That is the question at hand. The UO emu community has traveled a long way, from determining how to walk/talk in UO to almost full function support, including localization. With it has become a slow and inevitable slowdown in the "sense" of excitement. Naturally, the game is getting old, and is suffering a natural decline in popularity. But from emu development, the same seems to be true. There is an incredible sense of the wild discovery and teamwork that is lacking from today. Each emu camp is isolated within itself, further polishing the rock they have claimed to be theirs. And with it comes the yawns of those around it, as they think back to the excitement that was once there.

I offer that even though the current emus are extremely complete and capable, the development as a whole has missed the boat. There is not a single development camp, which has a complete end to end solution, capable of running on user’s servers OS of choice. Some are very close in some of the aspects, but still are not there. This oversight allows for opportunity as well. A chance to gather the information we know, and establish a framework that can be used to develop an end to end solution on various platforms. To ensure we are on the same page,end-to-end in my use, is a client, server, tools, and classes/specification to build on for other developers (so it doesn't become a dead end, and one can extend).

Toward that end, there are a variety of choices to choose from: Java, NET, and OpenStep. To various degrees of maturity these frameworks run on at least two of the platforms (windows/Linux), with two of them (Java/OpenStep) running on a multitude of platforms (Solaris, windows, Linux, Mac OS X). Yes, due to the immaturity of the frameworks on some of the platforms, the framework decisions would have to limit to the common subset ahead of development, not after the fact. The opportunity is there, if we want to take it, to take what we have learned from the shard operators, development teams, tool needs, and interactions, to establish a framework that can be a consistent architecture across the community. A set of standards, and frameworks, that development can use (so there doesn't have to be a single development), and they will interoperate. This brings chance to get the excitement back again, and with it, some benefits to the users.

With this opportunity of course comes a price. One doesn't get to use their favorite language perhaps, have to learn some new things, and give up the base project they may have been working on. Shards suffer as well, with a lack of updates on their current projects. But the gain is great. They get input at the beginning, from clients to servers to tools. The process brings an end to end framework that factors the user’s perspective from the start, not the other way around. The developers get to learn from each other, even learn how to work in a team that they may not like, and establish a framework that can capitalize on others work. Do not mistake this as suggesting a single client, or single emu, or single anything. Although that may be realistic from a resource perspective, it is an agreement on a framework of classes and interchange, so if one does an emu/client/tool, it works in the whole (and with others).

The biggest advantage it brings is the chance for some new blood, some excitement, and some long term future as a whole. Not the set of small feudal camps that the community and development has become.

To borrow the ending line from an Harry Chapin song What Made America Famous :

That how together yes we can
Create a country better than
The one we have made of this land,
We have a choice to make each man
who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
A prophet or just a crazy God damn
Dreamer of a fool - yes a crazy fool "

The choice is ours to make.

punt

First, the Bad News(to me it is, anyway):

After struggling to keep the spammers (automatic spam-bots?) off the ancient WWWboard I ran for nostalgy-purposes for more than 1 1/2 year, I've finally given up - a fresh new phpBB board has taken it's place. And since it's a joke to run a phpBB board with only ONE forum, I've divided it into 5 seperate ones. Perhaps too much for a website this small, but nevertheless.

Now, for the Other Bad News: There have been no official updates for UOX3 on the CVS since 28th of September 2003 :/. A more recent version of UOX3 can still be found though, with unofficial patches, fixes and improvements. No, it's not called RunUO ;) At the other end of this link (Source) you'll find the latest version of UOX3(0.97.06.9u) that I've compiled myself, along with all necessary scripts and other files needed to run the server. All you need to do before starting it is correct the file-paths in the uox.ini file, then setup an account in newaccounts.adm. Note that there are also a few script-changes included, which is why I'm posting the whole package as one.

The changes (not done by me, btw) include but aren't limited to:

• Optimizations to checkauto(), checkNPC(), checkPC, and genericCheck()
• Scriptable commands through JS Engine
• Partial rewrite of combat-code
• Cleanup of command table - better structure now
• Functionality, speed and all-around usability of SpawnRegions improved
• Corpses are clothed again
• Optimizations and cleanup in walking-code
• Several crash bugs fixed
• Lots of other small bugfixes and code-optimizations
• (A longer, more detailed list is available in the .ZIP itself.)

The most recent version of the source-code the Official UOX3 TestServer runs on is available for download over at UOX3Dev.net. (A compiled windows executable is included in the zip.)

Worth noting about this version is that most spells should now work, and some more crashes have been fixed. =)

Also note that you'll need an updated SPELLS.DFN file for the spells to work properly. It's included in the DFN-package - which also includes a lot of other DFN/script updates, especially if you're upgrading from an old version (0.97.00 or maintenance releases)!

