Stable Spots.

[Tony Costa]

Before we go on I would like to begin by saying I understand this issue has been brought up many of times by many of players but I would like a concrete answer to the question at hand.

In OSI T2A there was no stable limit. You can argue with me until you're purple but you are talking to a person who actually was a tamer on OSI and had hundreds of pets stabled for multiple purposes at all times. In addition to this, to my knowledge and research with other server owners, the amount of memory that a stabled pet takes on a server is the exact same as an item dropped on the ground of a house and left to rot for years on end, as all of UOSA knows this happens 100000000x daily.

Without going into the entire situation at hand I would like to offer a simple solution to this problem, in fact - three different solutions.

1. Although it is not era accurate, make stable spots more expensive. This would effectively force people to either pay a decent chunk of gold to horde stable spots or to maintain their spots every 7 days. Instead of costing 30 gold per animal, make it cost upwards of 100 to 150 gold. Therefor, as said above, it would cost more to stable and maintain animals in the stables.

2. Eliminate the hording of animals all together by putting a stable limit per account in play. This would effectively, and obviously, limit the hording of animals to a set number which would be sustainable for the server and for the player. It would allow tamers to keep their dragons, mares, ostards and other animals safely while also forcing the tamer/player to balance out their stable spots appropriately. Since we all know people don't have 3 gm tamers on three separate accounts, this function could not really backfire either. Although, yes, it is era inaccurate - What would the big deal be about a slight inaccuracy if it not only solves a main issue with a large portion of the player base but also saves server space for the shard?

3. This is the third and last of my suggestions will probably be the least accepted solution that I have to offer but none the less I am going to say it. Edit the stables script to only allow tamers with 75+ taming to stable anything other than horses. This would force stable spot hoarders who DONT have a tamer to pay 750-900 gold per horse/mare/ostard that they stable and would eliminate at least half of the people out there who steal stable spots just to troll.

In closing, I understand that this is UOSA. I have been playing for a very very long time. It is a hardcore server, yes, but that doesn't mean that some simple things cant be changed, edited or molded around the player base that we have now. Many of people are going to troll this post by saying it is easy to get stable spots but let me assure you it is not. After two days of constantly recalling to every stable in the world and not finding one stable spot open I have hit my breaking point as a tamer. This problem can be solved easily with a few minor tweaks that would help not only the tamers but also the entire server and would balance.

In my opinion suggestion #2 would be the most effective way of going about solving this issue. It would completely eliminate pet hording, tamers complaining, server overloads and a bunch of other things.

Please feel free to troll, rant and rave but if Derrick or another admin could possibly address this matter with me via this topic or in a private message I would appreciate it.

[Kaivan]

While I will not say much about what your suggesting other than the fact that it is not accurate to the era, I will note that stable masters did have a limited number of stables until the stabling patch on November 29, 2000 that globally limited the number of pets that could be stabled based on your skills.

[Tony Costa]

You mean they didn't have a limit until the patch, yes? Because I was a tamer when the game first came out and I can pretty much say with absolute certainty that I wasn't the only person who had hundreds of pets stabled at that time.

However, I will ask that you do give an opinion based on my suggestions if you would. My suggestions aren't mind blowingly astounding, they're simple solutions to an ongoing problem with tamers.

I mean Kaiv, I understand especially because I've been here so long that the era accuracy is key to this server but what exactly could it hurt by simply and slightly editing a system in place that is failing?

What this failed system of stabling does is causes grief and trolling. It turns the regular player/tamer who wants to put their pets away into a trolling cunt who inevitably has to steal tame spots from other tamers in order to get their pets stabled.

Mind you, on a separate note other than stables - Pets did not disappear in houses after being untamed for periods of time. I know this also from personal experience because I had many of dragons in my house corners for macroing, training purposes etc that never disappeared on me unless another player killed them.

If the system of stable spots available to people isn't up for a change, would it be ridiculous to ask that the original era accuracy of pets not disappearing in houses be implemented again? Or maybe even raising the time limit on the pets disappearing? For instance it is set at around (I believe) 12-18 hours of inactivity and they disappear, could this be bumped up to 48 hours? I dont play UO every day, and a large population of people dont either so logging in to tame multiple dragons would have to be a bi daily thing for many people including myself. I have no problem taking the risk of griefers LOS'ing my pets to death, thats part of the risk, but to be a tamer and not be able to utilize my full potential is just pathetic in my opinion.

