Ultima Online API and addons for the Classic Client

[QwertyEuropa]

I cant imagine many people would argue with the statement that the functions for the Classic Client are incredibly limited compared to functions for the Enhanced Client. UOAssist homepage shows the last update was from 2018 and as a program its extremely limited, ugly and outdared.... but is still being used by a lot of the playerbase. UOAM was last updated in 2004 but a lot of people still use it.

Is the API (Application Programming Interface ) not accessible for making in-game addons and functions like other MMO's do? An example of the kind of thing I'm talking about is an addon called WeakAura for World of Warcraft, it's community run, free to download and versatile. Its used to create additions to the user interface that players can customise to make information gathering clearer and quicker.
Is thing kind of thing possible for the Classic Client and if not... why not? An example of this for CC would be for me to have timers for potion cooldowns, buff durations and weapon swings,a tracker what target my pet was currently attacking or a neatly UO themed movable window showing how many potions/regs/bandages I had in my bag.

It seems be an area what Ultima Online is behind the "competition"..... one of the only area's its behind the competition in my opinion though, game design is impeccable, DEV communication and dedication is off the charts! Seriously.... go make a World of Warcraft account and try to talk to a GM/Developer. I'm not sure all of the UO player base know have spoilt they are to have EM's and Dev's that care and are so involved in the game. I also genuinely think Ultima Online is one of the best MMORPG's available to play.

Edit: Going to add a comment I made bellow here since I think it encapsulates a problem that I see which macroing/scripting.
The way third party software interacts with the client is different than an ingame addon. In my opinion UOAssist, and simular programs, implement functions that are detrimental to the game and also incites a "grey area" of where the boundaries lie.

 

[Stinky Pete]

 

[GarthGrey]

I cant imagine many people would argue with the statement that the functions for the Classic Client are incredibly limited compared to functions for the Enhanced Client. UOAssist homepage shows the last update was from 2018 and as a program its extremely limited, ugly and outdared.... but is still being used by a lot of the playerbase. UOAM was last updated in 2004 but a lot of people still use it.

Is the API (Application Programming Interface ) not accessible for making in-game addons and functions like other MMO's do? An example of the kind of thing I'm talking about is an addon called WeakAura for World of Warcraft, it's community run, free to download and versatile. Its used to create additions to the user interface that players can customise to make information gathering clearer and quicker.
Is thing kind of thing possible for the Classic Client and if not... why not? An example of this for CC would be for me to have timers for potion cooldowns, buff durations and weapon swings... or be able to track what target my pet was currently attacking.

It seems be an area what Ultima Online is behind the "competition"..... one of the only area's its behind the competition in my opinion though, game design is impeccable, DEV communication and dedication is off the charts! Seriously.... go make a World of Warcraft account and try to talk to a GM/Developer. I'm not sure all of the UO player base know have spoilt they are to have EM's and Dev's that care and are so involved in the game. I also genuinely think Ultima Online is one of the best MMORPG's available to play.

Go to any shards Fandancer Dojo, and you'll see that UO is nowhere near behind the competition when it comes to its Classic Clients uncanny abilities.

 

[QwertyEuropa]

Go to any shards Fandancer Dojo, and you'll see that UO is nowhere near behind the competition when it comes to its Classic Clients uncanny abilities.

So this is part of the problem that I see, Broadsword previously accepted UOAssist from Tugsoft and allowed them to be recognised. This is a third party software that interacts with the client..... which is completely different to what I am suggesting. This is why most MMORPG's allow addon's, its so that they can identify third party softwares as against Terms of Service and combat them more effectively while fully allowing addons to function within ToS by managing the information they have access to.

I want the ability to personalise the information that UO gives me. I dont want anyone to be allowed to use any form of macroing or scripting, I dont even like the idea of having keybinds being done on a third party software. At the moment the player base is encouraged to use programs like UOAssist because there is no alternative but the way that UOAssist and third party softwares interact with the client is easy to abuse. I want to stop this.

 

[Xris]

I cant imagine many people would argue with the statement that the functions for the Classic Client are incredibly limited compared to functions for the Enhanced Client. UOAssist homepage shows the last update was from 2018 and as a program its extremely limited, ugly and outdared.... but is still being used by a lot of the playerbase. UOAM was last updated in 2004 but a lot of people still use it.

Is the API (Application Programming Interface ) not accessible for making in-game addons and functions like other MMO's do? An example of the kind of thing I'm talking about is an addon called WeakAura for World of Warcraft, it's community run, free to download and versatile. Its used to create additions to the user interface that players can customise to make information gathering clearer and quicker.
Is thing kind of thing possible for the Classic Client and if not... why not? An example of this for CC would be for me to have timers for potion cooldowns, buff durations and weapon swings... or be able to track what target my pet was currently attacking.

