We did not forget about the shard

[Red Squirrel]

I know it's been very dead lately. It's been months since we've had even a small update. I apologize for that and hope to make up for it sooner or later.

Here's the scoop on what has been going on, some may already be aware.

1: shard revamp started - plan to totally redo the shard's content and some back end changes. The biggest back end change being the SQL. While there is still lot of quircks I say it's a success.

2: OSI research. There has been lot of background research done using various resources and there are some plans to change certain things to be more like OSI.

With the SQL project alone, we've grown far behind schedule as while it is working, it was not easy and took much longer then expected.

I've also run into a major barrier with it, given the way things are coded are not really meant for real time saves. The issues are mostly null checks that are missing in areas where it would never be an issue with snap shot saves.

I've come to the conclusion that even though the SQL saving itself pretty much all works, there will be TONS of figuring out to do as there are lot of very nasty weird issues.

I decided to take a break and start working on another of my projects for a bit, then come back to the shard later (not really sure when tbh).

So that said, and thinking of all the other issues with RunUO (the craft system... OMG code nightmare) I am toying with the idea of making an emulator from scratch. Sadly, if I do go this route it means we start at 0 and all the work we did is null. We could port lot of the logic but the code itself not quite. I am not dead set on this yet, though as it is a HUGE project. It would take at least a year to get the engine going to the point of making a pre-AOS shard.

However if all the systems are done properly and cleanly, stuff like adding all the mobs should be rather simple and fast, just long and tedious.

Now lets say I do go this route, we would become the official beta shard for the system, and it would be released to the public. RunUO competition, if you will. Now, if I'm going to do such a large project, I will do it well. It will be Linux 64 native, use some kind of real time storage system - maybe mysql, but maybe something custom, not sure yet. Also I would maybe even add some kind of load balancing mechanism of some sort. I would go for the gold here.

But that's just a thought that came to mind, there is a lot involved in making an emulator, and I might just end up getting back to the grind and trying to figure out the RunUO issues.

I just want everyone to know we did not forget about the shard, and we did not just leave it. It will just be a while before we do another update due to the state. I can't push out anything new until SQL is 100% stable for production.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31313

[dprantl]

Seriously, are you kidding? So the shard has been void of updates for over a year now. By updates I mean things that players can actually see/use. That shard that everyone was making fun of for being so behind is now WAY AHEAD of this one. OSI is out with Stygian Abyss for a long time. Now you bring up the possibility of 1) Spending more *years* making a UO server emulator from scratch AND 2) wiping and starting from the beginning? So maybe in the middle of 2012 when no one is playing UO anymore, you will just be coming out with your newfangled UO emulator (and there are already dozens of them right now). Remember when I told you SQL would be much harder to implement than you thought? Embarking on huge projects that take years... for what?

Just ask yourself why you are hosting a UO server. Is it so you can practice your coding, or do you have something to prove to the UO dev community? Or is it because you want to provide a fun shard for YOU and your players? I emphasize you because you probably haven't played UO more than 10 minutes for years.

If you really want to have a fun shard that players play on, you need to make it unique enough for people to want to come here. That means a good bunch of custom content. THAT's the biggest reason that at peak UOV there were over 30 players on. Make it very close to OSI, and what reason do people have to come here rather than the other 1,000 shards that are the same? You may also want to consider supporting UO:KR. So you don't like it... does it matter what you like? Lots of other people do, and you are trying to attract players. Check out the playerbase of even the crappiest shards that support UO:KR. From what I hear, RunUO already supports it and adding it in is super easy. Maybe also look into supporting the UO:SA client. If you are the first to do this, just watch the shard's popularity soar. Yes, it's in beta, so? It works and in not likely to change a whole bunch, hence the meaning of "beta".

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31316

[Red Squirrel]

While demise may be ahead now, it took them over 3 years to get to the point they are at, and there's even some systems we have they don't have yet. I'm sure they might eventually catch up, but once our foundation is solid the rest will be peanuts. Content is very easy to code. It's the foundation that takes long. Without a proper foundation you have more instability, crashes, reverts, lag, long world saves etc... There are lot of shards out there that use cookie cutter premade scripts, but I can probably go on there and crash it in about half an hour.

My goal is to not only have good content, but have a solid system that is stable. If users don't notice what is going on in the back end, it's actually a good thing. It means it's working as it should. 99.999% uptime is near impossible to get, but my goal is to get it.

