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Is everyone just bored? Are there no programmers interested in coding on UO anymore? Has everything that needs to be done, been accomplished?


There are so few developers anymore, doing anything active. You have Iris (a fantastic project), and a scattered person here or there. Nothing else really going on (even though Runuo fans have the SDK, allowing tools to be done pretty easy). One may consider Orbsydia, but that is so infrequent, to not be considered active (as I dont consider myself either).

It is so interesting, given the state of where emu's have finally achieved. Even those, the activity level as reduced to maybe three. Runuo has a rumored update. But the forum board really sums it up. If it wasn't for Starbucks, it wouldn't have a lot to say. Lonewolf continues at the same rate as always. And UOX, with an increate flurry, seems to be at least catching up.

But get outside the emu's, and if wasn't for Iris, it would be a dessert. Just can't imagine there are those intersted to start new projects. Or perhaps today, everyone enjoys working alone.

1 word; Oblivion!

Hehe, but yeah, I know what you mean, it seems to be pretty dead.
Iris would be great, I think it would actually revive a lot of interest to have a fully functional 3d client. In fact any fully functional client that would free us of the OSI client would be nice. The problem with all the 3rd party clients is none of them ever seem to get even close to being finished.

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This space for rent.

Tools I a wonder at times why there seems little interest (or public dev interest at least):

1. Client (other then iris)
2. Client patching tool (ala razor with embeded gm functions ala Pandor Box).
3. World editor (not muls) without using emu (to edit dynamic things, yes, emu specific).

Those are just a few.

If I were a real coder, I'd be more active. I've seen dozens of open-source UO related projects already which could have been great had not development been halted and the programs gotten outdated. I'd update some of them if I knew how.

Anyway, some more ideas:

4. Customizable, shard-specific patching-tool. In other words, a sort of UOGateway-style tool without a central server of shards, with the same (or better) file-patching capabilities, encryption-removal, and news-bulletin automatically downloaded from customizable location every time it's started, sort of like the UO Patcher/launcher tool.

5. A cartograph-EDITOR. I.e. graphical interface with which you can edit the actual cartograph map.

6. Some kind of tool to edit the appearance of the various "seasons"-settings in the UO client. I'd love to be able to finish the incomplete winter-season for instance - only some specific terrain-tiles are converted to snow. And it would be nice to be able to convert other stuff as well... for instance... during winter, the client could display snow-covered rooftiles instead of the normal ones.

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Just do what they did and rip off Capella's patcher/client encryption remover.

It was part of the original FUSE/CFUSE package and he was the first that I know of to strip the clients of encryption. After he got fed up with all the bullshit (and graduated Collage) he gave the project away and they couldn't keep up so they open sourced everything. Good luck trying to find a copy though! I've been looking for a long time as it was a great program other than a memory leak which would require you to reboot once a day.

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?"

POL is still being worked on, at the same slow pace it has always been worked on. I think the release of new versions has slowed considerably, but more for the lack of major bugs and needed features (other than newer client support, I suppose).

In general, I think most of the developers who once worked in this community have reached the threshold where they say to themselves, ?If I put any more effort into this, I might as well make my own game!?

Finally, it is obvious the UO is falling far behind in terms of technology. That is a little discouraging.

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

Sphere is still being worked on as well. I'm fairly active in that arena, and it seems to be going very nicely.

Of course UO is an old game, and it is coming up to 10 years since it orginally came out. So of course I'm very surprised that it has lasted this long. But there isn't any real game out there that allows you the freedom and flexibility to design a world, create your RPG the way you want it. Of course I've found some other projects on the net, but that is nothing compared to UO and the EMU scene.

What someone needs to do, is create a commercial product, something that is like NWN but not D&D. As much as I like D&D, I have my own ideas and such that I'd like to do, which I can't really do in UO and I obviously can't do in NWN. They need to create a commercial 3d RPG Construction Kit basically, with support to allow hundreds of users to connect to your server that can be posted up on Gamespy. Sorta how NWN does it.

What do you all think?

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Demuria Studios

I expected the old dev's to move on. What I am surprised at I guess, is the lack of new developers (younger perhaps), that have an interest to work on things. I have two observations:

1. There seems to be less desire to do "teams" on projects. More interest on individual projects.

2. Less activity in general, other then emu projects (and a few). Not a lot of development activity around the emu's in general (not counting scripting).

I guess that is the bottom line observation. I often wonder about it, for there is still plenty of things to do, that if I was just starting out, would be great learning projects to cut ones teeth on. I understand the technology may be old, but I have seen far older projects keep new life.

And few if those have had the potential for endless evolution (clients, servers, and then items around it).

In terms of making a new game, of current technology, is overwhelming. The time, graphics, and coordination makes it far exceed what I have seen many willing to dedicate to a hobby. But I admit, the potential is there. Just believe an evolutionary approach is more practical given the likelyhood of resources.

But then, the point of this, was an observation that few seem willing to make teams to tackle new projects (or renewed old projects).

Well people like Phantom ruined the "Team" thing. So many people join teams just to get the source code or the inside scoop then leave to do their own thing. Riff with paranoia.

There are already tons of 3d game design packages out there and some even offer over network packages that you can fill in the blanks for. I have two of them but their older packages. You can buy decent ones for around $800 bucks. Just do a search for 3d Engines.

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?"

I don't think its boredom, nor do I think everything has been done.

I think there has never been more than a handful of active developers at any one time, even in UO's heyday. And with UO now over 8 years old, many of them have left for other pursuits and they aren't being replaced as rapidly.

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

Back in the day, there was a NEED to figure out various things like UO packets, encryption, file-formats, etc - and tools and utilities to make use of what was discovered were created at the same time, often by the same people who figured out the stuff in the first place. Basically, they created the tools because they needed them.

Now, instead of new tools being the results of challenges overcome by developers, they're now for the most part just user-requested utilities that someone may or may not actually create, depending on how consistent the requests come in and how much free time the developer has to spare. Often these tools aren't even used by their developers, so they never see the "typical user"-side of it's usage, only test the various implemented functions as a developer would, and call it v1.0 when no obvious bugs are found

Much of the file-formats are known these days, the encryption is for most people just something obscure that UOGateway/Razor/UORice removes, the UO packets are documented (for the most part) - and any new ones are usually caught as soon as they arrive (or ignored until a certain feature is implemented).

Most tools have already been made in one form or another, and to recreate tools already made by others in the past, only better/different, isn't quite the same incentive as creating something new and "revolutionary" is. The lack of "challenges" for would-be developers of UO-related programs seems to me to be one of the major obstacles for the recruitation (is that a word? ) of fresh developer blood to the community.

At least, that's what my thoughts on the subject are Others may disagree.

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Xuri and HellRazor both have valid points. There never really was that many developers, some even worked for different groups at the same time.

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?"

Absolutely spot on. UO has always suffered from this. There is a small pool of people working on this stuff to begin with. Combine that with the fact that most people don't combine their efforts or open source their work. This is why we don't have a decent animation editor after 8 years! It's not that no one has figured it out, its more because no one has really shared any of their knowledge and none of the few editors that exist were open sourced. People are still using inadequate tools that were developed years ago simply because there are no better alternatives! Egos and in-fighting have also been part of it too.

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