WoW has introduced 'Legacy Servers'...Why Can't UO?!

[Old Vet Back Again]

VANILLA IS REAL BOYS • r/wowservers


@Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak

You guys dropped the ball being the 'longest living' MMO who laid the foundation for WoW and others to succeed. Oh, and not to mention the simple fact we just had a 20th anniversary....

Can you please tell me why we are not doing this with UO?


*added the above video**

 

[Lady Storm]

OI VEY
UO 's one chance was ground up as fodder in redwood city a few years ago. *was made into compost)
How many times must this be explained.
You cant reverse engineer UO shards backwards ether.
The closest you can come to a classic is Siege Perilous.

 

[Old Vet Back Again]

OI VEY
UO 's one chance was round up as fodder in redwood city a few years ago.
How many times must this be explained.
You cant reverse engineer UO shards backwards ether.
The closest you can come to a classic is Siege Perilous.

Hmm, there are plenty of free servers with the code still available that seem to do just fine with era accurate mechanics...with a little bit of time I think this would be a rather simple task. Stealing from a free server who originally stole from UO doesn't seem like a criminal act if you ask me...

 

[Finegold]

Hmm. Interesting concept. Things that come to my mind.
Would it bring players in who are playing on free private severs with old school rule srts?
Does uo have existing player base to support more shards?
Can it be sustainable for more than just a novelty?

Very interesting....

 

[Uriah Heep]

This can't be done:

IT is old code,, very convoluted, and no one can figure out how to manipulate it, except the boys living in the parents basements designing freeshards...and BS won't hire them.
It's a small team.
The code doesn't exist (yeah right, see line 1)
What era would you define as "legacy"
and on and on and on...

 

[Pawain]

Do you really want to play with AR 4 stuff?

 

[Uriah Heep]

Do you really want to play with AR 4 stuff?

We did it back then and survived and had fun. Of course back then nothing had 1,568,785,321 HPs either

 

[Pawain]

We did it back then and survived and had fun. Of course back then nothing had 1,568,785,321 HPs either

It took a group to kill the Ettin in Wrong.

 

[MalagAste]

Took an entire guild to take on a Dragon... there were no Greaters... dragons were terrifying... The sound of a lich sent chills through you because you knew you were in for a serious fight.

Now thanks to the "sampire"... the average fighter class is dead. Everything is designed to thwart the Sampire and the normal dexer is just instant fodder. Either everything is uber easy or overkill... there seems to be no middle ground.

 

[Lady Storm]

It has been said the first time the Dev hit on adjusting the skill sets ...magery being the first... it was all down hill after that..
That first adjustment came about because of too many mouths yelling over they unfairness of the skill over their own.... you don't put a warrior with no magery up against a mage!
But I digress... it messed up a lot.

The old code and the remaking of a legacy shard would need the old code book with the full bit map, and settings.
All was destroyed.
5 dev cant redo all that even if they didn't have to touch the UO game for months....

 

[drcossack]

What era would you define as "legacy"

this is pretty much the only thing I can see stopping it. Admittedly, I'm unfamiliar with how WoW does it, but freeshards have varying rulesets: AoS, SE, ML, UO:R, pre-ren, Stygian Abyss, etc. With legacy ruleset freeshards out there, it shouldn't be too hard (with a lot of paid help...) for the current UO dev team to re-create each era.

Hmm. Interesting concept. Things that come to my mind.
Would it bring players in who are playing on free private severs with old school rule srts?
Does uo have existing player base to support more shards?
Can it be sustainable for more than just a novelty?

Very interesting....

1) More than likely - on an AoS era freeshard I played about a year ago, I ran into a former guildmate from back in the day. I'm sure he's not the only one I'd run into if I "shopped around" enough and went to various free servers.
2) As of now? Probably not.
3) Can't say. If it could bring players back, it could be...but there's no way to know for sure if that's the case. I think it could, since free servers have a decent population.

 

[Boba]

Those at the helm of UO aren't leaders, or visionaries; they are followers.

Once WoW rakes in a ton of extra profit from these legacy servers, other similar games will take notice and definitely follow suit.

It happened with free-to-play and it will happen with legacy servers.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Those at the helm of UO aren't leaders, or visionaries; they are followers.

Once WoW rakes in a ton of extra profit from these legacy servers, other similar games will take notice and definitely follow suit.

It happened with free-to-play and it will happen with legacy servers.

Legacy servers in an MMO aren't a new or original idea. Everquest and more recently Everquest 2, have been doing them for about 10 years now, and its always the same result, your nostalgia people hop on, relive the old content and either quit or go back to current game because there's only so much you can do without getting bored in a static never changing and never updating server.

As for UO I have always felt that the best legacy time period would be Publish 15, but tweaked to have the BOD system removed. Pub 15 was the end of classic UO as we knew it. Although by the end of that cycle PVP combat started becoming unhinged because of runic hammer weapons being so powerful. Publish 16 came and powerscrolls, while fun, broke the game to the point where it was either repeal them or scrap it [they scrapped it, hence AOS] 120 fencing was the most overpowered frustrating thing ever, every 3 out of 4 hits was a para blow, unless you had 120 parry to counter it, it was very broken.

But even if they make a legacy shard, they can never bring back the people who made the game special at the time. The people and communities that made UO special for me are long gone, and I doubt a classic server would be enticing to bring them back. The idea of a classic, never changing server is boring to me. Sure they can toss in an EM or two to spice things up, but you'll essentially be locked into a time locked server. No custom housing, no post AOS artwork, etc. Unless added by an EM.

 

[Potgut]

Oh I remember!