Also the reason we chose to not support KR is due to legality issues. While the old client is legal to emulate, the KR client is not legal to emulate. RunUO were even approached by EA about it and if they were to support it they'd get sued, or something - forget the gist of it. So that's why they are not supporting it. If I turn around and support it I'm sure we could be in trouble.

There are also tons of packet changes to do to support it, and if I want to support KR AND the 2D client it would be a pure mess to handle all of that. I rather just support one client. Reverse engineering is not my cup of tea.

The SA client is already supported on TC1, it was a no brainer to implement, it's still the 2D client, it's just another patch. Most of the changes are client->server packets. There's one server->client packet I need to figure out to "unlock" the gargoyle race but once I figure that out it will be possible to make gargoyles. The race itself is already semi implemented on TC1. (the hues and stuff are all wrong but that's easy to fix). Really SA will be easy, if we even do implement it. The hardest part will be implementing flying. RunUO's movement system is messed up and overcomplex for no reason.

Once we catch up with OSI, we'll be able to pretty much keep up 100%. There are actually certain things I've released in the past that were not even a day old on OSI, such as the virtue artifact system.

Just need patience, but trust me at some point we will have a huge release. Whether I go with custom emulator, or just figure out the RunUO issues, it will happen, and before 2012. My goal was BY 2010, which I may not hit, but it could potentially be IN 2010. Another big delay was my house renovations. For about 3-4 months I was not even touching code.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31317

[Death]

Afraid I'm going to have to side with the players in terms of coding an emulator from scratch. That right there is just madness as you're only 1 person and you're gambling on the fact that it will work as intended in the end. There's nothing wrong with dream and dedication but it's just a bit out of reach.

It took teams of people years to get where they're at in terms of UO emulation. I can understand revising what work has been done but doing it all over from square one (although possibly beneficial in the end) is too large a gamble, considering the aftermath of you needing to support and revise everything on your own. This project is too large for one person alone IMO.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31318

[d.]

Afraid I'm going to have to side with the players in terms of coding an emulator from scratch. That right there is just madness as you're only 1 person and you're gambling on the fact that it will work as intended in the end. There's nothing wrong with dream and dedication but it's just a bit out of reach.

It took teams of people years to get where they're at in terms of UO emulation. I can understand revising what work has been done but doing it all over from square one (although possibly beneficial in the end) is too large a gamble, considering the aftermath of you needing to support and revise everything on your own. This project is too large for one person alone IMO.

This.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31319

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

Jesus tapdancing christ! I can't fucking wait for duke nukem forever, oh wait, I mean Valor forever to come out. This sure is great waiting for Red to not open up new player registrations. Its great being the ONLY person logged on.

Way to go red, you sure know how to run a GREAT server. fuckin fag, get your shit together. Give the loyal players something worthwhile to play on. Or just quit wasting our time and your money, just pull the plug.

I am not gonna pull a tony montana and quit, I will be here to heckle and harass till the end comes.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31320

[Red Squirrel]

Jesus tapdancing christ! I can't fucking wait for duke nukem forever, oh wait, I mean Valor forever to come out. This sure is great waiting for Red to not open up new player registrations. Its great being the ONLY person logged on.

Way to go red, you sure know how to run a GREAT server. fuckin fag, get your shit together. Give the loyal players something worthwhile to play on. Or just quit wasting our time and your money, just pull the plug.

I am not gonna pull a tony montana and quit, I will be here to heckle and harass till the end comes.

If you're not happy that I am paying ~200/mo to keep the server up then I'm sorry. TBH I had thought of bringing it down until the revamp is done but chose to leave it for those who want to keep playing. Otherwise, I don't need a quad xeon to run my DNS and email, I would do fine with a 60/mo celeron.

My other project that I'm working on will actually generate revenue, which is a good thing as I owe over 10k to Citi at 20% interest. Unfortunatly I can't spend all my spare time chipping away at Runuo all day.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31321

[Death]

My biggest concern is the gamble that's being done. Although you may have worked to create a solid foundation, there's no guarantee that will be enough to sustain the playerbase.

For devs and staff, it's important to have a good foundation but players will not care so much about saves. Take demise for example. They have 30 second saves, but people don't quit about the saves. They may complain but that's about it. There's a few crashes due to the introduction of new scripts, but still there's very few players who leave because of them.

