PlayUO Guide

[Suil Ban]

Introduction and Overview to PlayUO

What is PlayUO?

PlayUO (Krrios' Client, KUOC) is a custom client developed and maintained by Krrios of the RunUO emulator team. Written in C# and utilizing Managed DirectX for display, PlayUO is a fully-functioning client specifically geared towards PvP. PlayUO is accessed as a service of Krrios' Sallos gaming platform. The current release is in the 'beta' stages of development, and is currently accessible only on the RunUO team's Pub 16 shard, UOGamers: Hybrid.

A typical gaming session with PlayUO.

What's this I've heard about plugins?

Older betas of PlayUO gave the user an incredible amount of control over the client. Presented as a plain EXE with no serverside authentication, the client was relatively easy to reverse engineer with tools such as .NET Reflector. Curious snoopers realized that the client provided a full plugin interface, allowing the user to essentially write extensions to the client. While in theory a good idea, programmers were able to write plugins that exploited UO's timing-based PvP mechanics. Essentially, people were able to automate very key aspects of PvP, giving themselves an incredibly unfair advantage over other players. It was for this reason that PlayUO was banned from UOGamers: Hybrid and several other shards for a good few years.

With the coming of the Sallos integration, PlayUO now bears no plugin interface, and all modifications to the client can and will be monitored serverside, allowing the client to once again be used on production shards.

What about Razor? What does this client offer that Razor can't?

Razor is an assistant program for the standard OSI client that is able to send and intercept packets and read memory from the client. Razor is a very powerful assistant tool, but as a third-party program, it is somewhat limited in what it can do with the standard client.

PlayUO, on the other hand, is written from scratch and thus can feature many things not possible even with Razor. The client having been written from scratch, Krrios has at his arsenal the power to do whatever he wants with the client's usage and graphics, and thus the PlayUO offers many helpful features that Razor cannot.

A view of some of the client's graphics features.

The same view as above, but this time on Razor.

Getting Started

System Requirements

While there is no specific set of requirements listed for PlayUO, there you will notice very stark differences in performance on different machines of different capabilities. Here's a brief overview:

• Graphics card that supports the 2.0 pixel shader format
• At LEAST 512MB RAM, 1GB+ highly reccomended
• Modern processor
• Windows XP
• .NET Framework 2.0 (available here)
• Managed DirectX Redistributable (available here)

The 2.0 pixel shader format is absolutely necessary, as it is utilized to display hues in PlayUO. Most modern video cards support the format, and if you're not sure, check the website of your video card manufacturer.

PlayUO on a video card without pixel shader 2.0 capabilities.

PlayUO can be somewhat of a memory hog with its cache, and it's not unusual to see memory usage of 300,000K+ after a 2-hour gaming session.

Both Sallos and PlayUO have a lot of problems operating in Vista, and at this point it is recommended that only Windows XP be used with the client.

Sallos

PlayUO is accessed through Krrios' gaming platform, Sallos. Sallos features a slew of games implemented by Krrios, and can be a lot of fun even without PlayUO.

You can download the Sallos client here. If you're only interested in PlayUO, I recommend downloading the 'Quick Download', as it will only take a few seconds and you'll be up and running in no time. However, the 'Full Download' comes with the archives for every game featured on Sallos (currently Gunbound, TetriNET, PlayUO, Chess, Mastermind, and Texas Hold 'Em) and is recommend if you are interested in other gaming besides PlayUO.

After downloading and extracting Sallos, you should open Sallos.exe and let it patch. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds, and you'll be enjoying the client in no time! It should be noted that if Sallos fails to load, you can scroll down to the appendices, where you will find a comprehensive guide to troubleshooting the most common load and runtime errors.

After patching, simply enter your desired username and password into the provided text fields, and assuming your username of choice is not taken, you will be able to proceed to lobby after providing a few specifics about yourself.

The Sallos lobby.

Logging into PlayUO

Now that you're in the Sallos lobby, you can click 'Ultima Online' to get started. You will enter the Ultima Lobby, wherein you can chat with other players and launch PlayUO.



The login interface is rather simple. To add an account to your Sallos profile, simply type in your username and password as if you were logging in on the standard OSI client, as seen in the screenshot above. Note that if you do not already have a UOGamers: Hybrid account, you will have to create one with Razor using the standard client.



After adding an account via 'Login', you can access all of your stored accounts very quickly utilizing the 'History' feature, as shown in the above screenshot.

The moment of truth has arrived. Select one of your characters to login. Please note again that PlayUO features no method of character creation, so if you do not have a character, you will need to log into Razor and create one. If the process goes off without a hitch, you will now be logged in with PlayUO. Congratulations for having made it so far!