- Traveling through the moongates was "random" (or supposedly based on moonphases)
- No Runebooks- you'd just carry runes with you, and the risk of losing them if you died.
- no item insurance
- no gumps while crafting, so crafting was a pain in the ass.
- Recall was limited for mages, everyone else walked or ran everywhere.
- No player ran vendors, no customizing housing (and no Interior Decorator to raise, lower, or turn items).
- no 100% reg cost equipment (so regs were essential)
- You didn't know when your pick axes and any of your items where going to break
- When you failed to heal yourself with bandages, bloody bandages everywhere and were very annoying.
- There was no pet training. No Pet bonding - No pet resing. When your pet died, that was it, off your way to tame or buy a new one.
- Jewelry was virtually useless and had no properties (except those with usable charges for str, dex, and int which no one really cared to use), but you were able to craft gems into rings and bracelets.
- Item ID to see what properties your weapons had.

Anyway, I think it's just a "nostalgic" thing everyone has for every single thing these days, which people are normally biased for and naturally blows out of proportion for. I'm sure playing a Classic UO could be fun for a couple days or weeks, but I'm sure most people who'd play the novelty would wear off soon then the servers would probably die down like most of the other servers.

 

[Lady Storm]

Potgut it is nice to see a fellow elder of the game who remembers the hell it was in the early days.

1. WoW has never has a Control freek as EA staff run it....
2. WoW has every tid bit of development data it has ever created.
3. WoW has the financial (cash) to throw at making a few shards like that if its going to pull back old players. Remember they still have millions playing.

We know EA owns UO.
They will not toss that much cash into this game to rewrite a whole new code for a shard like your thinking.
The have planned to shut this game down for years the only reason the lights are on is due to the sheer luck that Broadswords leader has that much pull with the board.
One day the board will not stop the executive's at EA from sunsetting the game.
I do not put it past them from slipping it past when they meaning the board of directors cant meet and its done by their meaning the operational staff's order alone.

You all treat this game as your property... you order the dev around like mini bosses.
Worse yet, many I have seen in game and in here do all in their powers to scare off new and returning players.
If you hate the game... leave
Other wise start to think like an adult human.
This game survives because we pay to play the game...
In the long run if we keep this up... one day the bickering and sass mouthing will end this game.
UO will be like all the old games that have died.. just a memory.

 

[Pawain]

no customizing housing (and no Interior Decorator to raise, lower, or turn items).

You carried a rune to your house and your house key. If someone stole both, they owned your house now. The house only had a chest to store things in.

How many will sign up for that?

 

[Captn Norrington]

You carried a rune to your house and your house key. If someone stole both, they owned your house now. The house only had a chest to store things in.

How many will sign up for that?

Scams used to be so much more harmful because of that too... I remember one time way back then where a guy had his house key but no rune, a thief took it, then followed him around until he took the rune out of his bank and stole that too. Finally, the guy realized his house was now useless so he re-deeded it and tried to sell the deed at WBB. The same thief once again shows up and offers to buy it, scams the guy and gets the deed to the house on top of the key and rune. Pretty sure the victim quit the game that day. They lost every item they had in the house, the house location, and the house deed which was expensive back then all in one hour.

 

[Old Vet Back Again]

Potgut it is nice to see a fellow elder of the game who remembers the hell it was in the early days.

1. WoW has never has a Control freek as EA staff run it....
2. WoW has every tid bit of development data it has ever created.
3. WoW has the financial (cash) to throw at making a few shards like that if its going to pull back old players. Remember they still have millions playing.

We know EA owns UO.
They will not toss that much cash into this game to rewrite a whole new code for a shard like your thinking.
The have planned to shut this game down for years the only reason the lights are on is due to the sheer luck that Broadswords leader has that much pull with the board.
One day the board will not stop the executive's at EA from sunsetting the game.
I do not put it past them from slipping it past when they meaning the board of directors cant meet and its done by their meaning the operational staff's order alone.

You all treat this game as your property... you order the dev around like mini bosses.
Worse yet, many I have seen in game and in here do all in their powers to scare off new and returning players.
If you hate the game... leave
Other wise start to think like an adult human.
This game survives because we pay to play the game...
In the long run if we keep this up... one day the bickering and sass mouthing will end this game.
UO will be like all the old games that have died.. just a memory.

What is all this nonsense? There are a lot of players playing free servers right now, same era with same rule sets for years. You know why they do? Content. The devs of the successful servers pump out content that fits the era, nothing more to it than that.

Albion Online was referenced as a pre pub 16 server on numerous occasions. The games creators said they took a lot of the concepts from that era of UO. They hit over 200k players at their launch. The game failed to retain those players, but it would be logical to think that a portion of them were there looking for something to give them that same experience that UO once did.

Shroud of the Avatar has 200k people pledged in it's Kick Starter and have had close to 13million dollars pledged. Guess what general era that game is deriving from?

Legends of Aria had 2500 people log in during their final alpha to help test. I was there, and guess what everyone was comparing it to...

I don't know about you, but to watch all of these people who love UO and are looking for something to bring that same experience leave for other games because they don't like the direction or current state of the game is sad. If a conglomerate like WoW is introducing legacy servers that means there is a market for it and that alone should be enough reason.

And if you think that UO's devs just delete code once they release an expansion sounds silly. You don't think they back it up? and do you think they would actually just delete it? If the code is so old, and so complex, how are there so many free servers popping up every year? There is also 2 new clients that are coming out on free servers. One that has been out for a while and changed the game completely in regards to graphics and UI, and there is another one that is currently being funded that looks incredible.

Guess who's code those 2 clients run...

 

[Old Vet Back Again]

You carried a rune to your house and your house key. If someone stole both, they owned your house now. The house only had a chest to store things in.

How many will sign up for that?

You don't think they can adapt and make subtle changes to prevent some of the scenarios that happened like that? Try and think outside of the box...there is 20 years of experience to pull from!

 

[Captn Norrington]

And if you think that UO's devs just delete code once they release an expansion sounds silly. You don't think they back it up? and do you think they would actually just delete it?

