Ultima Online Classic Client Upgrade!

Psycoder · September 27

CovenantX said:

Lord_Nythrax said:

CovenantX said:

If it's going to stay open-source, this is definitely going to have the reverse impact on cheating then everyone should be expecting.

It's going to open the flood-gates far more than they're open now. unless something else is in the works and we're seemingly left in the dark about it.

Those gates have been open forever and are never closing. The devs last attempt at modifying the game to keep third-party clients from working only slowed them down for a couple of weeks at most. If anything, being on good terms with CUO has to be better than not when it comes to trying to prevent outright cheating.

I don't disagree, but the main point of a "War on Third-party programs" is to curb cheating.
with open-source anyone that codes can do anything their coding ability allows.

There's gotta be some restrictions and punishments for breaking the rules otherwise UO would be even less worth playing than it is currently... which for most, it's not.. hence the dwindling population.

I will add my 2 cents as a person that had 8 of his accounts perma banned for afk farming the last event at void pool. (I know, I know, I should have used house placement exploits to avoid getting banned instead

)

UO will never, under any circumstances, win against cheaters. Here is why:

Few years ago there was an article I run into from a guy that was working at Blizzard as a reverse engineer/developer. His job was to develop code to catch cheat/exploit/hack users automatically. If I am not mistaken his department had more than 15 people. That is 15 people that is not doing anything related to the game itself but working on developing code/AI for catching cheat/exploit/hack/ users. I wont link here but we all we know there are still cheats, bots, etc for WoW. You can easily find them if you know how to google properly. 15 people, 10s of millions of dollars spent, yet there are still bots for WoW.

The 2 developers working on UO will never win the cat and mouse game with 50+ open source developers that are developing alternative clients. They just wont win!!! This is the end of story. I will not link it here, but go to GitHub for CUO, see how long it took them to patch the latest "war on 3rd party cheating" patch from UO. UO will not win! Both Blizzard and Valve are spending 10s of millions dollars a year, still there are hacks/exploits/cheats for both WoW and Dota.

The only way UO team can fight cheat/exploit/hack/ users is to actively monitor and take an action against people that are crossing the line.

This is why I see the change with CUO as a good thing. With CUO, they are off loading half of their task to people that are willing to do it for free. With the remaining resources, they can focus on developing the game further, as well as showing up for tickets from players and actively taking action against players crossing the line. Zeus knows, maybe they will even add some code that will flag an account if it manages to place 10+ 18x18 houses a month. We all know a player placing that many houses is not doing it because he is lucky. Add some code to flag things, show up and take a close look, then take an action. This is it! This is what Dota2 does with their OverWatch thing. Players flag things, someone takes a closer look. If they sense shenanigans, they take action.

I can clearly tell you that around 80% of the players that I am close enough friends with are already using CUO or the other alternative clients. The remaining 20% are people that play the game for historical reasons, or they like the EC/Pinco's better. Hell, I am here typing this and at the background one of characters is mercilessly smashing the wolf spider of my other character for more than an hour. In fact, I dont think I ever saw someone using CC, other than 2 guys in our guild, in the last 2 years.

My opinion is that, the 2 devs time we have could be better spent than fighting a losing battle with no end in sight.

My only wish, against cheating, is that they use the extra time they end up having for actively monitoring the game play and punish the players that cross the line. So we dont have situations like this https://forum.uo.com/discussion/14797/current-situation-of-housing-market-on-atlantic#latest This will also help me enjoy the game, instead of suddenly hitting "f*** this" moment and coming back here to get banned for the 4th or 5th time.

CovenantX · September 27

Well, seeing as we were told the 'cheats are detectable', and there seems to be a complete lack of rule enforcement currently, I hear of people being banned, but generally they're all EJ accounts that already have several replacement accounts sitting ready to take their place if a banning should occur.

Simply allowing a 'cheat program' (keep in mind my knowledge of CUO is limited, but for argument sake, just replace CUO with the 'more popular' Or**n that most are using) to be approved, isn't enough.

They either omitted other rules from the announcement (I hope) or they're just going in a direction that's completely untenable though, one could argue we've been in an untenable situation for a long time already, cause it's not like the vast majority of players aren't already using programs that in times past would have gotten you banned, but no longer do.

It's crazy the things players get away with in UO, and it'll pale in comparison if an open-source program becomes approved. There's gotta be more to it.

