All Shards migrate to new Kingdom Reborn

[Arkryal]

I still don't see the distinction between the two clients. They are both 2D and represent the same items, mobiles and so forth. While I can appreciate the improved quality of some of the graphics, specifically as pertains to resolution, I do understand why it is a low priority for this project.

Aside from the subjective argument: "it looks better" which is very debatable, there is only one reason I see for making a switch: higher resolution support.

The UO project began in 1995, and was released in 1997 when 640 x 480 screen resolutions were commonplace. 800x600 was considered a great res for gamers, and 1024x768 was obscene (though still supported by most apps). This is a game made for 15"-19" CRTs. Today those size monitors or resolutions are laughable. 22" wide screens with more than double the native resolution are sub $250, and lower res 24" screens have dropped below $200. The biggest advantage to the KR client is that it can run on a large screen without appearing in a tiny window or stretching pixels to 1" each. As resolution support expands, naturally more detail can be displayed in the artwork, and in many cases should be.

KR brings more to the game than just a new client, and all those changes I feel are detrimental to the experience. But an argument can be made for updating the visual appearance of the game, if in doing so the character of a 2d iso game can be preserved.

The cold hard truth of it is this: there is no practical way of keeping up with the encryption changes. Short of creating a new client all together, it would be a fruitless effort that would slow development in the long term. That being said, a fully custom, community built client is the next logical step here. It is still a monumental undertaking and would require the talents of many programmers who are willing to spend countless hours. The only remaining question is: would the effort be worth the product? Most of this community's "talent" is already highly invested in the existing client and it's operations. It would require complete rewrites of many of the most basic RunUO scripts and minor changes to all of them. Supporting such an undertaking on the server end while maintaining support for the existing client would be practically impossible given the organization structure of this community.

I'd be interested in exploring some of the possibilities with more involved client modifications, but doubt much will come of it.

 

[b0b01]

The cold hard truth of it is this: there is no practical way of keeping up with the encryption changes. Short of creating a new client all together, it would be a fruitless effort that would slow development in the long term. That being said, a fully custom, community built client is the next logical step here. It is still a monumental undertaking and would require the talents of many programmers who are willing to spend countless hours. The only remaining question is: would the effort be worth the product? Most of this community's "talent" is already highly invested in the existing client and it's operations. It would require complete rewrites of many of the most basic RunUO scripts and minor changes to all of them. Supporting such an undertaking on the server end while maintaining support for the existing client would be practically impossible given the organization structure of this community.

I'd be interested in exploring some of the possibilities with more involved client modifications, but doubt much will come of it.

Sounds like you live on a different planet than i do. The most populated runuo shards are the pre-AOS shards. The least populated shards are the shards that require you to modify the client. RunUO was started to make an emulator for UO not a custom game. UO has been going down, i havn't seen the subscription numbers since KR, but i bet it didn't save the world. The RunUO community has been declining the last years too. I don't know how much you now about the encryption, but its easier to find it than to write your own client. The ones that have done the encryption stuff untill now however don't want to share the knowledge of how its done with the RunUO community for some reason.

btw for a custom client check Main Page - Iris.

 

[HellRazor]

Sounds like you live on a different planet than i do. The most populated runuo shards are the pre-AOS shards. The least populated shards are the shards that require you to modify the client.

I think different people prefer different kinds of shards, and most players want what they are most familiar with. That doesn't mean that there isn't an audience for different types of shards, nor does it mean that "success" is defined solely by numbers of players. Personally I'd prefer 5 good players to 50 assholes, but that's just me.

RunUO was started to make an emulator for UO not a custom game. UO has been going down, i havn't seen the subscription numbers since KR, but i bet it didn't save the world. The RunUO community has been declining the last years too.

I think that's only logical. The game is over 10 years old. The fact that a sprite based 2D game is still around, still successful enough to have commercial servers, and to have an active emulation community like RunUO, is a real testament to how unique UO really is. A lot of whiz-bang 3D MMORPGs have come and gone in that time.