*EDIT*

In addition to my last paragraph there, sure it may open up the doors for many different things such as animal horders who want to lag the server or sheep farms lasting longer than they should before being caught, but lets face it - people sheep farm regardless of the rules - people horde items regardless of lag - people even leave all their untamed useless pets at the stables after they steal all the spots with them. Britain, Trinsic, Skara, Minoc and Serps are INFESTED with tamed/untamed dogs, cats, birds, rats etc. What could possibly be the harm in allowing players to keep pets in their homes?

[Kaivan]

You mean they didn't have a limit until the patch, yes? Because I was a tamer when the game first came out and I can pretty much say with absolute certainty that I wasn't the only person who had hundreds of pets stabled at that time.

There was no limit per person, but there was a hard limit on the total number of stable slots available in-game. So there was indeed a limited number of stable slots.

As for animals de-spawning in general, animals de-spawn from an area if they are not targeted for over 20 hours. This is intended as a housekeeping measure on UOSA for untargetable spawns and hording of thousands of animals in a small location, which can cause network lag and client crashes. You're free to keep your animals in your house, but you will need to target them at least once every so often.

[Elk Eater]

I also agree that (if despawning creatures in houses isn't era accurate) 20 hours is really prohibitive when it comes to storing animals.

We are staying era accurate on one end of this problem (hard stable limits) but not era accurate on the other end (despawning animals), it leaves the average Joe tamer no options.

I have a tamer and I have to re-tame dragons anytime I want to use him. I don't have the time to micromanage stable spots, or be sure to log in every 20 hours.

In era, I had options. I could stable pets easily and not worry about taking them out. I understand that era accuracy and player efficiency has removed this option. In era, I could also keep a few dragons in my keep. I didn't have to log in every day to "refresh" them, or even every couple of days. If I went away for the weekend my pets were still there.
What I don't understand is why this option was removed. Couldn't this be taken care of with an enforceable rule rather than despawning creatures?

If I were so inclined I could trap thousands of animals at my house in the current system anyway, simply by looping a targeting razor macro across them, so the despawning solution doesn't really buy anything that a rule stating "You can't store more than X creatures in your house" would.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, PLEASE READ THIS:

Or why not a combination of the two? Let up to X number of creatures hang around inside a house forever (no despawning) until there are more than X creatures in the house. Then start despawning creatures that are unrefreshed for 20 hours until there are fewer than X creatures in the house? I think that would be a) helpful to tamers b) closer to era accurate and c) still solve the performance issues.

[Whitley]

There was no limit per person, but there was a hard limit on the total number of stable slots available in-game. So there was indeed a limited number of stable slots.

That's correct. The difference is that the OSI limit was repeatedly tweaked such that there were sufficient stable slots for the population. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw a "stable is full" message on Lake Superior and/or Pacific in about 3 years of play.

I understand from previous threads that the UOSA admins have repeatedly increased the limits here. However, as it has been stated before, doing so simply leads to more hoarding and people sniping spots. So unfortunately, that's not a workable solution.

Making slots unlimited or having a per account/toon limit is the only feasible solution I see. Before that is dismissed as not era accurate, I submit that the current system whereby stables are completely full 99% of the time is also not accurate. OSI clearly would have increased the limits to allow sufficient slots, as evidenced by the availability of slots across most shards in this era.

In fact, I believe the current system is less accurate because it reduces the viability of an entire class of player, something OSI repeatedly made attempts to rectify by balancing skills through patches. The fact that this issue comes up so often should be a red flag that it's a problem in need of a solution, and there are some simple ones available which do not negatively impact era accuracy.

[Tony Costa]

I agree with both of you, and not to get off topic I have something else to say about era accuracy in itself.