Psycoder · September 27

CovenantX said:
It's crazy the things players get away with in UO

I think this really is the core of the issue. Players are allowed to get away with things.

And, I dont mean small things like "he is using auto bandage script in PvE". I am talking about having a housing monopoly and selling RMT in the game for close to 2 years, and making 20k to 30k real life dollars.

This is what **SOME** players are getting away with in UO. I really can not understand how is that even possible! At this point, he must be someones very close relative or something.

F*** I am starting to get mad again. I better go play some Oxygen Not Included or something chilling.

Psycoder · September 27

BTW, I agree with others. IMHO, this CUO decision is just a knee-jerk reaction after more players started cancelling their accounts than they expected. Now, they are trying to bring those players back. I bet Mesanna has lots of regrets between the low interest in NL and players leaving after their war on 3rd party.

I hope it succeeds. I also hope they listen to me and start actively monitoring players that cross the line starting with nonono.

One way or the other, everything should settle down in 2 months. In the worst case you guys can find me at the free shard that starts with 'o' and ends with 's' when the official shard goes down.

Decided on Darkest Dungeon 1

Roxo · September 27

Seeing this announcement made me so genuinely happy! Thank you dev team for listening to players and making such an incredible decision. This is huge for the longevity of OSI and I am extremely excited for the future! Cheers and keep up the great work

McDougle · September 27

I downloaded it and it will need work before you can simply login I hesitate to give my login info to third party..

Cookie · September 27

CovenantX said:

Well, seeing as we were told the 'cheats are detectable', and there seems to be a complete lack of rule enforcement currently, I hear of people being banned, but generally they're all EJ accounts that already have several replacement accounts sitting ready to take their place if a banning should occur.

Simply allowing a 'cheat program' (keep in mind my knowledge of CUO is limited, but for argument sake, just replace CUO with the 'more popular' Or**n that most are using) to be approved, isn't enough.

They either omitted other rules from the announcement (I hope) or they're just going in a direction that's completely untenable though, one could argue we've been in an untenable situation for a long time already, cause it's not like the vast majority of players aren't already using programs that in times past would have gotten you banned, but no longer do.

It's crazy the things players get away with in UO, and it'll pale in comparison if an open-source program becomes approved. There's gotta be more to it.

Change your mentality and thought process.

Every single time you want to use the word "cheat", replace it with "progress".
And suddenly the whole world looks better.
You can have a more positive outlook on life.

Venom · September 27

I searched for this third party client after the announcement. Seems interesting and hopefully accomplishes what they set out to do with it.

Merlin · September 27

https://massivelyop.com/2024/09/26/ultima-online-devs-are-working-with-classicuo-modders-to-rehab-the-ancient-client-and-renderer/

This has now been mentioned in MassivelyOP...

McDougle · September 27

This is fantastic news now is a golden time to drop the stoic silent approach and communicate with the players give rough time line for implication what features you are hoping for etc @Mesanna

Tjalle · September 27

Cookie said:

CovenantX said:

Well, seeing as we were told the 'cheats are detectable', and there seems to be a complete lack of rule enforcement currently, I hear of people being banned, but generally they're all EJ accounts that already have several replacement accounts sitting ready to take their place if a banning should occur.

Simply allowing a 'cheat program' (keep in mind my knowledge of CUO is limited, but for argument sake, just replace CUO with the 'more popular' Or**n that most are using) to be approved, isn't enough.

They either omitted other rules from the announcement (I hope) or they're just going in a direction that's completely untenable though, one could argue we've been in an untenable situation for a long time already, cause it's not like the vast majority of players aren't already using programs that in times past would have gotten you banned, but no longer do.

It's crazy the things players get away with in UO, and it'll pale in comparison if an open-source program becomes approved. There's gotta be more to it.

Change your mentality and thought process.

Every single time you want to use the word "cheat", replace it with "progress".
And suddenly the whole world looks better.
You can have a more positive outlook on life.

And in real life, do we replace 'crime' with 'entrepreneurship'?

CovenantX · September 27

Cookie said:

CovenantX said:

Well, seeing as we were told the 'cheats are detectable', and there seems to be a complete lack of rule enforcement currently, I hear of people being banned, but generally they're all EJ accounts that already have several replacement accounts sitting ready to take their place if a banning should occur.

Simply allowing a 'cheat program' (keep in mind my knowledge of CUO is limited, but for argument sake, just replace CUO with the 'more popular' Or**n that most are using) to be approved, isn't enough.