Players need the updates and content to sustain their interest in the shard. Players want to be able to indulge in UOML and UOSA content as well as fool around with custom systems. All these things are 10x easier to implement and are infinitely more important to the players. After all, it's the players that will ultimately determine the success of the shard.

I'm not saying that the foundation should just be ignored, just that there's an uneven distribution of resources being spent on the foundation when other projects are equally as important.

And so concludes my 0.02$.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31322

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

I just told you to cancel it. No sense wasting your money and our time waiting for something that will not happen in the next 2 or 3 years.

Either that or get your head out of your ass and fix the basics so there is a playerbase. Instead of saying you are going to try to recode everything, just fix the problems! Put in a few donation items, like dye room tickets. open up new acct registration. Holy crap... maybe people might try out valor!

But if you are going to threaten option #1 instead, just save us the hassle and do it.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31323

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

sorry red, but you got fucked on your interest rate. why didnt you get a home equity loan? the 10k I owe is at 3.25%

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31324

[Red Squirrel]

I just told you to cancel it. No sense wasting your money and our time waiting for something that will not happen in the next 2 or 3 years.

Either that or get your head out of your ass and fix the basics so there is a playerbase. Instead of saying you are going to try to recode everything, just fix the problems! Put in a few donation items, like dye room tickets. open up new acct registration. Holy crap... maybe people might try out valor!

But if you are going to threaten option #1 instead, just save us the hassle and do it.

It's not as easy as you think to fix everything. RunUO is spegatti code. Just because some other shard may have more content, does not mean it's stable or even done properly. The other day Demise actually had a HUGE revert. That's not cool at all. As a server admin I take pride in what I do and want the maximums stability and uptime as possible. That may not be important to most people but it is to me and I do not feel confortable releasing something that may be unstable or lack performance.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31325

[d.]

My biggest concern is the gamble that's being done. Although you may have worked to create a solid foundation, there's no guarantee that will be enough to sustain the playerbase.

For devs and staff, it's important to have a good foundation but players will not care so much about saves. Take demise for example. They have 30 second saves, but people don't quit about the saves. They may complain but that's about it. There's a few crashes due to the introduction of new scripts, but still there's very few players who leave because of them.

Players need the updates and content to sustain their interest in the shard. Players want to be able to indulge in UOML and UOSA content as well as fool around with custom systems. All these things are 10x easier to implement and are infinitely more important to the players. After all, it's the players that will ultimately determine the success of the shard.

I'm not saying that the foundation should just be ignored, just that there's an uneven distribution of resources being spent on the foundation when other projects are equally as important.

And so concludes my 0.02$.

I find myself agreeing with Death entirely.

I know you have a lot on your plate Red, but it seems like the stuff you are working on regarding the server is somewhat of no interest to the player base. Each time you post about MySQL I think to myself "cool, hes still working on the server....wait a minute...how is this going to make the server better?". Not to say I don't appreciate your effort, I do, but it just seems like when you do have free time, it's spent on things that don't really help the shard much compared to the amount of overall time they require. It seems like the revamp is no closer than it was a year ago, and the player base is very dead. It is only ever me online alone or Doc online alone, and it's been that way for quite some time.

I must stress these are only my observations and my opinions and that I mean no disrespect to you Red. You have put a lot of work, time, and money in on the server, and for that I will always be grateful.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31326

[d.]

I just told you to cancel it. No sense wasting your money and our time waiting for something that will not happen in the next 2 or 3 years.

Either that or get your head out of your ass and fix the basics so there is a playerbase. Instead of saying you are going to try to recode everything, just fix the problems! Put in a few donation items, like dye room tickets. open up new acct registration. Holy crap... maybe people might try out valor!

But if you are going to threaten option #1 instead, just save us the hassle and do it.

It's not as easy as you think to fix everything. RunUO is spegatti code. Just because some other shard may have more content, does not mean it's stable or even done properly. The other day Demise actually had a HUGE revert. That's not cool at all. As a server admin I take pride in what I do and want the maximums stability and uptime as possible. That may not be important to most people but it is to me and I do not feel confortable releasing something that may be unstable or lack performance.

I understand your want to maximize efficiency, but does it matter if the server is efficient if there is no one playing it? To me, it just makes sense to do the things that will bring back the player base, and then work on making the server overall more efficient/enjoyable when there are actually people on to enjoy it.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31327

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

yeah, might as well postpone new player registration until you have built us all valor security compatible computers too.

