What Dermott of LS, and Fink say is 100% true.
Before KR was even in beta I knew that it would not be successful as 80% of the player base would never accept any new client for the 'various' reasons stated above, but mostly because it would be 'different', take a bit to learn and relearn and the UO playerbase of all games I have ever played in over 15 yrs of gaming would have to be the hardest bunch to ever accept 'change' of any sort.
I expected MOST players to log in, give it an hour or so then switch right back to 2d screaming 'yuck' unless it was a 'clone' of what they were 'used' to. I expected another bunch to persist a little longer but as soon as they couldn't do a couple of things that were familiar with in 2d would call it 'game over' at that point. That was the case, within 24 hrs the 'screams' were flooding the boards. Ea didn't help one bit in this by releasing the client too early, being so unstable and with so many bugs that many who may of persisted for a week or so were lost and given all the ammo they needed to start bagging the client for ever more. Another lot would of found it impossible with the initial inability of their hardware to 'run' it, although after a few patches and certainly after some tweaking a lot who thought it impossible to run have found that that is not the case. The remaining players, who persisted longer, waited for patches, looked at improvements through modding etc are the 'winners' and while KR is not 100% it is as much a 100% as 2d is.
I, myself, only lasted about 2 hrs the first time I logged in, it was, I admit, a 'culture shock', not so much graphics wise but having to 'learn' how to do everything again, from simple things like talking to npcs, figuring out where all the menus and settings etc were. However, I ended up thinking to be 'fair' to the client I would have to 'use' it at least a month exclusively to actually 'judge' so returned and did a little each day to build up 'familiarity'. Unless you have actually 'done' this you cannot really give a fair judgment. And even if you did it back when the client was first released, that is in no way comparable to how it stands NOW.
All the 'immersion' claims and 'not UO' claims are just downright silly. What makes UO, UO, is the content, not the client. I have never 'understood' how the look of a gump or backpack 'makes' UO, imo it is the community, the content, the events, and all the little uo intricacies that make 'UO'. My game window in KR where I actually 'play' is so much the same as 2d that the difference is certainly not enough to make me want to play in 2d given that KR has so many more things to make life so much easier.
As for graphics etc, a lot of that is personal preference, I didn't like the full KR graphics for items, so elect to play KR with 2d legacy art. Look at my game play window and tell me seriously how much difference there is:
My Game Play Window
And if anyone can tell me that the 'items' in this pic show any 'real' graphical difference between the clients I guess you see something I don't see:
I also didn't like 'enter' to talk, so use legacy chat. And you know what, that is because I have a 'choice'. 2d gives no 'choice'.
The majority (not all) people, play 2d with uoassist and uoam, why? Because the stand alone 2d client cannot and does not cater to the majority. You only have to see the ruckus on these boards when uoassist goes 'down' to see how dependent players are on these 3rd party programs. KR, while not including 100% of the functions supplied by these programs, has at least 80% of them built in with the addition of a huge amount of functions not included in either 3rd party program or the 2d client. When I play KR I never feel I am 'missing' something because I don't have uoassist or uoam. The client functions as 'stand alone' without them plus gives me heaps 'extra' on top. Of the 20% of uoassist that isn't included, I think only 2% of that was ever used by me anyways. So I shall forgo that 2%.
While I do not believe all UO players are cheats, I would guestimate at least 30% are by regularly using at least one illegal third party program be it speedhacking, other pvp related scripts (sheesh reading these boards you would have to estimate that 80% of pvp'ers use em), afk macroing of skills or crafting, afk scripting of resources, gold farming etc. That 30% will never use a client that doesn't have these illegal programs up and ready to use, so they were 'lost' before the client was even introduced.
All I know is I log into 2d to do 5% of my daily activities that KR cannot do, but I then log back to KR to do 60% of things that 2d can't do.
I am not saying there is anything 'wrong' with 2d. If you enjoy it, all good. I am also not going to even bother trying to convert or change anyone's mind on what 'client' they prefer.
I am saying I am totally sick to death of those who haven't played KR for more than a day, those who still dredge up stuff that was 'fixed', over a year and a half ago, but are 'experts' on why it sucks and use this misinformation as 'facts' to justify their reasons as to why they don't use KR, and the ones who have absolutely no understanding of the client spouting stuff that is so inaccurate that it is laughable.
But as Dermott said in his opening line is fact:
There is no doubt that the 2d client (not necessarily the people, but the client itself) is holding the KR/SA client back on a technological level.
The shame about this 'fact' is that UO2d will never attract new players, will never be 'marketed' as it should be due to it's age, will never have the 'ingrained cheats' removed or even be 'easily fixed' due to the complexity of archaic code and the time it takes to 'identify and fix' things in the 2d spaghetti. Without an influx of new players, UO is losing subscriptions by the year, to my mind that is the MOST damaging aspect that exists in UO today. UO is UO due to the community, and that is what we lose day by day because we cannot compete with more modern games for the new player base irrespective of what client we elect to play.
