Question about a few in game mechanics

[kill drizitz]

This is an honest question about how some of these in game mechanics took place. I know and realize there are a great group of guys getting together a lot of the info to get this shard accurate, but a few things just dont make sense. Please dont take this as a complaint.

1. Regs. How is it that regs are almost impossible to buy on this shard? Now I know people have timers down and buy out the regs ASAP to upcharge them 1-2gp per BUT on live OSI during era- I can not see how a shard with 1000+ on at a single time playing/macroing/fighting etc had enough regs. Honestly, I have never read anything or even remember myself not being able to buy almost all regs at a vendor at any given time. Why is this shards experience so different from OSI during era?

2. Stables. Pretty much the same as above. On OSI shards, I never saw or had trouble using the stables. Again, with 1000+ players playing. Granted I know we have unlimited followers, so one person can horde pets, but with MAYBE 150 unique IP's, we still have such a tough time keeping slots open. Again, why is this shards experience so different from OSI during era?

3. Houses. This is really just a quick update to the improperlly placed houses. I have brought it up quite a bit since 2008 or 2009, and never really got any real response from staff. It (to me) is the last BIG change that would seriously make this shard feel more era accurate. There should be houses lining the road to Moonglow (north side, not just south), more GY houses, interesting locational housing etc etc. Just wanted some people to see this and maybe help research to get it done if possible.

First two are just questions, as to why this is so different here compared to OSI. I know we are not "recreating the experience" but just the mechanics. I just cant help but feel maybe we have it wrong, when 1000+ did not have this much trouble getting regs/stable spots. Houses I would just like to see if it will ever come to the shard, hell its been 5+ years, and this is one of the biggest easiest to realize era accurate mechanics not yet in place. Everyone remembers improperlly placed houses who played UO in 99

[Pac]

1) People use bots and automated scripts to systematically buy out all regs on a schedule. This is unattended resource gathering and should be a bannable offense just like mining or lumberjacking, but it isn't.

2) People hoard stable spots in order to be able to sell them to people in need. It is what it is unfortunately.

3) Those houses on OSI were placed pre-T2A when placement rules were less strict and grandfathered in. This shard never went through a "vanilla" timeframe like OSI did so no one here was ever able to place houses like that.

[Akanigit]

I would love for there to be some way to improperly place a house. One of my favorite vendor houses on Pacific was right next to East Brit Bank, that and peoples houses near the Brit mines on those wheat fields.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010714090 ... tion3.html

[kill drizitz]

1) 3) Those houses on OSI were placed pre-T2A when placement rules were less strict and grandfathered in. This shard never went through a "vanilla" timeframe like OSI did so no one here was ever able to place houses like that.

Pretty sure its been discussed that improperlly placed houses were grandfathered in during UO:R. So placement was during T2A. This has been brought up before, and if I remember correctly, is already proven to be EA. It was more of a "lets bring it up again, and maybe get it implemented" The term "improperly placed house" wasnt around in T2A.

[kill drizitz]

1) People use bots and automated scripts to systematically buy out all regs on a schedule. This is unattended resource gathering and should be a bannable offense just like mining or lumberjacking, but it isn't.

2) People hoard stable spots in order to be able to sell them to people in need. It is what it is unfortunately.

3) Those houses on OSI were placed pre-T2A when placement rules were less strict and grandfathered in. This shard never went through a "vanilla" timeframe like OSI did so no one here was ever able to place houses like that.

I understand whats happening on this shard. I just feel like if a small few 10-20 ppl can deplete completely resources such as stables and reg vendor, how did this NOT happen in OSI with 1000+ people playing and needing regs.. Perhaps they restocked faster/had more slots available? Just saying.

Also, found it:
Publish 2 - January 24, 2000 Housing. Pretty easy to find. Our cut off date is Nov. 1999.
A new system has been created to ensure that houses are not placed outside of the house placement rules. The system will do thorough checks when attempting to place a house.

The house placement system includes the following:
Various checks to ensure the house meets the housing requirements, including whether it is on level ground.
Provides the ability to preview an area with the deed to see if the area is valid. Once a position is chosen, you will be told whether the area is a valid location or not.
If the area is valid, you will be asked if you wish to place the house.
If the area is not valid, you will be given a message telling you why not and you will not be able to place the house in that location.

The following plants will not block the placement of a house: All mushrooms
All small flowers
Poppies
Red poppies
Orfluer flowers
White flowers
Foxglove flowers
Campion Flowers
Snowdrops

Publish 4
The following is a list of changes deployed as Publish 4 on March 8, 2000.
The house placement system will be refined to ensure that houses are not being placed in improper locations. The system will also check current houses more thoroughly when determining whether the house is properly or improperly placed.

[Kaivan]

This topic has already been discussed a little bit, but I'll expand upon this further.

