However, the key aspect remains that in order to customize the CC's UI, you have to actively hack the client as it was encrypted into the client itself whereas the EC's UI was designed to be customized from the beginning.

 

[Thrakkar]

Actually I wasn't talking about looping a macro, i talked about looks INSIDE of a macro (language wise). Nevertheless, yeah, one can build extremely long running macros in the EC. And granted as well, there are more features in the EC macros, which you can't do in CC/UOA than vice versa. But both CC & UOA are outdated programs, never getting any major updates anymore, just basic support to keep them alive/compatible. So it doesn't really suprise me. And from a business perspective this also makes perfect sense, since you want the new product to "sell".

However, the key aspect remains that in order to customize the CC's UI, you have to actively hack the client as it was encrypted into the client itself whereas the EC's UI was designed to be customized from the beginning.

Actually you don't have to, since UOA opens the floodgates to controlling UO.
You need roughly 10 lines in C#, to programmatically press any button or invoke any funtionality from UOA. You just need to have the windows handles, which you can either get yourself through the WinAPI or if you're lazy with WinSpy++.

 

[Tanivar]

So it doesn't really suprise me. And from a business perspective this also makes perfect sense, since you want the new product to "sell".

Given the quality and operation of the new product, the new product will only sell to those who believe the contraption with the 'new' label is better in spite of it's performance. The EC is like shouting how wonderful the modern this century fake wood pressed woodpulp furniture is compared to the older ancient last century real wood furniture.

It's all a question of how easily swayed people are these days.

 

[Thrakkar]

Given the quality and operation of the new product, the new product will only sell to those who believe the contraption with the 'new' label is better in spite of it's performance. The EC is like shouting how wonderful the modern this century fake wood pressed woodpulp furniture is compared to the older ancient last century real wood furniture.

It's all a question of how easily swayed people are these days.

The EC has its problems, yes. Everyone can tell you that. But the pros outweight the cons. At least from my point of view.
But people seem to have problems with the older ancient last century real wood furniture as well, since for some the older ancient last century real game window size doesn't seem to be part of the overall true UO- and retro-feel anymore.

 

[Mary Jane]

Why not just make a low-res version of EC with CC graphics? EC is lightyears ahead of CC, but it looks like sheit. Dooo iiiiit!

 

[Thrakkar]

Why not just make a low-res version of EC with CC graphics? EC is lightyears ahead of CC, but it looks like sheit. Dooo iiiiit!

Hate to burst your bubble, but the EC is already using the CC tiles. That's one of the major reasons, it looks so crappy (don't get me wrong, CC graphics look cool, but they're too small and thus don't scale very good)

 

[Smoot]

Hate to burst your bubble, but the EC is already using the CC tiles. That's one of the major reasons, it looks so crappy (don't get me wrong, CC graphics look cool, but they're too small and thus don't scale very good)

enough of the art is different enough that it puts many people off. just the most basic thing like riding a horse looks horribly awkard, let alone some rares dont even function properly in EC, such as their sound, effect, or color.

I think 1 client could have worked if the art looked the same as CC but with EC interface.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

enough of the art is different enough that it puts many people off. just the most basic thing like riding a horse looks horribly awkard, let alone some rares dont even function properly in EC, such as their sound, effect, or color.

I think 1 client could have worked if the art looked the same as CC but with EC interface.

The artwork rundown in the EC:

Mobiles: Downgraded KR artwork (same artwork, lowered resolution... trust me, in KR, they looked MUCH better (especially once shading was properly applied))
Terrain: Again, downgraded KR artwork which was then slightly upgraded, but still doesn't match the original KR artwork in resolution or quality.
Objects (items and plants): CC artwork.
Building tiles: CC artwork. Wall tiles are the ONLY set of CC artwork that have had high resolution upgrades released.

It still makes me wonder why the EC zoom feature can not handle scaling of 2d artwork as well as Pinco's UI can when scaling the same artwork in a container UI window. In the EC world, the CC artwork becomes distorted and pixelated when zoomed. In the UI window (like a backpack), the item scales much more smoothly.

 

[The Craftsman]

Mobiles: Downgraded KR artwork (same artwork, lowered resolution... trust me, in KR, they looked MUCH better (especially once shading was properly applied))

In KR, I particularly liked the way that your feet almost touched the ground when you were riding a horse.

 

[MalagAste]

...

To be fair, you can build the macros in the EC to loop for quite a long time, you can also build them on a MUCH more complex level than with the CC and maybe even some of the external programs. You can't run a script that moves your character along a pre-determined path to accomplish certain things while you're away with the EC, but you can, for example, create a single hot-key based macro that will mine a spot, upgrade the ore, then mine a number of times and smelt any ore mined on your Fire Beetle.

I can understand some of the concern on the EC's UI in this regard, as it does seem that line between acceptable and exploiting does get a bit blurred with some of the more complex EC UI possibilities.

However, the key aspect remains that in order to customize the CC's UI, you have to actively hack the client as it was encrypted into the client itself whereas the EC's UI was designed to be customized from the beginning.

And to be even more fair as far as building a macro to loop no need for that for either the EC or the CC all you need is a programmable keyboard or something like the Speedpad. This can have the buttons set to keep pressing "X" button every "Y" number of seconds until the button is pressed again. So litterally you can say cast invis on self and have it do that continually until you poke the button again... You can find a stretch of water where you can keep sailing repeatedly in one direction and then set the system up to use your fishing pole over the side of the boat and just leave it... now of course your pack will eventually end up full... but you get the idea.

I see people all the time whacking Golems or playing an instrument or peacing themselves continually at banks and such all the time. To me that's small potatoes. I honestly don't care if someone wants to macro working a skill to save on the carpal tunnel this game seems to promote... What bothers me is those who multibox controlling 10 characters via one... People who scam other players, people who hack other peoples accounts and those who dupe intentionally for profit and don't report the dupe. Also don't care for exploiters. But it seems to me anymore that there are plenty of all these types of players still playing.

 

[Sneaky Que]

So you know the architectural design of the client? I can hardly believe that. If it would be really that easy, they would have done it already...

Others have done it, so why shouldn't EA be able to as well? If some kid in his/her's mum's (that's mom for you Americans ) basement can do it on a freeshard, then surely the highly trained professionals at EA can too.

 

[Thrakkar]

Others have done it, so why shouldn't EA be able to as well? If some kid in his/her's mum's (that's mom for you Americans ) basement can do it on a freeshard, then surely the highly trained professionals at EA can too.

Then they have obviously much lower quality standards than BS. Show me one screenshot of such a client, which renders correctly!
All they did, was to apply a dirty hack, which increased the boundaries of the game area. The underlying renderer is completely untouched. And that's exactly the reason, why the bigger the game area gets, the more black areas you get. Simply because at a certain distance from the player, the tiles don't get rendered anymore. Maybe this is hardly noticable at 1024x768, but if you would bloat it up to FullHD, 70% if the game area would be black. Let alone 4K...

So, noone has done has successfully...
I know of just one semi-successful try of one of the UO-devs. Don't remember, who it was. But he ran into some serious problems, so he stopped playing around with the game window size. I remember also, that some screenshot of that client made it to stratics. Don't remember the thread, though. Bottom line was, that they would have to spend way too much resources, to pull that off correctly and it is simply not viable...

 

[The Craftsman]

Then they have obviously much lower quality standards than BS.

Quality standards? Broadsword?