Several observations

[EVeee]

Let me say in advance that almost all of these are based on the idea that this statement from Faust in a "Patch Notes" thread still holds true - "The target date for UOSA is to replicate the t2a era at the end of the last patch in '99."

1) I just pulled my boat up next to another one and the minimum distance between boats is in no way accurate. I'm sure other people can back me up on this but if memory alone isn't enough, there's an essay on old stratics that talks about meleeing from one boat to another being difficult, not impossible as it would be now.

2) Just because I've seen people speculating about what constitutes "deep water" for purposes of fishing up serpents - http://web.archive.org/web/199910092036 ... ishing.htm
[- When fishing in "deep water" (which means you must be at least 14 tiles away from all land) there is a chance a sea-serpent pops up if you are fishing with 80+ skill and you fail. ]

3) Item decay here is somewhat inaccurate according to this page - http://web.archive.org/web/199910120955 ... /decay.htm
[Houses and Ships - The overall time from "like new" to the actual collapsing is 11 days.]
[Corpses - Cut up Player Corpse 90 seconds] (they seem to last forever here)

4) This page suggests that treasure map drops are inaccurate - http://web.archive.org/web/199910040452 ... easure.htm
I don't know how accurate that is considered since it suggests that titans drop 3's and 5's but not 4's and there is no mention of Ophidian Avengers at all, but to date I have never seen an ophidian matriarch drop a level 5 map and Knight-Errants do not always drop level 3's.

5) Moongates - http://web.archive.org/web/199910030851 ... ongate.htm
The way they work here now, while convenient, is nothing like this page suggests. I remember having to wait for the gates to change because they only connected certain cities at certain times, as is stated on stratics here. Annoying, yes - but so was the newb house deed/trash barrel change.

6) RE: The current change to explosion potions - I was having trouble with that patch as it seemed like chain reactions were something I remembered but the patch date was long before I started playing and then I saw this page - http://web.archive.org/web/199910030358 ... /magic.htm
--- which towards the bottom indicates that explosion pots chain reacted long after that patch... maybe it was reversed at some point?

7) Although I have no way of substantiating this (hopefully others will) - I always used Jhelom as a base in 1999 and I fished from the south docks on the main island. There were always escorts there and people gating in to snatch them up.

8] http://web.archive.org/web/199910121528 ... /dread.htm --- In present Secondage, nobles are useless and cannot be transported. They should have destinations.

9) Perma-red http://web.archive.org/web/199910230229 ... murder.htm

[Arkon]

5) Moongates - http://web.archive.org/web/199910030851 ... ongate.htm
The way they work here now, while convenient, is nothing like this page suggests. I remember having to wait for the gates to change because they only connected certain cities at certain times, as is stated on stratics here. Annoying, yes - but so was the newb house deed/trash barrel change.

I'm not sure what you mean here, but from my experience with the moongates here they do work as the page suggest, or at least very close. I spend time waiting for the gate locations to change quite a bit. Sometimes I'm stuck in a single location and can't leave for awhile.

[EVeee]

I'm not sure what you mean here, but from my experience with the moongates here they do work as the page suggest, or at least very close. I spend time waiting for the gate locations to change quite a bit. Sometimes I'm stuck in a single location and can't leave for awhile.

It's not close. In era, the moongates only connected a few cities at a time. It went by phases of the moon. You could not, no way, cycle through every town like you can now. The thing about being stuck between two cities, that's how it should always be.

[Arkon]

I'm not sure what you mean here, but from my experience with the moongates here they do work as the page suggest, or at least very close. I spend time waiting for the gate locations to change quite a bit. Sometimes I'm stuck in a single location and can't leave for awhile.

It's not close. In era, the moongates only connected a few cities at a time. It went by phases of the moon. You could not, no way, cycle through every town like you can now. The thing about being stuck between two cities, that's how it should always be.

Yea, I understand that. I'm saying that does happen here to me. It cycles. Sometimes you are able to flip through all locations but the majority of the time it seems to be 2-3 until you wait awhile. The only thing I know that is off is the timers, as they seem a little faster than era.