Using PlayUO

Configuring the Client

Now that you're in, you've got a lot to take care of in the way of getting the client personalized and running the way you'd like it to, so I've decided to break this section down into a few subsections. You're in for a long ride, but once you've got it figured out, you'll never look back.

Some notes before we get started:

• Don't start hammering keys just yet - you're currently using Krrios' hotkeys, which may feel very unusual and provide some unexpected results!
• If you're unsatisfied with your client resolution and position, you can take a look at the appendices for coverage of the provided config file
• If performance feels unusually sluggish right now, fret not; once we tweak the graphics settings and restart the client, you'll (hopefully) be good as gold

Option Editor Overview

Let's get started then, shall we? To bring up the options menu, tap Alt+O.

The 'Option Editor'.

Let's take a look at these features in brief:

• Music - Currently not functional.
• Sound - Currently not functional.
• Display Settings - Brings up a menu in which you can tweak your graphics settings for the optimal balance of performance and aesthetics.
• Macros - Allows you to set hotkeys and create short macros.
• Notoriety Hues - Allows you to specify the colors assigned to the various notorieties in the game
• Always Run - If 'On', your character will run regardless of mouse placement when the screen is right-clicked.
• Container Grid - When 'On', provides a grid overlay for containers that locks items neatly into place.
• Health Icons - When 'On', draws miniature health bars under players and animals.
• House Level - Currently not functioning.
• Incoming Names - Displays the names of players and animals as they come onto screen.
• Key Passthrough - When 'On', you will pass keystrokes into the client when using a hotkey. When 'Off', your hotkeys will not be typed into the game upon use.
• Notoriety Halos - When 'On' and in war mode, this feature will draw circles under everybody on-screen indicating their notoriety.
• Protect Cures - When 'On', this feature will disallow you from curing somebody who is not poisoned.
• Protect Heals - When 'On', this feature will disallow you from healing somebody who is poisoned.
• Protect Poisons - When 'On', this feature will disallow you from poisoning somebody who is already poisoned.
• Queue Targets - When 'On', all targeting hotkeys will push the target into a queue that will be popped out when a target cursor is presented. This allows you to hit 'Last Target' while casting a spell and have it target the moment the spell is finished casting.
• Screenshots - When 'On', will automatically take a screenshot every time a player dies on your screen.
• Siege Ruleset - When 'On', will allow you to run freely into guarded areas as a murderer. When 'Off', you will have to hold Ctrl+Shift when attempting to run into a guarded area.
• Smooth Movement - When 'On', this feature will cut down on footstep animations, allowing for a smoother look to the client.
• Scavenger - Will automatically pick up the enabled items.
• Speech Hues - Allows you to set the color of your speech.

Now let's take a look at the 'Graphics Settings' menu more in-depth:





The 'Terrain Quality' feature will allow you to smooth out the appearance of in-game terrain. Though the differences in the above screenshot appear minute, it is entirely noticeable in-game. Unfortunately, high terrain quality comes at the price of choppier graphics, especially at higher resolutions.

'Terrain Anti-Aliasing' does, however, make a very small and hardly noticeable difference in-game. For this reason, you may keep it turned down, though I personally keep it at medium simply because I can and it doesn't slow me down.

'Character Quality' and 'Environmental Effects' are very straightforward, but I will nonetheless provide a brief explanation.

Choosing 'Smooth' on the first 'Character Quality' option will anti-alias players and animals within the game, providing for a very crisp look. Choosing 'Lockstep' on the second option will remove all movement animations entirely, for those who are having great performance problems.

The 'Environmental Effects' are very simple: either shadows on, or shadows off.

Now it's time for setting your hotkeys! Click 'Macros' on the 'Option Editor' to begin.

The 'Macro Editor' with keyboard shown.

The first thing you'll want to do is delete Krrios' default hotkeys, unless you're just a really big fan of Krrios and want to play UO just like him. Go through them one by one in the main box, making sure to keep Alt+O and other standard UO hotkeys for familiarity - you don't want to be locked out of the Option Editor in the event of a crash!

After you've got your slate cleared, it's time to start setting hotkeys. To begin, click on a blank key and browse through the provided options. To reorder or delete a step in your macro, click on an event and you will be provided with a handy dialog box.



To assign hotkeys to Ctrl, Alt, and Shift combinations, first tick the circled box and then tick either Ctrl, Alt, or Shift (or any combination of the three), and click on a blank key.

Many interface options are currently not functional, such as 'Network Stats'. Play around with the options to see what's usable and what's not, and get a feel for the sometimes-awkward event organization.