As we all know, or should I say those who played UO from the very beginning in 98-99, there was no razor and no UO assist at that time. They didnt exist. They came up later on and were a bannable offense on OSI. Therefor the fact that every one of us uses Razor and all of its options, macros, hotkeys, targets etc etc on a daily basis successfully makes this shard ERA INACCURATE in itself.

With that being said, it seems to me like there are little tweaks with things such as Razor usage, UOAM usage, Target nearest blue/red/orange macros and most of all the selling rate on merchants. If all of these things can be tweaked to be era inaccurate for one reason or another, reasons being HUGE issues that people abuse, why cant one simple fix be put in place for tamers? Like I said, it may be era inaccurate but what would be harm be in giving accounts a limit on stable spots? Are the admins afraid that the population of trolls and griefers who stable sheep and other stupid animals just to prevent tamers from being viable are going to quit UOSA? People quitting because they cant horde 100-200 sheep, cats, dogs and rats? Then I say let them go, who needs them. Anybody who is pathetic enough to, as Elk said, micromanage stables just to beat out a rat stabler is insane. The point to this game is to have fun and its not fun to have to spend weeks on end trying to search for a stable spot to put your dragons which inevitably the moment you take them out to farm your spots are taken on you again by a rat stabler or having to log in every single day and retame your little horde of dragons in your house only to find out in the long run the same troll who stables rats is going to LOS your dragons to death and you're still back at square one.

My proposal is very simple, limit stable slots per account. Allow people to stable up to but no more than 50 pets per account. There is absolutely no reason why people need to have 100 dragons, 50 ww's, 50 frenzied ostards, or for that matter 200 rats in a stable. As a veteran tamer I can tell you with confidence that 30 dragons is MORE than enough to do a dragon turret and on top of that 50 slots is MORE than enough to hold your mares, ww's, ostards etc. My proposal doesnt break anything, in fact it will help the entire server by eliminating rat hording, stop tamers from complaining/quitting because theyre useless now, eliminate server lag caused by every troll on earth stabling 100 rats and releasing the rest at the stables and will also LIMIT A TAMERS ABILITY by forcing them to manage 50 slots on their account to their desire.

With all that being said, and I am sorry for the book I wrote, why -other than era inaccuracy- can't something be put in place to solve this issue? I am NOT the only one over the past year talking about this matter. I am, however, the only person who is going to press this issue non stop until a solution can be obtained and implemented.

Tamers aren't as easy as everyone thinks, especially on UOSA. Yes dragon turrets are OP for farming, however they are NOT op for pking, they can be countered EASILY by a purple pot spammer, or chain EV's, poison fields etc. I completely understand why the "all kill" function was removed and only works with the pet nearest you at the time, all kill with 100 dragons was retarded OP and shoulda never happened in the first place, but to now completely say "fuck tamers" and let people grief their stable slots is unfair.

[Kaivan]

What you're both suggesting is that we modify the overall mechanics in order to support a particular class. This, by definition, breaks mechanical accuracy in the hopes of replicating the perceived behavior of a particular era. It has never been our intention to accomplish this, because it isn't feasible in the first place. We've only tried to produce mechanical accuracy as best as possible, and whatever falls out of that system in terms of game play is what will fall out. The fact that players have turned this limited resource into a commodity is a result experienced players interacting with this system, and we don't intend to interfere with that.

[Elk Eater]

What you're both suggesting is that we modify the overall mechanics in order to support a particular class. This, by definition, breaks mechanical accuracy in the hopes of replicating the perceived behavior of a particular era. It has never been our intention to accomplish this, because it isn't feasible in the first place. We've only tried to produce mechanical accuracy as best as possible, and whatever falls out of that system in terms of game play is what will fall out. The fact that players have turned this limited resource into a commodity is a result experienced players interacting with this system, and we don't intend to interfere with that.

Could you expand on this regarding my suggestion? Isn't the removal of pets from houses not mechanically accurate? Wouldn't allowing some pets stick around permanently be closer to era accurate than all pets suffering from a 20 hour refresh timer?

[Kaivan]

We maintain this as a matter of network latency. Thousands of animals inside a house causes major network latency, and animals stuck in untargetable areas need to be cleaned up without our intervention. The 20 hour restriction is designed to have as little impact on the game as possible, while still making it feasible to maintain these spawns.