They either omitted other rules from the announcement (I hope) or they're just going in a direction that's completely untenable though, one could argue we've been in an untenable situation for a long time already, cause it's not like the vast majority of players aren't already using programs that in times past would have gotten you banned, but no longer do.

It's crazy the things players get away with in UO, and it'll pale in comparison if an open-source program becomes approved. There's gotta be more to it.

Change your mentality and thought process.

Every single time you want to use the word "cheat", replace it with "progress".
And suddenly the whole world looks better.
You can have a more positive outlook on life.

replace cheat with progress?

that's kinda like replacing good players with programs to make them 'seem' good....

oh wait. that's where we are now.

CovenantX · September 27

Psycoder said:

CovenantX said:
It's crazy the things players get away with in UO

I think this really is the core of the issue. Players are allowed to get away with things.

And, I dont mean small things like "he is using auto bandage script in PvE". I am talking about having a housing monopoly and selling RMT in the game for close to 2 years, and making 20k to 30k real life dollars.

This is what **SOME** players are getting away with in UO. I really can not understand how is that even possible! At this point, he must be someones very close relative or something.

F*** I am starting to get mad again. I better go play some Oxygen Not Included or something chilling.

most players and RMTer's are using the same program(s) that use house placing scripts as they do to bot farm , multibox, etc etc, obviously people making real $ off of UO are doing it on a much larger scale.... but the point is, if a program with open-sourcing becomes approved, it'll allow them to do everything they're doing now and more (depending on ones coding ability, OR access to someone with said coding abilities) it's going to get worse, not better, unless there's something significant we're not told in the announcement..

The rule enforcement hasn't been used against anyone other than maybe some random EJ account that's already been botting for months, it's almost the whole 'carrot on the stick' all on it's own, just to encourage cheaters not to quit. and it's going to become legal -althougb without rule-enforcement, it's basically legal now, hence the problem.

Btw, I'm not against RMT, I'm against the methods in which most RMT players get their 'product' to sell.

Psycoder · September 27

CovenantX said:

The rule enforcement hasn't been used against anyone other than maybe some random EJ account that's already been botting for months

Rule enforcement has been used against me, and 4 other people I know of because we were in Void Pool with more than one account during the last event.

I am back because few friends I like playing with are back. But, the reason I decided not to flame as much is I don't think anything will be done about nonono. I don't think I can hold back trolling all the time, but I give up. I will much rather behave here, do my own thing, and buy my next house from nonono... At the end of the day, placing houses is not the only way to make money in this game. I suggest you do the same.

McDougle · September 28

You have to wonder why the CUO developer hasn't posted yet ...

deadite · September 28

Some of you guys are wild. CUO is basically just the EC with better performance in a CC skin.

I've used CUO for years on many freeshards, but was always hesitant to use it on OSI because I love my dumb old account and don't want it banned.

Everyone is aware that the client can do flexible play window sizes and run 60+fps. But here are some other facts since it seems many of you aren't familiar:

1. CUO runs natively in Windows, Linux, and Mac. This is the main reason I use it. I haven't been able to play EC for years because it will not run in Wine. It's been broken forever. I REALLY REALLY hope that they keep this compatibility going and make their CUO patcher/launcher cross-platform.

2. CUO does NOT have automation built in. You can load assistant programs like Razor, but since those programs don't natively support Linux and Mac, I don't use them anyway. I assume this will be the biggest difference between the freeshard CUO and the OSI CUO... No ability to load assistants.

3. CUO's macro system is similar to EC's. You can set up some convenient hot keys, but you can't automate things. The end. Anyone calling this a "cheater client" is misinformed or willfully ignorant.

4. The closest thing CUO has to a cheat feature is automatic door opening. I hope they keep it in the official release because I think 27 years of double clicking doors is more than enough.

5. CUO has a cool resizable world map similar to EC.

6. There are several spin-off clients of CUO. TazUO is my preferred freeshard client, but they added Windows font support, which looks fantastic but broke Linux and Mac compatibility. My favorite feature of TazUO is the grid backpack option, similar to the EC. I really hope this gets ported into CUO (the web client version of CUO has it, but not the local version).

I hope some of you found this informative. CUO is not a "cheater client" any more than EC+Pinco's is. What CUO does is bring the classic client into the 21st century through performance enhancements and a few QoL features.

But like I say, I just hope they add the grid backpack feature from TazUO to truly make it an alternate option to the EC.

