It's been a while since the last update, but things have been going on behind the scenes. Weight has gotten a complete rewrite, armor defense has been updated, and much more. EviLDeD has updated the UOX3 CVS with the latest changes from this site, new changes which haven't been posted yet from Maarc and myself, and new fixes / cleanups from himself. Head on over to the UOX3 sourceforge page and check it out, along with the changelog for all the fixes! Kirre has also updated the scripts on his site with the latest stuff (including new items from TD/AOS) by himself and Xuri, hopefully once a few more issues are ironed out with accounts there should be a new exe and all-in-one release out soon!.

"Hello all, Maarc and I have been doing quite a bit of work on UOX recently, and while it's not "official" (IE EviLDeD has not approved it and put it in the CVS), we feel it is quite worthy of people using it, at least until a new CVS release is made."

"EviLDeD, Well thanks for the years of service to the UOX3 family. This time it wasnt I that quit, but you that quit on the community. By banning us, the uox3 loyals, you have doomed this project to fail. Maybe it was already dead, clinging on to the last breaths of a dying time.

But again thank you. You have proven to me what others have already told me, but i failed to believe. So i guess its back to the Ultima Online shadows.

So in parting, thanks again.

May UOX rest in piece.. or pieces if you've seen the latest cvs :)

Farewell."

Just wanted a thread where anyone could dicuss the data changes proposed at http://uoxe.sourceforge.net.

If you are looking for the "official" UOX3 web site, we believe it to be here. If you are looking to run a shard immediately, then you probably want to go to one of these locations: RunUO, Wolfpack, or Lonewolf. Many more options for emu's can be found at Smithy's Anvil.

Still with us? Ok, so what is this place then. It is a small hobby/project to rewrite UOX3. "Unofficial" as we are NOT part of of the "official" or "formal" UOX3 development team. However, back in UOX3 infancy, many programmers routinely released their "version" of UOX3. Then another developer would pick up that, merge what they liked, and release their version. We are reverting back to UOX3 roots, and adopting that model.

Basically, we feel that UOX3 is in need of an overhaul. Plus, we thought it might even be fun to do. There are plenty of emu's out there, most far "ahead" of UOX3 in terms of stability, flexibility, and or features. So, why not have some fun doing a rewrite. We have a few guiding principles as we accomplish this rewrite.

Progress is being made on getting rid of the char* in favor of UString continues. Probably about 1/4 or so way there (perhaps a tad less). We will refrain from updating CVS until is complete (for those of you who want a compliable version to work on). Now, one thing is clear as we do this. The code base is not substantially better, from a maintenance perspective, then it was two years ago. I am sure to those who did it, it is, but that could have been said about the original base as well. This is all spilt milk, and in truth, if it wasn't in such shape, we wouldn't have a reason to exist! So, there is a silver lining to everything. Now, assuming we can get the char/string conversion complete, we need to begin to plan on the "true" code updates we want to do.

First, we believe we should get the user data interfaces defined. We find the current "DFN" system somewhat lacking. It does not meet our goals of standardization, nor is the data self contained. What we mean by that, is a standard "syntax/approach" to writing data, and the data within any file should be self describing. The DFN system is dependent on location to aid in describing what the "type" of data is (npc, item, etc). If on transfers the file for editing, sharing, working with tools, there is no way for the recipitant to easily obtain what the data is. Secondly, we desire a syntax that can easily describe the data content and type in a consistent manner for all our data files (Note the current UOX3 ini file does not contain { }, but the dfn's do. In some files, the section header is [id], while other times is [ITEM id].). So, we believe a common approach, that will also ease migration of existing parsers, is to go back to the SECTION TYPE ID { } syntax. This meets our needs (however, we plan to have other "keys" then SECTION, as will be explained later). We can live with the current "tags" that UOX3 has, and keep the "=" for the separator (with the "," separating multiple values). We plan to enforce this syntax for all text data. For those of you who have all ready adopted the DFN system (what, all three users *smile*), this is easy to convert. Basically we will be changing the first line of each section from [id] to SECTION TYPE ID . So a translator that can key off the directory for the type, should be fairly trivial to make.