It might be hard to code all of the stuff, but it is also hard for us dedicated players to sit around luna bank with no one else logged on. No one is happy in this situation. You are paying 200$ a month for a server that NO ONE uses. We are unhappy every time we log in. And now we get an update that says " No one forgot about the server, but any change has been postponed until Red has recoded the whole goddamned system again." Might as well postpone any updates until you have personally visited all of the player's houses and approved their computer setups and UO installations.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31329

[geezushhchrist]

sorry red but every server ive played on that has been based off of custom stuff that's super hard to get has had 30+ people on unless its like 3-5 in the morning where they are i think i said why bother with removing stuff permanantly and make them WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY hard to get and mass delete all the ones that you make harder to get buy i mightve been thinking that and post this is helping me not break things lol

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31334

[Red Squirrel]

Another thing. Everyone seems pissed that the revamp is taking long, but I have not received one single bug report for the beta testing I opened on TC1. There are plenty of bugs because me and death did lot of testing.

Not one single bug report. I can release everything now, but don't come complaining to me if the shard crashes or items get lost.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31347

[geezushhchrist]

oh btw i would be happy to donate all i could.......if i had any money and i cant log on tc1

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31351

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

Another thing. Everyone seems pissed that the revamp is taking long, but I have not received one single bug report for the beta testing I opened on TC1. There are plenty of bugs because me and death did lot of testing.

Not one single bug report. I can release everything now, but don't come complaining to me if the shard crashes or items get lost.

NOBODY PLAYS THE MAIN SERVER, why would they log onto test center?!? If we had a continual new player base, tc1 might be more active with new players testing builds and making suits. I know that I don't need to go to tc to test out a build. THoG doesn't need to go there to test the results of burning a runic. The pvmers don't need to go there to test demital or gaunt stuff. Its new players that benefit the most from test centers, and which valor has almost none.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31353

[Death]

NOBODY PLAYS THE MAIN SERVER, why would they log onto test center?!? If we had a continual new player base, tc1 might be more active with new players testing builds and making suits. I know that I don't need to go to tc to test out a build. THoG doesn't need to go there to test the results of burning a runic. The pvmers don't need to go there to test demital or gaunt stuff. Its new players that benefit the most from test centers, and which valor has almost none.

This ^

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31354

[Red Squirrel]

The idea behind the test center is to test stuff before it goes live. ITIL is a very valuable thing, even when running a game server. There's a dev environment, a test environment, then once everything is tested ok in test, THEN it goes live. Things that need fixed go back to dev. We've always done things this way, which is why the shard hardly ever has any issues.

I will NOT rush through stuff and do it all half assed. So some stuff such as the SQL saving engine took longer then I expected, I bought a house and spent 3+ months renovating, stuff did not get done per schedule, I'm very sorry, but we're not going to just rush it out the door to make a deadline. Windows Vista is a good example of why you don't do that.

I don't get paid enough to always meet deadlines. In fact we did not even bust the deadline yet, I'm just saying we probably will as we are running a little behind. If someone can make a UO world that can handle 10+ millions of items, mobiles, accounts etc with 5k active online users without any noticeable load in a single core virtualized environment and never crash or have world saves, I may be willing to take that code. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to make sure it's expandable. That was the whole point of the SQL project that no one seems to care about.

If we just rush the content and don't have a good back end and happen to have tons of new players, we wont even be able to handle those players. AoV's budget is not that of Demise, Hybrid, Shattered Legacy, or OSI. We can't use inefficient code and just rely on 16 core processors and 64GB of ECC ram and a fiber channel SAN. Our code needs to be efficient, our systems need to be able to run smoothly with a smaller foot print. People forget the cost involved in running a FREE shard. There is zero profit to be made here. The only initiative is our love for UO, and UO cannot be enjoyed with lag or downtime.

Lastly, I never said I was going to take a whole other year to code a new emulator. It's just a thought that came to mind, and it may or may not happen. In fact, the hardest part about coding a UO emulator is knowing all the packets, and being able to decode/encode the gzip packets (gumps, character list, and think houses use it). The rest is peanuts tbh. 1 year is probably overkill.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31357

[mcxman]

I'm not a player... I've been following the shard progress through website. Cause, you can't really log in the game.
And you can't connect to the TC either.
But this post did catch my eye. So i thought hey why not post something.