I think that even though the audience is shrinking that UO emulators will continue to have an audience (even if it is a relatively small one) for a long time to come. UO offers quite a few features that other MMORPGs do not, and especially not FREE-TO-PLAY MMORPGs like RUO servers are.

And so far as running a hobby MMORPG goes, RunUO is the most fully developed MMORPG server out there right now. And I know, because I've hunted for a 3D MMORPG engine or emulator to replace RUO - and have not found anything that is stable enough, capable of hosting thousands of simultaneous players, and that can be brought up and running as quickly and with as little fuss as RUO can (not to mention something that can be modified and customized as easily).

Yeah, the audience is shrinking, but I wouldn't sound the death toll just yet. People have been predicting UO's demise for years, and yet its still here.

I don't know how much you now about the encryption, but its easier to find it than to write your own client. The ones that have done the encryption stuff untill now however don't want to share the knowledge of how its done with the RunUO community for some reason.

I don't think its a matter of not wanting to share the knowledge. Its more a matter of encryption breaking and reverse engineering being pretty technical subjects, even for the most experienced programmers. Quite frankly its not something just anyone can do, and not something that too many people want to spend thousands of hours trying to teach someone else to do. A lot of it isn't even UO specific, so there are a lot of resources out there for people who want to learn how to break encryption. It's just not something that is easily taken on for most people.

btw for a custom client check Main Page - Iris.

Agreed. Iris is the most promising of all the custom client efforts as it is the one that is most actively developed. Still has a ways to go before being ready for use as a "client of choice" - but it's definitely on its way.

 

[b0b01]

Yeah, the audience is shrinking, but I wouldn't sound the death toll just yet. People have been predicting UO's demise for years, and yet its still here.

I don't think its a matter of not wanting to share the knowledge. Its more a matter of encryption breaking and reverse engineering being pretty technical subjects, even for the most experienced programmers. Quite frankly its not something just anyone can do, and not something that too many people want to spend thousands of hours trying to teach someone else to do. A lot of it isn't even UO specific, so there are a lot of resources out there for people who want to learn how to break encryption. It's just not something that is easily taken on for most people.

I made the post on the subject why it would be unlikely that this community will create a custom client. Not stating my general opinion on the state of uo.

Just wanted to react on those two statements. I never said its going to be shut down soon, i meant to say its loosing players heavily. Maybe im too realistic but uo isn't going to get a boost untill EA finds that UO might be a nice brand and pump a few millions in the development of some game with that name in it. At the moment its what they call in business terms a cash cow, late in its product lifecycle, little development, milk it untill its done, use earnings to fund new projects.

And i think that every semi educated man and woman can learn just about anything if they are willing to put their time into it. And its pretty much a fact to me that there is little documentation on getting encryption codes of the uo client as target. Everything usually is hard to invent but when it has been invented it is rather easy to document it and replicate it. My feeling is that it is pretty much the same with breaking the uo clients encryption key.

P.S. I think RunUO is great, i think its one of the best ways to learn c# or programming in general. You can start easy and work yourself up to make almost anything.

 

[Arkryal]

Sounds like you live on a different planet than i do. The most populated runuo shards are the pre-AOS shards. ....
btw for a custom client check Main Page - Iris.

I am advocating client modification, not saying it's unreasonable. But the scope of the changes I'm talking about reach beyond casual mul patches and map edits. I'm talking about core client functionality. Iris is a fine project, but it's a fork in development, not a continuation of UO emulation. We're talking apples and oranges.

You say it's easier to find and patch encryption than work on a new client. I agree, that is specifically the problem. As we've seen, encryption changes can occur with a small client patch and it all must be done again. In the long run, I think an open client that strives to emulate the look and functionality of the current 2D client would be beneficial. That type of project would not gain the type of momentum needed because as you say it's easier to "patch".

