Ryandor.com

What I find discouraging is the lack of software hobbiests in the UO emu arena anymore.

It is also stimulating to have a variety of activity of development, be it on the same project, forks of projects, competing , or differing projects. It offers a level of interest, and stimulus of all. Knoweldge is shared, and one can learn and expand.

I just don't see that too much anymore. Perhaps it is happening, and just underground. Or perhaps it is only focussed in small select sub communities.

Example, WorldMaker. It would be great if other projects (idealy open source so one can learn, but that isn't even required) where active doing the same thing (it would create an exchange of ideas, motivation, etc). Or a fork (source is readabiliy available), that would improve it , or move it to areas that I didn't have the interest or expertise to do.

Just an example. Seems like from a software activity aspect, it is very few and far between.

I think the biggest problem is people are used to certain tools. Take for example my interest in making maps. I always run a custom map shard. RunUO 1.0 is my source
Dragon mod 9 (mod 11 never seems to work for me)
World Forge for those tiny fixes on the map errors
Pandoras Box to build the towns, etc. Freezing using RunUO

and thats it.

Believe me I have downloaded almost every program anybody ever releases. But when I wanna get something done I go to the "default" programs. Thus I believe alot of people are doing the same, leaving a lack of any interest in building anything new or better.

just my opinion

_________________

Ahh, but I wasn't saying those who "use" tools. The lack of development interest in making, creating, investigating new approaches and variants!

I feel that most of the real programmers out there.. And I definetly do not include myself in that group, are just overly stingy with their work. take Orbsydia for example. think they would release any code to the source of a program they work on? naa..

Also, the real programers out there are very few, when it comes to working on UOtype programs or stand alone software. Punt, you are one of the few left in the community that actually code somthing that is not a script within the EMU itself.

The original World Forge source was released, why I dont know, never followed up on that.. I imagine for much the same reason you released your source codes.. in hope that it might be used and improved on.

But back to the issue, yeah... most anyone anymore that can actually code somthing, like a stand alone GUI program, hardly wants to share their work these days. And, have a lot more options of things to work on, asside from a somewhat meaningless EMU.

And, should we not leave out that RunUO basicly killed the entire Ultima Online EMU community with its super easy "download and start your own setup shard" package..?

Remember the days before RunUO really got developed.. Good private shards were hard to come by, and when people did find one they stuck with it. It was a god send for them, a blessing.

Now, anyone can open a shard, and have most everything working well out of the box, wich prety much crushed the excitement of the entire EMU alltogether.

Well, I've gone to other games such as NWN. When I delved into the scripting, I found that there was waaay too much hardcoded, and thus got discouraged really fast.

I've always come back to UO, because I find the UO EMU's the best ones to work with to customize your world how you see fit. Personally, I'm making a shard for a target of 10-20 players, any more would obviously improve the gameplay (I've designed it so). But overall, I enjoy playing it, and eventually, hopefully many people will come visit, and join in on my server.

But in a way I agree with you, with RunUO and the ease at running it out of the box, makes it a candidate to get a shard up and running in no time.

Then again, until something as powerful as the EMU's comes out commercially, I have a feeling that UO is going to be around for quite some time in the EMU community.

I also think that people are still in the community, just not as active because they've all realized that RL is that, RL, and your hobby is that.

Oh well, not sure if I'm making any sense.

_________________
Demuria Studios

When you ask that question you should think of all the very good programmers we once had and think of why most of them moved on...lies...

The simple truth is that most of them had two major realizations. First that the community they supported had lied to them in every way, form or fashion and were stuck in the middle of one of the ugliest "Bitch Fest" (Sphere vs. RUNUO).

Second that they were dealing with people who as a whole had no interest what so ever in learning anything...only what they could get for free by fluffing their ego and pretending to be nice to see what they get...then after they get it or are told "No" then their true nature shows through.

Who would want to deal with that everyday? Then you have people stealing their work and claiming credit.

It would be nice if someone would take up the reins and create a new tool that revolutionizes the EMU Tool world like the old UOX toys. Never seen so many support programs for any game period as the young days of UO Emus.

Of course waiting for that to happen would be like waiting around for the rebirth of the Roman Empire. It was a fun ride, but until we get some legalized narcotics to help us maintain our focus longer than 60 seconds we are pretty much screwed.

The community killed itself...

Dev

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

Yeah, interesting.

Too bad we can't somehow get a bunch of us programmers and develop our own new emu. By that, I mean develop our own client and server software, and go from there.

Maybe develop something that is 100% custom, that way people can customize their server how they see fit, and none of this hardcoded crap.

Not sure if this would be a project to take on.

By the way, I'm enjoying this conversation very much!

_________________
Demuria Studios

Nothing wrong with the EMU's that we have though I would like to see more development like the rest.

Hardcoding was done by most to improve speed and reduce lag for the players. While it is important to have a stable server, your right, everything should be scriptable so players can customize "everything".

Sy'd wouldn't hold my hand and teach me C# (Or was that C--?) otherwise I would be making my own by now.

I did a lot of tinkering with UOX 70 and before as well as Sphere 55i and earlier but only as far as scripts were concerned and it was a lot of fun.

There is truely nothing more rewarding than being able to say "I made that"

Some where in the 2000+ CD's I have piled (in a highly organized manner...) I have the original open source release of the UO Client being developed by RUNUO. Most other open source projects as well.

Microsoft 2005 Development Suite is loaded and ready to rock and I have the C++, Java and C# Developer Bibles on the shelf as well...its just a matter of finding the time to actually use them every day, every week, for months...years...to teach myself how to truely "understand" code and not just be able to mimic others work or tinker with it like I have done in the past.

Dev

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

I think one of the main problems is that there is (and always has been) a shortage of 1) "REAL" programmers who are also 2) involved in the UO EMU community, 3) interested in sharing work, and 4) have time to devote to new projects and/or forks.

I mean, you can name virtually all of the authors of decent UO EMU tools (client editing tools, not emulators) since 1997 on 2 hands. And many of them have come and gone.

I'd dig in but I am still learning both programming and how to read/write the file formats. And my time is limited. :/

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

Ha, I have plenty of time, that is why I've decided to learn a bit more how to program. I've got plenty of scripting experience, time to get some actual programming experience under my belt.

I'd love to be able to contribute to the community. I think that is another issue, is we need something to bring the community more together, than broken up into it's little groups as it seems now.

_________________
Demuria Studios