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    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

Return of UOX Stratics is incoming.

Nexus

Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
For those of you who have been around a while, you may dimly recognize UOX Stratics. Stratics was one of the early supporters of the Ultima Online Emulation movement back when such programs as UOX3 were the most popular Emulation software available. Things have changed greatly since then in the world of UO emulation, and judging from conversations and comments in the Opt-In Unleashed section on Stratics it has become apparent that a sizable portion of our active community members either do or have in the past spent some considerable time playing on non-Official servers. Since we have no official ties to Broadsword or the Ultima Online team and haven't for a few years now, it has been increasingly hard to justify not allowing a place for discussion of Freeshards in light of this information.

There are a few expectations and they will be encouraged and if necessary rigorously enforced.
  • We expect all our community members to be civil outside the Opt-In only Unleashed forum.
  • The new forums will fall under the current RoC with one exception. There will be a forum for 3rd Party Ultilities/Clients available. In this forum you can ask for help with and discuss 3rd party utilities and clients with only one reservation. Many of the 3rd party utilities include some type of basic scripting functions. You may not share, or assist others in writing or obtaining scripts. For this purpose a script is defined as, "A program or script that runs inside a program or utility, designed to automate a process with the intent of or result in giving one player an unfair advantage over another". As you can see this goes well beyond creating macros, and we will be strictly enforcing this rule.​
  • We expect there to be no bashing back and forth over which is "better" Official or Un-Official servers. Discussing the merits of each is fine, but as was said before we expect civility.​

Currently we plan to have these forums open to the public starting Next Week. We hope you all enjoy these new forums.
 

Stinky Pete

Babbling Loonie
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
Another step in the right direction. Great job Stratics team! I have a two very similar questions:

Are the rules of conduct changing so I could potentially say, "I use *name of 3rd party utility* to do that, it works really well" in response to a question involving macros?

Could I say, "*name of freeshard* has that particular feature" in response to a feature suggestion?
 

DreadLord Lestat

Forum Moderator
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Social Media Liaison
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
The RoC for the rest of the UO forums will stay as is.
 

Xuri

Visitor
Fun stuff :) UOX welcomes the homage to the olden days, back when Stratics hosted both the website, IRC channel and "House of Commons" chat for UOX :p
 

Nexus

Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Considering the UOX3 project is alive and kicking and we wouldn't want to cause confusing the section has been renamed to UOEmu Stratics.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
looks like im going to need to finally go join the unleashed forum.
oh wait, no, its gonna be a new forum called UOX.
k, gotcha, ill look for when that pops up.
 

Stinky Pete

Babbling Loonie
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
looks like im going to need to finally go join the unleashed forum.
oh wait, no, its gonna be a new forum called UOX.
k, gotcha, ill look for when that pops up.
It's been there for a while now bro.
 

DreadLord Lestat

Forum Moderator
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Social Media Liaison
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
looks like im going to need to finally go join the unleashed forum.
oh wait, no, its gonna be a new forum called UOX.
k, gotcha, ill look for when that pops up.
We actually changed the name due to a potential conflict with existing named website but as @Stinky Pete said, it has been up for a while.

You can scroll down on the main forum listing or take this link. UOEmu Stratics
 

Destinie Moon

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Glad to see the contribution to some of the great work and dedication that the free shards have put in also be able to share and talk here. I used to play on a few here and there but sadly those had died. but i always still played on paid UO too lol..
 

El of LA

Babbling Loonie
Reporter
Professional
Premium
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
I am truly delighted to hear that finally, after decades, Stratics will be able to bring ALL UO-type game players under the umbrella of Stratics.com. It is time for this.

Most readers won't know me, but I was the UO AE of Stratics for a while in the mid-late 2000's, and then a VP of Stratics for a time when we tried to make it a successful business under the leadership of Taylor Smith. All of this was unpaid, and my long days online talking to people around the globe who helped report the news, lack of "just play" time, and troll-hits were given and taken for the love the game. We had huge, intimate, ties to EA and companies that owned the Ultima Online franchise. Many of our own, Stratics-trained moderators and administrators, went on to become EA and other game company developers and staff. Many of the devs we spoke with when putting together databases and descriptions of UO gameplay were people who started out at Stratics!