[Elk Eater]

We maintain this as a matter of network latency. Thousands of animals inside a house causes major network latency, and animals stuck in untargetable areas need to be cleaned up without our intervention. The 20 hour restriction is designed to have as little impact on the game as possible, while still making it feasible to maintain these spawns.

I feel like maybe you missed my suggestion. I understand why the restriction is there, and I think it's understood that it isn't era accurate but is necessary, here's what I said:

---
Or why not a combination of the two? Let up to X number of creatures hang around inside a house forever (no despawning) until there are more than X creatures in the house. Then start despawning creatures that are unrefreshed for 20 hours until there are fewer than X creatures in the house? I think that would be a) helpful to tamers b) closer to era accurate and c) still solve the performance issues.

---

The point being that tamers could then keep some animals in their house without having to log in every day, like they could in era, but would be unable to maintain 2000 animals without doing so. I expanded upon that in the full post above. X in this case could be 5 or 10 or 20 or whatever would still work without causing stress to the server/undue latency.

Edit: You could still leave in the full despawn restriction for creatures not in houses.

[Whitley]

What you're both suggesting is that we modify the overall mechanics in order to support a particular class. This, by definition, breaks mechanical accuracy in the hopes of replicating the perceived behavior of a particular era. It has never been our intention to accomplish this, because it isn't feasible in the first place. We've only tried to produce mechanical accuracy as best as possible, and whatever falls out of that system in terms of game play is what will fall out. The fact that players have turned this limited resource into a commodity is a result experienced players interacting with this system, and we don't intend to interfere with that.

As I recall from my reading here, however, you significantly increased the stablemaster slot limits beyond the player/slot ratio provided by OSI. So, in effect, you've already conceded that mechanical era accuracy in regards to stable slots is not possible - or at least that you're not above tweaking it.

To put a fine point to it, why is it that since you're ostensibly somewhat flexible on the idea of mechanical era accuracy with respect to stable slots that you would choose to implement a mechanical inaccuracy which does not solve the problem over one that does?

I don't mean to be argumentative, that's an honest question. Oh, and thanks for your hard work here - just because I don't agree with you on this issue doesn't mean I don't appreciate what you guys do


PS - With regard to server resources, I'll bet you a steak dinner that if stable slots where unlimited the number of stabled pets would decrease significantly.

[Kaivan]

We maintain this as a matter of network latency. Thousands of animals inside a house causes major network latency, and animals stuck in untargetable areas need to be cleaned up without our intervention. The 20 hour restriction is designed to have as little impact on the game as possible, while still making it feasible to maintain these spawns.

I feel like maybe you missed my suggestion. I understand why the restriction is there, and I think it's understood that it isn't era accurate but is necessary, here's what I said:

---
Or why not a combination of the two? Let up to X number of creatures hang around inside a house forever (no despawning) until there are more than X creatures in the house. Then start despawning creatures that are unrefreshed for 20 hours until there are fewer than X creatures in the house? I think that would be a) helpful to tamers b) closer to era accurate and c) still solve the performance issues.

---

The point being that tamers could then keep some animals in their house without having to log in every day, like they could in era, but would be unable to maintain 2000 animals without doing so. I expanded upon that in the full post above. X in this case could be 5 or 10 or 20 or whatever would still work without causing stress to the server/undue latency.

Edit: You could still leave in the full despawn restriction for creatures not in houses.

Any change to the de-spawn mechanics will be an increase in time before animals de-spawn inside houses. On that note, the following mechanics are currently in place:

• Tamed animals in houses cannot de-spawn.
• Tamed animals take 5-10 hours to go wild if they are at 100% loyalty.
• Untamed animals will decay in 20 hours from a house if one of the following is not done:
  • They are targeted.
  • They receive damage.
  • They do damage.

This gives a pretty significant period of time to tamers for keeping animals in their houses, but as I said, that time might be increased.

