BrianFreud
Lore Keeper, Wiki Maker, & Doer of Crazy Things
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Wiki Editor
Hi everyone,
My wife tells me that quite a few people have been trying to get in touch lately, as my houses were falling. Thanks for that.
I made a conscious decision to step away from UO several months back. I had to reset my credit card number, and found I couldn't log into the account management system for any of my accounts. Some change in either the client or wine also made it so the client wouldn't load anymore. But before I spent time trying to fix either issue, I thought about it, and realized that for the past couple of years, pretty much since the anniversary party in DC, UO's just felt more and more like work to me. I'd step away for a few weeks, then come back and spend hours, mostly just updating the wiki with the latest rares, posting here for their names, then going and finding them to add to the wiki.
For a while, I managed to keep myself interested by rewriting the wiki's Atlas code. It had been broken when we upgraded the wiki; it works now. I then went through and was working on mapping out the spawn for everywhere. If I recall correctly, Ilshenar is mostly done. You can see an example here: Atlas/Ilshenar/Anordkor Tereg - Stratics Community Wiki Hover over any mob's name in the list on the left to see exactly where they spawn on that map. And rather than manually updating the Hunter's Guide with where mobs spawn (which updating never has actually happened, so a lot of that is 5 to 15 year old info), adding a mob's spawning to the map auto-updates that mob's entry in the Hunter's Guide.
(For future reference, if anyone wants to add to that info, load any atlas page, then hit:
* Ctrl-o to show all grid cell IDs
* Ctrl-up to increase the cell ID font sizes
* Ctrl-down to decrease the cell ID font sizes )
Ctrl-o will also add a box above the map where you can generate the code to dump into the wiki to highlight the selected areas.)
Problem is, once I'd worked out all the technical issues to make all that work, I was back to just grinding data to get it into the wiki.
I've fought just about every mob, done every quest, cleared every dungeon, etc. at least a thousand times. I've been everywhere in the game, even incredibly inaccessible hidden places, over and over. I've searched and seen just about every rare item - and of the couple hundred I've not, I would have to say most likely don't exist any more. I had assembled and crafted beyond top end armor and pets. I've owned, held, and spent countless tens of platinum. (I also seemed to encounter just about every housing bug that ever happened, on accounts that were fully paid, and lost quite a few houses, including my entre rubble, EM cloak, and gift box collections. )
But the UO of today just doesn't have the magic for me anymore. I kept trying to find things that would feel like what had brought me to the game, but especially as old friends began to die off in RL, let alone those who just quit, that got harder and harder. I had hoped that the big announcement at the 20th anniversary would be huge, but letting people come play for free wasn't quite the actual solid content I was hoping for. Same for the events that followed; they were fun for a short while, but they weren't permanent things. When they then came back a year or so ago for a rerun, I realized how bored I was even of them.
For a couple of years, I told myself that I'd just sell everything that was left off. I even tried cleaning house and vendoring stuff. But really, there was so much of it, and so much that was high enough value to need auctions, rather than vendors, what I really needed was... well, Hidden Valley auctions. But noone had taken that kind of role up once I stopped having the time, so it all just stayed piled up.
My kids are now growing up. Work had already sucked up a huge amount of my time even before COVID hit, such that I really could only even get on the computer for a couple of hours on the weekends. Also, working overnight as I do, meant that even for my friends here who were still playing, I never was on when they were. You know what? You guys are what made this game fun to play even long after the game itself grew boring. When COVID hit, my work went from 40 hour weeks to 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, and my free time completely disappeared. The few minutes a day I get anymore to do anything other than work or sleep, I try to spend those with my kids.
I'd been keeping 5 accounts going, monthly, for at least a year and a half, while never actually logging in more than a couple of minutes a month to make sure the houses were still there. So with the account and other issues, I made the decision that it was time to just let it all go. Let the IDOCers have one big party, let the stuff just go. I'll miss my friends who were still left here, but it was time to move on. I hope some of you got some nice stuff from the houses when they fell.
Anyhow, thanks for reading. If anyone wants to get in touch, I'm on Discord at brianfreud#3227
Brian
PS: I hope folks are still keeping the wiki updated. It was a labor of love for many years; it'd be nice to know that it's still updated and accurate, even after I'm gone.
