Talk:Ultima Online shard emulation

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[edit] rival in size?

From the article "Nowadays, some third-party servers rival the original in size and quality"... is this true? As far I knew OSI servers have (had) several thousends players online, while the size of any emulated not shard not yet grew beyond a few hundred in absolute maximum times. Can somebody please backup this statement with some sourced numbers? --Jestix 17:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I did not write that line, but I have seen some servers with upwards of two to three thousand players online at peek times (very rough numbers). They were, I believe, European servers (German?). I do agree it needs a source (as does about everything else). --Sydius 14:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Honestly I do thing that in size even the biggest emu shards are yet a small cough compared to the OSI servers.. and this line came from an emu evangelist written in arrogace... but I also dont have actual numbers to back that up --Jestix 14:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Hybrid claims several thousand concurrent users (7k peek, it seems), which is indeed a rival to most EA servers (at least now). I also put "claim" to make it less "it is a fact" sounding, since the source I quoted could be biased (but I have reason to believe it, anyway). --Sydius 14:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] unofficial UOX3

Whether or not it is "proper" does not matter when they have "unofficial" in the name of the software. They could have called it "official UOX3 server of the King of Hawaii" if they wanted to, and, as an encyclopedia, it would be proper to list the entire name. Especially considering the fact that removing it would cause confusion with another software project. If "unofficial" was not part of the software's name, I would not have a problem with it being removed, but I stand firm on this so long as it is clearly part of the software's logo and name. If they called it, "Official server of the United States", we would have to say that is the title of it. eBay is not a bay, but you would not leave out the "bay" part. Microsoft is not micro. Hell, Ultima Offline eXperiement (what UOX stands for) is not offline! --Sydius 14:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh Sorry, I missed that punt added "unofficial" to the project name by design. In this case its right --Jestix 14:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] dubois reference

I cannot validate the refence to be valid, since ryan decided to blocked my IP. Stupid eh? --Jestix 14:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

He did that to me as well (and later lifted it, apparently). It is just a list of three popular RunUO shards, with Hybrid claiming a few thousand concurrent online users. I will try to find more, less obviously biased, sources, but for now, I put "claim" in the article (which is true -- they do "claim" it). --Sydius 14:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
But reference is only for a selected or "appreciated" people to see... therefore dubious --Jestix 14:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I do not think they block enough people for it to be considered such. Most major web sites block some people, and I do not believe RunUO.com is particularly bad about it (even though I myself have been blocked for no further reason than defending myself on their forums). We both know he particularly dislikes you, which is his right -- he is not simply allowing privledged people to see the web site -- he has specifically blocked us. --Sydius 15:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Also for me does not only count the number of players online, but also the number of items in the world combined with players online! I really doubt the any 3rd party shard ever get into comparable sizes... also the numbers.. as far i remeber this was a "everybody join now" special event... until the number of players just yet did not crash the clients due to server lag, or crash the server due to memory limits. It would also be false to assert that would be "avarage players" number. --Jestix 15:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
It does list the number of items, and the average number of players is at least in the upper hundreds (if not Hybrid, then the next shard on the list does reference an average of upwards of more than 500 online players, which is still a rival). You have to remember -- the EA shards are very unpopulated in comparison to their hayday now (135,000 accounts, about 10-20% of which are online at any given time, divided by the two dozen or so shards, equals about 500-1000 players online) --Sydius 15:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Some numbers: Hybrid: 7 million items, about 60,0000 active accounts. --Sydius 15:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
What is hybrid? I did not activly play on UO for at least 4 years now... so I remeber only the OSI shard that was full of people no matter what corner you go in britannica. --Jestix 15:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The name of the shard. --Sydius 15:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
As i see the picture on numbers I see ~20 000 players online on OSI shards (roughly 15% of 135000) vs. max. 1000 players on 3rd party shards... I do still see a massive size difference ;o) --Jestix 15:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Divide by the number of servers (roughly two dozen) (a player cannot play on more than one at once). Then they are in the same range. --Sydius 15:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Huh? Reexplain please... Oh you mean total players on all 3rd party shards compared to total players on all OSI shards? --Jestix 15:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
No, no. 135,000 active accounts. Multiply by 0.15 = ~20,000 online players. Devide by the number of EA servers (they certainly do not all play on just one server!), which is about 24, so 20,000/24 = ~800 players. --Sydius 15:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh! However Players do not spread equally ... so we would need to know the variance also :) --Jestix 15:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
True, but so long as it rivals *any* of the EA servers, the statement is true, so we really only need the lower end, which is probably less than that average. Our margin of error is going to be very high no matter what we do, since we do not have more concrete numbers, but I think they sufficiently close in any case. --Sydius 15:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issue citing EULA?

I don't know if its an issue for wikipedia to cite the OSI EULA. Since its copyrighted by them... but i guess this might be "fair use"? --Jestix 15:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think so. It is just a snippet, which is, so far as I know, okay to use in a quotation. Like what Google News does. --Sydius 15:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This thing on the executability of the EULA is also a complicated issue. Since as far I know it was never tested on court. When it's written does not yet mean it's valid, I also can write "Not responsible when I hit you" on my car, yet its not valid ;) I don't know anything about the US, but as I see about current european judicature this section would must likely be invalid if they would for example suit you for reimpursement because of EULA violation... --Jestix 15:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. I agree completely, though I do think it was indeed tested in court many years ago, at the loss of Origin. That is just a rumor, though -- it would great if we found more info on it, but I fear it is too deeply burried to dig out of Google any time soon. I would not mention what you said in the article, though, primarily because, well, I am not a lawyer, and I do not know for sure that it is not executable (my guess is roughly 50/50). --Sydius 15:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
IANAL - I guess the executabiltiy is much about where it is done, when it is done, how much money each side can spent on the lawyers and a good portion of luck :)) --Jestix 15:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diablo 2 reference

Got one about them shutting emulated servers down? The reference I used did not mention Diablo 2. --Sydius 15:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

see: Bnetd --Jestix 15:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Reference added. Thanks. --Sydius 17:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cleanup

I've been flagging a few articles for cleanup, but seeing as I almost accidentally deleted this article I figure I should focus more specific on my concerns. The good news is that it's notable. But a problem with the article is that the "legal issues" section is written like it's trying to give advice, when it really should just explain the copyright issues with reverse engineering. Perhaps a link to a different article that talks about reverse engineering and copyright in general would be more appropriate. I think this section kind of gets off topic. It's more of a tone thing. Randomran (talk) 02:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)