bring em back

[Kaivan]

If you were wondering, the idea I pitched was to change our emphasis from accuracy over community. A shard needs both code and community to exist, a shard without community is the UO demo. You need a balance of both to succeed and era accuracy as the "end all, be all" decision is not sustainable. We never claimed to strive for 100% accuracy anywhere on the site and there's no reason it should be the final decision maker in every adjustment we make to code. It should have serious weight, but should not be the only reason behind a change.

Best thing that has been posted on this forum in Y E A R S.

Too bad Kaivan would be 100% against it and Derrick is IRLAFK.

As surprising as it may seem, different members of staff have different opinions on what should and shouldn't be done in a variety of areas. Despite that, we work within the confines of our stated goals, regardless of the opinions of any one person.

Taking mechanical era accuracy to the extreme over the last year or 2 OVER community accuracy is what has killed this shard. Yes the auto events hurt, BUT stupid shit like the LOS for towers/keeps/castles etc drove way more people away.

OK seriously, this chant surrounding events as a correlation for population decrease makes virtually no sense whatsoever. And the point regarding LoS makes even less sense.

For one, events were disabled in September of 2011, when our population was at around 400 to 450 clients for our daily peaks. From that point forward, until February 2013, the average population went up, and then took a sharp dive starting in 2013 until it has generally leveled out where we currently see it at about 150 clients daily peak. So the argument for the removal of events causing some drastic change in population has no correlation in any data, except for an increase in the overall population, not the decrease that it's attributed to. Also, to top it all off, we now have someone on staff who is generally dedicated to running quest line events, as well as regular events that are similar in nature to those on the old event system. About the only thing you don't actually get is CTF, a leaderboard, and some schedule to run things by. So even the lack of events isn't really a lack of events anymore, yet there is still some massive population problem (with no correlation) that is directly linked to the lack of events.

As for LoS, the fact is that we're using the identical code found on OSI servers that is still in use today. Also, this code has allowed these "problems" since it was introduced... in 2010, and we certainly didn't have any population problems as a result for over 2 years; it's also the code that allows teleport to behave the way it does. If you want us to "fix" the line of sight code (which is still broken on OSI servers if that's your problem), you're asking us to mess with a long standing mechanic that has always existed on OSI servers, and continues to exist even today. You're also glossing over the fact that if we did attempt to fix the problem, it would naturally cause problems with the aforementioned behavior of teleport, and likely with a whole host of other behaviors in game as well. Needless to say, your proposal seeks to fix something that was possible during the era - despite whether it was actually done or not - and ignores the wider consequences of such a change, all while complaining about the extreme nature of mechanical accuracy for a change implemented 5 years ago.

[HardCore]

Sweet Kaivan answer.

So do this for me, you did the nice analysis of population pre-post removal of automated events.

Will you do the same thing for the LoS changes? Thanks.

Oh and... "Needless to say, your proposal seeks to fix something that was possible during the era - despite whether it was actually done or not - and ignores the wider consequences of such a change, all while complaining about the extreme nature of mechanical accuracy for a change implemented 5 years ago."

So you said it was possible during the era to LoS in castles, tower, keeps, but have no proof that it was actually done? Weird. Do you think they intended to have people kill players inside their houses at the 3 tile from wall rule? Probably not. Are there other "bugs" that existed back then that we don't have? I think we should implement all bugs that were known back then.

Have to have half a brain with of the "mechanic era accuracy" changes. I mean, if they really shouldn't have existed, should they on our shard?

[Brules]

Keep telling yourself that Kaivan......Boom has been giving it CPR in spite of it, but the proof is in the numbers. This place is dying due to self inflicted wounds.

[bigbob]

OK seriously, this chant surrounding the existence of countless threads and an overwhelming majority of players wanting events back (many of which no longer play) having no correlation for population decrease makes virtually no sense whatsoever.

everyone originally thought AE's were on hold and may one day come back... and have asked for them to come back over and over and over again. there are currently a lot of players that would love to come back to the server or play more if there were AE's. more events = more people playing . more people playing = even more people playing because they want to play with other people. (if you disagree.. bring back events for a month and see what happens)

i don't think this is the only avenue to increase population (ie; marketing needs to be done as well, which boomland is also working on) but it is an obvious one due to a large portion of the target audience literally asking for it repeatedly.

the only argument against AE's is that it in some way goes against the servers policy or vision

we should be working together to have a constructive conversation on how to implement AE's and the specific roadblocks that keeps them from being implemented.

for example, is automation in itself against policy and why? if not what is specifically against policy/vision? how are other GM events ok but AE's are not?

[Kaivan]

Sweet Kaivan answer.

So do this for me, you did the nice analysis of population pre-post removal of automated events.

Will you do the same thing for the LoS changes? Thanks.

The population before and after the implementation of the LoS change was generally stable at about 450 average players at peak times.

Oh and... "Needless to say, your proposal seeks to fix something that was possible during the era - despite whether it was actually done or not - and ignores the wider consequences of such a change, all while complaining about the extreme nature of mechanical accuracy for a change implemented 5 years ago."

