UOX3.org

Hey all, my name's Jonathon Orsi.

I have been poking around each server emulator for UO to see which has the best mix of customization, learning curve, ease-of-use, and community following it. It seems to me that UOX3 has the best overall mix so I've decided to plant my feet and begin learning. Although it is not the most active community as some have mentioned elsewhere on the forums, it looks as though the community here is very knowledgeable and helpful. Plus, everyone can write with proper grammar here which is something taken for granted on other emulator forums... .

Now that the introduction is out of the way, I have the obligatory newbie questions to ask. The best way I can think of posing these questions is to give examples of things I would like to try.

1) Gutting the Skill System
Is it possible to completely eliminate the original skill system? Would it be possible to create an entirely new system from scratch and designate the actions of the new skills? For instance, create a skill system of only one skill called Bargaining which reduces vendor pricing and nothing else.

2) Altering the Dead World
Can you alter the limit of interaction when you are dead? Allowing ghosts to equip weapons and armour, carry items, interact with objects in the world, to be able to see in colour while dead. Are these possible?

3) Long Shot Idea
This is quite the long shot, but I'd like to be proven wrong. Would there be any way to allow players to take on a temporary role of a character that isn't on their account? What I am thinking is having a set of Greek gods, and every month 10 players are chosen randomly to take on the role of these gods and are able to either aide or destroy the world. I would assume it could be an option at the character login screen if they are picked, and at the end of the month that character option would be removed and given to another.

Any information would be appreciated. I understand some of these questions/ideas might be way out of the realm of possibility with UOX, but it would give me an idea of what is within reason.

Jon Orsi

Hi Orsius. I'm somewhat new to the "heavy" scripting for UOX, but I'll try my best to give you the answers you are looking for.

1) Gutting the Skill System

For the most part, Yes modifying the orginal skill system can be done. It is really up to you to decide how far you want to go. Simply changing the way a particular skill works really isn't all that hard. Spend some time looking over how the scripts work for each skill and you will see how this can be done. To introduce something like your Bargaining, however, would take a lot of modifying and gutting of the trade system. Also it may involve changing some art work to add the "Bargaining" option in the skill list (thats if you don't want to override an existing skill with Bargaining).

2) Altering the Dead World

You can modify how the dead interacts with the outside world to some extent but my first thought on this is mostly no. There are some things that client has control over and that can not be scripted. I think the black-and-white you see while dead is one example. Although, you can script your own death/dead system. Something inbetween client-dead and being alive. The client can think your character is alive, but the "game" (scripts and such) treat the player dead.

3) Long Shot Idea

Interesting Idea . There may be a manual way to handle this without any "scripting" involved. I don't know if it could be automated with scripts but here it is:
Create a few characters over a few accounts and take some time to study the accounts.adm file. Notice that each character's serial number is attached to a particular account. I havn't tested this but I think if you switch the characters around (switching their serial numbers) with other accounts you are affectivly adding/removing characters from accounts. My point is, you can (carefully) store character(s) from one account and replace them with the God characters for as long as you want. Then copy the old characters back at a later time.

Hope this was helpful! If I'm wrong on something let me know.

Thanks!

I'm sure a little creativity can circumvent any 'limitations' UOX3 my present. I've been doing a lot of research and groundwork before I delve into actually starting the server for the first time: how packets are structured, how to read the hex part of a packet, what processes go on between client and server and anything that could give me a better understanding of everything happening.

What I'd really to know is if it is possible to pare down the UO and UOX3 data directory of any files. I like to keep things as simple and small as possible and work my way to complexity, so if there are ways I can minimize the footprint of both the UOX3 and UO client directory I'd love to know. Basically, an ideal would be to have a little one screen map to test things on. Is it possible to remove any of the .deu, .eng, .jap files in UO or are they all required? I tried moving some but then client.exe would not run .

Not sure about the client, but UOX3 itself only need to read the following client-files to work:

• map0.mul
• multi.idx
• multi.mul
• staidx0.mul
• statatics0.mul
• tiledata.mul
• (Optional: map#.mul)
• (Optional: staidx#.mul)
• (Optional: statics#.mul)
• (Optional, only read by old client-versions though: verdata.mul)

(map# = map1, map2, map3, etc. UOX3 will read them as long as you've set them up in DFNDATA/MAPS/maps.dfn)