For these ties we were gifted with exceptional access and some inside ability to pick the minds of the developers to help us with our documentation work and databases. This benefitted all the UO players, but we couldn't include any mention of a freeshard or a freeshard community. We knew that we had to exclude them because of our unique history and business ties, but in our minds we always knew that the UO community was greater than what we serviced. As UO AE, then a VP of HR, I also kept myself 'clean.' I never have in all those years put a freeshard or non-UO-approved app on any device of mine, or played on one. It was what was necessary and proper for our relationship to our founders, Richard Garriott, Starr Long, and the 'parent' company that we had been created by. It is not, now, a requirement for Stratics! We were jettisoned from our ties, sometimes brutally, sometimes gently. Stratics 'went under' mutliple times trying to stand on its own after our ties were cut. The people who run Stratics today are hard-working, long-suffering, and all of them have been through a brutal test of gaming website survival. I celebrate everyone who has given their time and talent to this website and its survival.

I hope that bringing in freeshards to Stratics will make our great community even greater, and that finally, after all this time, all the whispers behind the scenes can become fully-expressed in a community that simply loves the game and celebrates its history - all of its history.

You will find me still paying to play, but I'm delighted that our community is extended to include us all.

-- El

For those of you who have been around a while, you may dimly recognize UOX Stratics. Stratics was one of the early supporters of the Ultima Online Emulation movement back when such programs as UOX3 were the most popular Emulation software available. Things have changed greatly since then in the world of UO emulation, and judging from conversations and comments in the Opt-In Unleashed section on Stratics it has become apparent that a sizable portion of our active community members either do or have in the past spent some considerable time playing on non-Official servers. Since we have no official ties to Broadsword or the Ultima Online team and haven't for a few years now, it has been increasingly hard to justify not allowing a place for discussion of Freeshards in light of this information.

There are a few expectations and they will be encouraged and if necessary rigorously enforced.
  • We expect all our community members to be civil outside the Opt-In only Unleashed forum.
  • The new forums will fall under the current RoC with one exception. There will be a forum for 3rd Party Ultilities/Clients available. In this forum you can ask for help with and discuss 3rd party utilities and clients with only one reservation. Many of the 3rd party utilities include some type of basic scripting functions. You may not share, or assist others in writing or obtaining scripts. For this purpose a script is defined as, "A program or script that runs inside a program or utility, designed to automate a process with the intent of or result in giving one player an unfair advantage over another". As you can see this goes well beyond creating macros, and we will be strictly enforcing this rule.​
  • We expect there to be no bashing back and forth over which is "better" Official or Un-Official servers. Discussing the merits of each is fine, but as was said before we expect civility.​

Currently we plan to have these forums open to the public starting Next Week. We hope you all enjoy these new forums.
 

tr1age

Adventurer
I am truly delighted to hear that finally, after decades, Stratics will be able to bring ALL UO-type game players under the umbrella of Stratics.com. It is time for this.

Most readers won't know me, but I was the UO AE of Stratics for a while in the mid-late 2000's, and then a VP of Stratics for a time when we tried to make it a successful business under the leadership of Taylor Smith. All of this was unpaid, and my long days online talking to people around the globe who helped report the news, lack of "just play" time, and troll-hits were given and taken for the love the game. We had huge, intimate, ties to EA and companies that owned the Ultima Online franchise. Many of our own, Stratics-trained moderators and administrators, went on to become EA and other game company developers and staff. Many of the devs we spoke with when putting together databases and descriptions of UO gameplay were people who started out at Stratics!

For these ties we were gifted with exceptional access and some inside ability to pick the minds of the developers to help us with our documentation work and databases. This benefitted all the UO players, but we couldn't include any mention of a freeshard or a freeshard community. We knew that we had to exclude them because of our unique history and business ties, but in our minds we always knew that the UO community was greater than what we serviced. As UO AE, then a VP of HR, I also kept myself 'clean.' I never have in all those years put a freeshard or non-UO-approved app on any device of mine, or played on one. It was what was necessary and proper for our relationship to our founders, Richard Garriott, Starr Long, and the 'parent' company that we had been created by. It is not, now, a requirement for Stratics! We were jettisoned from our ties, sometimes brutally, sometimes gently. Stratics 'went under' mutliple times trying to stand on its own after our ties were cut. The people who run Stratics today are hard-working, long-suffering, and all of them have been through a brutal test of gaming website survival. I celebrate everyone who has given their time and talent to this website and its survival.

I hope that bringing in freeshards to Stratics will make our great community even greater, and that finally, after all this time, all the whispers behind the scenes can become fully-expressed in a community that simply loves the game and celebrates its history - all of its history.

You will find me still paying to play, but I'm delighted that our community is extended to include us all.

-- El
We have been here for a few years now(this original post was in 2021)! And are very grateful to be able to be. Stratics is what brought us all together back then and continues to to this day!
 
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