- We aim to replicate the T2A era as best we can and within technical limitations as a whole.
- We do not intend to ever change any aspect of normal gameplay to particularly favor any playstyle or to protect or further expose any players to to the in-game risk that was a large part of this era.
- We will especially not pull aspects of other eras into this one even with an overwhelming demand of players.
Here's the exceptions, both intentional and unintentional:
- It's within our technical means to create unique events and quests within the game which are "in the spirit" of that which was done by OSI during the era, but was beyond the technical ability of that time. Most of the events run off map and as such do not effect "normal gameplay", they help bring the players together as is essential for shard with a population much smaller (to say the least) than the production shards of the era.
- Our quests, while there are fewer than there were during OSI, ours are more complex. We've done this in a way that makes them fun (vs. killing every orc in the forest to find the one that has the sword the NPC told you about), and does also not effect core gameplay. (As a semi-related side note, we do intend to reintroduce the old style quests as well)
- Many things on Second Age are not accurate because we haven't had a chance to fix them yet, there are many "little" things that aren't quite right yet.
- This one is the real problem, and the cause of the failure of Second Age as of now to live up to it original vision: Some (few) systems have not been correct because we have not had an accurate/reliable/provable source of information.
Recently, we found the complete set of T2A era patch notes, and this information has filled in a lot of holes in our knowledge. Previous to this, the OSI patch notes from 10/28/98 to 5/25/99 were completely unknown to us as they had disappeared off the web during the ownership transition from OSI to EA Games. The entire T2A era patch notes are available on our wiki at: http://wiki.uosecondage.com/index.php?t ... atch_Notes
Here's some of what we have learned so far:
- Jan 20 98:
"There will be a chance of the casting aborting if the mage is struck during his casting process. The chance is based on how much damage you took, and your ability at magery." - Feb 24 1999:
"It will not be possible to learn magic resistance in towns." - Apr 28 2000: (Note, this is a UO:R change that documents a change to combat that was within T2A)
"Players using melee weapons in combat will now hold their swing until their target is in range. Additionally, the timer that determines melee weapon swing times (combat timer) will now advance as the player is moving. Thus, melee weapon users will no longer be required to stop moving before swinging." - Dec 16, 1997
"Arrows now inflict the damage one second after the arrow is launched, instead of when the attack is launched." - Nov 10 1998
"When a thief dies in town, items he stole within the last two minutes will be automatically placed in their owner's backpack. If the owner is not around to receive them, they will fall to the ground." - Aug 5, 2002: (Again, this is the future, but there are no documented changes to cast times prior to this)
Explosion: Single Use (2 second delay)
http://web.archive.org/web/200208051559 ... gic_5.html - Nov 30, 2001 (future again)
"Spell damage will now disturb your meditation" - We also are aware that some spell damages are incorrect, leaning more on the high end of the damage range. Spell damage should also be a dice roll rather that a straight random damage.
- Interrupts will be determined by magery skill and amount of damage done. This is not a major change as resisted magic arrows already do not interrupt (but this was an inaccurate fix to a known inaccuracy). For GM magery this change may only effect some resisted harms and possible some extremely low end weapon damage such as from daggers and clubs. This does not effect debuffs or para interrupt.
- Magic will do one hp damage in an actively guarded town across the board. Non-Direct damage spells such as Para and Poison are not effected.
- You will not be able to gain resist in a guarded town if both the caster and target are within the town line.
- When a thief dies in town, items he stole within the last two minutes will be automatically placed in their owner's backpack. If the owner is not around to receive them, they will fall to the ground.
The purpose of this thread is to inform you of why we would do such a thing as make these changes, and to of course get your feedback on this, as well as potentially probe you for any information that you may have regarding these items, especially information that we may have missed.
We will be putting these changes up on a test shard soon so that you may log on and test them before they may be become effective.
Constructive feedback in this thread is appreciated. Everyone is going to have an opinion on this and we consider every constructive opinion from the players to be valid. This thread will be monitored closely so it doesn't get out of control. Please post thoughts, not flames. And remember, this isn't being implemented without much feedback and testing. I also want to re-emphasize that any changes we make are in the belief that this is an implementation of the way the system in the era worked. If we find otherwise we will certainly act on it immediately. We hope to discover problems with these proposed changes before we make them live so we really encourage everyone to participate in the testing process.
