A Discussion about the state of the Classic Client in 2024

MacroPlanet

I am deeply concerned that this development team is not taking the community's feedback seriously. For a considerable time, we have been requesting enhancements for the classic game, particularly an updated client with a higher resolution and improved frame rates. For the longest time we gave up and used 3rd party clients for the modern resolutions.

Well, this situation reached a critical point when Broadsword decided to ban all third-party clients as we all know.

In response, the community has been imploring the developers for an updated CC client that meets modern standards, especially for resolution and frame rates.

Instead of addressing any of these concerns, Broadsword released this video: 

https://youtu.be/O3XExTaqOe8?si=Al853b6TGzZO9re5

Honestly, is this some kind of off-season April Fools' joke?

It is perplexing and frustrating that the developers appear to be ignoring the community’s earnest requests for client updates. I want this to be a constructive discussion that yields serious responses from the developers about the lack of updates to the CC client. The majority of the community, as seen in various Discord channels, the UO Reddit community, all the comments on the YouTube video and people here on these forums, are asking for this.

Could we please receive an official word from the devs regarding the state of the CC and if there are plans to update the client? If not, then why?

I think it’s only fair that we get some kind of word from Broadsword. 

KroDuK

Can I join even if I don't care about resolution and frame rate?

I want that type of video for UOassist and UOautomap.. cuz personally my problem is thing like u cannot macro eggs bomb without UOassist..

PS: I also totally hated the fact Enhanced Client got an auto loot (vacuum stuff) it's borderline bot mode.. The only time I was using the reborn client was to buy reagents twice a year.. give me the regs EC on the CC and do not assume i'm using any type of third party program to auto loot cuz I like to play on CC.. ban that shit from the EC or give it to me.. i'd rather not if i'm honest.. I prefer the legit stuff like auto grabbing gold at best..

I'm not into diablo 2 pindle bot run.. my lil bro is.. cuz at this point give us an auto craft like craft me 5k potion (target a bag with the ingredients type of stuff.. and NO this is bad! like vaccuum is)
If you ask ME.. i love the make max new option.. no need to automate this but.. since u do with vacuum stuff or repeat 10 times on enhanced.. all or nothing.. streamline your logic on ALL your clients -.-

If u keep it in game.. as u will make it better and for all clients.. like instead of setting it up like a real cheat engine/ auto loot.. just give us better setting.. ex: major magic + certain color.. I ignore the rest of the useless loot would be my personal settings (à la PoE)..

But let's be real the discussion is useless.. they not trying to ban third part at all.. this is PR for their new legacy server.. cheater gonna update their third party and Boardsword gonna give up 3months maxi max after NL launch.. back to normal!

Lord_Nythrax

Broadsword is literally peddling the worst version of Ultima Online by a substantial margin. The client everyone wishes they would make, that combines EC features with CC graphics, a smooth framerate, modern resolution, and meaningful quality of life updates, already exists and people on the official servers are the only ones not using it. The retail game has become a laughingstock, and is only still in business because it's sitting on decades of history and characters that people are attached to.

Furthermore, Broadsword doesn't have the resources to create a client that can compete. The team is maybe four or five people at this point, and only like two of them know how to code anything. It's just not going to happen. I won't name it because I don't want to get Mariah after me, but the only thing they can realistically do at this point is officially sanction the particular third-party client that doesn't come with scripting tools built in.

What you're selling isn't an acceptable product, devs. A huge proportion of people with an interest in Ultima Online won't even consider going near the existing official clients. There are maybe a couple of diehards here on the official forums that will tell you they love low framerates and resolutions from twenty years ago, but literally everyone else everywhere on the internet who remembers that UO exists is roasting the state of this game.

Garret

All they have to do is put 2d graphic option in to 3d client, so we have all utility from 3d. Delete 2d client from download at all so developers will have to fix only 1 client, the only one down they still will have to add two graphics and animations for different graphic options, but still only one client to fix utility.

Kel

There were a lot of good, civil, points made in The war on unapproved 3rd party thread as well. The time for Broadsword to show good faith is now.

Why now and no time in the last X years?:

• I've heard of and seen more people flocking back because of the NL beta than I have in a long, long time. Some are people who haven't played prod in 10+ years, easily, giving the game one last shot.
  
  
• NL is a new start with a stated goal to improve the game experience and bring in new players:
  
  "One of our primary goals with UO: New Legacy is to lower barriers to entry and introduce the world of Britannia to a new generation of gamers." - Broadsword
  
  How do you plan to bring in new players or even keep your returning ones if there isn't a modern client that remotely resembles what the new generation of gamers (or current) expect?
  