What you're both suggesting is that we modify the overall mechanics in order to support a particular class. This, by definition, breaks mechanical accuracy in the hopes of replicating the perceived behavior of a particular era. It has never been our intention to accomplish this, because it isn't feasible in the first place. We've only tried to produce mechanical accuracy as best as possible, and whatever falls out of that system in terms of game play is what will fall out. The fact that players have turned this limited resource into a commodity is a result experienced players interacting with this system, and we don't intend to interfere with that.

As I recall from my reading here, however, you significantly increased the stablemaster slot limits beyond the player/slot ratio provided by OSI. So, in effect, you've already conceded that mechanical era accuracy in regards to stable slots is not possible - or at least that you're not above tweaking it.

To put a fine point to it, why is it that since you're ostensibly somewhat flexible on the idea of mechanical era accuracy with respect to stable slots that you would choose to implement a mechanical inaccuracy which does not solve the problem over one that does?

I don't mean to be argumentative, that's an honest question. Oh, and thanks for your hard work here - just because I don't agree with you on this issue doesn't mean I don't appreciate what you guys do


PS - With regard to server resources, I'll bet you a steak dinner that if stable slots where unlimited the number of stabled pets would decrease significantly.

The reason we have several stable masters is because of the fact that our best evidence shows that the number of stable masters varied from server to server. Thus there is no one true mechanically accurate number that exists for us to follow, giving us the latitude to choose a suitable number for ourselves.

Also, to explain further, the de-spawning mechanic does not exist as a matter of solving some stabling problem (when it was added, we had unlimited stable slots). It was added to deal with animals spawning in unreachable locations, and to deal with players hording thousands of animals in their houses, causing client lag in the surrounding areas. These issues are a matter of administration, and these mechanics are needed so that maintaining the server is feasible. We did not have the same interactivity with stable slots, nor do they require our administration, so the mechanics are left as they should be in those areas.

[Light Shade]

[The reason we have several stable masters is because of the fact that our best evidence shows that the number of stable masters varied from server to server. Thus there is no one true mechanically accurate number that exists for us to follow, giving us the latitude to choose a suitable number for ourselves.

I have seen the actual numbers list of stable masters that were on shards during this era. In this case, I do believe we are ignoring what the "mechanical accuracy" actually was of this mechanic. Stablers were added as necessary to keep the stables from becoming overcrowded. That was what the "mechanic" was of this Era.

Granted, they did eventually choose to limit the number of pets because it was an open-ended problem that needed to be addressed at some point. However, if they had been locked into that mechanic, as we are on this shard due to Era Accuracy concerns, then there is no reason to believe that they would not have continued their "policy/mechanic" of adding stablers as needed. They were already doing exactly this until they came up with the work-around of limiting the number of pets one could stable.

This is one of those instances where the "mechanic" involved discretion on the staff's part to make it not be an issue that impacted everyone except the hardcore powergamers. The staff on OSI "chose" to add stablers when too many were filled up. To say that they would have just randomly stopped doing it does not make sense to me. I know that we could get to where we're adding stablers every other month for quite awhile, but eventually you'll reach that "saturation" and it will no longer be an issue, aside from server resources.

To say that its a "mechanics" issue, though, I feel is very misleading as this issue was very much a discretionary issue. If the staff wants to "choose" to limit the stable spots, then that is their choice...just like the staff on OSI in Era "chose" not to have nearly every stable full across the entirety of the shard.

Either way, this issue does not impact me. I no longer play my tamer. I'm a casual gamer and don't have the time for fighting over the slots. I do, however, feel that we are doing a very poor job of emulating the Era in this instance and wish the staff would take a different approach to how they look at this issue.

-L/S

[Whitley]

I have seen the actual numbers list of stable masters that were on shards during this era. In this case, I do believe we are ignoring what the "mechanical accuracy" actually was of this mechanic. Stablers were added as necessary to keep the stables from becoming overcrowded. That was what the "mechanic" was of this Era.

Yes, exactly. This is what I was trying to say in my first post in the thread. I award you one million Internet points.

However, if they had been locked into that mechanic, as we are on this shard due to Era Accuracy concerns, then there is no reason to believe that they would not have continued their "policy/mechanic" of adding stablers as needed. They were already doing exactly this until they came up with the work-around of limiting the number of pets one could stable.

Nailed it. Bravo sir!