Wildfire Ostard Disappeared - 0/5 Slots
Still in complete shock that this happened to me. I took my bard tamer down to tram despise and it knocked me off my mount because you aren't allowed to have pets. Whatever. Fine. I left my toon in the upstairs part of the dungeon afk for a while and then logged in from another computer. When I logged in, I saw my WF Ostard glitching out trying to get to me so I went to luna and logged out to bring it to me. At first, the Ostard appeared. I mounted it and everything was fine. Moments later, I dismounted and BOOM. It disappeared. 0/5 slots. Logged out and back in multiple times to no avail. I am so upset because of how much effort went into getting that thing. Cannot believe this happened.
Comments
What exactly were you doing because it sounds pretty suspicious tbh. From what I gather, you went somewhere you shouldn't with the mount then when you were dismounted you decided to go AFK for an unknown amount of time. After that you logged in from another computer and then went to Luna to log in and out...
There is a known (and reproducible) bug with pet mounts. Yes, it is unforgiving. Any additional info you can provide may help to get it resolved so that others do not experience what you have.
Questions:
1. Did you have another pet out of the stables in addition to the Wildfire Ostard?
2. Were you riding an Ethereal mount when you logged out/in to retrieve the Wildfire Ostard?
3. Was your stable full?
2. Yes, I was
3. I am not certain on this one. I can try putting another pet in to confirm whether or not it was full
It appears UO is processing the Ethereal Mount as the mounted pet, creating a conflict with the previously mounted pet (Wildfire Ostard), whose mount/pet status was not properly set when a forcible dismount occurred. In order to remedy the two mount conflict, the game retains the current mount (Ethereal mount in your case) and removes the previous mount (Wildfire Ostard). If the mount removed is a tamed mount (not from a statue) the mount can still be found and reclaimed. Unfortunately, if the mount originates from a statue, the game deletes the mount.
This has been a known and reproducible bug since October 2019.
Paroxysmus Swamp Dragon just gone *poof* - Ultima Online Forums (uo.com)
I personally think the disappearing bug is because the games "sees" the pet as derived from a statue and tries to return the pet to statue form. But only after the forcible dismount bug triggers the two pet conflict.
My suspicion is that when the first statue pets were introduced, the core of the ethereal mount programming was repurposed. Ethereal mounts return to statue form, but the code for other pets to return to statue form was never created (why would it be, that wasn't the intent). So, after the forcible dismount conflict occurs, the code runs to clear the conflicting pets, which the game sees as return to statue, and the pet disappears, but no statue is created.
I'm guessing the bug is extremely messy and tamed (not derived from a statue) pets are wiped from the follower list, just as if they had been returned to a statue, but no statue is created, and the pet is left standing around.
That is my gut instinct at least.
This doesn't help you with your pet loss at all and I'm sorry yet another player has lost a pet, but at least you have some type of explanation. If you follow the thread linked above you can see exactly how the bug works.
Why wouldn't then the Developers code it so that the pet went back into statue form, in the player's backpack, to solve this conflict without losing the pet to a player ?
It is probably not that easy. Keep in mind, what I posted above is just my thinking based on the game behaviors others have reported and my own -extremely limited- programming experience.
Let's work through it a bit though anyway...
The original stable code was built in what '96-'97? Ethereal mounts that returned pets to statues were coded in 2000 maybe? Stable code was rewritten sometime after that to address auto-stabling, if I remember correctly. The first statue pets were added with Mondain's Legacy (2006ish)? The squirrel and the imprisoned dog were Peerless rewards. I think I'm remembering this in the correct sequence. The dog in particular could be used to dupe items and some additional coding was done to prevent the dupe. Stable code was worked on again and additional stable slots added with Masteries for ToL (2015), then with tokens (2017?). My point is that the code that directs how pets are dealt with has been written by many different people over many iterations. Forced dismount code and auto-stabling code probably also has to factor into this at some point.
Somewhere in all that code is a section that activates when some condition is met (forced dismount), -or nightmare scenario- when some set of conditions is met, that direct the game to resolve a two pet conflict by keeping only the most recent mount. At least that is what appears to be happening. It could also be there are multiple small sections of code, related to different systems, that have to execute in some specific order for the "bug" to occur. It also might be that this is not technically a "bug" at all, that all of UO's messy code is producing exactly what it was told to, and instead the code needs to be changed to produce a different outcome - one that doesn't make players want to quit.
Anyway, that is just a whole bunch of "if's". Until the exact sections of code can be identified, messing with it would probably make it much worse. Because of the interconnectedness of UO's code, if the team reworked the system to return pets to statue form, it might actually affect Ethereal mounts, or pets in stables, or who knows what system might be unsuspectingly connected. It might also be related to the dupe prevention code associated with the imprisoned dog and changing something might reactivate the dupe.
Also, returning pets to statues might fix pets that come from statues, but most likely wouldn't address pets that were tamed and have no statue. Tamed pets would probably still be treated as Ethereal mounts, the follower slots reset to 0, just as when an Ethereal returns to statue form, no statue created because statue creation code doesn't exist for them, and the pet just left standing there in game.
This really seems to be a deep rooted "bug" that is associated with multiple game systems, possibly a dupe fix, and is probably better left alone until identified in exact detail.
Again, most of this is my guesswork from the way the bug behaves. However, I might just be completely and totally wrong. In fact, that is probable.
Yes, it absolutely sucks for everyone, dev's included.
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
I just clicked to summon my pet
(i had run out because I was dead and my pet was still fighting.
I was standing by the entrance.
my pet appeared for a second and then was gone.
I tried to use the pet ball again and this is what it told me.
I clicked the gear on the followers bar
and then it showed 0 of 5
I logged out and back in.
And my pet was next to me.
but it showed 0 of 5
I clicked on the gear again and it showed 5 of 5
I was able to feed my pet and get back on again.
===============
my pet wasn't hungry.
before my pet was attacking a lich and a lich paragon
(the 2 that killed me)
I had just fed it a peach and told it to guard me
before recalling in to where they were located.
(EC, using Pinco's UI)