A classic, free to play Ultima Online shard
Are you tired of playing the same cookie cutter games that lack accomplishments, true friendships, epic battles, and a sense of free will? Now, the greatest 2D game has returned. Ultima Online, unmatched to this day in depth of mechanics and interactions. A social sandbox unlike any other. Second Age is a free Ultima Online Shard that can be accessed by anyone with UO client software, available for download in the Downloads section.
Second Age is the most accurate emulation of the UO: T2A era online today. There are no giveaways. On UO Second Age you will build your character(s) from the ground up. More information about the Ultima Online game itself, and its rich history in the mmorpg online gaming community is available here, from Wikipedia: Ultima Online. [+]
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We do not endorse any particular style of play on Second Age. Accounts are never deleted for inactivity, it will always be free to play, and anyone is welcome. The game is free and fun, yet due to its unparalleled diversity and realism, it has a learning curve.
If you're not familiar with Ultima Online play, community resouces abound. Our fourms guides sections, Our "Wiki" and in game help from dedicated staff are available to help you make sence of it all.
Since inception, the goal, vision and rationale of even creating this accurate T2A era shard has been very simple but unique:
- We aim to replicate the T2A era as best we can and within technical limitations as a whole.
- We do not intend to ever change any aspect of normal gameplay to particularly favor any playstyle or to protect or further expose any players to the in-game risk that was a large part of this era.
- We will especially not pull aspects of other eras into this one, even with an overwhelming demand of players.
We believe that "proper" gameplay can only be achieved by taking the era as a whole and accept it for what it was. Tampering with the era in hope of achieving balance is not something that we will do, nor do we believe is achievable across all playstyles. Diversity of players and playstyles is a necessity of a healthy shard. Every type of play depends on another, and this is why UO is absolutely the greatest MMORPG ever crafted.
With that said, we do still continue to strive to become more correct and true to the era. Player feedback and research is a big part of this process. We don't claim to have everything perfect yet, but we do continue to actively work towards that goal.
We will stay as accurate to the Pre-UO:R/T2A era as we can. The biggest exception to this is that there are many custom events both regularly scheduled, and staff run. Currently, we have Capture the Flag, Double Domination, Deathmatch, and Dueling Tournaments (1v1+), and unique PvM quests implemented. We have also introduced completely original "Story" Events based on the classic UO fiction.
We recomend client version 5.0.8.3, but all client versions above 5.0.0.0. are supported. If you do not have your UO installation CDs, you can download a modern client from the downloads section, here. We have a guide on the forum, here, to assist you with downloading, installing, and connecting to Second Age. [-]
Combat changes on test center.
I think we're finally in the final stages of the weapon swing changes, so i encourage everyone interested in this topic to take a look at what we currently have on test center.You can connect to test center by entering "test.uosecondage.com" as the server in razor. Same port, 2593.
These changes have been under discussion for quite some time. The initial decompilation of the OSI combat system by Batlin was done over 7 months ago which gave us the first glimpses of how the weapons on OSI worked. Since that time we have adapted a pre-T2A weapon system (actually encompassing some other systems as well) and shaped from that system a combat system that is believed to be accurate to the T2A era, post Feb 1999.
The test center combat has been going through constant revision over the last few weeks as we've refined our concept of what changes OSI made to weapons between mid 1998 and late Feb 1999. So if you were on test two weeks ago and were grossed out by what you saw, I encourage you to take another look. It's been a difficult process.
What is now on test center is the pre-T2A combat system straight from OSI code, with the addition of the following known mechanical changes:
11/10/98 - Patch
New Weapon Scale Changes
01/05/99 - Patch
Only items that you first pick up can be equipped.
02/02/99 - Patch
Mace weapons now cause stamina loss and extra damage to armor when they hit an opponent.
Your swing rate or firing rate with all weapons is now dependent on your current stamina, instead of your dexterity.
Damage for your blow is now assessed on your opponent on the start of the swing, instead of at the end. This change makes a fast connection less of an advantage in melee combat. This will apply to wrestling and attacks made by monsters as well.
Equipping a weapon now causes a short "prep time" before you can start swinging.
Being good at anatomy will give a bonus to the damage you do in combat.
02/26/99 - Patch
An exploit for getting slow weapons to hit faster has been fixed.
The patch of the most interest is of course the February 1999 "Insta-Hit" patch. There has been quite a bit of interpretation as to what "assessed at the start of the swing" and "prep-time" meant and much of the smashing our head against the wall related to these questions. The stated goal of this OSI patch was to balance combat towards those with slower connections, and i think the theory's we have enacted meet these goals. The overall changes to the OSI code were minimal (about 5 lines of code), and the changes are compatible with the changes made later to adapt the system to UO:R combat which was an important design consideration. Much testing was also done on current EA servers, to verify that some aspects of the pre-T2a combat code is still present in UO even 12 years later, especially with respect to the movement of items resetting swings, which was a point of much contention during development.
Overall, for the average player, the changes will not elicit much surprise, the combat for the average guy is pretty much the same with the most noticeable changes being present in archery. Archery mechanics did not change between mid 1998 and into 1999, so we are very confident that the way archery works on test center is absolutely authentic.
In addition to the swing changes, the proposed spell casting changes are active as well, notably:
No disturb on Equip/Use. This was added Jan 24, 2000 and should not be present here:
"The bug involving the ability to “pre-cast” spells and then use or take items will be fixed."
Message on target while equipped fizzle
Removal of attack and tab throttles
Statistics: Posted by Derrick — Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:56 am — Replies 2 — Views 58