She was talking about the unfortunate incident where the developers were moving offices and had boxes piled up everywhere, and an intern trying to be helpful was taking the trash boxes and throwing them away. He accidentally threw away the box that had all the notebooks and papers about how the original code was made, and by the time anyone noticed it was long gone.

 

[skittles1337]

We know EA owns UO.
They will not toss that much cash into this game to rewrite a whole new code for a shard like your thinking.
The have planned to shut this game down for years the only reason the lights are on is due to the sheer luck that Broadswords leader has that much pull with the board.
One day the board will not stop the executive's at EA from sunsetting the game.
I do not put it past them from slipping it past when they meaning the board of directors cant meet and its done by their meaning the operational staff's order alone.

You all treat this game as your property... you order the dev around like mini bosses.
Worse yet, many I have seen in game and in here do all in their powers to scare off new and returning players.
If you hate the game... leave

Wow. Okay first.. UO is still on because of its cheap overhead making it profitable even with around 50-75k subscribers. It has nothing to do with Mesanna or Mr. Denton, cause I doubt they have zero pull at EA. If UO is still making money its going to remain open, simple as that. The second it becomes unprofitable EA will not flinch and shut down the servers. We don't order the Devs around, we are trying to make them accountable to their player base. If you've not noticed under Mesanna UO has become a ghost town, while this may not be completely her fault she hasn't really given many old players a reason to come back.

She was talking about the unfortunate incident where the developers were moving offices and had boxes piled up everywhere, and an intern trying to be helpful was taking the trash boxes and throwing them away. He accidentally threw away the box that had all the notebooks and papers about how the original code was made, and by the time anyone noticed it was long gone.

AKA We really don't want to

 

[MalagAste]

What is all this nonsense? There are a lot of players playing free servers right now, same era with same rule sets for years. You know why they do? Content. The devs of the successful servers pump out content that fits the era, nothing more to it than that.

Albion Online was referenced as a pre pub 16 server on numerous occasions. The games creators said they took a lot of the concepts from that era of UO. They hit over 200k players at their launch. The game failed to retain those players, but it would be logical to think that a portion of them were there looking for something to give them that same experience that UO once did.

Shroud of the Avatar has 200k people pledged in it's Kick Starter and have had close to 13million dollars pledged. Guess what general era that game is deriving from?

Legends of Aria had 2500 people log in during their final alpha to help test. I was there, and guess what everyone was comparing it to...

I don't know about you, but to watch all of these people who love UO and are looking for something to bring that same experience leave for other games because they don't like the direction or current state of the game is sad. If a conglomerate like WoW is introducing legacy servers that means there is a market for it and that alone should be enough reason.

And if you think that UO's devs just delete code once they release an expansion sounds silly. You don't think they back it up? and do you think they would actually just delete it? If the code is so old, and so complex, how are there so many free servers popping up every year? There is also 2 new clients that are coming out on free servers. One that has been out for a while and changed the game completely in regards to graphics and UI, and there is another one that is currently being funded that looks incredible.

Guess who's code those 2 clients run...

I'm sorry but while you think 2500 people is amazing I'm not impressed... I tried Aria... didn't much care for it... far too cartoonish. As for Garriotts Shroud... it's NOT an MMO.

There is no game that compares to UO. Not much even comes close. WoW and most of the others are hand holder games... chose A go to this path... chose B go to that one.... etc... many folk don't have the patience to play UO... they want the game to tell them everything to do. Few folk want to think that much. Sadly the sandbox is not really that popular.

Several of you think about old days like they were awesome... but if you consider how many players tried UO and got scammed, stolen from, and beaten down time and again and quit with anger... and will NEVER return I'm willing to bet that number is 2x the number who would come back to try an old pre-tram shard... and even of those who would come back for a pre-tram shard I'm willing to bet it wouldn't be anything like people remember and most would quit again within 2 or 3 months. Free or not.

 

[skittles1337]

I'm sorry but while you think 2500 people is amazing I'm not impressed... I tried Aria... didn't much care for it... far too cartoonish. As for Garriotts Shroud... it's NOT an MMO.

There is no game that compares to UO. Not much even comes close. WoW and most of the others are hand holder games... chose A go to this path... chose B go to that one.... etc... many folk don't have the patience to play UO... they want the game to tell them everything to do. Few folk want to think that much. Sadly the sandbox is not really that popular.

Several of you think about old days like they were awesome... but if you consider how many players tried UO and got scammed, stolen from, and beaten down time and again and quit with anger... and will NEVER return I'm willing to bet that number is 2x the number who would come back to try an old pre-tram shard... and even of those who would come back for a pre-tram shard I'm willing to bet it wouldn't be anything like people remember and most would quit again within 2 or 3 months. Free or not.

Let me make this simple, he isn't trying to get a shard to get people back who enjoyed tram. He is appealing to those players who enjoyed fel, enjoyed the risk of fel and miss the old mechanics. Most of the people who loved to be safe, warm and cozy are still playing this game in tram rulesets. This is designed to try to entice the 35% of those pvpers to come back to UO and relive the greatest gaming experience.

Aria is far from launch it reminds me of an early sandbox UO. It has some true promise and for close to 10k people to be interested in it considering its ruleset is exactly like early uo shows there is people wanting and needing something that brings them back to early days of UO.

 

[Tyrath]

LOL so everyone has the old code except for EA and BS A pre pub 15 server would be great with some tweaking and as already said era specific content added on a regular basis. But to be fair for most people there was a lot more wrong that right back then. The real shame is everyone seems to learn and profit from UOs mistakes......... Except UO.

 

[kalexpor]

wow has its own way, ultima online has its own way. maybe, wow needs that kind of server, but, ultima online is enough good now, so, no need to do something to change.
please, do not mess up by changing something.

ultima online is already enough good legacy server itself, so, no need to have another, more deep legacy server.

