Getting guard whacked outside the guard zone.

[Derrick]

Excelent observation, this does clear this up quite a bit. I agree that this should be in range of the crime location OR the criminal, as opposed to AND

I'm going to try to have a new mod up to the guard code today including the LOS change.

Thanks

This does however leave the question of calling guards accross subserver in doubt (in my mind anyway), becuase the actual callGuards function is in the core and I don't belive it's been decompiled.

[marvin]

Excelent observation, this does clear this up quite a bit. I agree that this should be in range of the crime location OR the criminal, as opposed to AND

I'm going to try to have a new mod up to the guard code today including the LOS change.

Thanks

Hey no problem, I'm glad to see that you are willing to go the extra mile and dig up code to improve the server.

Keep up the good work.

[nightshark]

Furthermore, this is consistent with the account of the person who thought guards could be called through gates, although he was mistaken as to the reason.

When he fled to town himself and came under protection, the criminal act was performed there. The reason his friend was able to call guards on the other side of the gate, outside of town, is because he succeeded with the second distance check to see if he is in range of the criminal.

The person who fled to the guard zone also could have called guards himself, had he been aware of the potential.

Good find with the code but I think another important thing to take into account here, is that we do not have any server lines. If something like this were to be implemented on UOSA, reds would be a thing of the past. Every single red would be guard whacked within the week...

[marvin]

Good find with the code but I think another important thing to take into account here, is that we do not have any server lines. If something like this were to be implemented on UOSA, reds would be a thing of the past. Every single red would be guard whacked within the week...

It's not really a big problem at all. Just don't cast EV, don't poison your victim, and don't drop an explosion on someone who has recall precasted.

How many servers on OSI were there that didn't have a guard zone somewhere on them anyways? There's guard outposts and towns everywhere.

PKs didn't have any trouble dealing with it on OSI. You just had to be intelligent.

If you want to talk about accurate/inaccurate in that sense then on OSI PKs were elite, due to high risk. On here everybody pks and there is no risk to it due to low blue population and PK groups running around 5 or 6 strong, camping at rune houses without a care in the world.

[nightshark]

Good find with the code but I think another important thing to take into account here, is that we do not have any server lines. If something like this were to be implemented on UOSA, reds would be a thing of the past. Every single red would be guard whacked within the week...

It's not really a big problem at all. Just don't cast EV, don't poison your victim, and don't drop an explosion on someone who has recall precasted.

That's ridiculous. Not to mention ebolt, magic arrow, lightning, and EVERY other DD spell has a delay on it. It's pretty much like saying "dont kill people unless its with a weapon"

How many servers on OSI were there that didn't have a guard zone somewhere on them anyways? There's guard outposts and towns everywhere.

Dungeons and too many other places to name.

PKs didn't have any trouble dealing with it on OSI. You just had to be intelligent.

If you want to talk about accurate/inaccurate in that sense then on OSI PKs were elite, due to high risk. On here everybody pks and there is no risk to it due to low blue population and PK groups running around 5 or 6 strong, camping at rune houses without a care in the world.

I played a stat PK many times on OSI and did a great job, not once did I get whacked in the wilderness/dungeons and casting explosion or poison on someone was not a big concern to me.

Server lines MUST be taken into account if removing range check, otherwise it would be a completely ridiculous system that could be easily abused. PKs no longer allowed to cast explosion, any delayed spell (which is ANY DD spell), or use DP. Otherwise they are risking a guard whack.

[Derrick]

I think we need to consider this mid 1998 stratics article which has largely been the basis for our current guard system (as we did not have the demo code when the guard system was initially implemented):

How does guard summoning work?

• The whole system is a lot simpler, and makes more sense now.
  • 1. Either the location of the crime (location of the victim in most cases), or the Criminal must be in a justice region in order for guards to be called at all.
    2. The caller must be in earshot of the Criminal.
    3. The caller must be in a justice region.

#3 is the real issue here. It states that the scenario where a player in a house called the guards should simply not have worked.

[marvin]

I played a stat PK many times on OSI and did a great job, not once did I get whacked in the wilderness/dungeons and casting explosion or poison on someone was not a big concern to me.