It seems be an area what Ultima Online is behind the "competition"..... one of the only area's its behind the competition in my opinion though, game design is impeccable, DEV communication and dedication is off the charts! Seriously.... go make a World of Warcraft account and try to talk to a GM/Developer. I'm not sure all of the UO player base know have spoilt they are to have EM's and Dev's that care and are so involved in the game. I also genuinely think Ultima Online is one of the best MMORPG's available to play.

I find the dev's on WoW to be much more helpful. If something is truly broken they seem to fix it within hours to days. I'm sure its because of their huge staff, but their Auction house almost never crashes, economies are semi stable due to gold sinks,and it's rare to find someone hacking. Maybe these are just things that matter to me.

Sent from my SM-J337VPP using Tapatalk

 

[QwertyEuropa]

I find the dev's on WoW to be much more helpful. If something is truly broken they seem to fix it within hours to days. I'm sure its because of their huge staff, but their Auction house almost never crashes, economies are semi stable due to gold sinks,and it's rare to find someone hacking. Maybe these are just things that matter to me.

Yeah having more dedicated code development, debugging, maintenance staff would obviously be of benefit that but that costs money. Part of why addon's are good is because the game developers dont have to spend as much time developing their own interfaces because they know that the community will create different ways to access the same information. I would argue that most people use an auction house addon rather than using the default blizzard UI. Vendor search being the UO version, wouldnt you like to be able to customise your Vendor Search window, maybe add in a favorite searches list or a "daily price check" button? That kind of stuff costs coding time... coding time that I'd prefer the Dev team spend on making content.
Popular community addons in other games often have teams to develop personalised versions of in-game functions, so naturally they can take more time to make and add functions.

 

[petemage]

So this is part of the problem that I see, Broadsword previously accepted UOAssist from Tugsoft and allowed them to be recognised. This is a third party software that interacts with the client..... which is completely different to what I am suggesting. This is why most MMORPG's allow addon's, its so that they can identify third party softwares as against Terms of Service and combat them more effectively while fully allowing addons to function within ToS by managing the information they have access to.

I want the ability to personalise the information that UO gives me. I dont want anyone to be allowed to use any form of macroing or scripting, I dont even like the idea of having keybinds being done on a third party software. At the moment the player base is encouraged to use programs like UOAssist because there is no alternative but the way that UOAssist and third party softwares interact with the client is easy to abuse. I want to stop this.

Just when the CC was designed, nobody knew about that. And the tools like UOAssist are from an era where modding wasn't a thing.

There EC has all the modding support you are asking for, just no proper modding community around it.

The developers these days however keep adding stuff that is not properly moddable in the EC, but a streamlined version that works in both clients. Usually lacking in functionality what EC users are used to.

So go figure how likely it is that they extend on modding support. Just use those tools every other bob seems to use

 

[QwertyEuropa]

Very unlikely. As you say, the CC is probably written with a suboptimal API for modern standards.

Maybe the EC being made to be tolerable for my eyes is the answer then?

 

[MalagAste]

So this is part of the problem that I see, Broadsword previously accepted UOAssist from Tugsoft and allowed them to be recognised. This is a third party software that interacts with the client..... which is completely different to what I am suggesting. This is why most MMORPG's allow addon's, its so that they can identify third party softwares as against Terms of Service and combat them more effectively while fully allowing addons to function within ToS by managing the information they have access to.

I want the ability to personalise the information that UO gives me. I dont want anyone to be allowed to use any form of macroing or scripting, I dont even like the idea of having keybinds being done on a third party software. At the moment the player base is encouraged to use programs like UOAssist because there is no alternative but the way that UOAssist and third party softwares interact with the client is easy to abuse. I want to stop this.

The EC is built to allow the user to do just that... it's designed to be moded... which is why many players use the EC with Pinco's UI because Pinco puts a ton of work into his mod...

 

[Xris]

Very unlikely. As you say, the CC is probably written with a suboptimal API for modern standards.

Maybe the EC being made to be tolerable for my eyes is the answer then?

Yes!

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[Spartan]

So this is part of the problem that I see, Broadsword previously accepted UOAssist from Tugsoft and allowed them to be recognised. This is a third party software that interacts with the client..... which is completely different to what I am suggesting. This is why most MMORPG's allow addon's, its so that they can identify third party softwares as against Terms of Service and combat them more effectively while fully allowing addons to function within ToS by managing the information they have access to.

I want the ability to personalise the information that UO gives me. I dont want anyone to be allowed to use any form of macroing or scripting, I dont even like the idea of having keybinds being done on a third party software. At the moment the player base is encouraged to use programs like UOAssist because there is no alternative but the way that UOAssist and third party softwares interact with the client is easy to abuse. I want to stop this.

UOA was approved for use because it did not disrupt the datastream from server to client. Speedhacks DID disrupt and were not officially allowed.

I understand what you want to do to personalize YOUR experience, so as others have suggested ... EC with Pincos UI should get you pretty close.