Sphere & Runuo

[edja_m]

Why is runuo better than sphere ?

[Lord_Greywolf]

it has tried to keep up with osi more
runs smoother
has more features
from what i has seen, more support from other admins for scripts, etc
seams more stable

these are just my obsevations, but i have not used sphere in a while
because at the time i last checked it out, runuo offered a lot more than sphere did, was updated and being supported, where spere had not chenged in 2+ years and was not really being supported

[WarAngel]

At this point, Sphere is unofficially dead. I'd say it's been dead for years now though.

[Vhaerun]

Being a "cut and paste" type of scripter, I'd have to say RunUO makes itself more "newb-friendly", as well. Sphere was C++, if I remember right. I know they are supposed to be similar, and maybe it's the way RunUO is originally scripted, but I've been able to learn a lot more with C#/RunUO than C++/Sphere.

Admittedly, I didn't work with Sphere for as long as I have with RunUO, but had it been easier (and better supported), I would have stuck with Sphere. Nothing wrong with it in general functionality... just behind the times.

[Galdar]

Originally Posted by WarAngel

At this point, Sphere is unofficially dead. I'd say it's been dead for years now though.

Actually, Sphere just released ANOTHER version 2 months ago. Which is there 3rd patch in 7 months, (I believe)

Sphere is NOT dead, they just tend to be more spread out, quiet, subtle folks. The DEV's all use there own shards to test on instead of sponsored shards like RunUO does.

SphereServer : Sphere Powers Our World

At the time I cut this link, 315 users were online and viewing there forums, HERE right now (RunUO) there is 176 viewing the forums.

I don't prefer Sphere over RunUO, it's just most of the people I know atm are Sphere folks. Myself, I much prefer A RunUO 1.0 server to anything else.

[WarAngel]

Originally Posted by Galdar

Actually, Sphere just released ANOTHER version 2 months ago. Which is there 3rd patch in 7 months, (I believe)

Sphere is NOT dead, they just tend to be more spread out, quiet, subtle folks. The DEV's all use there own shards to test on instead of sponsored shards like RunUO does.

SphereServer : Sphere Powers Our World

At the time I cut this link, 315 users were online and viewing there forums, HERE right now (RunUO) there is 176 viewing the forums.

Don't post misleading information. Having been one of the most active users at their forums, I'd know. The devs are not good community organizers (in fact, they're downright terrible at it), are not dedicated, do not take suggestions kindly even from their own dedicated userbase, and have not released a full "official" version in years. The periodic updates they release for 56b are not worth the time they spend on them, and the software overall is not even worthy of a "decent" rating.

They've attempted to make their scripting language more "powerful" and accomplished nothing but making scripts more cluttered and complicated to read. I've spent a lot of time working on Sphere scripts, and in the end I typically give up because I can't even read what I've just written. An example of this comes from my experience system.

if (!<act.tag0.used>)
		act.tag.used = 1
		var.x = <argo.tag.hitby.hit_uids>-1
		for 0 <var.x>
			if (<def.div_exp_by_percent>)
				local.dam_must_deal = <argo.str>*<min_percent_to_gain>/100
				if (<argo.tag.hitby.uid_<argo.tag.hitby.uid_<local._for>>> >= <local.dam_must_deal>)
					local.exp_to_gain = <local.old_exp_to_gain>/<argo.tag.hitby.uid_<argo.tag.hitby.uid_<local._for>>>
					try uid.<argo.tag.hitby.uid_<local._for>>.exp_gain <local.exp_to_gain>
				endif
			else
				local.exp_to_gain = <local.old_exp_to_gain> / <argo.tag.hitby.hit_uids>
				try uid.<argo.tag.hitby.hit_<eval <local._for>>>.exp_gain <local.exp_to_gain>
			endif
		endfor
	endif

Can you tell me what that does? Even just a few months since having last looked at it, even I couldn't tell you without having to decipher it line-by-line. It's a nasty language to have to deal with.

In their attempt to be rebels and stray as far from OSI, they've created a highly disorganized and baseless emulator. Sure, it comes without any bells and whistles allowing for some great customization, but I still have yet to see any Sphere shard compete with a RunUO shard. Hasn't happened in quite a few years, and doubtfully will happen anytime in the future. It's just too much of a hassle to deal with.

And as anyone from the forums over there will tell you (at least the ones who post frequently), a large majority of those currently-viewing users are noobs not willing to spend an ounce of time to learn how to script or use Sphere. You can't base how Sphere is doing based on the current number of users.