So you said it was possible during the era to LoS in castles, tower, keeps, but have no proof that it was actually done? Weird. Do you think they intended to have people kill players inside their houses at the 3 tile from wall rule? Probably not. Are there other "bugs" that existed back then that we don't have? I think we should implement all bugs that were known back then.

We have several bugs present on UOSA that are either claimed or are known to have been true during the era. An example is stealing from someone who you believe to be perma-gray while not in the thieves guild to determine whether they are or aren't innocent. Another is the commonly used term for hally cycling. A third is pre-casting itself. However, unlike these examples of bugs, this is a function that has been on OSI servers since at the very least the demo, and likely as far back as the dawn of the game, and unsurprisingly, it still works that way on live servers today. So, while I can say that we do replicate bugs that we know about, despite not knowing about all of them, I don't think that anyone can reliably say that LoS is or isn't a bug. Of course, even if it were a bug, we would leave it as is.

Have to have half a brain with of the "mechanic era accuracy" changes. I mean, if they really shouldn't have existed, should they on our shard?

Shouldn't have existed? How about the following bug they patched out in early 2000:

The bug involving the ability to “pre-cast” spells and then use or take items will be fixed. After casting a spell, the targeting cursor will disappear if the player does any of the following:

So you tell me, should we patch out pre-casting?

Keep telling yourself that Kaivan......Boom has been giving it CPR in spite of it, but the proof is in the numbers. This place is dying due to self inflicted wounds.

If you're not going to bother defending your claims, why bother making them?

[bigbob]

wrong thread ^ beb.

[Kaivan]

OK seriously, this chant surrounding the existence of countless threads and an overwhelming majority of players wanting events back (many of which no longer play) having no correlation for population decrease makes virtually no sense whatsoever.

everyone originally thought AE's were on hold and may one day come back... and have asked for them to come back over and over and over again.

This is a convenient catch-all argument that provides no actual evidence for the claim. It just makes a sweeping claim that any population decrease is due to the lack of an automated event system, no matter how temporally disjointed the events are (which is the very definition of non-correlation). To top it off, the excuse for why this is the case can be equally applied 1 year or 20 years after the fact, despite far more closely correlated events occurring during the interim. This renders this argument meaningless as the argument boils down to an unsubstantiated dynamic argument of "players want {x}" and "players waited for {specified time period} for {x} before leaving", therefore "{x} is the reason for {y}".

there are currently a lot of players that would love to come back to the server or play more if there were AE's.

As Boomland said before, you have events, they just aren't automated. If there are tons of players who want events, but refuse to play the entire game of UO because the events aren't autoamted, then I'm rather sure that they don't want to play UO, just play scripted events on a schedule they can fit into their other activities.

more events = more people playing . more people playing = even more people playing because they want to play with other people. (if you disagree.. bring back events for a month and see what happens)

In the last year we've had two very long quest line events, several small events, and regular events that Boomland has hosted, yet the population hasn't suddenly risen to new heights. Draw what conclusions you will from that.

wrong thread ^ beb.

Ok. Let's keep it simple. The automated event system will not be coming back. If your enjoyment of UO is limited to events, keep your ear to the ground for the ones that Boomland runs.

[Soma]

We don't want automated events, but would it be possible to run one of the old PvP events like CTF/DD/LMS once a month or something?

I understand they were broken back in 2011 and due to numerous exploiters that ruined the experience for everyone were taken out. Running it once a month or a few times a year by a GM would remove any possible exploiters.

It can even be tied into an event or something, with players having to gather resources to progress it... No trophies would need to be given out either, you'd purely be there for the experience.

[Kaivan]

We don't want automated events, but would it be possible to run one of the old PvP events like CTF/DD/LMS once a month or something?

I understand they were broken back in 2011 and due to numerous exploiters that ruined the experience for everyone were taken out. Running it once a month or a few times a year by a GM would remove any possible exploiters.

It can even be tied into an event or something, with players having to gather resources to progress it... No trophies would need to be given out either, you'd purely be there for the experience.

The short answer is that we can't feasibly do events of those types in the real world, due to the express need for customized mechanics that can't be replicated in the real world. It should be noted that of the events that we do run, these are all handled via existing mechanics (XML spawners and the like) and require heavy intervention from staff to accomplish, both of which are useless to running things like CTF games. Relying on the old system is also not an option for several reasons. Aside from the complete protection offered to those in waiting rooms and spectating, the system has severe issues relating to interactions with normal mechanics. Additionally, there's also the problem of the code simply crashing the server when we attempt to interact with it, since the code is no longer compatible with current UOSA code.

[Boomland Jenkins]

Oh and... "Needless to say, your proposal seeks to fix something that was possible during the era - despite whether it was actually done or not - and ignores the wider consequences of such a change, all while complaining about the extreme nature of mechanical accuracy for a change implemented 5 years ago."