Bark_At_The_Moon · September 28

Those are some really great points deadite. I hope they all get implemented into the new official client.

Bark_At_The_Moon · September 28

One thing I'd like to see to the new client as an option is a performance mode geared towards power gamers or pvpers. Many pvpers use other clients for tile hacks, area spells, and what not.

I haven't pvp'ed in 15 years, but I do realize the dev team has an opportunely here to build into the new client many of the things pvper's are GOING to do, like tile and tree mods. Why not have new tiles in the new client that make it easier for pvpers to just check a box and be up and running?

Mariah · September 28

Interesting.

The only thing I'll say is, if you're double clicking doors, why aren't you using the 'opendoor' action that exists in both clients and has done for many years?

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/technical/creating-macros/available-macro-actions/

McDougle · September 28

No really where is the CUO person? already under Mesanna gag orders? Any other game group or whatever I've been involved in there would be a high I'm xxx looking forward to the next 27 years ?

popps · September 28

Mariah said:

Interesting.
The only thing I'll say is, if you're double clicking doors, why aren't you using the 'opendoor' action that exists in both clients and has done for many years?
https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/technical/creating-macros/available-macro-actions/

In the EC client, I think, one needs to be facing the door for it to work, I just hate it.

Not sure about the CC, did not know there was this option.

JackFlashUk · September 28

popps said:

Mariah said:

Interesting.
The only thing I'll say is, if you're double clicking doors, why aren't you using the 'opendoor' action that exists in both clients and has done for many years?
https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/technical/creating-macros/available-macro-actions/

In the EC client, I think, one needs to be facing the door for it to work, I just hate it.

Not sure about the CC, did not know there was this option.

You have to face the door to go through it. Do you stand with your back to a door to open it in real life? Bananaman ?
actually, don’t answer I don’t care.

Cookie · September 29

Mariah said:

Interesting.
The only thing I'll say is, if you're double clicking doors, why aren't you using the 'opendoor' action that exists in both clients and has done for many years?
https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/technical/creating-macros/available-macro-actions/

When you are already using 80 odd hotkeys on your mage, you don’t want to be using one for open doors.

I like the ease of just running at the door.

CovenantX · September 29

deadite said:

Some of you guys are wild. CUO is basically just the EC with better performance in a CC skin.

I've used CUO for years on many freeshards, but was always hesitant to use it on OSI because I love my dumb old account and don't want it banned.

Everyone is aware that the client can do flexible play window sizes and run 60+fps. But here are some other facts since it seems many of you aren't familiar:

1. CUO runs natively in Windows, Linux, and Mac. This is the main reason I use it. I haven't been able to play EC for years because it will not run in Wine. It's been broken forever. I REALLY REALLY hope that they keep this compatibility going and make their CUO patcher/launcher cross-platform.

2. CUO does NOT have automation built in. You can load assistant programs like Razor, but since those programs don't natively support Linux and Mac, I don't use them anyway. I assume this will be the biggest difference between the freeshard CUO and the OSI CUO... No ability to load assistants.

3. CUO's macro system is similar to EC's. You can set up some convenient hot keys, but you can't automate things. The end. Anyone calling this a "cheater client" is misinformed or willfully ignorant.

4. The closest thing CUO has to a cheat feature is automatic door opening. I hope they keep it in the official release because I think 27 years of double clicking doors is more than enough.

5. CUO has a cool resizable world map similar to EC.

6. There are several spin-off clients of CUO. TazUO is my preferred freeshard client, but they added Windows font support, which looks fantastic but broke Linux and Mac compatibility. My favorite feature of TazUO is the grid backpack option, similar to the EC. I really hope this gets ported into CUO (the web client version of CUO has it, but not the local version).

I hope some of you found this informative. CUO is not a "cheater client" any more than EC+Pinco's is. What CUO does is bring the classic client into the 21st century through performance enhancements and a few QoL features.

But like I say, I just hope they add the grid backpack feature from TazUO to truly make it an alternate option to the EC.

It's not about what CUO is currently, it's about what people are going to code into it, if it stays open source. I'm still skeptical that people would even switch to CUO when they're already using Or**n, unless there's any actual rule-enforcement to prevent unapproved programs that'll actually work IF & when CUO is approved..

Tjalle · September 29

deadite said:

Some of you guys are wild. CUO is basically just the EC with better performance in a CC skin.

I've used CUO for years on many freeshards, but was always hesitant to use it on OSI because I love my dumb old account and don't want it banned.

