[UO Herald] New Client Open Beta

[Petra Fyde]

*doesn't re-activate subscription*

I'm glad you are able to draw such an informed conclusion from reading here and seeing screen prints, it's so hard to actually test it yourself without an active subscription.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I'm glad you are able to draw such an informed conclusion from reading here and seeing screen prints, it's so hard to actually test it yourself without an active subscription.

Never mind that, they compared it to the "3d" client...

 

[Der Rock]

With the release of UO’s 8th expansion pack around the corner we thought we’d give the community just a glimmer of the technology that’s been under development.

ok,from my side, 3 accounts open atm.
Dev´s it is a good start.many things i still missing,but i hope you fix it SOON.

Modders where are you? we need you.
give us as fast as possible BBE for SA

 

[Harb]

So Cal let me get this straight, you publicly announce beta testers - irking those not chosen. Then begin a ToT program wherein the "most sought" item is incredibly rare - causing a number of the chosen testers to abandon testing IAW with posts here by many of them. And BTW, irking more folks. Now you want the client tested more broadly - without the content. And we're moving further along the event arch at the same time. I remain in a state of disbelief.

 

[StifledArgument]

Well, I liked KR when it came out, the graphics were ok not great (a little blurry and the problems with things stacked high not showing up was not good), but I liked what they did with the UI and the ability to easily target yourself and make a certain amount of things through the crafting menus.

I know it is a beta, but I am not happy right now. I don't like having to make a macro for everything and I REALLY don't like that you can not make a certain number of items anymore, for BODS or for useable items (like skillets, tongs, etc; ). Which means I have to go and either a. get carpal tunnel or b. get UO Assist (which I have never had the need to use, when I was younger hitting the same button 500 times was no big deal - but now that I work in IT for 14 hours a day it is a big deal). There are a lot of blinking graphics, my braziers, fountains, etc; blink in and out like a bad acid trip.

I do like the look of the map and everything, but otherwise...not too happy. I will report what I find, but I don't know if anything will be done.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Please read Draconi's comments in this thread:
http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=140569&highlight=menu

 

[Shakkara]

Out of curiousity Shakkara, have you tried the various suggestions people have put out there for optimizing and cutting blur? Did you give it more than a minute try? Did you remember that it is not only still in Beta, but has been explicitly stated that it will be in Beta for a good while yet, which means you have a decent chance of giving feedback and suggestions that *could* cause changes to happen?

I tried it for about an hour on a trial account until the blur gave me motion sickness and almost caused me to throw up (I get motion sickness from 3D games, never had it with 2D games but something is just wrong with the rendering process that causes the screen to do something odd and run out of synch, not sure how to describe. It looks as if water waves run through the screen if it moves, it all gets slightly distorted).

Since I don't see them redoing all the avatars, UI and background tiles from scratch it doesn't really matter if it's still in beta or not, as those are things they won't fix.

Partial want list:
* Good-looking 3D avatars that have decent animations. Pre-AOS 3D avatars looked decent, with some higher res textures they could've been amazing. Something like Guildwars in style and quality would really get me excited.
* Right-click = menu closes
* UI that has the UO look and feel to it. No large borders. 3D client style for containers. UO font.
* Terrain that isn't a blurry soup. Pre-AOS 3D terrain was the best but if you want to modernize it, look at Titan Quest.

The only thing I like about it is that I can run it in a bigger window than 800x600 as I run a desktop resolution of 2048x1536.

 

[Fresley]

I mostly play KR with a community UI and legacy graphics. So far I like the SA client. Its lacking some of the nice UI perks that I am used to, but I'm sure those will come later.

You may want to up your max fps to 60 if you are having blurring issues when you move. That seemed to iron it out quite a bit for me.

 

[Tanivar]

These SA graphics are very bad. It moves decently on my system but the graphics are mush. Even with the graphics settings increased the graphics are bad. KR had clean images, what happened here?

My Commodore games from the late 80's had sharper graphics than this SA client has. If this client had been a game I purchased in a store it would have been returned to the store for a possible refund and I would not buy another game from that company until I had seen it being played. The game I had tried would be an example of the companies work and I'd not purchase that companies product again lightly.

UO has released two bad 3D clients, looked to be getting it right with KR, then came up with this atrocity. Go back to KR and finetune it, and scrap this SA client. As it stands, I'll stick with 2D. It's graphics are at least clear.

 

[Amren]

Of course the bulk of UO players do not care about graphics.....Honestly I would say any real gamer does not care about graphics, at least not nearly as much as playability and enjoyability... It is sad to see how so many people have taken to "looks" as being the defining factor of if a game is good or not. (not grouping you in there just stating the current state of games)

I am a real gamer and I don't agree with you. I have been playing MMO's, FPS, RPG/JRPG and RTS games long before UO was released, and I continue to play other games long after the UO release.

I think it's impossible to tell, but how many long term UO players (anyone playing from 1997 till now) were actually drawn into UO because of the Ultima name and how incredable the game looked in 1997?

If you were around back then, you would know there was nothing, esp. in the RPG/online category that came close to what UO looked like. I believe the game won awards in visuals and sounds and even the music.

I am pretty sure a lot of people (who may not of been Ultima fans back then) became interested in UO after seeing the screenshots in gaming magazines and websites. Visuals of a game are very important, and a lot of "real gamers" care. hell, even EA sees the need to *try* and upgrade the graphics, no matter how horrible it ends up.

 

[NewYears1978]

I am just about to start playing again, and I like being able to resize my gameplay window and I wondered if the 3d client (new client) runs faster or without lag? I tried it but I can't really tell.

I like the 2dclient, but at 1680x1050, the gameplay window is just too small..and I hate fullscreen.

 

[Ender]

I have SA running great at 1440x900, using a P8700 at 2.53 GHz, 6GB DRR2, 1GB GTX 260M, and Vista 64-bit.