Can we Calm the ERA Topic?

[Murugan]

Ok, I guess I do not understand how I can Join a T2A server in September, and see MASSIVE changes by December. What DATE are we playing as? That's the ultimate Question. T2A ran from 1997 - 2000 I believe, and In that 3 years a TON of things were patched, upgraded, removed, added, changed etc. I guess I just do not understand how If a server claims to be T2A (a time with good notes, and information that's been available for 8 years) How it could not start, and run without any problems, changes or updates required (on a major scale) I join in Sept. and we have changed the way Mages, Dexxers, thieves, all play. The way skill gain is raised has been changed, and the ability to make money has differed. All this from less then 5 months. I understand we have ERA correcting Natzi's (Faust) who are pros with the era and reading the patch notes, so some things might have been off. But this server has been up for over a year! What was the server before?

Anyone understand where I am going with this? I feel like when the server started it took on 1997 as a date, and since then it follows patches as they had came out when they came out . . . meaning we would be about the 1998 almost 1999 era. Why can we just not say that the server is supposed to be derived from 19XX or 20XX and let EVERYONE know and understand what SHOULD be implemented and what should not be. This would easily clear up a lot of things for people. Instead we set a range of 1997 - 2000 and run SOME things from a 1997 patch and some things from a 1999 patch. SURE both are ERA correct, but WHAT PART of the ERA!


- LIGIT POSTS ONLY please, this topic is serious and an actual questions for answers on a very confused player within this server. I remember MANY PEOPLE being able to steal and kill their victims in town, I also remember stealing keys, runes, and deeds . . . then again I remember when they also stopped that, and made their servers newbied for the 10 year-olds who hung themselves. I remember a time when there was NO notoriety, I remember when you did NOT have the ability to FRIEND people, Lock or SECURE items down, houses that decayed in 7 days, not 30 and much much more.

NOW, I understand that some things (house decay) are changed to better the server in the respect that people who do not lose houses on a server they do not pay to play, have a MUCH better chance of coming back as the shard changes, or grows. I also do not think going to pre-patch housing and other ideas will better the server, these are all mentioned to prove a point. And a SPECIFIC date as to where this shard should be "frozen" in time will help a lot of people fully understand where we DO and SHOULD stand!

[Kaivan]

*Cracks fingers*

Alrighty, allow me to try and answer your questions as best as possible, but before that, I should mention one very important thing: T2A was not around in 1997. If you follow the timeline of releases for UO, this is the resulting time frame:

Original Ultima Online: September 25th, 1997 - October, 1998 (approximately 12 months time)
Ultima Online The Second Age: October, 1998 - April 3, 2000 (there is some discrepancy in the release date for T2A, but an approximate 16 - 17 months time)

So, the actual time frame that was around for T2A was only about 16 months.

Now, with that out of the way, here is the approach that we have taken to publishing changes to the server: With regard to the major systems for T2A, we have taken the approach of using the longer standing system. To give you an example, here are a few of the early systems that were implemented before the halfway mark of T2A during June of 1999:

• Skill delay on spells (November 98)
• Weapons Scale (November 98)
• Partial Lockdown System (December 98)
• Treasure Maps (January 99)
• Anatomy Bonus (February (99)
• Macing Stamina Drain (February 99)
• Eval Bonus (February 99)
• New Skills (February 99 - Stealth, Meditation, Remove Trap)
• Thieves guild and aggressive stealing (February 99)
• Resist Changes (February 99)
• Murder Count System (March 99)

If you notice, out of this list of changes, each and every one of these major system changes currently exists on the server, and was active prior to the halfway point of T2A. This is the crux of our methodology for UOSA, and how we handle the changes for the server. We do eventually believe that we will finally reach an end point where we have gotten every skill and mechanic as close as is possible to the real T2A, but as we move towards that eventual goal, we will make changes and move towards our goal. That is why the server feels different now as compared to earlier on: we've taken some major steps towards real, honest, T2A accuracy.

[caveman]

And a SPECIFIC date as to where this shard should be "frozen" in time will help a lot of people fully understand where we DO and SHOULD stand!

I can't find much different than it was in December '99.

[Maleficia]

That is why the server feels different now as compared to earlier on: we've taken some major steps towards real, honest, T2A accuracy.

It has been noticeable and mostly positive. Thank you.

[Murugan]

*Cracks fingers*

Alrighty, allow me to try and answer your questions as best as possible, but before that, I should mention one very important thing: T2A was not around in 1997. If you follow the timeline of releases for UO, this is the resulting time frame:

Original Ultima Online: September 25th, 1997 - October, 1998 (approximately 12 months time)
Ultima Online The Second Age: October, 1998 - April 3, 2000 (there is some discrepancy in the release date for T2A, but an approximate 16 - 17 months time)

So, the actual time frame that was around for T2A was only about 16 months.