I'll post more counters if I really need to. Tired of thinking about Sphere for now.

[Bmzx007]

Don't post misleading information. Having been one of the most active users at their forums, I'd know. The devs are not good community organizers (in fact, they're downright terrible at it), are not dedicated, do not take suggestions kindly even from their own dedicated userbase, and have not released a full "official" version in years. The periodic updates they release for 56b are not worth the time they spend on them, and the software overall is not even worthy of a "decent" rating.

They've attempted to make their scripting language more "powerful" and accomplished nothing but making scripts more cluttered and complicated to read. I've spent a lot of time working on Sphere scripts, and in the end I typically give up because I can't even read what I've just written. An example of this comes from my experience system.

Been is the exact words there, You were banned after outbursts and left to come here. You havent been involved in that community for a long time and therefore don't have a clue as to whats going on.

Sphere is NOT dead, Both versions both 1.0 and the 56 series are both official versions. An agreement was signed between the 56 devs and the 1.0 devs to allow it, without restrictions. The 1.0 chain of Sphere is dead.

The "current" devs do run the community reasonably well, they take ideas from people, and even new developers from the community for the core and scripts. Sadly to do this you have to sign an agreement.

And did you ever think perhaps your Experience system script looked bad because you just werent a good 56 scripter?

Things have changed alot for the better over the past year or so. And the scripting language has gotten much more powerful. However, it is only a scripting language, and will have its flaws and downfalls.

I'm sure I could find you just as bad C# code that you couldnt understand either, so using single code examples from custom code isnt really a good way to express that.

Can you tell me what that does? Even just a few months since having last looked at it, even I couldn't tell you without having to decipher it line-by-line. It's a nasty language to have to deal with.

In their attempt to be rebels and stray as far from OSI, they've created a highly disorganized and baseless emulator. Sure, it comes without any bells and whistles allowing for some great customization, but I still have yet to see any Sphere shard compete with a RunUO shard. Hasn't happened in quite a few years, and doubtfully will happen anytime in the future. It's just too much of a hassle to deal with.

And as anyone from the forums over there will tell you (at least the ones who post frequently), a large majority of those currently-viewing users are noobs not willing to spend an ounce of time to learn how to script or use Sphere. You can't base how Sphere is doing based on the current number of users.

I'll post more counters if I really need to. Tired of thinking about Sphere for now.

I agree in the sense they don't have a good base, they never have. They are going for an OSI/Custom hybrid right now, but tending to focus on more power, better scripting, and more functionality than any base world.

And really, I've rarely seen any decent RunUO shards either, the majority of them are OSI clones, or OSI clones with minor changes. Yay! Who wants to trawl through a list of mindless clones, I dont. Back when Sphere was thriving (It isnt really today, but certainly not dead) there was at lease some variation (No offence to those who like OSI clones).

And sorry to say, but you can't really say spiteful comments about the Sphere userbase when you know nothing of them, and havent been there for a long time as you say yourself.

There are also just as many "noob" users here that do the same things you describe, so don't try to pin that one purely on Sphere.

Anyway. To the OP...

Sphere and RunUO both have good things and bad things about them. What I try to tell everybody is to try both. Have a play around write a little code/script to get a feel for it. Talk to the communities, but try not to bring up you are trialing both. As you can see, you can't usually get an unbiased opinion.

Then once you've tried them out, talked to the communities, and found what you like. Use it.

Sphere does tend have an easier scripting language to learn than C# for some, but it really depends how your mind works, Some will find Scripting easier, others will find C# easier.

RunUO has more flexbility than Sphere being that its open-source, But to use that flexiblity you must know C# well, and be prepared to mess things up in the core once in a while.

Although the Sphere devs if you asked nicely, would probably put your request on a list (If it wasnt already possible) and if enough people wanted it, it would go in.

As you see, Both good and bad things from both. Take my advice, Try both, make your own decision.

[WarAngel]

Originally Posted by Bmzx007

Been is the exact words there, You were banned after outbursts and left to come here. You havent been involved in that community for a long time and therefore don't have a clue as to whats going on.

I was banned for calling Damian a nazi, which any right-minded person would have done. Except for the anti-semitism part, he fits the mold perfectly. Need I say more?

And did you ever think perhaps your Experience system script looked bad because you just werent a good 56 scripter?

My scripting ability is of no consequence (I should add that my projects have garnered more attention than any recent scripter other than CloudBr, but framing my ability would obviously hurt your argument). Pull any script up and it looks just as cluttered.