So you said it was possible during the era to LoS in castles, tower, keeps, but have no proof that it was actually done? Weird. Do you think they intended to have people kill players inside their houses at the 3 tile from wall rule? Probably not. Are there other "bugs" that existed back then that we don't have? I think we should implement all bugs that were known back then.

We have several bugs present on UOSA that are either claimed or are known to have been true during the era. An example is stealing from someone who you believe to be perma-gray while not in the thieves guild to determine whether they are or aren't innocent. Another is the commonly used term for hally cycling. A third is pre-casting itself. However, unlike these examples of bugs, this is a function that has been on OSI servers since at the very least the demo, and likely as far back as the dawn of the game, and unsurprisingly, it still works that way on live servers today. So, while I can say that we do replicate bugs that we know about, despite not knowing about all of them, I don't think that anyone can reliably say that LoS is or isn't a bug. Of course, even if it were a bug, we would leave it as is.

Have to have half a brain with of the "mechanic era accuracy" changes. I mean, if they really shouldn't have existed, should they on our shard?

Shouldn't have existed? How about the following bug they patched out in early 2000:

The bug involving the ability to “pre-cast” spells and then use or take items will be fixed. After casting a spell, the targeting cursor will disappear if the player does any of the following:

So you tell me, should we patch out pre-casting?

Why don't we have duping here? It's a well known era bug. Answer? It's game breaking.

I'd call a bug that renders a large amount of homes less secure than designed (and less secure than homes with the exact same design in a different location) game breaking also.

This bug really makes no sense to keep.

[Kaivan]

Do we actually know how duping happened to begin with? There are theories that suggest that it was due to server lines and poor synchronization of read/writes to the database, but we don't actually know exactly how it happened, so we can't even begin to replicate it. On the other hand, we have the actual code for LoS.

Also, are we certain that the LoS behavior is a bug? We may have our suspicions, but without a statement on the subject, and with the fact that it still works this way on OSI servers today, we can't say anything other than pointing to our "gut" feeling. It may yet be an undetected bug, or it may be intended to be that way. Either way, we don't know.

Finally, if we proceed on the notion that LoS has problems, the reality is that there are two separate behaviors in action that many players are concerned about. One is the tossing of spells directly under towers, keeps, and castles, and the second is throwing spells/potions directly into houses due to differences in elevation. Each is derived from a different part of the LoS code, and "fixing" each takes very different steps to accomplish. Further, I know exactly what causes one of these behaviors, and if I was able to figure it out, It's almost certain that OSI was able to. Given that, there's yet another possibility that OSI knew that one of these was a bug, and they left it as is due to the fact that it had a significant effect on other parts of the game by fixing it, which they didn't want to do. Either way, by making judgement calls on mechanics, especially ones that we don't know were considered bugs, we're stepping directly into the role of the developer, which by the very definition, moves us away from being a T2A server and towards a custom server.

[Elk Eater]

Using population charts to determine if a change affected population is a terrible idea. Examples:

1) If there is an overall trend of people playing more UO (on many servers), population numbers can easily increase on a server while still experiencing a negative population effect. For example, more players join but fewer than would have joined, or fewer stay than would have stayed had the changes been made/not been made.

2) If there are fewer viable play options (other servers with similar rulesets and/or stability) players might not immediately leave due to a change they don't like, but might leave when a viable alternative presents itself.

3) People may not immediately realize the impact of the change to how they play or their enjoyment of the game, but it may wear on them, or they may wait it out in hopes that a change will occur.

These are just examples off the top of my head, population statistics are much more complicated than "this is how many people were playing right before and directly after a change."

[Abyz]

Kayvan is right. Very few people quickly or eventually left UOSA b/c of AE removal or LOS stuff...

[Kaivan]

Using population charts to determine if a change affected population is a terrible idea. Examples:

1) If there is an overall trend of people playing more UO (on many servers), population numbers can easily increase on a server while still experiencing a negative population effect. For example, more players join but fewer than would have joined, or fewer stay than would have stayed had the changes been made/not been made.

2) If there are fewer viable play options (other servers with similar rulesets and/or stability) players might not immediately leave due to a change they don't like, but might leave when a viable alternative presents itself.

3) People may not immediately realize the impact of the change to how they play or their enjoyment of the game, but it may wear on them, or they may wait it out in hopes that a change will occur.

These are just examples off the top of my head, population statistics are much more complicated than "this is how many people were playing right before and directly after a change."

Sure, without regular random sampling of users within any given medium, there's far less information to determine the exact cause of any given population shift, and to my knowledge, I've never claimed that I know what has caused our population shifts. However, several posters in this thread have maintained that they know exactly why our population numbers have shifted, and have done so without any correlation to back it up, nor any other relevant data to draw a conclusion from.

Kayvan is right. Very few people quickly or eventually left UOSA b/c of AE removal or LOS stuff...

Was that a typo of my name, or done so on purpose? Legitimately asking.

[Abyz]

Auto correct... Want me to edit, cap?