 

[Boba]

Legacy servers in an MMO aren't a new or original idea. Everquest and more recently Everquest 2, have been doing them for about 10 years now, and its always the same result, your nostalgia people hop on, relive the old content and either quit or go back to current game because there's only so much you can do without getting bored in a static never changing and never updating server.

In January of 2013, Runescape (another, newer sandbox MMO that's a million times more popular than UO) released their legacy server, aptly named Old School Runescape, or simply Runescape 2007. This move has been a resounding success, enough that the developers even released a mobile version of the game. To this day, the server is just as popular as their Trammel style server.

As for UO I have always felt that the best legacy time period would be Publish 15, but tweaked to have the BOD system removed. Pub 15 was the end of classic UO as we knew it. Although by the end of that cycle PVP combat started becoming unhinged because of runic hammer weapons being so powerful. Publish 16 came and powerscrolls, while fun, broke the game to the point where it was either repeal them or scrap it [they scrapped it, hence AOS] 120 fencing was the most overpowered frustrating thing ever, every 3 out of 4 hits was a para blow, unless you had 120 parry to counter it, it was very broken.

A legacy server DOES NOT have to be static. We can do it just like Runescape, where any proposed new content has to get a 75%+ approval by the active community before new content is added.

So where do we draw the line for legacy vs new when it comes to UO? If you ask me. No expansion changed the game fundamentally in every aspect conceivable (aesthetics, combat, training, etc) like AoS did, and is the point where the Original UO died (and thus, any classic/legacy server should be pre AoS).

But even if they make a legacy shard, they can never bring back the people who made the game special at the time. The people and communities that made UO special for me are long gone, and I doubt a classic server would be enticing to bring them back. The idea of a classic, never changing server is boring to me. Sure they can toss in an EM or two to spice things up, but you'll essentially be locked into a time locked server. No custom housing, no post AOS artwork, etc. Unless added by an EM.

I am not you, and you are not me, and we are not them. What made classic UO great for you, is not what made it great for me, and isn't what made it great for them. The fact that countless unofficial classic servers (some which have more players than the official EA servers) can be found everywhere, speaks volumes to the potential player base. Also keep in mind, the game is 20 years old. There are people who are now in college that weren't even alive when UO came out. Let that sink in. An entire generation of gamers has been added to the population over the last 20 years. Gaming, in terms of popularity, has grown exponentially over the last decade (and retro gaming is a large subset of that).

 

[Riyana]

People say this like it's the simplest thing in the world. It's not.

First off, define "legacy server", because you'll be hard-pressed to find two people who agree exactly what that means.

Second off, fundamental chunks of the game have changed since then, and it's been stated multiple times that a lot of the old documentation was lost. It's not simply a matter of rolling back 80 or 90 or so publishes (depending on your definition of "classic server").

Thirdly, we have a tiny dev team that is already working with two clients and three (counting TC1) rulesets over twenty-eight (counting TC1) shards. They are already stretched very thin. This would stretch them even thinner AND further spread the current population (which is already a frequent complaint from players) with no guarantee of a worthwhile return on the time invested.

Basically, it's a big gamble. I am perfectly willing to criticize the dev team when they do things I think are wrong for the game, but I try to be realistic. Broadsword isn't Blizzard. Realistically, this would be a disproportionate expenditure of extremely limited resources for uncertain or mixed gain. Expending scant resources to further branch out and have to support ANOTHER shard and ruleset does not make sense. While I think that bold strategy is going to be needed for UO with EJ coming up, a new shard with another ruleset does not represent a logical risk.

As for third party shards: those don't run on the same code UO does--they run on emulators. Comparisons between those shards and official shards are completely off base--they may look alike, but under their hoods they are very different. Third party shards have the luxury of starting from scratch--Broadsword does not. No, not even with a new shard--because by the time you rebuild the whole game back to a state it has long left behind and for which by all reports they have inadequate documention, you might as well just build a new client. That's not realistic. There are so many things they could do to improve what they already have that would be better time investments than trying to rebuild the past.

 

[Blackie]

If most players won't even go to Fel what makes you think they'll go to a Fel only server? We have Siege too, no need to go adding any more dead official servers. Once Tram rolled out it spoiled the players and that can't be undone now, sadly.

I played from 98 to 2001 before switching games, it rocked in part because the notion of Trammel didn't exist but when Tram came out... many wouldn't ever go back. Sad really.

 

[Lady Storm]

Thank you Riyana ...
That was a very good explanation of exactly why it cant be done.
There is no guarantee of our population recovering enough players back from those emulated purloined shards.
I lost a full guild of over 250 guildmates to a 3rd party server.. all because of a dispute with the dev over crafters being over looked for the umpteenth time.
I had pointed out how many times they have publishes planed out a full year in advance... and that goes for gifts and rewards.. sometimes items can be fitted in.. but the general rule is its near set in stone. The guild took less then 3 months to disappear to this 3rd party shard... they still play there. I have tried to get them to return... they wont show.up back in uo.
There is no reason to leave there.. they got it better.
Sad thing is... we now got what they asked for.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I'm sorry but while you think 2500 people is amazing I'm not impressed

Not being argumentative, but that number I think is quite good for an alpha game. LOL
When is the last time UO had 2500 people logged on...I can't remember that far back!

 

[Lady Storm]

2500 well if you add up the groups on over half the shards for the invasion....we hit that easy...
People really liked that part.

 

[Old Vet Back Again]

If most players won't even go to Fel what makes you think they'll go to a Fel only server? We have Siege too, no need to go adding any more dead official servers. Once Tram rolled out it spoiled the players and that can't be undone now, sadly.