If you are having problems setting hotkeys to the mouse wheel, chances are you've left Krrios' mouse wheel bindings intact. Go through your macros manually rather than using the keyboard editor, and you should come across the defaults.

Binding mousewheel hotkeys in combination with Ctrl, Alt, and Shift can be rather tricky. Your best bet is to hardcode these into Sallos\data\ultima\macros\macros.xml. Having bound keys to the mousewheel, you will notice that 69633 represents mousewheel down, 69632 represents mousewheel up, and that 69634 represents the middle button. At this point it becomes a matter of copy and pasting the details of a hotkey you want to set and adjusting the modbits properly. Let's take setting Ctrl + Shift + mousewheel down to 'Target Acquire as an example:

Looking at another 'Target Acquire' key binding, we see this:

		<macro key="81" modBits="4">
			<action command="Target" param="Acquire" />
		</macro>

We know that we want the key to be 69633 for mousewheel down. As far as modBits are concerned, allow me to explain. modBits basically explain the combination of Ctrl, Alt, and Shift needed to activate this macro. Ctrl is represented by 1, Alt by 2, and Shift by 4. Since we want Ctrl and Shift involved in this macro, we add 1 and 4 to get a modBits value of 5. If we didn't want any modifiers, we'd leave modBits as 0.

We end up with this:

		<macro key="69633" modBits="5">
			<action command="Target" param="Acquire" />
		</macro>

Close PlayUO, save macros.xml, and reload PlayUO. You should now be able to use your modified mousewheel binding.

Important Note: Looking for 'Set Last Target'? Create a hotkey to say '. target'. '. target' is one of many client commands usable at present. Commands are always prefixed with '. '.

Client Commands

Client commands are very useful and can be hotkeyed through 'Interface -> Say -> . [command]'. PlayUO currently features the following commands:

• . disturb - Provides the same functionality as the 'Actons -> Disrupt' event.
• . leavehouse - Uses the 'Leave House' context menu option immediately.
• . openrunebooks - Goes through your runebooks, enumerating through each of your runes for the purpose of the '. recall' and '. gate' commands.
• . dress - Puts on clothing and other items that you were wearing at a previous time. Useful upon resurrection.
• . recall [rune name] - Will recall to the rune name specified, if it is in one of your runebooks and you have used '. openrunebooks' previously.
• . gate - Same as '. recall', but casts a moongate instead.
• . target - Provides you with a target cursor with which you can set your last target.
• . acquire - Performs the Target Acquire action, automatically targeting or setting as your last target the nearest enemy player.
• . alwaysrun - Toggles 'Always Run'.
• . smoothwalk - Toggles smoothwalk.
• . sound - Currently not functional. See 'Config Overview' in the appendices for disabling sound.
• . music - Toggles music. Music can crash you quite often, and it is advised that you toggle music off!
• . queuetargets - Toggles target queueing.
• . remove - Removes a mobile or item from your view. Resynchronize to regain view of the removed object.
• . usegate - Attempts to double-click a moongate within one tile.
• . friend - Friending a player disallows using Target Acquire to target them.
• . scavenge [all/only/remove] - Passing 'all' will automatically scavenge any instance of the selected object you may come across. Passing 'only' will only scavenge that particular instance of the object. Passing 'remove' will remove the target object from your scavenger agent.
• . regdrop - Moves all reagents in your bag to the targeted container.
• . dragtobag - Drags the selected item to your backpack. Useful when looting.
• . move - Moves all instances of the targeted item in your bag to the specified container.
• . bringto - Moves all instances of the specified object in your backpack to the item you targeted.
• . disarm - Disarms your hands.
• . stun - Toggles the pre-AoS stun wrestling move.
• . noto / . notoquery - Toggles notoriety querying.
• . autopickup - Toggles scavenging.
• . droptarg - Cancels the current target cursor.
• . cancelstealth - Cancels stealth.
• . give [recalls/gates/regs/drake/pearl/moss/garlic/shade/ginseng/silk/ash] [amount] - Gives a targeted player the specified amount of the specified item via secure trade.
• . fps - Reports your current FPS (frames per second).

Feature Overview

PlayUO is loaded with countless gameplay-enhancing features that truly make you wonder why the OSI developers haven't stolen the client for themselves. From enhanced graphics to the new travel agent, let's go over some of the key client features.

Graphical Enhancements

In addition to the anti-aliasing and terrain smoothing discussed above, you will notice several other enhancements that make the client so stunning.

New spell animations are in place for several spells:




Guardlines are beautifully gradiated, showing you clearly which side is which:


You will also notice that the screen moves incredibly smoothly as compared to Razor.

