just in case

[Danno]

I hope this shut down aint forever. I used to be pretty infamouse here. Haha i played the obnoxiouse drucilia and smithercrafter ect warfark ect. I disappeared for a bit after i got perma band. Haha fond memories. Will do anything to help this shard back up one day.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6473, old post ID:37900

[Red Squirrel]

If by chance the shard would be revived, it would probably be under a completely different game. Something we have more control over so we're not trying to play cat and mouse all the time. That was half the battle with running the shard. EA changing packets, us having to update to comply, while trying to fit our own content and catching up with EA's content etc...

I've been pondering on making a UO clone, with a hint of Minecraft, but it's more pondering than actually doing. Would be a HUGE project.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6473, old post ID:37901

[Death]

Something we have more control over so we're not trying to play cat and mouse all the time. That was half the battle with running the shard. EA changing packets, us having to update to comply, while trying to fit our own content and catching up with EA's content etc...

I know that was the biggest thing for me. Trying to get everything working with all the constant client updates, all the while seeing the huge amount of stuff we were missing, the things that weren't working properly or were inaccurate. It would be an absolute nightmare to try and work with things now.

All the custom stuff was great fun to code. The quest system was starting to show great potential but unfortunately only really got to see the light of day during the last Halloween event. A lot of stuff was made to be expandable which left a lot of room for creativity.

In the end, it became less about doing the things that were great and more about doing the things that were a chore. I can't recall how much time we had spent to fix really strange bugs (like that poisoning bug that would cause you to speed up to mounted speed).

We did have a lot of fun testing new content and simultaneously finding ways to crash the test server in the most extravagant ways (Lighting stuff on fire).

The source code is available to those who wish to continue the tradition. I think the days of developing Ultima Online content have passed for us though.

It takes a lot of time and patience to continue momentum with something that wasn't designed to allow game modifications.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:6473, old post ID:37903