Regarding reagents, it is well known that on OSI servers the restock algorithm was very conservative and did not provide a great deal of reagents. The result was that reagents were difficult to acquire for two reasons. One, the popular vendor spots that actually did have some stock were regularly camped by other players, and two, those locations that were not so popular had virtually no reagents to speak of. This is further exacerbated here by players that recall around and purchase all of the reagents, which effectively turns most or all of the vendor locations into popular locations that are "camped" and thus out of reagents.

Regarding stable slots, we know that on OSI servers, stable masters had a limit of 100 slots with which to store animals. We also have early UOR numbers that give us an idea of exactly how many "slots" existed per server. As a comparison, we have a total of 28 such stable masters, which is a very large quantity for our server. The difference between OSI servers and here is that players treat stable slots as a commodity, which was not the case on OSI servers. This is a dynamic of the game that is completely outside the scope of mechanics, and while I can't answer why it was never regarded in the same manner on OSI servers as it is here, there you have it. The result, of course, is that stable slots will come at a premium here on UOSA.

Finally, we have housing which has several distinct problems.

First, while we are aware that housing was not required to be on perfectly flat land, and we've implemented code that tries to allow players to place on uneven land (although there is a bug that is preventing it in most cases), the issue is that we don't know exactly what the housing rules were for placing houses during most of T2A when it comes to landscape. As a result, we have a loose approximation for the housing rules during T2A, but we don't have the exact rules in place.

To further exacerbate the situation, we also know that certain bugs existed that allowed players to place houses in very unusual locations (e.g. houses with virtually the entire house floating in midair) - which is what the improper house placement / classic vs modern design notation was for (at least partially). Without knowing exactly how the system was intended to work, we have virtually no chance of determining what the bugs were that allowed certain house placements to work either.

Finally, to add one more level of complexity, we also have the issue of certain types of objects blocking house placement. As the patch notes state, a fairly long list of objects no longer blocked house placement with the January 24th patch, but again, we don't know the exact housing rules so we can't determine exactly how they blocked placement to begin with. To add further to that issue, we also have concerns regarding items such as brambles, rocks, and other similar items. These items continually blocked placement on OSI servers up until the release of AoS because these items couldn't be moved through, and were treated similarly to trees when it comes to placement. This adds an issue that is related to the client as much as it is related to the server. If we updated the server to enforce the blocking properties of these items, the effect would be rubber-banding for clients all over the world. So, until we get better information about how the system worked, we have this system in place.

[Bixby Legbone]

This is an honest question about how some of these in game mechanics took place. I know and realize there are a great group of guys getting together a lot of the info to get this shard accurate, but a few things just dont make sense. Please dont take this as a complaint.

1. Regs. How is it that regs are almost impossible to buy on this shard? Now I know people have timers down and buy out the regs ASAP to upcharge them 1-2gp per BUT on live OSI during era- I can not see how a shard with 1000+ on at a single time playing/macroing/fighting etc had enough regs. Honestly, I have never read anything or even remember myself not being able to buy almost all regs at a vendor at any given time. Why is this shards experience so different from OSI during era?

2. Stables. Pretty much the same as above. On OSI shards, I never saw or had trouble using the stables. Again, with 1000+ players playing. Granted I know we have unlimited followers, so one person can horde pets, but with MAYBE 150 unique IP's, we still have such a tough time keeping slots open. Again, why is this shards experience so different from OSI during era?

3. Houses. This is really just a quick update to the improperlly placed houses. I have brought it up quite a bit since 2008 or 2009, and never really got any real response from staff. It (to me) is the last BIG change that would seriously make this shard feel more era accurate. There should be houses lining the road to Moonglow (north side, not just south), more GY houses, interesting locational housing etc etc. Just wanted some people to see this and maybe help research to get it done if possible.

First two are just questions, as to why this is so different here compared to OSI. I know we are not "recreating the experience" but just the mechanics. I just cant help but feel maybe we have it wrong, when 1000+ did not have this much trouble getting regs/stable spots. Houses I would just like to see if it will ever come to the shard, hell its been 5+ years, and this is one of the biggest easiest to realize era accurate mechanics not yet in place. Everyone remembers improperlly placed houses who played UO in 99

To add my own reply:

1. we have a much smaller shard population right now. This enables the afk reg buyers the opportunity to buy regs without player interference. I don't afk buy my regs, and there's maybe 3-4 players in total who do. Even then, it is entirely possible to buy regs from vendors despite them. Their afk buy macros are not perfect and they miss some npc vendors. Additionally, they do not run these macros 24/7. You can only buy so many regs before you run out of gold and are awaiting your own vendor to sell some.

2. I've come across this issue several times. I've found over 200+ stable slots open recently in different locations. People forget to refresh their slots often and spots open up. Despite that, I have yet to sell a spot to another person. These spots open up, and there is 0 interest in someone else wanting to purchase it, so I advertise free spots or I don't. However, they are out there.

3. I am not sure about grandfathered housing. There exists some on this shard that remain grandfathered and cannot be replaced once they drop. There is at least one spot that I believe should be replaceable but isn't due to the shard's rules.

