Ryandor.com

First, if I don't have ML installed, but I do have the client patched up all the way, does that mean I can or can not create/use a custom map with the bigger size?

Second, if I want a certain area of my map to be darker than the surrounding areas, how would I go about doing that?

I know that you do light settings by listing the region coords and the number for the dark/light value you want. Also, if I remember correctly, that area has to be 64x64. So, can this be any 64x64 area I want to input? Or is the world set on a grid so that I can only use whatever 64x64 area is already established on that grid?

Finally, if I understand previous post correctly, one of the problems with creating a client that will read custom (read, larger) map sizes was that it was difficult/impossible to locate all the references to map size in the client when it was opened up with a hex editor. With this in mind, now that the newest UO client will read the new map0 size, is it conceivable that someone could open an old client and a new client side by side and find all the places where it's different in order to find those places that reference map size? And, therefore, be able to make whatever changes they want with this new info? Or does that not necessarily follow to that conclusion?

Thanks, bunches...

CMS
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Edited to add the question about the client.

I worked for a good long while on trying to create a client that would read a custom map size. While I wasn't successful I did learn quite a bit about how the client reads/loads the map into memory.

When I had changed what I thought where all refrences to map0, it invariably ended up stretching the map incorrectly, causing all kinds of erro in the map itself.

Apparently these folks http://www.endor.cz/beginning.php have figured out how to change the map size... although, I'm unsure as to how they went about doing it. I'm not sure if they actually changed the map0 via hacking the client, or if it's basically a refrence to the fact that it might support the new larger ML maps.

If you have a client that supports the newer ML map, you should be able to build a new map0 of the appropriate size, and have it work.

As for the zones, the zones are largely a server side thing from what I remember. You establish a zone by giving the xy coordinates for two points, that forms a square and you are able to set custom lighting/weather conditions in it.

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Better Deader

Thanks for the answers.

Now for a couple more questions...

Assuming the client does support any size map, will Dragon or Map Generator *create* larger maps? And, will Sphere or UOX3 support larger maps, too?

Thanks, again,

CMS
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Yes, Dragon and UOL can both produce larger maps, but you have to be careful that the map is still in a valid size format x and y.

I think increasing it by 128/256 blocks was fine for me. (Divide the map in tile size by 8 to get the blocks).

I beleive KUOC/PlayUO can support larger maps, As can Iris, and pretty much any other Non-OSI client out there. As far as I am aware there is no UO client that can support a larger map...yet.

Endor "claims" thier map is 3x as large, but do not be fooled. It is only 3x as large as britannia, not the technical map specs.

Perhaps someone should suggest larger map support or unlimited size support to OSI and see what they say (A gift to us for not being nusainces to them)

^ That was me BTW

While certainly a good idea, I doubt it would be entirely straightforward for a number of reasons. I am sure the size of the map was not the only change in the client, so separating the other changes away would be difficult. In addition, there was likely some changes in logic to accompany it (another reason why just hacking the client generally does not work as well as you might expect). Not that it is not worth a look, but I still think it will be difficult.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

There is no way they would spend money on programmer time (however little) to help people do something that corporate EA believes is a form of piracy. I doubt you would even get a response, but go ahead and try!

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

UOX3 should be able to handle virtually any map-size you throw at it, provided that you update the map-information in maps.dfn.

Example:

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Of course since they are now increasing the sizes of default maps, maybe they will make the map size configurable through a text file to make it easier for them to update the client in the future. You never know, if you could ever speak with one of their client programmers they might do it "unofficially". I doubt that most of the worker bees at OSI care too much about emulators easy way, in fact I think EA tolerates them because they are a good source of ideas and feedback.

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

Bmzx007: *nods* I wondered about the dimensions and having to use multiples of 8, or 64, or whatever. So, in Dragon, for instance, I'd need to have a mapsize that could be divided by 64, I think. ?

Sydius: Yes, I wondered, after I wrote that, that there might be other changes in there, too, which would make it hard to find only those referring to mapsize. *sigh*

Xuri: Thanks for that info about UOX3. I'll give that a shot, too, now that I know where to change the parameters.