Client patching is also not terribly difficult. While I can't speak to the exact process with any UO client, I don't imagine it differs much from that of other software checks. Basically Dump the exe before and after patch, compare the results looking for differences. Rinse and repeat a few times to generate a variety of test samples and do some (typically very basic) algebra. Determine the process that takes the hash from before the patch and makes it the hash after the patch. If that works on all your test data, jot down the algorithm and write a program to generate it given any set of hashes. I'm oversimplifying a bit, but that's the general process for 99% of software / DRM schemes / software level encryption out there today. Dust off an old copy of softice and dive in. For a dead piece of software, it still works most of the time and there are a thousand+ tutorials out there.

With newer games, it gets trickier. Many use abstract hashes. While a standard hash is basically a string of ASCII characters (values 0-255), an abstract hash exists as an equation unknown on the client end. Instead you seed one server who returns a resulting equation who's computed result you pass to a second server for verification. Since the formula used changes based on your seed which changes constantly, you would need tens of thousands of pieces of sample data to make a crack that always worked. I don't know if KR uses this or not, as I said I haven't looked. But if they did, every client patch would require thousands of samples before anyone could even look at it. Given UO's affiliation with EA, who is notorious for using abstract hash encryption, I'd just as soon get away from their client all together. If it's not implemented yet, it could be very soon.

 

[b0b01]

I am advocating client modification, not saying it's unreasonable. But the scope of the changes I'm talking about reach beyond casual mul patches and map edits. I'm talking about core client functionality.

You won't see Ryan or any of the other RunUO officials say they advocate client modding or copying the uo clients functionality, because it's illegal.

So you would have to make a client unrelated to UO, which they would not be interested in since they made the Emulator to emulate a server for UO.

Your best bet is thus to start your own project if you want to emulate the UO client of which one of the projects is Iris2.

Iris is a fine project, but it's a fork in development, not a continuation of UO emulation. We're talking apples and oranges.

It's not a fork, they made their client from scratch and are an independent project. Besides that they try to emulate the UO client so i don't quite get your point on that.

 

[Arkryal]

ok, fork is the wrong word. They are emphasizing the 3D view, which is a complete departure from the official client. Yes, they have a 2D option, but that is not what the bulk of their resources are going into. I also understand why many here would have nothing to do with such a project, due to the legal liabilities you mention. RunUO is more a facsimile of the UO server function than a true emulation of it, which I'm sure is why it hasn't been shut down by EA's legal teams. The methods it implements take a different approach to similar or identical effect. Legally, software patents are dodged easily by this approach. With a client on the other hand, it's not an issue of software patents (which should be expiring in mass this year). It's a problem with trademarks which have no expiration as long as their owner shows a revenue stream from them at any point in the last 50 years. That means renaming everything, removing logos etc. Then the issue of copyright that may exist on the art, music, sounds (most of which were licensed for the game but owned by another company) etc...

So it's understandable why such a project isn't being taken up. Iris is a great alternative (though is still lacking in support at the moment).

What I would propose is basically eliminating mul files as art and sound libraries, instead placing the associated content in a directory structure that can be easily accessed and changed. A simple client could then be written to draw the screen by pulling the needed files from said directories and handling them based on modifiable scripts which could allow for lighting effects, advanced animation etc. However I absolutely lack the ability in C# which is of course preferred here by the majority. C++ is more viable for such a project, but the handful of people here with the required proficiency in it probably have better things to do with their time and would not assume the associated liability. VB.net is another option that's easily accessible to most people, I find C# has more in common with VB than C++ from an implementation standpoint, just differing syntax. That would also allow ports through MS silverlight for web based game play as long as graphics and sounds were downloaded first. Think iPod, xBox and wii(GCHB). Possible with c# too, or any .net implemented language, but beyond my abilities. There is much to be said for reverse engineering the client, and I maintain it is the next logical step in the progression of UO emulation, but as you point out, this community is not prepared or intended for that, I know that so I'll drop the topic.

 

[HellRazor]

The truth of the matter is that creating a custom client is a big project, which is why there aren't many custom client projects, and the ones that are out there are largely unfinished.

Iris is probably the most fully developed custom client, and its open source. So anyone wanting to contribute to a custom client project would be best off contributing there. (Not knocking PlayUO, as I have not checked that one out lately. But one thing is that it is closed source and thus harder for people outside the dev team to actively contribute to).

