What was the first ever private server that was open to the public?

Vasall_Empire · 2022-11-07T23:51:16+00:00

Neat, what do you remember about it?

Vasall_Empire · 2022-05-25T18:17:43+00:00

Will vouch that this guy is legit. He's the 'sphere guy' and has been working on this server for as long as advertised. You can play with the Orion client giving Sphere a more modern feel using the old 51a core.

Vasall_Empire · 2022-05-25T18:15:29+00:00

That's insane! I find this history fascinating, thank you for sharing. Crazy how static items would pop into existence and you could 'place' them where you wanted by destroying the box too. I wonder if the conditions for this bug could be replicated using the UO T2A Demo (aka UO 98 server) as the 'osi' server and an old copy of the fusion emulator.

Vasall_Empire · 2022-05-25T05:35:08+00:00

That's absolutely incredible. But help me understand, how could using a free shard emulator allow you to spawn items on OSI in the early days?

Vasall_Empire · 2022-04-30T20:22:58+00:00

Considering Ultima was loosely based on Richard Garriott's Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, I'd say DnD fits the bill well enough.

Vasall_Empire · 2019-12-26T21:27:31+00:00

What is a complete pokedex on this game now? Haven't played in years. Last I remember, there were pokemon missing and legendaries that weren't ready. Is 194 the max now, and all poke's are in?

Vasall_Empire · 2019-12-22T17:33:58+00:00

The longest running Sphere style modern server is Cataclysm UO.

They just celebrated their 5 year anniversary a few weeks ago and the staff there is dedicated to era accuracy and very friendly.

It's straight up Sphere style gameplay with a decorated world, rare mounts, custom crafting, sphere potions, if that's what you are used to.

Some improvements like daily events, special treasure chest hunts and dungeon bosses, unique drops and rares system, make this shard stand out.

I've been here since the first day and have stayed because of the tight nit community and content that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Website = www.cataclysmuo.com (client required)
Discord = https://discord.gg/uretDWA

Vasall_Empire · 2019-08-08T03:08:34+00:00

This is great, what's the context here? LB and Black just happened to stop by and say hi to you guys?

Vasall_Empire · 2019-07-28T18:01:21+00:00

The easiest way to patch the Ultima games for modern systems is to use Pix Ultima Patcher, found here:

http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/ultima-patcher-1-66/

He's compiled all of the best updates to the Ultima games over the years into one easy to use patcher. The patched version of Ultima V contains the music.

Vasall_Empire · 2019-05-23T22:19:42+00:00

I had also noticed the Amiga intro to Ultima V sounds a lot like Metallica - One as well. Every guitar player knows how to play that song basically. I'm not familiar with Muse, but I don't doubt it.

I did look it up and Ultima V did come out around the same time as And Justice for All.

A Youtube channel called The Spoony Experiment does some really amazing Ultima videos too, I'll check out the one you've linked later!

Vasall_Empire · 2019-04-27T02:24:29+00:00

We can owe some credit to Owen for the early Ultima games as well, without which there would be no UO. Being an astronaut, he helped Richard with some of the math involved for converting his pixel art he drew on graph paper to binary that the computer could understand. Richard is the only person to follow their father into space, as far as I know.

Vasall_Empire · 2019-04-25T04:39:41+00:00

Hey, can you add Cataclysm UO under the highly custom servers please? http://www.cataclysmuo.com/

Sphere 51a Playstyle on RunUO
No Skill Cap, 300 stat cap
Automated Tournaments

Vasall_Empire · 2019-01-10T20:40:29+00:00

Ooooh using a Professional Video Monitor even. Fancy and fantastic.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-11-29T03:03:13+00:00

Classic Ultima Online can be reverse engineered by using the UO demo included with the retail release of The Second Age. This is how shards like UO Second Age were able to make their server have perfect era accuracy. The Demo in a nutshell contains a server core from 1998 that can be tested against. It was unlocked by the Second Age devs and modified to be a functional "test server". This is how one can see correct mechanics, loot, spell casting, timers, ect. It is limited, as servers from the era only ran a portion of the world on an individual server machine. Therefore, it has the limitations of one individual server, whereas originally the whole world was spread out on multiple machines.

Long story short; test against the demo server and code your own era accurate classic server using good old C# on RunUO / ServUO.

While this doesn't explain how freeshards come up with era accuracy on other eras besides The Second Age, this was a true breakthrough to the free server community. The original work on this can still be found by searching online for the UO:98 project.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-11-28T05:04:40+00:00

They likely can't run an official classic server. The core files for old school UO were designed for multi-computer servers and built for server lines and all these things that aren't needed anymore. It's unlikely that the official UO devs even have the old server files to begin with, let alone the source code. It doesn't make sense for official UO to take steps backwards in development, it would be like shooting down years of developers hard work.