HellRazor: Wouldn't that be something? To find someone on the "inside" willing to do that? And, I agree with you that they allow the EMU's as a source of info and to "feel the pulse" of the UO community, in a way. I've seen a number of changes in UO that I'm sure had something to do with the popularity of those things in Player-run shards. *nods*

Anyway, thanks for all the info, guys. Now, if I could find where I misplaced all my "spare time", I might give it a try and make a really nice sized map... lol

EDITED TO ADD: But, wait, I'd need to see about using the KUOC or PlayUO clients (or Iris, though I could never get that to compile) if I actually wanted to PLAY on the larger map, even if I -could- build one. Correct?

-CMS
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Yep...any custom client that allows you to specify the map sizes, actually. I know of 2 offhand, PlayUO and Iris, that would allow you to do it. I'm not sure how functional either of them are though. You can log in but I am willing to bet that numerous bells and whistles are missing from those.

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

I had the opportunity to speak to the lead UO team (OSI no longer exists) server programmer in person once for about 20 minutes. I, of course, mostly spoke about emulation and tried to squeeze as much information as I could from him in that short amount of time. I learned a few things, and reaffirmed some suspicions that day.

First, EA has hired a number of former emulation developers. All of the people they have hired are programmers and they only hired them when they first applied for the job and met the qualifications. Knowing the innards of the protocol and such just means less training time, and is a minor plus. They have never actively "sought out" anyone from the emulation scene.

Some of the programmers, including him, had the general feeling that everyone and everything relating to UO emulation is amateur and not worth notice. The practice even mildly offends some of them, and the corporate people consider it outright piracy. Either way, I definitely did not get the impression that they look at emulation, let alone study it.

As for stealing ideas from emulation -- that is not something I think is remotely likely. Besides it being considered a "waste of time" there, they have a good many people who come up with the same ideas either coincidently because they are logical extensions of the current design, or are often inspired by the same work that inspired the emulated shards you think they got it from. Sure, many player-ran shards have had elves for a good long while, but so have other commercial games, books, movies, etc. The few ideas that cannot be traced to other media or other commercial games are, without any exception I can think of, unique to the official servers first, and only appear on player-ran servers later. Minor game-play issues that share a strikingly similar system as to that of player-ran shards may even have been introduced by players who play on both player-ran and commercial servers, but even then, I think the influence of emulated servers is at a minimum and only second-hand.

Because of the general corporate consensus on emulation, and because EA is known to enjoy suing people, I see no reason to believe any individual would have enough motivation to risk lawsuit at worst and loss of job at best just so that emulated servers could use custom maps. Making those changes for that purpose would be illegal at worst and look extremely negative on the employee at best, and they would most certainly be detected quickly, given the level QA/QC involved.

Richard Garriott, original creator of the entire Ultima series (also known as Lord British), is known to support any and all remake attempts, emulation, and general fun at the expense of his games. If fun to you means remaking it, reworking the story, or just playing it as is, he generally not only condones the activity, but outright applauds those who attempt it. Unfortunately, RG no longer owns the rights to anything Ultima-related, save for the title "Lord British" -- and EA is very stingy about who can use it and for what purposes. The problem is not that kind sympathetic individuals who could help do not exist; the problem is that they cannot assist for legal reasons (besides, RG does not know C++ and does not have access to the source anymore, anyway, heh).

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

I never intended to imply that UO "steals" ideas from EMU's. And, just as an aside, I was only replying to another poster in the first place.

I'm perfectly aware that there are few, if any, "new" ideas out there for -any- games. But, IF EA - or any other gaming company - is paying enough attention to EMU's to know which ones are popular or that they are even out there and attempt to shut them down, then it's quite possible, IMHO, that they would tend to get an idea of what most folks might like to see in a game and, therefore, implement it. It's only common sense to do so; to give players what they, obviously, want to see. ::shrug::

But, it happens all the time within the "legitimate" gaming communities/companies/etc. Game A has a large player base and the players are expounding on Virtue 1. So, Game B decides.. "Hey, what if we add that to -our- game, too? Since it's obviously a popular concept, original or not." So, Game B then comes out with a patch to add Virtue 1 to their game as well to draw in more players. Like I said; common sense.

