UO Second Age

The problem with npc 'speed' isn't necessarily associated with the speed values at all. The reason they don't 'skip' or 'teleport' is because the npc's will enter run mode when their target is following someone or chasing a combatant here. However, npcs did not ever enter run mode on production shards. In fact, the only creatures that ever entered run mode to my knowledge were flying creatures since flying is actually what happens when a winged creature runs. The 'skipping' or 'teleporting' that most people remember quite vividly was due to the client/server character image catching up to where it's actually located. This can easily be tested by anyone multi clienting on here with a fast connection using mounts. The mount will appear to occasionally 'skip' or 'teleport' a few tiles every now and than. The same situation holds true with npcs as well. I believe if the inaccurate run mode gets corrected and made accurate based on the way OSI had it coded. This skipping and teleporting description would be more apparent on this server too.

As I'm quite lazy, and you seem to have the information on hand Faust, or atleast know where to begin to gather it up, do you mind posting the information about the AI patch actually discussing what spells were now being casted, rather than the one with zero information? At the very least, it will clear up the second half of the arguement and leave no more questions.

EA never released detailed information about the AI patch.

Please take a look at the UOR publish and specifically the AI revision in the list of changes for that publish here.

http://www.gatecentral.com/ultima/docs/ ... er_l12.php

The revision links you to the design link(when something first shows up publicly in the upcoming updates/changes).

Monster AI Mar 13 2000 11:45AM CDT (GMT -06:00) - http://update.uo.com/design_165.html wrote:Monsters will “path-find” better and will react to combat situations more intelligently. The net effect of monster AI will be that monsters will be more difficult and challenging to fight. The exact reactions monsters can have will not be detailed. Players will need to learn monsters’ behavior through fighting them and watching their reactions.

The patch note is quite clear that EA refused to explain in detail what those improvements were in game at the time. The only other information is scattered through out multiple sources and many of those were posted months if not years ago here. Will take a peek at it all again... and will post any updates when something comes up.


Edit:
Heal

Eric A. Hall - Jan 2 2000 - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.computer.ultima.online/browse_thread/thread/eeddd9782d6c4ce4/019dcc033cd8aac8?lnk=gst&q=monsters%2Bheal%2Bcure%2B2000#019dcc033cd8aac8 wrote:Monsters can't heal
themselves either though, so by this measure _ANY_ attack is a cheesy
exploit of inferior AI.

UOR Update 8 - July 14, 2000 - http://www.uoguide.com/Publish_5 wrote: Tamed spell-casting monsters will no longer heal opposing enemy monsters.

Cure

Eric A. Hall - Jan 2 2000 - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.computer.ultima.online/browse_thread/thread/eeddd9782d6c4ce4/019dcc033cd8aac8?lnk=gst&q=monsters%2Bheal%2Bcure%2B2000#019dcc033cd8aac8 wrote: Poisoning a monster is not an exploit, although some may consider it to
be cheesy because the monster can't cure himself.

UO Powergamers - Sep 13 2000 - http://www.uopowergamers.com/archives/arc8-2000.html wrote:Or that the magic casting ones will cast cure poison on their brethren?

Teleport

UO Powergamers - Sep 13 2000 - http://www.uopowergamers.com/archives/arc8-2000.html wrote:And if you can't teleport, then don't go. Teth Avengers and Matriarchs can teleport right on you.

Great, now if we can just find things on teleport, and an explanation as to why pets go freely attackable (grey) when guarded, this thread will pretty much not need to be discussed anymore.

Doesn't the pet only flag grey to the owner of the pet on here though? Anyhow, Kaivan researched the taming information and would be the person to seek for that game mechanic.

I'm pretty sure if npc's didn't cast heal/cure in January '00 but casted teleport in September '00. That you should be able to conclude that the teleport spell was included with the rest of the AI changes during the UOR publish. There are no other documented AI changes besides this one during that short timespan or even in '99-'01.

Faust wrote:Doesn't the pet only flag grey to the owner of the pet on here though?

nah, they defo flag grey when the owner says "all guard me", i've stolen a few drags that way.

nightshark wrote:

Faust wrote:Doesn't the pet only flag grey to the owner of the pet on here though?

nah, they defo flag grey when the owner says "all guard me", i've stolen a few drags that way.

I recall it flagging grey to the owner only (in t2a).

MatronDeWinter wrote:

nightshark wrote:

Faust wrote:Doesn't the pet only flag grey to the owner of the pet on here though?

nah, they defo flag grey when the owner says "all guard me", i've stolen a few drags that way.

I recall it flagging grey to the owner only (in t2a).

that wasn't something i recalled, i was just informing faust of how it's working on UOSA.

Currently atleast from what I've seen, it flags grey to everyone. Also, I don't really care or disasgree with you about the teleport thing but it is far from conclusive, although no changes should be made until we can provide D with a source saying that they DID or DID NOT other than peoples memories of how things did or did not work

It does flag grey to everyone, and I don't belive this is currently based on anything that is well documented. I am in tentative agreement that they should flag grey only to the person they are guarding, this is why for example you are able to steal from your pack horse after having it guard you.

Would be nice to have some solid information to close to book on this one.

As far as the teleporting, and as Faust described, there are multiple meanings for teleport, one is the way that escorts follow you, they move faster than the running animation and visibly bounce to their location; another meaning would be casting the spell, in the latter case you would of course see the *poof* animation. More clarity is needed on this one.

Pets and monsters definitely definitely definitely did not cast teleport in 1999. I agree with most people here that references to them "teleporting" when giving chase are related to them appearing to skip frames/tiles as they follow very quickly.

Personally, I think we need to fix the run behavior rather quickly before reviewing speed discrepencies. This is something that has been screwy with the default RunUO code since inception along with the wacky pathfollowing code. Would be nice to see these two following items corrected on a Pre:UOR shard since it's something that has never happened on any to date.

Once both corrections are put in place it will be much easier to determine any problems with npc speed values.

Faust wrote:Teleport

UO Powergamers - Sep 13 2000 - http://www.uopowergamers.com/archives/arc8-2000.html wrote:And if you can't teleport, then don't go. Teth Avengers and Matriarchs can teleport right on you.

This suggests terathans were a lot faster than they are here.. teras here were recently patched to be EXTREMELY slow

Derrick wrote:It does flag grey to everyone, and I don't belive this is currently based on anything that is well documented. I am in tentative agreement that they should flag grey only to the person they are guarding, this is why for example you are able to steal from your pack horse after having it guard you.

Pets never flagged grey to their owners unless they got a criminal flag from attacking an innocent. Pets should get a special flag as being "controlled by the owner" once they are given a kill/guard command. An unguilded tamer will still see them as blue once this flag is set, but for a guilded tamer the pet will turn green.

I don't know if this was ever resolved, but for this time period, guilded pets were bugged in a non-obvious way. I don't remember the exact conditions (tamers from the same guild? tamers from a warring guild?), but even if the pets were flagged as attackable by both pet's owners, the pets were not free to attack each other. The attacking owner and their pet would flag grey and guardwhacking would occur (personal experience here).