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Patch Patch 11/10/2022 - Major Hardware Upgrade to UOAlive

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tr1age

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Major Hardware Upgrade: As we have been growing we have been adding a lot of server side modifications to make sure you all have the smoothest gameplay possible, tonight we upgraded our servers to have 3 times the power of before to future proof us as we grow more. Thank you all for being awesome and enjoy UOAlive!

A few other changes have been made to enhance the stability and integrity of the game experience as we continue to grow in size. A lot of thought has gone into the changes to maintain the core features and fun while increasing server stability and speed:

Champion Spawns:

  • Champion Spawns will now de-spawn after an hour if no progression has occurred.
  • Champion Spawn mobs will no longer drop loot other than special statuettes and special loot.
  • Champion spawns and the amount of mobs that spawn have NOT been changed.
  • Gold explosion at the end of Champions has been increased slightly to make up for the lack of gold on dead corpses. (this will benefit players of all types especially since it is so hard to loot during champ spawns)
  • Despise and The Cudishe Champ Spawns will restart constantly every 2 hours. They will be the only ones.
  • Server: We are forcing ServUO to run as a high priority process in Windows to get more juice to the server.
Example of it working AMAZING


General:
  • A few behind the scenes adjustments for the current "Invasion Of Trinsic" event
  • New Thanksgiving Event incoming from @Shazzy
  • Paragons will now spawn in Felucca! (They WILL NOT spawn at champion spawns)
  • New Haven Bank Stairs have been updated to accentuate the way up so new players are kinda funneled up to the gates, vendors, and general area. Also you can no longer fall off the side.

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Bug Fixes:
  • Bug fixes with Hunting Trophies not showing proper trphy
  • Bug fix with Mannequins
  • Leggings of Bane and Gauntlets that are cursed can now be used in crafting recipes. Thanks Tomj!
  • Additional trade window crash fixes
  • Fixed Invasion messages repeating themselves or saying they failed when they didn't.
  • Critical bug where you could spam commands via external assistant programs and crash multiple clients and freeze ANY servuo server. FIXED! Eleos(deserves most the detective credit!), tr1age, and Vorspire worked on this. For those curious about the details of such a massive bug check it here https://github.com/ServUO/ServUO/issues/5030
  • Exotic White Wyrms should be tame-able if they were not before
  • Exploring the Deep fixes
  • Bravehorn fixes
  • Wildfire Ostard cannot spawn as paragon anymore
Adjustments:
  • Felucca now has Paragons and Champion Spawns are immune to them.
  • A pet which is bonded cannot go wild anymore, but will lose loyalty at the normal OSI pace again.
  • A pet not bonded and only tame will lose loyalty at the normal OSI pace and CAN go wild.
  • Statuettes from creatures will now drop more often, increased the drop rate of them since they are fun!
  • Invasions: When we introduced Invasions, we were using an externally programmed system that we had little knowledge of. Overtime we have modified and learned it pretty well. One thing we never wanted was the "Status" of "Ranks" in invasions. Invasions to us are just that! An experience to be enjoyed not competed. A group event, not an individual challenge. A mystery and challenge! An immersive time!

    The "psychology" behind "trying to be number 1" had a negative effect on 90% of the population and only benefitted about 2% who may be better geared, perhaps online more often, or just wired that way. And while we love people having different skills and such, we found the negative effects of people coming to the server not knowing what an invasion was and seeing the HUGE million #'s when entering into an invasion made them think they would get no rewards, were far behind the curve, or just overwhelmed by it all.

    Our goal has always been making the focus the invasion itself giving rewards while you fight, not at the end or with a boss. We have worked very hard to get that balance right on majority of our invasions. We even turned ranks off on the server to not give special rewards right in beginning. No one was rewarded for their ranks. This allowed more time to enjoy the event versus rushing to a placebo Ranking/End.

    Finally we took the time to find the code invasions used to remove the rankings list, even though it was not technically being used anymore, but even as a placebo it was giving off the wrong vibe that did NOT match with UOAlive's overall attitude toward all players having equal opportunity and not feeling left out. Not a star for everyone and participation awards, but the idea of turning off your hud and fighting what is on your screen, not fighting the metaphorical ladder #'s in a UI element.

    So with that said, we removed it, and we could not be happier as Invasions now line up with what was originally intended completely! We hope you enjoy!
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To be very clear, this change had NOTHING to do with the reaction to my score. This just helped to remind us we have meant to remove it for months. Years even. And we finally found the dirty code lines. And no we will never go back to other way. This is a core feature we wanted changed/removed for years and feel extremely strong about. We know why it is motivating to some people. It is psychology 101 and that is why we hate it as owners of this server. We are not about using “incentives” to keep you engaged. UO and it’s community are enough for this. And the stories we tell utilizing the tools like invasions if not engaging enough to not need “loot box” type reward psychological rewards to be good are bad and need to be changed. This is at the CORE of UOAlive since day one being a no dono server and offering everything in game.​
If people want competitions and the like the community is here. Player run events are here. A little bit of ingenuity that defines the very sandbox nature of UO is here. And those tools are always available. An actual “counter” is counter intuitive to all of that! Hehe “counter”​
Just so you all know, we also know why people might have wanted this feature to stay. We always look at the bigger picture. This is a polarizing subject in an MMO as there will always be the hard core group that wants “incentives” or “rank” or “whatever shows their damage”, DAMAGE METERS being the most controversial add on in video games since inception. Even the non hardcore group get impacted by these things. So yes we understand why people would like it. We also understand what the core values of UOAlive are and are not willing to compromise on that beyond community sponsored events and support and elevation as a whole. Thanks for listening and having a discuss though. We appreciate that so we can give an insight behind our always very calculated even if not always “correct” decisions. And we are not too proud to change things when needed. This is not that thing haha. But in the past and going forward we will always change things that don’t hit right. We even considered keeping the “personal kill count” but decided all stats lead to the same exit: “Am I doing well enough to be here” “Should I stay awake 2 more hours to raise my metaphorical stats” instead of wanting to stay to win the story or play with the community. We say it a lot but massive “multiple player” online game.​
 
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