EC, CC graphics, and QoL improvements?

ForeverFun

I've got an EC change that implements a "Repair item" notification when any worn items reach the durability threshold described at this link.  The warning will be periodic if ignored, and it's color coded to represent the threshold.  An accompanying anvil repair sound will also be triggered.  

However, these QoL (quality of life) changes are fairly involved, so it's not clear what the best avenue is for making these available.

Here's a mock-up of what the above notification looks like.

Here's a survey that may help answer this question.

shootgun

In the last dev QA meeting, before the meeting started, somebody said that UO currently has 3 developers. Those 3 developers are improving, fixing, and maintaining 2 different clients and 2 different servers while developing 3rd type of server.

I keep seeing lots of good ideas here. None of them will be added to the game. They just dont have the manpower to add those things. Unless your suggestion can be squeezed into a single sprint, it wont ever happen. 

On the other hand, they can't get rid of different clients or servers because each one of them created its own die hard fans. If they decided to remove CC or EC, then the game would take a very hard financial hit.

ForeverFun

The survey doesn't ponder who makes the changes.  Just whether there is interest.

Pawain

I think there is interest.

EC was made for modding by players.  Most new games have many players that will do mods and make them available to players. 

It seems these forums have been an accommodating place to share EC mods, macros, etc.

Does the average EC user take advantage of this, I don't know.

Players who like CC would like to be able to do the basic macros UI that EC has, and map UI like EC.

Skett

^^^

ForeverFun

Somebody asked me about "porting" a bunch of capability from EC into CC.   (Macros, map, scripting and LUA support, etc).

In the tech world, a survey for an undertaking like that would probably look like:

a. "Acquire".

b. "Outsource".

c. Deprecate the older option.

d. Do nothing.

And it would best be directed to whoever controls the purse strings.

I couldn't imagine taking on such an undertaking

On the other hand, making CC graphics available in EC seems a more bounded problem.

Pawain

I think they are at.  E.  Hope players make their own QoL changes to EC.

Lord_Frodo

Pawain said:

I think they are at.  E.  Hope players make their own QoL changes to EC.

Unfortunately players can not change the ECs graphics, if that were possible then you would see a lot of CC players go to EC. I know I would.

ForeverFun

Election 2024

option E. "Ronald Wilson Reagan", died 2004, served 2 terms.

loop

As someone who’s been modding the EC for several years and who only uses the EC, I feel meaningful updates to the client are a lost cause. I would like to see it go away entirely. Third-party clients surpass it in every single way and can be improved by the community at no cost to Broadsword.

Considering the above point, I feel similarly about improvements to the CC, although less strongly. In a perfect world, the CC would be improved to match what we see with third-party clients, complete with a scripting agent for supporting automation, but if the community is able to accomplish this and if Broadsword tolerates the use of these clients, why should Broadsword bother?

Drago

They should re-examine the KR client and tweak the art... to be healthy blend of CC style with better lighting and higher texture resolution....but that'll never happen.   UO has a very small dev budget... its why New Legacy has taken 3 years to build.    KR cost over $1 million to build... and that was 15 years ago.

if EC was removed, I'd quit....I started playing UO in 97 and the CC has a nostalgic place in my heart... but its insanely antiquated. 

Can't use CC because:

1.  I'm on 2k monitors... resolution scale is ridiculously too small

2.  The UI or lack there of....  the EC UI is just flat out better.  Its easier to manage inventory, macros allow more complexity and allows for more game window than CC.

Mariah

I did start a wiki page:

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/technical/enhanced-client-custom-user-interface/

I posted the link in the sticky https://forum.uo.com/discussion/8737/recent-wiki-additions#latest along with the comment

This page would benefit from some input. If you have anything to add to it please email me mariah4broadsword@gmail.com

Feigr

One of the things I found useful on EC is that after you begin a macro in game you can go into your character setting file and copy/paste that macro. 

So, for example, if I wanted to train Forensics I could create a macro in game on EC that uses the Forensics ability, set the target to "Current" by clicking the button in the macro, and then add a delay of like 1.5 seconds.  Give it a unique name like TrainForensics and save it.

Then you exit the game and open your character setting file and find the macro you created by searching for "TrainForensics".  Then you can copy just the inputs part and paste it.  Then copy it again and paste it.  And copy it again and paste it.  Doubling it every time. 

Do that about five times and you now have a macro you can run for a while.  In my case of training this near useless ability... I used it on a Beggar til 61, Thief til 91, and Guildmaster Thief til 100.  Contrary to the guides, beggars did give gains after buying the skill to like 28 and training it a bit to 30.  You don't have to actually train it on corpses for very long at all.

The NPCs do move around a lot though.  The thief I found liked to wander all around New Haven island. LOL So this is attended macro'ing.

You can do the same thing with Item ID.  I put like 6 items in my pack and made a macro with the Store Target option.  So it would use the ability on the stored target 1, delay, use the ability on the stored target 2, delay, use the ability on stored target 3... etc.  I think the delay for that skill was 2. 

Then copy and paste it in the character settings after logging out. 

I then ran some escorts while the macro just ran for a about 5 hours and GM'd Item Identification.

The only caution I would give is not to edit the macro in game because it has so many entries it'll probably lock up.  I just delete them in game after I GM.

I also find it useful that you can email your character settings file so if you use multiple computers that's helpful.

shootgun

loop said:

As someone who’s been modding the EC for several years and who only uses the EC, I feel meaningful updates to the client are a lost cause. I would like to see it go away entirely. Third-party clients surpass it in every single way and can be improved by the community at no cost to Broadsword.

Considering the above point, I feel similarly about improvements to the CC, although less strongly. In a perfect world, the CC would be improved to match what we see with third-party clients, complete with a scripting agent for supporting automation, but if the community is able to accomplish this and if Broadsword tolerates the use of these clients, why should Broadsword bother?

I tried modding EC myself. I run into three issues. The tutorial you find in the game directory is obsolete. It, supposedly, makes you create/show box on the screen. On the other hand, I think this part of the code changed in the recent years because it is not drawing the 'box' part of the box unless there is a content in it. This made me waste 8-9 hours trying to find out what I doing wrong until I figured it wasn't me. I cannot remember the details but there was another bug in the tutorial that I had to fix/workaround.

The other problem with EC is that, you cannot access in game macros/actions from the Lua scripts. When I was trying to implement loot all corpses around, I could not do it from inside the script. I still had to drag/drop actions on the GUI in between code snippets to get it to work.

Last, but not least, I think the documentation for the interface could be improved a bit.

That is when I gave up and downloaded pinco's. If you guy did not check it, give it a shot. It is a lot better than the vanilla EC but It gets very sluggish unless you have a high end computer.