I played from 98 to 2001 before switching games, it rocked in part because the notion of Trammel didn't exist but when Tram came out... many wouldn't ever go back. Sad really.

Albion Online is a perfect example of a full loot game that had somewhere between 200k and 400k players. Why this is relevant is because the full loot game was basically a 'fel' rule set. It allowed character development in 'safe zones' but the true end game and character progression was in the fel rule set. Where 100% of your pack dropped at death.

So, based on those numbers that means there is a very large audience to tap into for that exact content.

I'm not going to argue anymore about the code because if free servers are doing it, UO can do it. There's really nothing more to say about it. Literally go take the code off a certain website make whatever adjustment are needed, open a server and you're done. This is a 1 person job. If a basement troll can do it, I would hope a 'paid professional' could do it...

 

[skittles1337]

2500 well if you add up the groups on over half the shards for the invasion....we hit that easy...
People really liked that part.

Lol ATL events maybe pull in 200-300 people max? I mean honestly I doubt there is 2500 people logged into UO at any given point anymore. I logged into all east coast shards during the invasion primetime on a weekend just to see what was what, honestly most shards had like 10-25 people, with the exception of ATL and GL both having over 50. If I add those up, assuming west coast shards fall within the 10-25 category I don't get ANYTHING remotely close to 2500 lol.

People say this like it's the simplest thing in the world. It's not.

First off, define "legacy server", because you'll be hard-pressed to find two people who agree exactly what that means.

Second off, fundamental chunks of the game have changed since then, and it's been stated multiple times that a lot of the old documentation was lost. It's not simply a matter of rolling back 80 or 90 or so publishes (depending on your definition of "classic server").

Thirdly, we have a tiny dev team that is already working with two clients and three (counting TC1) rulesets over twenty-eight (counting TC1) shards. They are already stretched very thin. This would stretch them even thinner AND further spread the current population (which is already a frequent complaint from players) with no guarantee of a worthwhile return on the time invested.

Basically, it's a big gamble. I am perfectly willing to criticize the dev team when they do things I think are wrong for the game, but I try to be realistic. Broadsword isn't Blizzard. Realistically, this would be a disproportionate expenditure of extremely limited resources for uncertain or mixed gain. Expending scant resources to further branch out and have to support ANOTHER shard and ruleset does not make sense. While I think that bold strategy is going to be needed for UO with EJ coming up, a new shard with another ruleset does not represent a logical risk.

I just don't think you guys get it, UO will never get a new player base "NEVER". EJ will not bring in new players, EJ is not bold it is basically free trials 2.0 and to be completely honest without substantial risk UO is going to fail in the near future 2-3 years. Some of you may be okay with this, I guess 20+ years is a good run. I personally would love UO to run forever, but with the current direction I don't see it being plausible. This is why you have to look back to the past players who still have a love for UO, but miss the specific era that made UO special.

 

[Riyana]

I'm not going to argue anymore about the code because if free servers are doing it, UO can do it. There's really nothing more to say about it. Literally go take the code off a certain website make whatever adjustment are needed, open a server and you're done. This is a 1 person job. If a basement troll can do it, I would hope a 'paid professional' could do it...

Except that, once again, this is completely wrong. Repeating something doesn't make it true.

The code on an emulator and the code in the actual game are not the same. It's not plug and play. To use that emulator code, they would have to have a base that could use that code. The "whatever adjustment" you refer to amounts to a near-total rebuild of the game from the ground up. That is not a one person job.

 

[Riyana]

I just don't think you guys get it, UO will never get a new player base "NEVER". EJ will not bring in new players, EJ is not bold it is basically free trials 2.0 and to be completely honest without substantial risk UO is going to fail in the near future 2-3 years. Some of you may be okay with this, I guess 20+ years is a good run. I personally would love UO to run forever, but with the current direction I don't see it being plausible. This is why you have to look back to the past players who still have a love for UO, but miss the specific era that made UO special.

I never said I thought Endless Journey would bring in new players. I said bold strategy was needed, not that it was in place. I said I don't think that a "classic server" is guaranteed to bring anyone in or back, is far more work than its proponents like to claim, and could do as much harm as good in the long run--therefore it is not a good investment of scarce resources.

What is needed to make Endless Journey a success--if indeed it can succeed at all--is a totally different topic.

 

[Boba]

Except that, once again, this is completely wrong. Repeating something doesn't make it true.

The code on an emulator and the code in the actual game are not the same. It's not plug and play. To use that emulator code, they would have to have a base that could use that code. The "whatever adjustment" you refer to amounts to a near-total rebuild of the game from the ground up. That is not a one person job.

Are you a programmer? Do you have any sort of technical background at all?

I'm asking because you're speaking as if you've seen the code itself, from both era's.

Working on legacy (spaghetti legacy) code is not fun, but it is doable, and it is 100% doable with one person. I've done it many times, and so have my colleagues.

 

[Boba]

Here's a good read for anyone that's interested in the technology that ran classic UO (warning: lots of technical jargon):

A Sandbox to Play In

 

[Riyana]

Are you a programmer? Do you have any sort of technical background at all?

I'm asking because you're speaking as if you've seen the code itself, from both era's.

Working on legacy (spaghetti legacy) code is not fun, but it is doable, and it is 100% doable with one person. I've done it many times, and so have my colleagues.

On a game with two clients, twenty-eight servers, and three rulesets?

I'm not a programmer, but I do work with programmers on the old (80s I believe) software that my workplace relies on. I know you can change it. You can change just about anything. And it's not a simple thing (or a one-person thing), at least not with what I work with. However, that's not quite the point.

As a programmer, in your professional opinion, are you telling me that one person who does not have the documentation from the earliest runs of UO (as it was famously lost) and who has two clients, twenty-eight other servers, and three rulesets to deal with, is likely to be able to take the original UO code, reverse or roll back 15+ years of changes, and/or use emulator code to create whatever was deemed suitable for a "classic server"? While also working on everything else going on in the rest of the game? What kind of time frame do you think such a project would take?

