[HellRazor]

Originally Posted by b0b01

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.