Brought to you by the POL 099 WoD test server

[Atei]

I won't pretend to understand most of what is on here except to say, WOW! And of course, when can we go there? And is there anything we can do to help this process along? And again, WOW!

[michella]

Eep! Guess I should be househunting then hmm? Anyone know a good real estate agent?

[Joram Lionheart]

Michella, I NEVER see you online anymore. When are you around? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Agata]

Don't worry for now Michella, it will take a while before we upgrade to Stygian Abyss/High Seas client, several months. For now since almost everyone uses UO Gold, we will be using that one, which gives access to three new realms: Britannia-alternate (aka Trammel), Ilshenar and Malas. The last one has a city with an NPC Mall+bank in the center, a moongate just next to the building's east entrance, and a huge emtpy space around it, with traced roads, with the purpose of being used for placing houses.

Look at the screenshot:

Agata_10-31_23.10.jpg (195.77 KiB) Viewed 4264 times

On the radar map, you can see the NPC Mall+bank to the north, it has a circular spot next to the eastern entrance, which is where the moongate is located; the mall is surrounded by a wall with watch towers. I am standing on the road, to the south are the city walls, and all the green zone around the road and within the city walls is housing space designed for placing houses as big as 18x18. Even outside the city walls is housing space.

As for Atei's question about when will everyone be able to go there... that depends...

After the server upgrade, we will likely stop using the wodclient and use the UOGold client with encryption removed. That will give access to the three realms I mentioned above, and we will still have the custom WoD stuff. As for accessing the realm of Tokuno, the elven city of Heartwood, and the realm of Ter Mur, that will be when we upgrade to the Stygian Abyss/High Seas client.

I don't have precise dates for the upgrade to SA/HS, but I think it will be at least 6 months, since it's no trivial change that we will have to do, since it no longer supports the verdata and there is so much new content to add just from AoS. Right now, I did another test with the High Seas client and latest POL the POL svn repository (latest source code, fresh from the POL devels), and it logs in fine, but I can't create new characters yet; also it doesn't seem to enable the 7 character slots, only 5, while the Stygian Abyss client enables all 7, it's probably a change in the way the client determines the number of available slots from the server.

[michella]

Alas Joram, my playing time is very limited at the moment. I log in generally very early evenings or right after getting home from ki...erm I mean teaching my students I live in Florida too if that helps with times.

Agata, I am very familiar with these new to us maps, once on a different shard I had a lovely custom house built on a side street of Tokuno Do you think some day it will be possible to have custom built homes? I have to admit it is great fun trying to figure out tile roofing

[Agata]

Yes, the custom housing is something I'd like to have sorted out before the upgrade to HS/SA client. I don't know how much time it will take me to do it.

[Randell]

I've fallen behind on POL core development, does 099 support custom building features of the newer clients? I knew they wanted to get this system fully supported just wondered if they finally got it working. Might note that I havn't followed dev of the core since the beerandwaffles release of 098.

[Agata]

Yes, 099 is what I am using, it has support for the custom houses, still in beta stages, needs thorough testing.

[Vincent Tel'Imoen]

I'm looking forward to seeing what you and the Seers do with all the new things!

[Agata]

As for Atei's second question, for a moment I overlooked it... What can you do to help this process along? Well, there is the google code repo at http://code.google.com/p/new-uo-wod-scripts/. If you have experience scripting with POL, you can help us make sure the WoD scripts for 099 we are working on are up to date with the current live WoD scripts (the conversion to 098 I found is based on old scripts). It is also necesary to test and make sure everything works as intended.

You need to install the Stygian Abyss client version 7.0.7.1, it can be installed in a separate folder from the one you use for WoD. I can provide you with download links.