But all this stuff takes people. The UO development community has always been small and its getting smaller. Talking about custom clients is all well and good, but its been over 10 years and we haven't seen one that is 100% complete and functional yet - so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. Like it or not, we're pretty much stuck with using what is available.

 

[minion552]

We have seen this before though when 3rd dawn came out and when they announced UO-2 and then finaly with Ultima X Odyssey. Truth be told Orgin sucks at making 3d games and clients and KR is no exception. Even if we all came together and worked on making Runuo work with KR in the end all that work could be fruitless.

If the decision was made to try, think maybe a poll should be taken on how many people would use and play the client and based on that maybe give it a shot. I for one would like the option to use it or run it since the 2d is still fun for me and playing the game it self 2d or 3d will always be fun the option would be nice to have for sure.

I like UO but more the that I like what UO is I have played many MMO's and just cause they look great dont mean they are, UO 2d client game play wise is better then most new MMO's out there. In my opinion Blizzard has ruined the MMO market with huge team play Uo had everything you could want in a game solo or team play great community as well as still to this day one of the only MMO's that have mounted combat and non Instanced housing. With that said Keeping The runuo community happy by trying to make a 3d client might be worth it.

Fully understanding how much work would have to go into it, the community would really have to come together and work together to make it work the real question is not can it be done I know it could there are a lot of smart and goal driven people in this community. The real question is does the community have the resources and coders to do it...

 

[minion552]

Also forgot to mention from my other post was I looked more into the client for KR and it is Steam encrypted so even if we wanted to use it we could not. It is illegal to do so and here is why.

In march of 1997 The UO source code and client code was Released to the public shortly after a Emulator was made UOX this was Orgins fault by not putting a encryption on the client thus it was perfectly OK to emulate it.

Shortly after Orgin put an encryption on their client but this was not until February 1999 so the emulators that started before this could not be held for its use including runuo and Uox and a few others that now have gone to the way side. With talks of UO-2, UO was going to be sold by orgin to EA to focus on the new project Instead EA fired 200 employees from Orgin and told them to scrap the project and focus on the original game.

In 2002 EA took over most of Orgin and fired more people that went to other companies such as SOE to work on SWG and to NCSOFT to start work with thier old Friend on Tabula Rasa. Since EA take over of UO every client has had the same encryption on it until KR this is a different encryption then older versions of UO. That being said like Blizzard SOE and now NCsoft have steam encryption on the client that includes Sub files that are copyrighted by the companies and using them would no doubt be against TOS. Hence why Blizzard and NCsoft have been shutting down emulators for the past 3 years and SOE has a law suit pending against SWGemu. Needless to say we are at a wall here for 3d client and iris2 is really your only shot. With that being said I would say focus on making what we have better and leaving KR has the little red button at the white house you want to touch but don't.

 

[shrundowr]

You're a decade off. EA has owned Origin since 1992. Granted, they exerted more control over OSI a little bit later, but they've owned Origin for much longer than UO has been around. The relationship seemed more friendly at first, there's a few in jokes in Ultima VII regarding the acquisition, but things definitely turned sour later on (Garriot quit btw, he wasn't fired)

The UO development community has always been small and its getting smaller. Talking about custom clients is all well and good, but its been over 10 years and we haven't seen one that is 100% complete and functional yet - so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. Like it or not, we're pretty much stuck with using what is available.

Is a new client really needed though? I mean aside from the resolution stuff (which can be fixed somewhat with razor, grey corner tiles are annoying, but withstandable) the regular UO client is fine. I mean for a game made 10 years ago its still very pretty.

 

[minion552]

Never said Garriot was fired but a lot of people were long before he quit (dont blame him by the way since UO-2 was a huge influence of his). And yes EA has owned orgin but never took full control of Ultima Online till 2002. And when they started firing more and more people they filled those positions with people from Sims online. We all saw how that game turned out and their main coder Alex Fitz went to work on his own game then when EA pulled the plug on his project he left to help destroy SWG.