  
• Lastly, the war on 3rd party programs. Scripting everything you do is bad and bad for the game. However, the 1st party options have been and are especially outdated and arguably unacceptable in contrast with what the community has been able to accomplish. Until there is a 1st party client that meets the needs of the community, I would hold off on a war and maybe find a better way to work together with the community.
  

loop

How about a video demonstrating how you loot a public Scalis corpse on CC?

Could start up an EC series, too: "Here's how you disable all particle effects so that Earthquake doesn't shake the entire screen."

username

It seems as if the EC is the superior client. In the long run development time should be put towards it since it's the newest client of the two. I'm not saying abandon the CC, but the EC should be the focus and get a graphics option and all the love. 

But then again it took me over 100 tries of login/refresh to get logged in the forum to make this post so I'm not sure what we're all realistically expecting right @Kyronix ; 

loop

Garret said:

All they have to do is put 2d graphic option in to 3d client, so we have all utility from 3d. Delete 2d client from download at all so developers will have to fix only 1 client, the only one down they still will have to add two graphics and animations for different graphic options, but still only one client to fix utility.

I would love to experience all the EC bugs but with CC graphics. It would be a new take on UO.

Sorry I’m being cheeky

But in all seriousness, they probably haven’t done this because they can’t. I doubt the EC engine makes this possible such that you can flip a switch. If they could do it, they probably would, considering the EC doesn’t feature at all in NL promo materials and was mostly a stopgap measure after KR went splat. Probably would need a whole new client.

McDougle

We are at a turning point I've Said before UO needs a apocalyptic event well with banned 3rd party clients we are there and I've said the developers greatly underestimated the numbers it's the perfect time to kill both flawed clients and gives us one good one

MacroPlanet

Kel said:

• Lastly, the war on 3rd party programs. Scripting everything you do is bad and bad for the game. However, the 1st party options have been and are especially outdated and arguably unacceptable in contrast with what the community has been able to accomplish. Until there is a 1st party client that meets the needs of the community, I would hold off on a war and maybe find a better way to work together with the community.
  

Great point and in a way a part of me thought maybe the “war” would lead to something out of it for us other than stop cheating. But I’m starting to think nothing is coming of it and instead you’re going to have people find another way to cheat the system without being detected. 

I think we’re really at a breaking point now especially since Broadsword d seems determined that NL will bring in new players while most of us see these ‘new’ players come in and question why they can’t resize their window to fill their screens. The YouTube video is clear they don’t understand what people are really requesting

It’s a problem, especially if this game is planning on surviving another decade or two. 

Deraj

This has been a sore subject for me for years. So much of this issue is due in large part of the negligence and poor decision of past dev teams, either failing to update or the client or presenting a client (Third Dawn, Kingdom Reborn, Enhanced) that failed to gain true acceptance, and then rather than resolving these issues, they just let UO be saddled with two clients for the majority of its existence while pretending it's not a massive glaring issue.

Discussions on this subject are tightly contained with control-freak rules that do not allow us to "name the program", treating the playerbase like children as if knowledge of these programs-that-shall-not-be-named aren't a simple web search away, which in turn has cultivated a brainrot culture in the UO bubble where many players have these misplaced moral stances about "cheating" in a largely non-competitive game with "illegal" programs, while the gameplay continues to degrade and monitors continue to grow, further necessitating the use of these "evil" 3rd party programs.

Meanwhile, programs like UOAssist are somehow magically considered okay. UOAssist, a crappy 20+ year old program that is STILL being sold for $15 a key. Sometimes it blows my mind that players just accept this. Do you people realize that in other MMOs, players create and distribute mods for free? I can buy whole games for less than $15. Tugsoft has been given a virtual monopoly, and that this has been allowed to continue for so long is incredibly unethical. All because, once upon a time, a past team decided to close the UOPro program and then just couldn't be bothered ever since to engage with 3rd party devs to make approvable tools for the community. Instead they wave the banhammer and cultivate a toxic sycophantic community culture while not addressing actual real issues this entire dynamic creates. And now here we are. I logged into classic client for the first time in awhile on a 2560x1440 monitor and man is it bad. It's real bad.

The war is already lost.

(p.s. I tried posting this on Microsoft Edge but apparently I keep getting signed out right after I sign in. Lmao.)

Urge

Deraj said:

Discussions on this subject are tightly contained with control-freak rules that do not allow us to "name the program", treating the playerbase like children as if knowledge of these programs-that-shall-not-be-named aren't a simple web search away, which in turn has cultivated a brainrot culture in the UO bubble where many players have these misplaced moral stances about "cheating" in a largely non-competitive game with "illegal" programs, while the gameplay continues to degrade and monitors continue to grow, further necessitating the use of these "evil" 3rd party programs.