Our shard is currently at around 500 unique ip addresses daily. Not nearly the amount which would create some changes you are looking for. If, for example, 1000 different people were trying to buy regs, it would be cheaper and much easier to buy some yourself, just due to the sheer quantity of players purchasing regs that they would drown out the afk reg buyers and cause huge amounts of reg respawn to be able to purchase in the quantity you desire.

[kill drizitz]

This topic has already been discussed a little bit, but I'll expand upon this further.

Regarding reagents, it is well known that on OSI servers the restock algorithm was very conservative and did not provide a great deal of reagents. The result was that reagents were difficult to acquire for two reasons. One, the popular vendor spots that actually did have some stock were regularly camped by other players, and two, those locations that were not so popular had virtually no reagents to speak of. This is further exacerbated here by players that recall around and purchase all of the reagents, which effectively turns most or all of the vendor locations into popular locations that are "camped" and thus out of reagents.

Regarding stable slots, we know that on OSI servers, stable masters had a limit of 100 slots with which to store animals. We also have early UOR numbers that give us an idea of exactly how many "slots" existed per server. As a comparison, we have a total of 28 such stable masters, which is a very large quantity for our server. The difference between OSI servers and here is that players treat stable slots as a commodity, which was not the case on OSI servers. This is a dynamic of the game that is completely outside the scope of mechanics, and while I can't answer why it was never regarded in the same manner on OSI servers as it is here, there you have it. The result, of course, is that stable slots will come at a premium here on UOSA.

Finally, we have housing which has several distinct problems.

First, while we are aware that housing was not required to be on perfectly flat land, and we've implemented code that tries to allow players to place on uneven land (although there is a bug that is preventing it in most cases), the issue is that we don't know exactly what the housing rules were for placing houses during most of T2A when it comes to landscape. As a result, we have a loose approximation for the housing rules during T2A, but we don't have the exact rules in place.

To further exacerbate the situation, we also know that certain bugs existed that allowed players to place houses in very unusual locations (e.g. houses with virtually the entire house floating in midair) - which is what the improper house placement / classic vs modern design notation was for (at least partially). Without knowing exactly how the system was intended to work, we have virtually no chance of determining what the bugs were that allowed certain house placements to work either.

Finally, to add one more level of complexity, we also have the issue of certain types of objects blocking house placement. As the patch notes state, a fairly long list of objects no longer blocked house placement with the January 24th patch, but again, we don't know the exact housing rules so we can't determine exactly how they blocked placement to begin with. To add further to that issue, we also have concerns regarding items such as brambles, rocks, and other similar items. These items continually blocked placement on OSI servers up until the release of AoS because these items couldn't be moved through, and were treated similarly to trees when it comes to placement. This adds an issue that is related to the client as much as it is related to the server. If we updated the server to enforce the blocking properties of these items, the effect would be rubber-banding for clients all over the world. So, until we get better information about how the system worked, we have this system in place.

Awesome reply. So, they question then is- Is it even possible to find out how the system worked, or is anyone looking into it? If not, then the improperlly placed houses will probably never come here to UOSA I am assuming. That is a little bit of a bummer, because the amount GREAT housing locations is severely diminished without it, both pvp and vendor wise. It would also add that "feel" of authentic t2a UO (which we have) a little higher. Hope you guys are still trying to work on things like this.

[Pac]

I seem to recall an exploit on OSI involving use of a flour sack to place a house where it otherwise wouldn't be able to be placed. I think you placed the sack where you wanted the house steps to be and then placed the house on the sack.

Something like that. I never did it myself I just remember reading about it back in the day.

[Menkaure]

I seem to recall an exploit on OSI involving use of a flour sack to place a house where it otherwise wouldn't be able to be placed. I think you placed the sack where you wanted the house steps to be and then placed the house on the sack.

Something like that. I never did it myself I just remember reading about it back in the day.

It also had to be on a small bump/hill.
This was why back then you had all those houses on fire island that you could walk under

[Boomland Jenkins]

I seem to recall an exploit on OSI involving use of a flour sack to place a house where it otherwise wouldn't be able to be placed. I think you placed the sack where you wanted the house steps to be and then placed the house on the sack.

Something like that. I never did it myself I just remember reading about it back in the day.

It also had to be on a small bump/hill.
This was why back then you had all those houses on fire island that you could walk under

We use to place houses with body parts and death robes. You could level out an area with these items, and as long as the steps were on "legit level tiles" the rest of the house would place just fine. The items would decay soon after.

On Lake Superior we had at least 2 towers on Buc's Den using this trick, I assisted in placing one of them with some old friends.



A bit further back (definitely pre-t2a), you could simply place homes anywhere you pleased. A lot of those houses became grandfathered in. Some of the mining pathways had small houses in them for example. House courtyards were great ways to make semi-secure compounds.

The only house I recall OSI deleting was a small house someone placed in Covetous 3 lich room back around launch (houses were still 11k at that time), it was there for about 4-5 days before getting deleted.