And sorry to say, but you can't really say spiteful comments about the Sphere userbase when you know nothing of them, and havent been there for a long time as you say yourself.

As if I can't open up a webpage and read a site, banned or not. The userbase hasn't changed Bmx, and you know that (or do you? I can't say you were ever a Sphere user to begin with).

There are also just as many "noob" users here that do the same things you describe, so don't try to pin that one purely on Sphere.

No, but there is a large base of skilled users. Sphere has few enough that I can count them on my hands and feet.

I'll agree though. Try both and see. Just trying to save you time otherwise wasted however.

[HellRazor]

I originally left Sphere years ago for a few reasons (and granted this was a long time ago, so some of these things may have changed over time - the original devs aren't really too involved in Sphere any more and fans have largely taken over the project):

1. Sphere was extremely buggy; when it was being developed by the original devs they would introduce new bugs each version, and not just minor bugs, but major shard busting bugs. These bugs would go unfixed for months, and then if they were fixed, the same release would introduce new bugs that were equally as bad (sometimes without fully fixing the old ones). This made for very unstable and buggy shards, some of which were unplayable.

2. As was mentioned, some of the original devs/forum mods were pretty tyrannical and generally unfriendly in dealing with their users. Mass forum bans for even the slightest perceived infraction (even if said infraction occured on some other forum) were the norm. It was generally a pretty hostile environment over there towards the users at the time.

3. The scripting language was not powerful enough to do the things I wanted to do. A lot of things were just flat out impossible, and the things that *could* be done involved more work than should really be needed just due to the way the scripting language worked (i.e., WarAngel's code example). And personally I found there was a pretty large learning curve to learning Sphere's scripting language.

I originally went to POL as it was the most stable and powerful emulator at that time. But then development grew stagnant while RunUO's community was growing and growing. Plus I found that RUO was even more powerful than POL regarding what could be scripted outside the core. So I finally jumped ship to RUO and here I have stayed.

Advantages of Sphere over RUO:

- I think Linux is supported?

- Some feel like Sphere is easier to run "out of the box". (Not sure I agree since RUO is pretty darned easy to run "out of the box" and even sets up your admin account for you).

- I think Sphere "out of the box" comes with a fully spawned world.

- Sphere's been around longer. Not sure this is an advantage.

- "Official" releases may come out more frequently than RUO (not sure, haven't been tracking the Sphere releases).

Advantages of RUO over Sphere:

- The scripting language is an actual programming language, so by learning it, you learn something that you can actually use outside of RUO.

- Larger and more actively supported community with lots of 3rd party scripts.

- There is more you can customize outside the core. Aside from that, RUO is open sourced, so you can pretty much modify anything that isn't restricted by the client if you know how.

- RUO is built around a solid and consistent dev team that has been refining and fine tuning the project since inception. I believe RUO was well mapped out as a project before any code was actually written.

- RUO does extensive live testing before releasing new revisions; so usually, RUO releases are relatively bug free.

- Although there are long periods between "official" releases, the newest version of RUO is always available via the SVN.

- (My opinion) RUO is a lot more bug free and stable than Sphere, and probably runs more efficiently with fewer system resources.

- RUO wasn't based off ancient UOX source code. ;> (They deny it but I'm fairly positive Greyworld/TUS which was the original version of Sphere was a highly customized UOX, back in the old old days someone actually posted some source code comparisons to prove it - wish I would have kept those old posts now! I remember it was pretty convincing tho.)

- The RUO devs won't ban you from their forums for saying something negative about RUO (unless you're being a total ass about it). ;> Granted, with Sphere basically under new management these days that may no longer be an issue (although I'm pretty sure Damien still owns the forums). Stuff like this has been fairly quiet the last few years so maybe this has gotten a lot better.

[RavonTUS]

Greetings,

It's like Pepsi vs Coke...

I grew up with TUS and Sphere World and ran a successful shard for several years.

When I came back to UO, I took a look at both servers. At that time, the RunUO formus seemed to be more active and I really wanted to learn about C# and .net. So, I gave it a try.

As far as set up, I think they are both about the same. The only advantage of Sphere is that they have a working version for Linux. (You do realize the only reason I keep a Windows PC around is because of RunUO .)

In the long run, I'm glad I went with RunUO. It is stable and flexible. The ppl around here are helpful and have great ideas that in turn allow others to come up with even greater ideas.

It still amazes me that so many ppl are still playing this 10 year old game, what an addiction.

-Ravon