Meanwhile, programs like UOAssist are somehow magically considered okay. UOAssist, a crappy 20+ year old program that is STILL being sold for $15 a key. Sometimes it blows my mind that players just accept this. Do you people realize that in other MMOs, players create and distribute mods for free? I can buy whole games for less than $15. Tugsoft has been given a virtual monopoly

Agree about not being able to name things. There should be clear lists of what is allowed and what is not.

Also agree about Tug having the monopoly which he hasn't made any major upgrades in ages. 

But this game is 100% competitive. People compete for housing, pvp, even items sold on vendors. I'm not familiar with the unapproved clients but i hear they have a lot of auto settings and full scripting abilities which is completely unfair. 

Either way, unless you're completely new to the game or 10 years old you knew what it was when you hit download. I see no difference because i'm using the same official that i've always used.

While i do agree we're long overdue for major QoL i agree with the devs decision on this. Maybe some of these other client devs can actually make one that COULD be approved. Problem solved. 

RonFellows

Whatever happens, I think its a huge risk. EA is obviously going to be looking at revenue after NL releases. If there isn't a substantial increase in revenue I'd imagine EA might consider shelving and just holding on to the UO IP. Banning more than one EJ on at a time was a smart move, but now that they hamstringed "o" for multi-boxers what is their motivation to continue subbing 10 accounts? I know people that have 8+ accounts that are ready to throw in the towel if the full ban goes into effect ,and they don't even multibox. I hope hope NL is a big winner but I'm not getting my hopes up.

KroDuK

@RonFellows I've been atl tabbing 2 accounts since we can launch 2 clients on the same PC.. never had a problem.. i'm not scripting tho.

EA won't pull the plug on UO before losing good money with such a small dev team they could lose half their player base and still survive.. Broadsword is earning pocket change money for EA.. this is just good PR for EA to not close their old MMO and ship them game and dev at broadsword.

We have 2 mid clients and soon 2 mid (at best) UO.. the sandbox-collector and the theme park-fast food.

PS: for what reason exactly your friend would quit UO with 8 active account if it's not multibox script related? i'm kinda lost on that one.

JohnKnighthawke

I don't know. Can you see the longsword in the CC? If you can, that's one definite leg up on the EC.

MacroPlanet

“It is perplexing and frustrating that the developers appear to be ignoring the community’s earnest requests for client updates. I want this to be a constructive discussion that yields serious responses from the developers about the lack of updates to the CC client.”

Reposting to keep this relevant. Still no official response from the devs regarding the client issue.

You guys do read your own forums?

@Kyronix

McDougle

MacroPlanet said:

“It is perplexing and frustrating that the developers appear to be ignoring the community’s earnest requests for client updates. I want this to be a constructive discussion that yields serious responses from the developers about the lack of updates to the CC client.”

Reposting to keep this relevant. Still no official response from the devs regarding the client issue.

You guys do read your own forums?

@ Kyronix

They will not answer you will in time either become a McDougle or simply quit

Lord_Nythrax

It's because they only have two actual programmers left and developing a client that meets an acceptable standard would take them five or ten years at this point. Their only realistic choice would be to sanction an open source client, and they don't want to do that when they can instead gamble on being kept afloat by a sufficient number of elderly people who haven't played a new game in 25 years and will tolerate essentially anything.

Drago

You guys can tag devs all you want.  They will not respond to any client enhancements.  Ever.  Its simply not in the budget.

They did client enhancement once and failed miserably.   This game will sunset with the 2 current clients.  It is as certain as death and taxes.

loop

Drago said:

You guys can tag devs all you want.  They will not respond to any client enhancements.  Ever.  Its simply not in the budget.

They did client enhancement once and failed miserably.   This game will sunset with the 2 current clients.  It is as certain as death and taxes.

Three times if you include Third Dawn and KR pre-Broadsword

sibble

I'm convinced most people who dislike EC haven't even tried it yet.  Even a couple people mentioned to me from my videos that the game doesn't even look that different it's mainly just the character and mounts.

Pincos EC barely has any bugs and the ones that are there don't disrupt gameplay.  Also he updates his UI daily - every day I launch Pincos he has an update for it.

There's so much good functionality in his UI it just takes a little time to get familiar with and customize it.  Once I knew all the features I was able to customize my UI in 1hr.

I thought mobile healthbars were delayed, but there's a setting which delays updating them (for some reason) is defaulted to 5s or something - can be set to realtime.

I am PVPing with Pincos and I gota say it's really a pleasure.