No we do not need a new client the one we have is great and there is still a lot of life left in it the concern I think many have is whats next in future plans. Do we leave this the way it is build on it until its done and all go to other projects or do we focus on a future client for UO. Me personally I am working on my own game and in spare time I have been known to write some things for UOX but came here to, in my opinion a better community and a better project.

The only thing I can say is I been using irs2 and yes there are bugs and needs more support it is open source I been looking into what I can add to it to help them and runuo out. And you can run iris 2 on a 22 inch monitor and still have full screen 3d problem is you need to up your hertz from 60 to 75 to have 60 FPS and less lag on server loads. I woulds say use iris 2 if you want 3d and better Res they have a stable version out.

 

[Arkryal]

Is a new client really needed though? I mean aside from the resolution stuff (which can be fixed somewhat with razor, grey corner tiles are annoying, but withstandable) the regular UO client is fine. I mean for a game made 10 years ago its still very pretty.

Yeah, point taken. But I have a 30" widescreen monitor running at it's native res of 2560x1600. I have 3 options, move it to my old 17" standard monitor, which sucks, Stretch the window so the character's head is as big as mine, but composed of 24 easy to count brick sized pixels, or run the game in it's native res which fills about 1/8 of my screen, covering the same area on my desktop as about 8x6 icons and then squinting to read blurred text.

My other PC runs a 22" widescreen (1400x900), which is pretty common these days, but it's still no pleasure. I fear the standard technologies used by PC gamers will grow beyond the support of the client. As that happens, I imagine many will simply drop out of the community (as I did for 3 years) and the whole project will slowly stagnate or fade into nothingness. UO remains my favorite game of all time, but I can not reconcile what EA/Origin has done to it in the last 5-6 years. In that way RunUO has been a godsend for me and many like me. If the technology doesn't grow beyond it's current state, I believe the game will die. Not because of bad choices made by the official devs, not because of poor marketing or aging graphics. We simply won't be able to play it on modern hardware.

Others who have predicted the game's death have done so on the faulty premise that people are just losing interest in it. They have been proven wrong time and time again. But if the technologies that are rapidly becoming commonplace simply can't support the game in a satisfactory manner, even those who love the game will be forced to make a difficult choice. Tolerate the growing inequities of support, or move on. A new client, while admittedly a monumental task, is as I see it the one chance this game has to get ahead of that trend and preserve it's self.

Many will disagree with my argument, suggesting I keep an old PC with an aging CRT on my desk and an antique videocard to run it. That is a solution, in fact it's what I do now. But how many in that position will be willing to do that, and how many will say "screw it" and start their own WoW servers instead?

But then again, I'm paranoid, like proposing monumental tasks as solutions, and type responses that are too long. Maybe it's just my nature leading me to the wrong argument here, it's happened before.

 

[Radwen]

I play a lot of DOS games :-\.
UO won't die but will eventually turn into a popular abandonware. Still got a few years ahead of us though.

 

[minion552]

Many will disagree with my argument, suggesting I keep an old PC with an aging CRT on my desk and an antique videocard to run it. That is a solution, in fact it's what I do now. But how many in that position will be willing to do that, and how many will say "screw it" and start their own WoW servers instead?

No I agree hence why I said it was a fear of the community that once we get everything out of what we have now the choice to make a new client or work on something else will be a road we all will have to take. For me its not about the graphics I have AMD phenom 2.8ghtz 8 gigs of 1066 OCZ ram and 2 9600 xfx SLI video cards all over clocked if I was in the market to play a high tech game I could but for me MMO's are all the same forced team play, 10 year olds running the community support has huge sink holes and gold sellers that annoy my general chat on a daily basis. I love Runuo since I the user have control over ever aspect of my shard including banning people I fit to be a huge problem. I too have an old pc I keep around that I have hooked up to my TV as a Rom box that I still indulge in some original Nintendo just re beat Zelda and I recommend anyone to re play Ninja Gaiden miss old games that skip the plot points and just get to some butt kicking action.