Well then you never ran into me.

The only reason it wouldn't have happened to you is because people aren't always aware that they can call guards because there is no message for the victim, only the attacker. With the large number of people on OSI you were probably unlikely to run into someone deliberately trying to get you guard whacked.

When I pvped on Test Center, at least, everybody was highly aware of the guard capabilities. Perhaps it was because with everyone 7xgm things like gating EVs to town caught on quickly due to everyone's high chance to successfully gate.

Also I am not even sure if it is true that guards had no capabilities across server lines. I never took server lines into account when gating EVs and I don't remember it ever failing once the EV got through the gate.

At any rate it's not really a big deal to have it worldwide, since pking near gates and guards wasn't a problem for anyone intelligent. It will be a similar level of difficulty anywhere.

Maybe implementing accurate guards will finally weed some of the many unskilled opportunistic PKs on this shard who only do it because of the low risk and high reward.

[marvin]

I think we need to consider this mid 1998 stratics article which has laregly been the basis for our current guard system (as we did not have the demo code when the guard system was initially implemented):

How does guard summoning work?

• The whole system is a lot simpler, and makes more sense now.
  1. Either the location of the crime (location of the victim in most cases), or the Criminal must be in a justice region in order for guards to be called at all.
  2. The caller must be in earshot of the Criminal.
  3. The caller must be in a justice region.

If this was a mid-98 change it could easily post-date the demo, and the effect is simply turning that OR into and AND.

Sorry but stratics is flat out wrong there. I think it is just stuff written by people who played the game and that is how they interpreted it, not a canonical source from the developers.

Guards behaved exactly like the code example all the way up until I quit OSI, which was well into UO:R.

[Derrick]

There seems to be way too many questions developing today, it's clear at this point this patch is going to be delayed, which is unfortunate because there are a lot of other fixes in this patch, and we've had weeks to dicsuss this, although I do admit I moved onto the other aspects of this patch a while back and hadn't had a chance to revisit this thread.

On the question of crossing servers boundaries, I wonder if test center didn't contain less subservers, thereby allowing this EV gate scenario to work with higher success.

[nightshark]

I played a stat PK many times on OSI and did a great job, not once did I get whacked in the wilderness/dungeons and casting explosion or poison on someone was not a big concern to me.

Well then you never ran into me.

The only reason it wouldn't have happened to you is because people aren't always aware that they can call guards because there is no message for the victim, only the attacker. With the large number of people on OSI you were probably unlikely to run into someone deliberately trying to get you guard whacked.

Also I am not even sure if it is true that guards had no capabilities across server lines. I never took server lines into account when gating EVs and I don't remember it ever failing once the EV got through the gate.

At any rate it's not really a big deal to have it worldwide, since pking near gates and guards wasn't a problem for anyone intelligent. It will be a similar level of difficulty anywhere.

You are making some huge assumption that I'm a completely ignorant tosspot, and I don't appreciate it. You have no clue one way or the other of my depth of understanding of OSI mechanics. FYI I was actually a player who took the time to test things myself, which should be somewhat apparent by my earlier contributions to the thread, not to mention I have made a thread myself on inaccurate guards.

While the current system may be inaccurate, you are also calling for something that is inaccurate. I have already explained a situation earlier where I was the attacker and received the "Guards can now be called on you!" message, and attempted to guard call myself out of curiousity (on a blue character of course). Server lines did make a difference. If you want to argue the other way, find some evidence, as neither of us currently have evidence. Server lines ceased all player interaction, I'm not sure how guards would be in any way different.

If server lines did indeed make a difference then your claim is completely unfounded, you are suggesting that someone should be able to gate/recall out of a dungeon and guard call for poison/delayed spells (which is any direct damage spell bar earthquake). This would be 100% inaccurate and completely game ruining. If you can not see how this would be abused then there is no point in even continuing the argument. It's already easy enough to escape PKs without them having to worry about whether or not you had a recall precasted before they came in.