Red, get some people to work on the current server, and work on the uov2 yourself. You've got players that play here, keep them, and try to get new ones. Manage your new scripters, give them tasks etc.

And just because some of the code is done weirdly doesn't mean it's bad. I've worked on custom harvesting and now going to crafting. It's weird code, I admit. a lot of investigation has to be done before you can do something.
But that's what it is. And just because it looks bad, or it's hard to understand the way it's done doesn't mean it needs to be changed. If it was that bad they wouldn't be able to have 1000 on it. I spoke to Mark and he said the current Svn is almost 99.9% they have on uoG:H.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31362

[Red Squirrel]

I see your point and it would make sense to do it that way but unfortunately due to technicalities of it, it's hard to keep one shard going and updated while updating for a future shard. The way the code paths and test servers work, you can't really upload something to live until the whole thing is stable. What I should really do though is only update TC1 when it looks production worthy, I did the mistake of updating it before it was production worthy. TC2 is on a super slow server so I don't even test stuff on there and just commit to TC1 right away.

Either way, RunUO or not, we WILL update the server sooner or later, and it will be BIG. Rome was not built in one day.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31375

[Anonymous]

Why are we all fighting guys? we all love uo we all want a great server so that should make us all freidns lol red this is a great shard i choose this over hybrid that ive been playing for 4 years and im rich on their this is a great server with customs cool artifacts and spawns plus i think the tc2 you made is really cool we should all just chill yes red you need to make it able for new player to join and make accounts or we arent gonna have anyone on so far its only been me and this other guy and we have been rockin lets just all chill

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31589

[Nosferatu]

Im sorry but i come here once in a blue moon anymore just to see how red is doing with his server, Good guy, really smart, motivated, dedicated, the man does work for his community.

But seriously red not to burst your bubble dude but the gods honest truth is creating an engine to run UO single handed was completly retarted.

Lets face the facts other then what has already been faced.

UO is a dieing breed of a game, im so glad i quit years ago and rarely play it to this day.

So you take a game which has been on its way out ever since EA games has taken it over and you try to rebuild it basically from scratch. System up.

UO is a game of years, u get a few years to run a nice shard and it goes away, its just the way it is, here you are putting all these hours into countless projects when you should just take that basic ass dumb code in the beginning, add a few tweaks and let players go mad, who cares if the shard drops for a few hours? who cares if a few items are lost? U dont think in OSI i lost TONS of shit to bugs?

You dont think everytime i lost something to a hack or a big ass bug or just to my own stupidtity i wasnt PISSED the fuck off?

But life moves on and i still played the game to this day its not about that one glorious item you had that no one else has its the fact that the items are just there to get, the fun of getting them.. UO is just a dead game period and your trying to make it into something it isnt.

It is literally just a game meant for playing and having fun dude. Nothing has to be perfect not even 99.99% perfect , in fact why strive for such perfection of uptime? U dont think OSI crashes? how many people are running that show?

Yet u want 99.99% uptime? Striving for it? Dude its just a game, let it be the game of your life not the stress of your life, have fun and make it what its suppost to be.

U lost so many loyal players due to all of this engine shit and security shit, just make sure your computer and your life is safe, the game will take care of itself.

Thats why its a freeshard, its not meant to be some new hit game in stores buy it for 60 bucks and pay 15 every month to play, those expectations dude, throw them out the window.


As negative as ALL of that may sound its just honesty, i come in here once in a while and i see nothing but greiving, if this shard would ever go back up , who knows maybe i come out of UO retirement just to have a little fun, spare time, who cares if i get PK'd who cares if shit isnt ALWAYS balanced, thats why u just work on shit as it comes, THERES ALWAYS GONNA BE BUGS!!!!! Stop thinking its going to be perfect and bug free.


I mean for fucks sake look at call of duty modern warfare 2.



Maybe the greatest game ive ever played..


So far the worse bugs ive ever seen in a game where u can literally cheat to get ur levels up, but i love the game and i dont care because they let me play it.


Just let ur players play the game, have fun yourself with it, SQL?! REally?!


and im sorry but.. it looks like your single handedly trying to save UO yourself, the game is what it is one thing it isnt or ever will be is a roman empire or a world wonder...

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31592

[DOCTOR THUNDER]

can you please enable new player registration? that is step one

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:4840, old post ID:31593