Everyone is aware that the client can do flexible play window sizes and run 60+fps. But here are some other facts since it seems many of you aren't familiar:

1. CUO runs natively in Windows, Linux, and Mac. This is the main reason I use it. I haven't been able to play EC for years because it will not run in Wine. It's been broken forever. I REALLY REALLY hope that they keep this compatibility going and make their CUO patcher/launcher cross-platform.

2. CUO does NOT have automation built in. You can load assistant programs like Razor, but since those programs don't natively support Linux and Mac, I don't use them anyway. I assume this will be the biggest difference between the freeshard CUO and the OSI CUO... No ability to load assistants.

3. CUO's macro system is similar to EC's. You can set up some convenient hot keys, but you can't automate things. The end. Anyone calling this a "cheater client" is misinformed or willfully ignorant.

4. The closest thing CUO has to a cheat feature is automatic door opening. I hope they keep it in the official release because I think 27 years of double clicking doors is more than enough.

5. CUO has a cool resizable world map similar to EC.

6. There are several spin-off clients of CUO. TazUO is my preferred freeshard client, but they added Windows font support, which looks fantastic but broke Linux and Mac compatibility. My favorite feature of TazUO is the grid backpack option, similar to the EC. I really hope this gets ported into CUO (the web client version of CUO has it, but not the local version).

I hope some of you found this informative. CUO is not a "cheater client" any more than EC+Pinco's is. What CUO does is bring the classic client into the 21st century through performance enhancements and a few QoL features.

But like I say, I just hope they add the grid backpack feature from TazUO to truly make it an alternate option to the EC.

So what you´re saying here is that the CUO client has been an approved client all along? Using it has been within the rules of the game?

deadite · September 29

CovenantX said:

It's not about what CUO is currently, it's about what people are going to code into it, if it stays open source. I'm still skeptical that people would even switch to CUO when they're already using Or**n, unless there's any actual rule-enforcement to prevent unapproved programs that'll actually work IF & when CUO is approved..

Just because it's open source doesn't mean that the official client is going to be insecure. That's a bizarre take. All you need to do is look at Runescape and the open-source Runelite client that Jagex eventually approved for official use after initially threatening to ban players for using it (Sound familiar?)

Anyway, every MMO has cheaters, scripters, and bots. Broadsword is not going to be the first in the industry to win this battle lol.

Tjalle said:

So what you´re saying here is that the CUO client has been an approved client all along? Using it has been within the rules of the game?

Nope, sorry if I gave that impression. I used CUO on freeshards so I'm very familiar with it. Excited as hell for the official version though. I'll be grabbing it the moment it releases!

Cookie · September 29

Tjalle said:

So what you´re saying here is that the CUO client has been an approved client all along? Using it has been within the rules of the game?

Yes. and No.

All that was needed, was for it to be approved. It was not.

It is the Classic client, that plays like Enhanced client - faster smoother performance, adjustable screen size, this was my frustration all these years - I have been saying it is possible for Classic to match EC. I felt playing on 2 different playing fields was unfair.

CUO does have the option to load assistants which can build scripts in python. But these are not built in, unlike the other 3rd party client, which has JavaScript options built in. We think it is possible for these assistants to be disabled - but then I wonder, will there be a way around this. I think the point is, and many have said this also, no matter what you do - someone can always push it further. The only reason it has never happened to EC - is no-one is interested, or wants to.

But then, even with Classic client - people were downloading 3rd party software to run scripts alongside, but, these scripts could never actually improve the performance to match EC - what they did do, was change graphics to reduce CC lag and try and improve its performance and make certain functions faster, so you had a scenario of slower performance + faster functions = almost catch up EC.
But then when these clients came out, you had matching performance and faster script functions, because pvpers had taken fine tuning and performance optimisation so far - see the tiles etc. Due to all of these competitive factors coming together, pvpers managed to overdo it almost, as 2 strands of trying to performance optimise Classic client came together.

KroDuK · September 29

In those circumstances (BS waving the white flag)
If i don't have an auto-play option i'm gonna be highly disapointed!

JohnKnighthawke · September 29

I've got to wonder how many people were banned for using what's now going to be the new "Classic" client. Will they be un-banned now? What other third party programs, currently disallowed, are to be allowed in altered version?

deadite · September 29

I doubt people were banned for using CUO alone... They were likely caught using automation or scripting tools.

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Ultima Online Classic Client Upgrade!

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