Plus, I agree with you that an employee of EA would hardly risk his position by condoning EMU's, much less supporting them. Again, I was just agreeing with another poster's opinion on that.


-CMS
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Add up the total number of players playing on emulated servers, subtract all those playing on servers too far and removed from the original to have compatible ideas, subtract all those who play on shards which implement completely contradictory ideas because they exist for the very purpose of being different than the original, and then subtract all the poorly-balanced, un-thought-out ideas which only work well on small populations, and then see how easy it is to find shards with large numbers of players who fit into the remaining category of those whom might be useful to EA for informative purposes. Add up the amount of time it would take to find those shards, analyze them, learn what aspects are popular and practical to implement on the original servers, and then multiply by about $40 per hour (if an under-trained developer is doing the work), and see if there might be cheaper ways to arrive at the same ideas and conclusions.

Oh, and some court rulings have set a precedence that emulated servers are legal so long as they do not distribute copy written material or reverse engineer something not already public knowledge. That makes it very difficult and costly to shut down shards, but they do not represent a significant source of competition, anyway, so EA does not even look at them for the purposes of shutting them down. The only way they would even do this is if some third party points out a shard that is outright violating copyright laws, and that would just result in a nasty e-mail sent to some ISP to get the site brought down, and no inquiry into the operation of the shard itself.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Ah. My mistake. I was under the impression (apparently false?) that EA and various other gaming companies routinely shut down (or threaten to) EMUs and Mods. Which, by my way of thinking, would mean they, at least, have seen them out there, themselves. And, not implying they actually "study" them to see how many players they have and why, but it's potentially possible they may have come across a few ideas that looked appealing and potentially useful in their games.

But, no need to debate opinions, I suppose. ::shrug:: I didn't post to start anything, anyway. Was just replying to everyone who replied to me.

-CMS
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To my knowledge, EA has never shut down a single shard, for any reason. Not that EA is against suing people -- they love to -- but emulation is so far in the gray area (almost to the point of being outright white) that it is not worth the legal costs to go to court considering the relatively little competition emulated shards can muster. If anyone has an example of a shard shut down by EA, I should like to know. In fact, I have never even heard of EA bothering shard owners with vague legal threats, as they often do with outright pirates. Richard Garriott has even told me that piracy and emulation does not worry him that much at all in the MMO business -- he seems to go along with the idea that it brings more players into the official servers than it might take away, which I might believe. In the end, though, nobody can ever know the truth, unless, of course, you hunt down and torture every former UO worker into telling you where they got their ideas from (and maybe keep torturing the ones who came up with Trammel?).

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Nintendo shut down a shard once, with a Zelda theme
EA have also in the past forced some shards to change their names - apparently they didn't like it when the shards were called "Atlantic" or "Lake Superior" etc

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Sony is the online dicks of sueing and shutting people down or trying too. They lost their case against all of them as far as I know though and only try to intimidate people.

As long as "any" emulator does not reverse engineer their product and uses seperate technology to pull the strings and make it work there is nothing they can do legally. That was from OSI's lawsuit against the first EMU's. They lost horribly because the User agreement did not contain the disclaimer regarding it in the begining.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

What lawsuit?

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

The one they filed against the original cracker of the UO code and no it was not Greyworld or UOX.

I can't remember his name off the top of my head since that was 1997 and he vanished in 1998 after finishing collage but he was the original cracker of the UO client which allowed people to log into their own private world using his crack and patch program. His work was later used by Fuse for the client login, then CFuse.

He cracked it during Beta 3 and had it working by November of 1997. OSI pissed a bitch and tried to sue him but thats when it was found they had no disclaimer stating it was illegal and the court set the precident as stated above.

Use your original copy of UO and compare the dislaimer then verses the one they use now. Its about 2-3 times longer. ( I still have my original )

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"