I'd like to encourage everyone interested in UOX3 to sign up for an account on our new official UOX3 TestServer over at http://www.uox3dev.net/testserv.asp. It's running in debug-mode, and any server crash-bugs or other fatal errors will thus be found as they occur, and hopefully fixed as a result. Note that this will also mean the server will be "frozen" for a period of time everytime such a serious error is caught by the debugger. Please have patience :)

The test-server is currently running version 0.97.05.1b, and I hope as many as possible will help us out - as things are looking good for UOX3 at the moment and a full public release may not be that far away if we get the most serious errors out of the way.

The source for 0.97.05.1b is available at this location, but keep in mind that this is NOT a release-version, but work in progress. If you decide to try out this new version, you'll also most likely need new/updated DFNs(those are still work in progress for the next public release as well, btw) - which you'll find for now at http://www.uox3.org/uox3.zip.

This is a remnant from the old days (january 2001, to be more specific), which still does the job it was created for. I was unable to find it up for download on any other webpages, and since I saw there was still considerable interest in this program I've added both cluox 1.02 and it's sourcecode to my downloads here at UOX3.org.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Hopefully the new year will bring us lots of nice updates for UOX3 ;) As a starter, the JS Docs have been updated with the following information:

Added: onTalk event. Updated: onCreate, onDelete, onCollide, onSteal, onDispel, onSkill, onSkillGain, onSkillLoss Currently Broken-comment added to: inRange(event), onAttack, onDefense

Starting with the above update, I'll be crawling through the JS Docs in the next few days (and weeks?:) on a mission to update the information for all Events and Functions/Methods that I possibly can, which will hopefully make it easier for all the would-be UOX3JS-Scripters.

On a side note, I have added a link to UOX3 "Unofficial", a new (unofficial;) project to rewrite UOX3. Perhaps parts of this UOX3-branch can be merged into the official UOX3 source(homepage at http://www.uox3dev.net) in the future. :)

As promised, the most up-to-date UOX3 commandlist in existance can now be found in the Docs section :) Oh, and the Server Settings doc has received some more updates as well.

Freeze, UOX3-JS! This is the WorldEditor!

A fully functional version of punt's WorldEditor (version 1.0) has been released (some time ago, sorry for delay), and it now includes support for freezing items AND multis to the static files....and even better - that includes items in the UOX3 0.9x worldfiles =)

It's primary function is, however, editing the worldfiles. It lets you view, edit and save worldfiles in both versions of UOX3(UOX-JS and UOX-Classic), Wolfpack and LoneWolf. Also includes a pretty nifty find/replace feature.

Note that users of UOX-C, WP and LW should look to v2.0; UOX3-JS users need to stick with 1.0 for the time being though.

A lot of talk has been discussed about UOX3 regaining its user base. Well, I dont see that much changing, other then it staying alive. The following is my opinon. It is their to provide something to consider and think about. As with any data, it can be used, ignored, or modified. From my perspective, the order of importance:

That may sound critical, but a critical examination may actually go to addressing the root issues in the project. Look over the last two years. If you look at the approach it has taken, given the user base it has started with, and then look at all the other emus in that same time frame. At best UOX is equal to them. But it is not an obviously better one, or even one with more potential given the forward progress others have made in that same time period. It lost most of its share while many others grew theirs (and I dont mean forum usage, I mean shard usage). Might tell one that perhaps a critical exmaination is in order

What! Not ANOTHER UOX3 site!? Doh!

Oh yes it is! And what makes it different from all the other sites that have been up, you ask? Well, for one thing - the only news ever posted on this site will be concerning UOX3 itself, and any tools related. No rants, no flames, no nonsense.

Moreover, this site is also intended as a "tribute" to UOX3's long and troublesome history :) The design of the page is greatly inspired by the old UOX3 homepage at stratics.com (and before that warlords.com), and also features (once I finally manage to set it up) the same forum-type, Matt's WWW-Boards :) Hurrah for nostalgia! There's more though:

You'll find UOX3's update-logs, tricks and treats and documentation for UOX3 that you've never seen before/thought to be long lost, UOX3's FICTION(Any other emus out there have their own background story?:), and of course - some obligatory links to shards and other related websites. And pretty soon an extensive TIMELINE of UOX3's progress throughout the years :)

Oh - and this is the only site featuring the original UOX3 logo(though SLIGHTLY modified) ;)

If you're looking for the UOX3 developers, though - either for joining them or because you need their support - head over to http://www.uox3dev.net :) That is the current official homepage of UOX3, and the site where you'll find all new updates to UOX3 first, as well as the best user-support.