I agree with you, don't get me wrong, it's not 100% accurate but I don't think it's that far off.

[Derrick]

The moongates were corrected in Patch 90 - March 12, 2009: Taming, Pet commands, Moongates. They should be 100% accurate.

The 14 tiles from land should be accurate as well although it's known that there were some exceptions to this, such a magenica docks, but this is currently not implemented.

We saw a variety of estimations for house and boat decay when looking, I chose to use the longest estimate of 14 days when the decay rate was changed.

I wasn't aware of the 90 secs on cut up corpses, this is something we may change when we implement the body parts (yeah it's still coming)

I never saw anything but 5's drop from Titans in era. I'll go through the list and make sure it's correct, but I belive this was our original source.

As far as the explosion potions, changes on stratics pages often will substantially lag changes in game mechanics. There is an explicit OSI Patch note for Oct 1, 1998, the dawn of T2A that indicates this was removed at that time. I'm open to any info that would dispute this, but currently we're going off the OSI patch note.

There used to be a ton of escorts in Jhelom, I always picked up up on the north tip myself. I'll review the numbers on the spawn there.

Not all nobles are escortable, many in the northeast side of Britain just live there and do not wish to go anywhere

Perma-red came in in the middle of 1999 and can certainly be up for discussion.

The UOSA target patch date is not Dec 31, 1999. We target May to (early) Nov 1999.

[Hemperor]

Body parts from chopping corpses will decay at an accelerated rate, and will also decay regardless of where they are kept.

patchnotes

[Derrick]

Body parts from chopping corpses will decay at an accelerated rate, and will also decay regardless of where they are kept.

patchnotes

That's a reference to the body parts, not necessarily the bones/corpse itself.

[Charles Darwin]

I'm down with perma red. That would be a cool addition.

Nice explanation Derrick

[EVeee]

The moongates were corrected in Patch 90 - March 12, 2009: Taming, Pet commands, Moongates. They should be 100% accurate.

The 14 tiles from land should be accurate as well although it's known that there were some exceptions to this, such a magenica docks, but this is currently not implemented.

We saw a variety of estimations for house and boat decay when looking, I chose to use the longest estimate of 14 days when the decay rate was changed.

I wasn't aware of the 90 secs on cut up corpses, this is something we may change when we implement the body parts (yeah it's still coming)

I never saw anything but 5's drop from Titans in era. I'll go through the list and make sure it's correct, but I belive this was our original source.

As far as the explosion potions, changes on stratics pages often will substantially lag changes in game mechanics. There is an explicit OSI Patch note for Oct 1, 1998, the dawn of T2A that indicates this was removed at that time. I'm open to any info that would dispute this, but currently we're going off the OSI patch note.

There used to be a ton of escorts in Jhelom, I always picked up up on the north tip myself. I'll review the numbers on the spawn there.

Not all nobles are escortable, many in the northeast side of Britain just live there and do not wish to go anywhere

Perma-red came in in the middle of 1999 and can certainly be up for discussion.

The UOSA target patch date is not Dec 31, 1999. We target May to (early) Nov 1999.

Thanks for the reply. I understand why you'd be picky about what in-era mechanics to use regarding things like perma red and house decay... they affect the continuation of the player base in a huge way. Like the fact that you changed the house-save failure just before server restart - the problem itself was era-accurate, there's mention of it at the bottom of the stratics page I referenced on decay - but fixing it will help keep people around and keep more coming. Smart
I'm all for perma red myself, but I'd be surprised if it hasn't already been discussed 20 times.
I'm glad you remembered the escorts in Jhelom. I swear though, before this discussion I couldn't find a single noble willing to go anywhere no matter what town they were in. I'll check and see if I have better luck now.

[Ram]

The UOSA target patch date is not Dec 31, 1999. We target May to (early) Nov 1999.

That's good to hear, because the EA take-over was not based upon the end of the year.

[Ram]

Let it be known that Anthony "Sunsword" Castoro was promoted to lead designer of Ultima Online around May of 1999:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/castoro



I wouldn't trust any updates past then without serious scrutiny.