I'd also like to see a gate/recall whack happen on the demo before any conclusions are made (which I'm sure you're correct on, but again, it does not take server lines into account)

Also, perhaps the code could be looked at from the LATER demo, to see if there were any changes to the way guards functioned post dating the 1998 demo. It is not hard to believe that at some point OSI would have put a range check in, as I would personally consider what is being spoken of here an exploit, and not a feature.

[marvin]

If the guard lines thing is true then the only really immune spots would be dungeons, ice island, probably some other smaller islands, and pretty much everything else is within range of a town or guarded outpost.

I just don't think it's a big deal. Nobody can cast recall in under the time it takes an explosion to hit. You just have to be smart enough not to drop an explosion on someone who has recall precast.

There's no proof that guards were impotent across server lines. While it would likely have failed the distance to the criminal check if both were on opposite sides of a server line, the distance to the crime location check probably would have triggered a guard that could find a player wherever they are. OSI still had track of your character's location, otherwise you'd be blackholed.

Also even if you crossed a server line--for example recalling into another town while just committing a crime and still grey--You would get whacked by players or npcs calling guards near you on OSI.

[marvin]

Also it is possible to gate reds themselves to town to get them guard whacked, so what? Is that game breaking for reds?

You are blowing this out of proportion. Making guards finally accurate is not a big deal. It is how they always were on OSI and it never caused any problems. Reds were still so prolific they made statloss and eventually trammel to protect blues.

[nightshark]

There's no proof guards were impotent across server lines the same way there is no proof guards were not impotent across server lines. I challenge you to find a written account, anywhere, of someone getting guard whacked while in a dungeon. Obviously the opposite is not something you can search for (who would write an account of how they didn't get guard whacked in a dungeon?).

Also, I added a small piece of text to the end of my last post, but you replied before. It's likely that guards were changed at some point post dating the '98 demo. What you speak of would more be considered an exploit than the actual way guards are supposed to work. This is possible to test on live servers, and the newer demo (I believe there is one, I may be mistaken).

Also it is possible to gate reds themselves to town to get them guard whacked, so what? Is that game breaking for reds?

You are blowing this out of proportion. Making guards finally accurate is not a big deal. It is how they always were on OSI and it never caused any problems. Reds were still so prolific they made statloss and eventually trammel to protect blues.

I don't know what you mean by post 1. That's completely off topic. You can easily avoid running through a gate . If someone actually manages to trick you to run through a gate, more power to them

The question still remains whether what you are saying is accurate. And it is game breaking for reds, not being able to use poison or delayed spells without risking a whack? Come on. Are you suggesting people never cast poison or explosion on OSI to avoid getting whacked? Are you suggesting noone ever called guards after recalling to town and getting hit by an explosion? I personally did this half the time just in case a whack was possible, since I was aware of the opponent getting the "Guards can now be called on you!" message.

[marvin]

It's likely that guards were changed at some point post dating the '98 demo. What you speak of would more be considered an exploit than the actual way guards are supposed to work.

No, it is not. I played well into UO:R and even then guards behaved exactly like the code would suggest.

I am open to the possibility that they might have somehow been limited by server lines, but it seems unlikely that I would never have run into this problem.

Your objections seem to be motivated by you not wanting it to be that way, rather than concerns about accuracy.

I personally also PK and it's not like I want to get guard whacked. I just want the shard to be accurate to how OSI was because nostalgia for those days is mostly what keeps me playing. EDIT: And also although I have said it many many times, all you do is NOT cast explosion on someone with recall prepared. Poison is pretty useless anyways since people have cure potions.

[Derrick]

I'd really really like to make this 100% verifyably correct before this patch (as with any patch), unfortunately I don't think we're going to be able to tear open these core functions anytime soon, and the possibilty of a post demo change to guards as indicated by Stratics is still lurking.

What we have proposed for next patch is certainly much "more" correct than what is on the shard currently and it does address some major ongoing exploits people are using to kill players inside the guardzone.

What we have now does require the caller to be inside the guardzone (any change to that is a major rewrite as it's just not how RunUO is set up).

Having to call guards from within the guard zone is consistant with the stratics FAQ at least, and we can attack that one another time.

I've spent three years now taking steps towards accuracy, injecting another possible step on the resolution of this issue seems like a reasonable course at this time.