Now, with that out of the way, here is the approach that we have taken to publishing changes to the server: With regard to the major systems for T2A, we have taken the approach of using the longer standing system. To give you an example, here are a few of the early systems that were implemented before the halfway mark of T2A during June of 1999:

• Skill delay on spells (November 98)
• Weapons Scale (November 98)
• Partial Lockdown System (December 98)
• Treasure Maps (January 99)
• Anatomy Bonus (February (99)
• Macing Stamina Drain (February 99)
• Eval Bonus (February 99)
• New Skills (February 99 - Stealth, Meditation, Remove Trap)
• Thieves guild and aggressive stealing (February 99)
• Resist Changes (February 99)
• Murder Count System (March 99)

If you notice, out of this list of changes, each and every one of these major system changes currently exists on the server, and was active prior to the halfway point of T2A. This is the crux of our methodology for UOSA, and how we handle the changes for the server. We do eventually believe that we will finally reach an end point where we have gotten every skill and mechanic as close as is possible to the real T2A, but as we move towards that eventual goal, we will make changes and move towards our goal. That is why the server feels different now as compared to earlier on: we've taken some major steps towards real, honest, T2A accuracy.

Well this helps out a lot! As in, I see the reason behind the changes a lot better now. What made skills such as this newest change with the thieves originally be pre-Feb. 99 to now, Post Feb. 99? Just wasn't to that "problem" yet? or was it because the server felt to many people were riding that train? Is there an order as to what your looking to make more accurate, or is it more as things come up? I know when people find ways to make millions of gold crafting and not leaving their house, things get changed to save the economy. But what prevents someone from one day having there character nulled due to changes? For Example, Archery is pretty non-existent on this server, but a few minor changes would make that skill prevail, and the result would be 50 - 100 archery mage or arch dexxers. Any Current Method to the madness?

Edit: Sheep used to be farmed by the 1000's inside houses - cant do it like that anymore
Scrolls used to make someone 200K a day, if not more - can't sell them quick enough now to make that worth it
Guard towers used to make me 300K a day with 1 ev per tower, now it takes 4 or 5 BS and is simply too slow

What makes the server scramble for the changes, and whats on the "things to do today" list?

[RoadKill]

Edit: Sheep used to be farmed by the 1000's inside houses - cant do it like that anymore
Scrolls used to make someone 200K a day, if not more - can't sell them quick enough now to make that worth it
Guard towers used to make me 300K a day with 1 ev per tower, now it takes 4 or 5 BS and is simply too slow

What makes the server scramble for the changes, and whats on the "things to do today" list?

You can sell scrolls fast using Razor's Sell Agent, if that isn't fast enough for you, you're doing it wrong

Guard towers making money, you mean by killing the NPC guards? Still possible, and you couldn't (back in the day) kill several wandering guards with 1 EV, unless you were relying on the poison from the EV to kill them, in which case you can still do that via poison fields.

[Murugan]

Edit: Sheep used to be farmed by the 1000's inside houses - cant do it like that anymore
Scrolls used to make someone 200K a day, if not more - can't sell them quick enough now to make that worth it
Guard towers used to make me 300K a day with 1 ev per tower, now it takes 4 or 5 BS and is simply too slow

What makes the server scramble for the changes, and whats on the "things to do today" list?

You can sell scrolls fast using Razor's Sell Agent, if that isn't fast enough for you, you're doing it wrong

Guard towers making money, you mean by killing the NPC guards? Still possible, and you couldn't (back in the day) kill several wandering guards with 1 EV, unless you were relying on the poison from the EV to kill them, in which case you can still do that via poison fields.

I know about the vendor sell option, but u can not only sell 5 at a time, and the price drops every 10 items of the same kind u sell. .. . thats what I ment. before u could sell 250 scrolls selling 50 at a time, per vendor . . . u could push out 5000 scrolls a run at 40 gold per scroll . . . obveously why it was changed!

Guards, I also understand that that's how it was on OSI . . . my entire point to this post is WHY was it EVER the otherway? (ie. even being able to kill the guards easy)

[Derrick]

I'm really glad to see this extremely productive thread. I've been in quite a bit of angst about some of the discussion that's gone on in the Shard News, mostly because I think there are some misunderstandings about what we want to be, where we're at with that, and why these changes have been coming about. With the holidays I've had very little time to spend on the forums and even this post is likely going to be shorter than it should be.