Clutter-reducing Features

In place are several features helpful with organization, such as spell icons that lock into place around the game window, small skill icons, container grids, transparent menus (journal, skills), and automatic pulling and organizing of party members' health bars.

PvP Enhancements

You may have noticed by now that many features and options are very much geared towards PvP. Enhancements such as blocking heals when poisoned, targeting messages in party, and the keeping of separate harmful and beneficial targets are a fantastic aide to any PvPer, new or experienced. PlayUO is the client of choice for many of the best PvPers because of its smoothness and reliability.

Some enhancements that apply largely to PvP but are applicable elsewhere include wand hotkeys and item-by-type for objects such as bolas.

Travel Agent

This brand new addition to PlayUO has already been mentioned in brief with '. openrunebooks', '. recall', and '. gate'. In addition to these client commands, you can also use your overview map to get around!

The travel agent in action. Marked locations are indicated by squares on the map, as seen outside of the player's house.

Double-clicking anywhere on your overview will automatically recall you to the closest rune you have marked to the location you clicked on. This feature can be useful for catching up with people or cutting off enemies in combat, as you can Ctrl+click a party member's status bar to have your overview view switch to theirs. Clicking on their overview will have your character recall towards your friend! Don't for get to Ctrl+click back on your status bar so you can see where you're going.

FAQ

Misc

I think Sallos might be lagging my PlayUO client. Can I close it?
Yes, you can. You do not need Sallos open to enjoy PlayUO, but merely to launch it.

I can't connect to the Sallos master server. What gives?
Chances are the server is down for maintenance, and these periods are normally over relatively quickly.

Why can't I use PlayUO on another server?
PlayUO is currently in an open beta, and thus is technically not complete enough to be made public. Its close integration into Sallos and the extensive amount of serverside modifications needed to support it will make it difficult to spread to other shards, but Krrios has said that we can expect that sort of functionality eventually.

Fraps is crashing my client!
This is a known bug for many people, described by Krrios to be caused by 'shoddy programming'.

Features

I keep typing '. recall' and '. gate' but it isn't finding my runes!
Type '. openrunebooks' and try again.

I have halos toggled, but I can't see them!
Enter war mode and you should be able to see them.

What's wrong with the vendor buy/sell menus?
They're bugged, and that's all there is to it. As a point of suggestion, the items being sold are the ones pictured, not named.

I crash every time I enter town. Help!
'. music off'

How come I can't rename my pet?
This is one of a few features missing in PlayUO. At least it's not too important of one!

My tab key will only enter war mode while pressed, even with a toggle hotkey set on tab!
PlayUO has always had this problem. I suggest making a separate key (default: Alt+C) for toggling into war mode.

Can I loop macros/macro unattended?
Nope!

My PlayUO has become really sluggish and jerky.
Chances are you need to restart your client. In most cases, you will have to use the Task Manager to terminate the process.
Edit: IQJ reports that minimizing and restoring the client drops CPU usage down by a great deal. While I have not tested it myself, if it works it could be a relieving alternative to reloading Sallos over and over.

An item is stuck to my cursor - help!
This is a bug that sometimes occurs when you're dragging items. To get the item unstuck, attempt to drag a clothing item on your paperdoll.

Why can't I run into town?
I'll assume you're a murderer (red). You either need to hold Ctrl+Shift or enable Siege Ruleset on the Options Editor.

Appendices

Troubleshooting Common Errors

Coming soon!

Config Overview

In config.xml, located in your Sallos directory, you can find ways to tweak very specific settings and hardcode in hotkeys that you are having trouble setting directly through the client.

To edit or view config.xml, right click on it and navigate to 'Open With -> Notepad' or any other suitable editor. Note that you will need to close PlayUO and Sallos before making these changes. Let's look at the individual sections, starting with the '<preferences>' tag:

<renderSettings terrain-quality="1" smoothing-mode="1" smooth-characters="true" animated-characters="true" item-shadows="true" character-shadows="true" />

This bit is the textual representation of the Graphics Settings menu, and the options are pretty straightforward. 'terrain-quality' and 'smoothing-mode' are scaled from 0 to 2 - 0 being the least graphically intensive, and 2 being the most. The rest of the options are self-explanatory, and are toggled using the values 'true' and 'false'.

<sound volume="10000" mute="false" />
<music volume="10000" mute="true" />

The volume scales from 0 to 10000, but I have not yet verified if changing this value really adjusts the volume level. The 'mute' value takes either 'true' or 'false'.

<speechHues regular="96" yell="96" emote="96" whisper="96" />
<notoHues innocent="89" ally="63" attackable="1303" criminal="946" enemy="144" murderer="34" vendor="53" />

These values simply hold the hues for their described options, and have no reason to be edited outside of the client.