Is it impossible? I don't know, and I never said it was. I said it was more complicated and difficult than people want to present it as, and that I don't think it's worth the resources. I think there are other things they could do with their scant resources that would be far more impactful to all players. I have not seen the UO code, and neither presumably have you, but the people currently working with it daily keep giving a resounding "no" to classic servers. I doubt it's because they just aren't interested in bringing players back from third party shards.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Ah, someone trotted out the old classic server chestnut, complete with the unprovable build it and they will come! bullpancakes all based off of unverifiable free shard "stats."

This poor horse has been beaten so long that its corpse, much like the ancient UO code, no longer exists. (Newsflash: free shards DO NOT USE OSI-ORIGINATED SERVER CODE)

Two code bases and two clients are difficult enough for this team to maintain as it is. Demanding that they add a third, speculative base to appease a nostalgic few is simply delusional.

Seriously, how many producers have to repeat some variation of "its never going to happen" before it sinks in?

 

[Boba]

On a game with two clients, twenty-eight servers, and three rulesets?

Fixed that for you. There's no reason to try to use numbers that don't matter in an attempt to bolster your argument. With the exception of Mugen/Siege (if you want to talk about wasted resources, these shards should be at the top of the list), every single shard in the game runs on the same code as the next.

I'm not a programmer, but I do work with programmers on the old (80s I believe) software that my workplace relies on. I know you can change it. You can change just about anything. And it's not a simple thing (or a one-person thing), at least not with what I work with. However, that's not quite the point.

As a programmer, in your professional opinion, are you telling me that one person who does not have the documentation from the earliest runs of UO (as it was famously lost) and who has two clients, twenty-eight other servers, and three rulesets to deal with, is likely to be able to take the original UO code, reverse or roll back 15+ years of changes, and/or use emulator code to create whatever was deemed suitable for a "classic server"? While also working on everything else going on in the rest of the game? What kind of time frame do you think such a project would take?

That is EXACTLY what I'm telling you. What do you think us programmers get paid to do all day? Read documentation? LOL

You can be considered extremely lucky if the codebase you grandfather in comes with any sort of documentation at all. What happened with UO is very common (and so is no documentation). In that case, the code itself is the documentation. Most programmers have enough sense to leave comments within the code for more complicated bits.

Someone who has experience working with the technology stack that UO has (are they still running Wombat and Linux? not sure), combined with the plethora of tools and libraries developers have access to these days (decompiler/debugger/disassemblers/etc), can hammer out a rough draft "classic" server in a week. This is not an exaggeration either.

Someone with zero experience with UO's stack will obviously take longer, but by no means is it even close to "impossible". (I would give any bright intern a month to get a good grasp on the code base)

Is it impossible? I don't know, and I never said it was. I said it was more complicated and difficult than people want to present it as, and that I don't think it's worth the resources. I think there are other things they could do with their scant resources that would be far more impactful to all players.

See, here's the thing. To the layman -- the nonprogrammer -- it may appear complicated and difficult, sure. But if this what you get paid to do for 8-12+ hours a day, it is neither of the two, just tedious.

I have not seen the UO code, and neither presumably have you, but the people currently working with it daily keep giving a resounding "no" to classic servers. I doubt it's because they just aren't interested in bringing players back from third party shards.

They tell us "no" because it is ultimately not their decision. I bet if I dig hard enough, I can find them telling us "no" to f2p as well. Look where we are now!

 

[Boba]

Ah, someone trotted out the old classic server chestnut, complete with the unprovable build it and they will come! bullpancakes all based off of unverifiable free shard "stats."

This poor horse has been beaten so long that its corpse, much like the ancient UO code, no longer exists. (Newsflash: free shards DO NOT USE OSI-ORIGINATED SERVER CODE)

Two code bases and two clients are difficult enough for this team to maintain as it is. Demanding that they add a third, speculative base to appease a nostalgic few is simply delusional.

Seriously, how many producers have to repeat some variation of "its never going to happen" before it sinks in?

Or you know, we could just continue down the road we've traveled for the last 15 years. That's been working out great right?

 

[Dot_Warner]

Someone who has experience working with the technology stack that UO has (are they still running Wombat and Linux? not sure), combined with the plethora of tools and libraries developers have access to these days (decompiler/debugger/disassemblers/etc), can hammer out a rough draft "classic" server in a week. This is not an exaggeration either.

Who has experience with Wombat other than ex-devs and a few nameless interns? It was specific to Origin Systems.

If you have "experience" with it, MF'n APPLY for the engineer positions that has been open for THREE YEARS!

Otherwise STFU, armchair developer.

Or you know, we could just continue down the road we've traveled for the last 15 years. That's been working out great right?

Blame EA for that. UO wasn't even advertised for its 20th anniversary...nor its 15th. (No, obscure blogs visited by tens of internet users isn't satisfactory)

While I don't agree with the way many things have gone over the last two decades, I'm one of the more vocal Stratics users who will hold the dev's feat to the fire when they screw the pooch and attempt to slink into the shadows. But I also know that six whole people, four of whom do not code, couldn't possibly achieve the pie-in-the-sky DELUSION of recreating a "classic server" in a reasonable amount of time without letting the rest of the game rot for several months.

The complete SPECULATION that this would bring back "hordes" of old players simply isn't worth the effort.

And you know that.

 

[Boba]

Who has experience with Wombat other than ex-devs and a few nameless interns? It was specific to Origin Systems.

If you have "experience" with it, MF'n APPLY for the engineer positions that has been open for THREE YEARS!

Otherwise STFU, armchair developer.