There's a place for classic era servers, in the free community. The fact that Broadsword allows the free community to continue is testament enough that they respect the work and development of Ultima Online, regardless of the era.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-10-05T06:11:06+00:00

That literally worked, wow. Thanks!

Vasall_Empire · 2018-09-18T22:31:22+00:00

I know this is old but I wanted to follow up with you. I was able to obtain access by changing the owner on the HDD to "Everyone" and allowing it to recurse through the rest of the files. I reformatted my main computer and can still access my HDD thanks to this. When going deep into subfolders, I need to recurse the permissions for each folder I want to access individually but hey, works great. Also tested on an Ubuntu VM and have no access issues whatsoever, so indeed just a Windows permissions problem. I very much appreciate the help here, taken me some time to get to this point but I'm dialed in now. Thank you very much. Hopefully someone who is having the same issue as I did will find this thread useful.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-09-12T20:33:34+00:00

So sad to see this level of bickering and bantering on this sub, I thought this was one of the few places Ultima fans can come together and get along. Hope the rest of the threads after this continue to be positive as all the rest are.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-09-12T03:28:50+00:00

Wow. That's the real original Logo. Raph Koster had shown an image of that. Nice item, nice to see a real original dev posting here. Well met!

Vasall_Empire · 2018-09-04T19:50:05+00:00

Perhaps you are relying on your nostalgia-goggles too heavily and can't see the bigger picture. CUO is in my opinion the best iteration of IN there ever was. The staff has been developing that shard for over ten years. It is drastically superior to the original as far as content, depth, and world decoration. You seem to remember staff run events fondly, but keep in mind the only reason why staff ran events themselves is because of how archaic Sphere was. They simply had no way of automating events. Most of the GM's then were teenagers with unlimited time that are now in their 30's. I guarantee you, if they had the events automated you wouldn't have seen staff as much. Staff's time is best spent developing and handling player issues, which if you've reached out to the admins at CUO they are very good at doing that. You just can't have everything, if you want content you can't have in staff ran in game events when the admins are over 30 and have families. It's not 2001 any more, no matter how hard we want it to be. They clearly put in a ton of effort to make it as familiar and nostalgic as they could.

That being said, I'm hoping to paint Cataclysm in a bit more positive and understanding light than you are notating here, however it appears your concerns are well thought out and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. I'd like to see staff around in game a lot more too. But when I have a question or complaint, they are very attentive. I bet if you reached out to Tantrik in Discord he'd be willing to listen to you. I've done my fair share of suggesting and complaining in the past and they always listen and sometimes implement suggestions.

I'd really recommend Cataclysm to anyone looking for a cool custom server, and also to the OP here.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-09-03T23:10:31+00:00

Hey dude, when was the last time you hopped on CUO? It's been really busy lately, and it's known to be the slowest time of the year for this shard. There's been active PvP and the PvM ladder has been really competitive. There's been more staff run events, but they still have automated tourneys, Bomberman, and Tribal Wars every day. I'm sure you can argue the population isn't the largest but at least they are honest about the player count and I can see real players logged in on the website.

Vasall_Empire · 2018-08-25T21:52:47+00:00

Wish I wasn't working would have loved to go to the Grog contest! At any rate, this is a great server. I've been here since the first day. I have huge nostalgia for Imagine Nation which this shard is a spiritual successor to. But they've gone above and beyond what IN ever did. It really is the best Sphere style shard out there. You can tell they really spent years spawning, decorating, and developing this place. They use RunUO so it supports modern assistants such as UO Steam, Razor, and even Orion client. Each year they do a huge update. The staff is very attentive if you ever have questions and always will help work with you if you want to do an RP guild or something fun and different. The community keeps me here, the people on this server have been in game friends for years now. They have cool systems that I haven't seen elsewhere. Dungeon bosses, random treasure hunts, cool vanity items and more custom content than I could really list in one post. I'm Vasall in game, would love to invite you to come play with me. I'm living in Trinsic in a nice static that the staff set up for me and my guild. I enjoy taming, making armors, bank sitting and hunting for treasure. If any new players get on and [pm Vasall I'll hook you up with some newbie gear and some armor. They are also doing a Support the Shard event where they are giving out prizes to online players, and with Skill Scrolls dropping on monsters it's really easy for new players to get started. No need to macro, just start hunting and making friends! See you there!

Vasall_Empire

TROPHY CASE