Kel

sibble said:

I'm convinced most people who dislike EC haven't even tried it yet.  Even a couple people mentioned to me from my videos that the game doesn't even look that different it's mainly just the character and mounts.

I hate to break it to you, but that's just not the case. Most of the people who dislike EC have tried it, which is why they dislike it. Sure, there are always some people who just hate to hate, but that's the minority.

EC in itself isn't terrible, but it's not great. The art-style mix between KR/EC style and CC is atrocious. If EC got the love and care original CC got back in the day it would have been a good client, but as is stands today it's a mess. Even with all of the work Pinco has put into making it better.

Lord_Nythrax

I've tried it, it stinks.

MacroPlanet

Drago said:

You guys can tag devs all you want.  They will not respond to any client enhancements.  Ever.  Its simply not in the budget.

They did client enhancement once and failed miserably.   This game will sunset with the 2 current clients.  It is as certain as death and taxes.

All we're looking for is clarity. I want them to say it, not someone that's just speculating based off of X and Y factors. It's only fair to ask for an update since they're going to war with 3rd party clients now.

sibble

Kel said:

sibble said:

I'm convinced most people who dislike EC haven't even tried it yet.  Even a couple people mentioned to me from my videos that the game doesn't even look that different it's mainly just the character and mounts.

I hate to break it to you, but that's just not the case. Most of the people who dislike EC have tried it, which is why they dislike it. Sure, there are always some people who just hate to hate, but that's the minority.

EC in itself isn't terrible, but it's not great. The art-style mix between KR/EC style and CC is atrocious. If EC got the love and care original CC got back in the day it would have been a good client, but as is stands today it's a mess. Even with all of the work Pinco has put into making it better.

I'd really love to see some examples of these differences that make it so disliked - got any screenshots?

I'm helping a few people switch to EC - people who have been playing since the start - and they've said to me "I don't understand what the big deal is it looks the same"

Lord_Nythrax

Man the devs won't even release promo videos using the EC.

sibble

Instead of non-informative, satire comments maybe someone would like to articulate specifically what about EC graphics is disliked.

KroDuK

sibble said:

"I don't understand what the big deal is it looks the same"

Personally it's part of the problem.. EC bring back KR memories.. i'm buying regs on it but I wouldn't touch EC with a 12 feet pole to play the game.
Plus the HEAVY scripts options bring back easy memories.. after 3 weeks i was uninstalling it.

To me EC ain't UO and when I see videos of it.. it usually come with a stinky wiff..

UOassist was perfect to not type/speak and cast spells/commit criminal action.. drink pots.. the only complaint I had about UOassist was the HEAVY scripted macro to dismount players when EA decided to pull the plug on the jousting..

But in 2024 UOassist and the position of broadsword is kinda hypocritical.. who's gonna pay 15 USD for a lesser third party; that is somewhat supported when u have free, way better, options.

TL;DR to me EC is a mix of easy and KR.. two things I hated. it's good to buy reagents then you uninstalled it.. two words come to mind when I think EC; ugly and heavy.

sibble

KroDuK said:

sibble said:

"I don't understand what the big deal is it looks the same"

Personally it's part of the problem.. EC bring back KR memories.. i'm buying regs on it but I wouldn't touch EC with a 12 feet pole to play the game.
Plus the HEAVY scripts options bring back easy memories.. after 3 weeks i was uninstalling it.

To me EC ain't UO and when I see videos of it.. it usually come with a stinky wiff..

TL;DR to me EC is a mix of easy and KR.. two things I hated. it's good to buy reagents then you uninstalled it.. two words come to mind when I think EC; ugly and heavy.

Is it the trees?  Player housing?  Character model?  What part of EC graphics doesn't look like CC to you?

KroDuK

omg, I did it!! I got permission to post boiiiis!! 23 try just to answer to the guy saying... trees.

The models.. except the cu sidhe I prefer the CC..cuz of the ANIMATION.. just take the horse for example: a realistic model untill he turn right or left, look goofy&ugly.. the spell and skill animation looks like a cheap mobile game.. with those blinding spells, how could u even consider using it if you like to PvP.

EC looks pretty if u only keep the map and housing remove every animated thing that changes direction and keep things like waterfall.. i'll give it to you EC would be pretty.. but yeah we are not playing UO cuz it's a pretty game.. well i'm not..

The KR looking is strong in my hate of the EC..
I also have a huge dislike of the UI grey/blue boxes everywhere reminding me of KR PTSD.

Here i'll give it to you EC is good to buy regs AND take screenshot if u close the UI.. a perfect expensive & useless program for the bird vision.

sibble

One is ugly, the other is not.

LOL RLY