Blame EA for that. UO wasn't even advertised for its 20th anniversary...nor its 15th. (No, obscure blogs visited by tens of internet users isn't satisfactory)

While I don't agree with the way many things have gone over the last two decades, I'm one of the more vocal Stratics users who will hold the dev's feat to the fire when they screw the pooch and attempt to slink into the shadows. But I also know that six whole people, four of whom do not code, couldn't possibly achieve the pie-in-the-sky DELUSION of recreating a "classic server" in a reasonable amount of time without letting the rest of the game rot for several months.

The complete SPECULATION that this would bring back "hordes" of old players simply isn't worth the effort.

And you know that.

Armchair developer? Why are you so hostile? If being an "armchair developer" is good enough to feed me and my family, then I'll stick with being an "armchair developer" until the day I retire.

The job opening that has been open for three years wants someone with a c++ background. Wanna know why? Because Wombat isn't some mystical alien language that is completely indecipherable to the human eye (maybe to the layman, as you clearly demonstrate that you are). It was written by another programmer (a human from earth, not an alien), based off of an existing programming language, C.
For you, and everyone else who is in the dark about programming languages: the logic behind any programming language is THE SAME.
Sure, the syntax can look completely different from language to language, but in the end, it all gets converted to byte code so that the machine can understand it.

Do you want to know why no one is applying for the job? It's because they don't allow remote work. I've actually inquired about it.
They want you on location, in that crap-hole of a town they HQ at, and for meager pay.
For me to work there, I would be taking a pay cut, a location cut, basically a cut to my overall quality of life.

Who in their right mind would do that?

 

[Polaris75]

EJ will not bring in new players, EJ is not bold it is basically free trials 2.0 and to be completely honest without substantial risk UO is going to fail in the near future 2-3 years. Some of you may be okay with this, I guess 20+ years is a good run. I personally would love UO to run forever, but with the current direction I don't see it being plausible. This is why you have to look back to the past players who still have a love for UO, but miss the specific era that made UO special.

I am afraid EJ is going to facilitate far more harm to UO than anyone has ever imagined. Everyone I have known to quit has done so because of hacks, cheats, and basement dwellers looking for another $10k in real life from "bots." EJ is going to allow people to make 10x 720 skill 6x 120 characters on every shard. Idoc bots will be undetectable... Multi bots will be everywhere getting event items (I don't care what Mesanna has said... she 'says' a lot...). I have said it 100 times. Scripters are bragging and licking their chops, and fine tuning their programs already. Trust me... I know...

EJ will be the death of UO.

Oh yea... and free servers are far more fun than OSI for the most part. Nobody there trying to make $$$ in real life.... OSI should be the best, but due to Devs, EMs, GMs, and Mesanna making friends with 'special' players and looking the other way... yea. It's like the wild west on OSI... and most players don't want to live there... so they quit. Sad but true. With the same players/people involved... nobody will return.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Armchair developer? Why are you so hostile? If being an "armchair developer" is good enough to feed me and my family, then I'll stick with being an "armchair developer" until the day I retire.

I'm "hostile" because this thread gets relitigated every three to four months months, mainly by the same few...people. The same exact asinine pleading/arguments/rationale for a "classic shard." Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over ad nauseum.

Calvin Crowner, the single most worthless sack of bones to ever hold the title of producer, should never have pretended to entertain the notion that a classic shard was ever in the cards. He strung players along for over a year with the fictitious notion the devs were ever going to go down that path. They'd known since the Redwood Shores move that the old assets were gone and that anything prior was irretrievable.

Even Draconi came on here, after EA boneheadedly fired him, to say there were no pre-pub-16 backups. NONE. Sadly, the Stratics staff two administrations ago decided to delete all his posts laying out the reasons for UO's woes. Its part of why I despise them so.

The job opening that has been open for three years wants someone with a c++ background. Wanna know why? Because Wombat isn't some mystical alien language that is completely indecipherable to the human eye (maybe to the layman, as you clearly demonstrate that you are). It was written by another programmer (a human from earth, not an alien), based off of an existing programming language, C.
For you, and everyone else who is in the dark about programming languages: the logic behind any programming language is THE SAME.
Sure, the syntax can look completely different from language to language, but in the end, it all gets converted to byte code so that the machine can understand it.

Do you want to know why no one is applying for the job? It's because they don't allow remote work. I've actually inquired about it.
They want you on location, in that crap-hole of a town they HQ at, and for meager pay.
For me to work there, I would be taking a pay cut, a location cut, basically a cut to my overall quality of life.

Who in their right mind would do that?

Thanks for knee-capping your own argument for me.

Wombat is a DEAD coding syntax. Only OSI used it. UO is the only thing left still using it. What modern game design graduate in their right mind wants to bother learning a dead language or risk hobbling their potential career for a 20yo, unadvertised, shrinking-by-the-day "M"MO? Apparently, none. (Yes, the fact that they want people to live/work IN Herndon is insanely myopic in an age where you can telecommute using a smart doorbell... I blame this on Mesanna's narcissistic need to control and micromanage everything into the ground.)

Working on UO, no intentional offense to Bleak or Kyronix, is a thanklessly dead-end job. Their boss is a control freak and too many luddite players won't let UO be drug into the 21st Century for spurious "reasons."

At the same time, that isn't an excuse to dwell in 2002.

 

[Boba]

I'm "hostile" because this thread gets relitigated every three to four months months, mainly by the same few...people. The same exact asinine pleading/arguments/rationale for a "classic shard." Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over ad nauseum.

Calvin Crowner, the single most worthless sack of bones to ever hold the title of producer, should never have pretended to entertain the notion that a classic shard was ever in the cards. He strung players along for over a year with the fictitious notion the devs were ever going to go down that path. They'd known since the Redwood Shores move that the old assets were gone and that anything prior was irretrievable.