Our goal is to to be a 100% accurate T2A shard within the timeframe Kavian pointed out above, most definitely post Feb '99, and Definitely pre-Jan 2000. I feel entirely obligated and have promised not to add or remove or step on anything that existed throughout this whole timeframe. That being said, we're just not there yet. When we launched a year ago many systems were very messed up, but we launched. I've been working on this shard now in code for almost two years, starting then with the RunUO 2.0 RC1, even putting an immense amount of time into this over the last two years, things simply aren't done yet, or weren't fully understood or known, and couldn't then be coded.

Most of the combat changes that came in over the last 9 months were the result of new understandings about how things worked that allowed them to be implemented, a lot of the conceptual credit going directly to our two "T2A Natzis".

I honestly don't like making changes that are so disruptive for players that are so established here, but most of our established players do understand our accuracy goal, and participate in helping to test, research and agree/disagree/debate those changes.

We didn't start with the goal of becoming the next popular Pre-UO:R shard; we want to be The Accurate T2A shard, and almost every change we make is towards that purpose. In some cases we understand that decision must be made within systems that either can go either way in our target era, or although known inaccurate cannot be made 100% accurate presently but do still need some changes to protect things like the economy, like our NPC vendors (which was 10 fold more complex on OSI than it is here). We also have things like quests and events which are fun, but automated, and in the present time allow us to bring players together without having the high staff levels that would be required to run the types and quantities of Seer led events that were common in the era.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but for the most part I believe we are seeing the end of the more disruptive changes.
Here are some items that yet need to be finished, this is a very partial list, but are some good examples:

• Interior lockable doors will exist. Use of a house key on a door will allow you to rekey that door and will generate a new key for it.
• New counselor system
• Vendor house price display wrong
• Exp Pots should not trigger other exp pots
• NPC Scavenging
• if you backpack has 125 items and you try to put more in it doesnt let you because of max items but displays more. 126, 127.....
• Hands must be free to inscribe
• Beggar AI
• Grammar errors: an kryss, a Order shield
• Add Players back to tracking list
• Animated bellows
• Can't train skills when at cap

[Murugan]

Thank you for the update Derrick. I understand how at launch it could have been a rushed time, and I assume it was probably just you really setting everything up and doing changes, so that adds to the "pull" factor of players wanting and players needing certain things. I do not understand a lot about it, and I am SURE many people can not "remember" T2A accuratly to the tee without reading the patch notes. I remember WEEKS on end where everytime we logged in we had patches. IT was the first game of its kind, and no one could imagine how players would discover, use and abuse loop holes. So like me, many people remember something one way, but not the other .. even though it was the "other" way for a longer and more defined period of time!

Keep up the good work guys . . . remember EVERYONE will NEVER be happy . . . so PM me, cause if there is one person to keep happy its me! lol!

[mrbojangles]

While I was originally pretty upset with the changes done to stealing, after hearing from Derrick and other staff members, I have to agree with them.

I completely understand the idea of the 'slippery-sloap' when it comes to abandoning accuracy for player wishes. I'd much rather play on a shard with a set goal for where they are going, then be subject to the whims of usually a vocal minority making demands for changes in game mechanics.

The fact that the list of upcoming fixes includes things like 'animated bellows' and 'beggar ai', says ALOT about the dedication of this staff to making this shard as good as possible.

Exp Pots should not trigger other exp pots

Poor chum, looks like he's really never coming back now. hah.

[Derrick]

I really hope that Chum isn't a casualty of the changes. If anyone can find a way to give a guy a hard time, I'm sure it's him regardless of any changes. Trammel was concieved well after our current ruleset, anything can be gotten around by a creative player which is why I wouldn't and have pledged not to make changes that intentionally target playstyles. My prioritization is basicly a balance between the issue being brougt to my attention, my time, and ease of implementation.

One thing that i should mention that was not in the above list (which was simply copied from one of my many 'task lists') is stat loss. This was brought up in another thread a long time ago and discussed heavily pending verification. Our current stat loss % formula is wrong and will be corrected very soon. There are other things not in the list too, but i thought I should probably mention this since i listed upconing work, as some would consider this a major change.

The amount of statloss varies from 9% (5 murders) to 20% (20 or more murders)

http://web.archive.org/web/200001310848 ... erers.html
Please note, I didn't miss the date on this, This is the earliest archived version of this page, but there are no patch notes indicating a change to the penalties prior to this.

[bigcheez]

was statloss on resurrection or death

[Derrick]

It was on death prior to the short/long term counts, on that change they made it on ressurection, as we have it now.

[[Uhh] Eo]

rofl whoops i bumped an old thread

[GuardianKnight]

I thought this was all new....I got near the end and was like ...aww man derrick is in angst. Let's get him a cake....and then your post popped up at the end from 2013...made me look at the dates. 2008....wow.