I will keep that pc until it dies but problem with old hardware is when it dies its gone and parts become harder to replace I mean look for anyone selling old Pentium 3 systems they are hard to find a good one anyways you can find a celeron still but might as well slam your head in a door would be better then working with a celeron. And video cards like Nivida 6 series is starting to be hard to find you can find a 7600 gt card still since it is still better then most 8 series cards but not for long give it a year or more. and ATI well I am not a fan of ATI so not sure how old they support their hardware.

So for me I will keep working with Iris2 and see what help I can lend them and with that said who knows what will come out of it.

 

[Arkryal]

Iris is becoming a more appealing option (to spite the fact that I can't get it to run on Vista64). Real life demands are putting a strain on my time and there are some old scripts I did years back that I'd like to update and revive. Once I've completed that and time is available, I'd be happy to join the Iris movement. I'm well versed in C++, though it's been self taught since I was 10 years old, so my code is an awful mess of redundancy... But if I can contribute to the project in a meaningful way, I will make every attempt.

Still it's a departure from my "ideal" client, but it's already far more advanced than any project just starting out could hope to be within the next 2-3 years, so it's really the only viable option.

On the point of NES roms and other oldschool emulation, with my present displays, that becomes a non-option as well. That and many of the old emus cant down cycle multicore processors and virtual frame rate buffers fail abysmally making the game speed progress 800x faster than it should. There are other emu packages have addressed this but fail in scaling the screen. Fortunately, I soft-modded a Nintendo DS and and loaded all my NES, Sega, SNES, NeoGeo, and N64 roms on it. N64 is shakey, but all others work without a hitch and they're on a dedicated device that costs almost nothing, so no worries. But PC emulation of old consoles has already fallen into the realm of obsolescence and most emu projects have been abandoned by their creators for this reason, leaving an inadequate handful of choices left in a once thriving scene. They still technically work, but the challenges are simply mounting too quickly and few will survive. Having seen the difficulties these many projects have suffered, it's worth being aware that UO is a prime candidate for falling into the same trap. I would hate that.

Straying from the topic a bit, I intend to immortalize the game in my own way: 1 old arcade cabinet, a 1Ghz junk PC running linux, the original game client, and a custom paint job. Low priority on my to do list, and I have to write an on-screen keyboard gump (I'm gonna hate doing that), but if I get around to putting it together, it will be awesome. Got everything already, just need to swap out the joystick for a trackball for mouse control and make some decals... so if anyone has the original box & manual art... 1 high res scan and me love you long time. Barring that, I have the tarot cards from Ultima 9 laying around somewhere and they look easy to vectorize. Just need to find the time.

 

[minion552]

For the most part yes Iris is a good way out right now and to be honest might be the only one we have. Since it supports both 2d and 3d clients it is great for all parties. And not having time I understand that completely getting older brings more things in a day to do. I myself am 26 years old have plenty of things to do and making a new custom client from scratch would not be in my cards anytime soon.

I been working on my own game for 2 years and that takes the majority of my time when I have free time I work at IBM and they have been upping my hours more and more from 40 to 48. I have the source code for Iris and most of it is all c++ the scripting is not as bad as I thought it was going to be so might luck out. As far as the emulators I have a psx/ps2 emulator I had to re write to work and get the bios from Sony to work as well as sound and visual plug ins. I used the same emulator to work so far with Nes/snes/sega/N64 and GBA i am yet to get my DS to work with it my PSP is flawless when running em. As far as being an ideal client I agree with you it is not what I think an answer to long term is.. but who knows what can be done with it in the future.

For now I will do what I can to add to it and hopefully we get a break through here in the community that can solve the question of (future Uo emulation).

 

[Alex21]

wth?, can't we have both so every single person is happy?

 

[Arkryal]

I work at IBM and they have been upping my hours more and more from 40 to 48

Not the IBM plant in Pougkipsie is it? Did some time there my self on a mass aquisition they facilitated. The Philips Lab in that building remains to this day the only place where I have ever seen people eat 4 Double Cheese Burgers in a clean room.

 

[HellRazor]

A 100% completed new custom client would be nice. It's just not very likely to happen.