Even Draconi came on here, after EA boneheadedly fired him, to say there were no pre-pub-16 backups. NONE. Sadly, the Stratics staff two administrations ago decided to delete all his posts laying out the reasons for UO's woes. Its part of why I despise them so.

So because a certain topic triggers you (one that is not offensive, nor controversial in anyway), it's justification for you to be hostile? Are you depressed? They have medication for that.

There's a very good reason the topic was brought up this time.
When the king of MMO's does something as drastic as releasing a legacy server, you can bet every other game in the industry is likely to follow suit.
In this case, WoW is late to the party. Same thing with UO, we'll eventually get there. We are just later than the rest for whatever reason.
But they all copy each other in the end.

Thanks for knee-capping your own argument for me.

Wombat is a DEAD coding syntax. Only OSI used it. UO is the only thing left still using it. What modern game design graduate in their right mind wants to bother learning a dead language or risk hobbling their potential career for a 20yo, unadvertised, shrinking-by-the-day "M"MO? Apparently, none. (Yes, the fact that they want people to live/work IN Herndon is insanely myopic in an age where you can telecommute using a smart doorbell... I blame this on Mesanna's narcissistic need to control and micromanage everything into the ground.)

Working on UO, no intentional offense to Bleak or Kyronix, is a thanklessly dead-end job. Their boss is a control freak and too many luddite players won't let UO be drug into the 21st Century for spurious "reasons."

At the same time, that isn't an excuse to dwell in 2002.

It is clear that the programming industry is not something you are familiar with, and i'm not even gonna bother trying to educate you on the topic of custom, in-house languages.

 

[Dot_Warner]

So because a certain topic triggers you (one that is not offensive, nor controversial in anyway), it's justification for you to be hostile? Are you depressed? They have medication for that.

Depressed that many humans live in an alternate reality where asking for the same thing repeatedly for over a decade will magically change the answer? Yeahsureyoubetcha.

There's a very good reason the topic was brought up this time.
When the king of MMO's does something as drastic as releasing a legacy server, you can bet every other game in the industry is likely to follow suit.
In this case, WoW is late to the party. Same thing with UO, we'll eventually get there. We are just later than the rest for whatever reason.
But they all copy each other in the end.

WoW has millions of players. WoW generates nearly a billion dollars a year. WoW has money, literally, to burn. They also probably have actual backups of various publishes over the years . UO maybe grosses $8m a year (assuming 50k subscribers paying 12 months/year at $12.99, rounded up 206K for store purchases and wiggle room)

While UO has clearly made the mistake of building new client versions from old builds at least twice in recent memory. (as every fix they'd had in a previous publish mysteriously vanished after the next) UO has neither the time, the money, the manpower, nor the realistic subscriber pressure to even consider mounting such an undertaking. The closest you will get is Siege.

Could that change? Maybe? But I doubt it will be anytime soon, if ever.

It is clear that the programming industry is not something you are familiar with, and i'm not even gonna bother trying to educate you on the topic of custom, in-house languages.

Nor would I ask you to, oh random interwebs stranger, when I had the chance to ask those who created the damn thing a little over a month ago. Since LB lamented the decision to make it custom. Meh.

UO doesn't have the resources for a third server base, or the third retro CC client that would, by definition, be required to satisfy the "classic" motif.

Classic sharders are really just peeing into the wind again.

 

[MalagAste]

Personally I'd rather the DEVs spent more time figuring out how to bring back community and get away from this selfish greed they have been feeding for the last several years than wasting their time trying to bring back an era that was bad for the game... it has been proven over and over again that UO:R was needed and actually allowed UO to grow rather than dwindle and die.

While I'd like to go back to a pre-AoS time I know that's never going to happen. I've moved on... we are now stuck with what we've been given... which is power creep... up mobs then up armor/weapons etc...

No I'd rather we moved forward...

 

[Boba]

Depressed that many humans live in an alternate reality where asking for the same thing repeatedly for over a decade will magically change the answer? Yeahsureyoubetcha.



WoW has millions of players. WoW generates nearly a billion dollars a year. WoW has money, literally, to burn. They also probably have actual backups of various publishes over the years . UO maybe grosses $8m a year (assuming 50k subscribers paying 12 months/year at $12.99, rounded up 206K for store purchases and wiggle room)

While UO has clearly made the mistake of building new client versions from old builds at least twice in recent memory. (as every fix they'd had in a previous publish mysteriously vanished after the next)

UO has neither the time, the money, nor the realistic subscriber pressure to even consider mounting such an undertaking. The closest you will get is Siege.

Could that change? Maybe? But I doubt it will be anytime soon, if ever.

So you're saying, this is a complete waste of time and money for WoW -- that their analysts have concluded that the profits aren't there, but they should do it anyway to burn money.

You're saying there are zero avenues for investors and UO can't get the funding, because there is absolutely zero potential for profit.

Well there you have it folks! Dot_Warner pulling info from his ass is as good as gold. We can lock this thread and go home now. Other random internet stranger has spoken!

 

[Boba]

Personally I'd rather the DEVs spent more time figuring out how to bring back community and get away from this selfish greed they have been feeding for the last several years than wasting their time trying to bring back an era that was bad for the game... it has been proven over and over again that UO:R was needed and actually allowed UO to grow rather than dwindle and die.

While I'd like to go back to a pre-AoS time I know that's never going to happen. I've moved on... we are now stuck with what we've been given... which is power creep... up mobs then up armor/weapons etc...

No I'd rather we moved forward...

Can you please provide this proof that you speak of? I am highly interested in reading it. Because the way I see it, is we'll never know what really would have happened if they had not gone through with the split.

What we do know however, is exactly what happened after the split through now: the game has been slowly dwindling and dying, as you succinctly described. That means Trammel was also a failure, as time has proven.