My wife tells me that quite a few people have been trying to get in touch lately, as my houses were falling. Thanks for that.
I made a conscious decision to step away from UO several months back. I had to reset my credit card number, and found I couldn't log into the account management system for any of my accounts. Some change in either the client or wine also made it so the client wouldn't load anymore. But before I spent time trying to fix either issue, I thought about it, and realized that for the past couple of years, pretty much since the anniversary party in DC, UO's just felt more and more like work to me. I'd step away for a few weeks, then come back and spend hours, mostly just updating the wiki with the latest rares, posting here for their names, then going and finding them to add to the wiki.
For a while, I managed to keep myself interested by rewriting the wiki's Atlas code. It had been broken when we upgraded the wiki; it works now. I then went through and was working on mapping out the spawn for everywhere. If I recall correctly, Ilshenar is mostly done. You can see an example here: Atlas/Ilshenar/Anordkor Tereg - Stratics Community Wiki Hover over any mob's name in the list on the left to see exactly where they spawn on that map. And rather than manually updating the Hunter's Guide with where mobs spawn (which updating never has actually happened, so a lot of that is 5 to 15 year old info), adding a mob's spawning to the map auto-updates that mob's entry in the Hunter's Guide.
(For future reference, if anyone wants to add to that info, load any atlas page, then hit:
* Ctrl-o to show all grid cell IDs
* Ctrl-up to increase the cell ID font sizes
* Ctrl-down to decrease the cell ID font sizes )
Ctrl-o will also add a box above the map where you can generate the code to dump into the wiki to highlight the selected areas.)
Problem is, once I'd worked out all the technical issues to make all that work, I was back to just grinding data to get it into the wiki.
I've fought just about every mob, done every quest, cleared every dungeon, etc. at least a thousand times. I've been everywhere in the game, even incredibly inaccessible hidden places, over and over. I've searched and seen just about every rare item - and of the couple hundred I've not, I would have to say most likely don't exist any more. I had assembled and crafted beyond top end armor and pets. I've owned, held, and spent countless tens of platinum. (I also seemed to encounter just about every housing bug that ever happened, on accounts that were fully paid, and lost quite a few houses, including my entre rubble, EM cloak, and gift box collections.
)But the UO of today just doesn't have the magic for me anymore. I kept trying to find things that would feel like what had brought me to the game, but especially as old friends began to die off in RL, let alone those who just quit, that got harder and harder. I had hoped that the big announcement at the 20th anniversary would be huge, but letting people come play for free wasn't quite the actual solid content I was hoping for. Same for the events that followed; they were fun for a short while, but they weren't permanent things. When they then came back a year or so ago for a rerun, I realized how bored I was even of them.
For a couple of years, I told myself that I'd just sell everything that was left off. I even tried cleaning house and vendoring stuff. But really, there was so much of it, and so much that was high enough value to need auctions, rather than vendors, what I really needed was... well, Hidden Valley auctions. But noone had taken that kind of role up once I stopped having the time, so it all just stayed piled up.
My kids are now growing up. Work had already sucked up a huge amount of my time even before COVID hit, such that I really could only even get on the computer for a couple of hours on the weekends. Also, working overnight as I do, meant that even for my friends here who were still playing, I never was on when they were. You know what? You guys are what made this game fun to play even long after the game itself grew boring. When COVID hit, my work went from 40 hour weeks to 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, and my free time completely disappeared. The few minutes a day I get anymore to do anything other than work or sleep, I try to spend those with my kids.
I'd been keeping 5 accounts going, monthly, for at least a year and a half, while never actually logging in more than a couple of minutes a month to make sure the houses were still there. So with the account and other issues, I made the decision that it was time to just let it all go. Let the IDOCers have one big party, let the stuff just go. I'll miss my friends who were still left here, but it was time to move on. I hope some of you got some nice stuff from the houses when they fell.
Anyhow, thanks for reading. If anyone wants to get in touch, I'm on Discord at brianfreud#3227
Brian
PS: I hope folks are still keeping the wiki updated. It was a labor of love for many years; it'd be nice to know that it's still updated and accurate, even after I'm gone.
.