<options flags="7679" notoQuery="2" houseLevel="1" />

To be honest, I have no idea what the 'flags' value defines, so I suggest leaving it alone. 'notoQuery' takes 0 for on, 1 for off, and 2 for smart. 'houseLevel' is currently not functional, so there is no reason to mess with it.

The scavenger values merely hold the item IDs of what you intend on scavenging, and you really have no need to mess with them.

<screenLayout game-x="0" game-y="0" game-width="1280" game-height="800" screen-x="50" screen-y="50" screen-width="800" screen-height="600" maximized="true" full-width="1024" full-height="768" fullscreen="false">

There's a lot here, so I'm going to explain these one by one:

• game-x - Defines the coordinate of the top left corner of your bordered game window.
• game-y - Defines the y part of the coordinate of the top left corner of your bordered game window.
• game-width - Defines the width of your viewable game screen. These values are typically anything from 640 to 1600, based on your desktop resolution.
• game-height - Defines the height of your viewable game screen. These values are typically anything from 480 to 1200, based on your desktop resolution.
• screen-x - Defines the x part of the coordinate of the top left corner of the client in windowed mode.
• screen-y - Defines the y part of the coordinate of the top left corner of the client in windowed mode.
• screen-width - Defines the width of the entire client window, accounting for what is commonly referred to as the 'black space'.
• screen-height - Defines the height of the entire client window, accounting for what is commonly referred to as the 'black space'.
• full-width - Defines the width of the client's viewable area in fullscreen mode.
• full-height - Defines the height of the client's viewable area in fullscreen mode.
• fullscreen - Toggles fullscreen mode. Accepts either 'true' or 'false'. Please note that fullscreen is buggy and has problems with Alt-tabbing. I suggest not using it for now.

Everything beyond this point is either self-explanatory or does not need to be edited.

Closing

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or flames for me, feel free to AIM me at greathartx or GTalk me (preferred) at drXsuess@gmail.com. This guide is a product of late night caffeine inhalation, so feel free to point out any typos, errors, or omissions to me. This guide is still in an incredible infancy and will be modified for more content, more accuracy, and will be kept up-to-date with patches to the best of my ability.

-Suil Ban

[MrBrightside]

thanks, i can now use playuo.

[Kitchen_]

Suil Ban you need a new hobby!

[HellRazor]

Great job with this. Excellent tutorial. Should be stickied.

[dennah]

I am currently unable to create a Sallos account; it gets to the Email page, i enter in my email, and then it says connection with the Master Server has been lost....any ideas?

[Suil Ban]

Originally Posted by dennah

I am currently unable to create a Sallos account; it gets to the Email page, i enter in my email, and then it says connection with the Master Server has been lost....any ideas?

This happened to me when I was attempting to create an account for use in the screenies. I have absolutely no idea what's going on with account creation.

[Tribal]

. music off/on is the way to enable music it doesnt work with sound i dunno why but ill fuck around with the commands some more later and maybe ill figure it out

[Suil Ban]

Originally Posted by Tribal

. music off/on is the way to enable music it doesnt work with sound i dunno why but ill fuck around with the commands some more later and maybe ill figure it out

Try editing config.xml directly.

[FeaR-hybrid]

Originally Posted by dennah

I am currently unable to create a Sallos account; it gets to the Email page, i enter in my email, and then it says connection with the Master Server has been lost....any ideas?

this is my problem as well

[krrios]

Originally Posted by dennah

I am currently unable to create a Sallos account; it gets to the Email page, i enter in my email, and then it says connection with the Master Server has been lost....any ideas?

Ugh. Was a problem with a recent server update. Should be resolved now.

[Suil Ban]

I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates thusfar. I'm without internet access from home at the moment, but plan to get this going ASAP.

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Suil Ban

I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates thusfar. I'm without internet access from home at the moment, but plan to get this going ASAP.

HURRY UP SIR.

[teme92]

Is PlayUO dead or something? or why i cant make it work..

[stevefree]

Originally Posted by teme92

Is PlayUO dead or something? or why i cant make it work..

I think there is something wrong with Sallos. When I try to connect I get a "Server not responding" on the Sallos side.

[Suil Ban]

http://www.runuo.com/forums/sallos-n...-new-post.html

[Suil Ban]

Originally Posted by Ajax

HURRY UP SIR.

Troubleshooting bit will be written as soon as Sallos comes back up.

[QlimaxXx]

when can we expect a release for all RunUO shards? I for one play on Defiance, and i would very much like to use PlayUO again w/o being accused of cheating, everything was 1000000% nicer and smoother than with just raz0r