PenUltima Online

*holds out hand in a "thumbs up" gesture*

Yeah!

Was MontuZ feeling okay when he did that post?

Alright, I guess this is a good time to rant about POL and UO in general.

With a few POL shards being run by dedicated devs, but very little distro or core development occurring in the 'back office', I am more than a little worried.

I can keep running and scripting my shard as long as there is a client for players to use and as long as there are players wanting to sign up. In fact I still love POL, and even after 6 years I still find it fun.

But the long term hibernation of the POL core devs together with the release of KR gives me a fear of the future. The end is drawing nearer. Whether that's tomorrow or next year or whatever, I don't know.

POL097 may never be officially released and it might be the last POL. Those pesky packethook ram issues might never be solved. I might never get my death exported function. But at least 097rc3 gives me something to work with. I love it.

It appears KR uses a new logon packet and it's beyond my ability to get that working. KR uses new artwork and map formats entirely and I really doubt there will be the workdwide community to develop the utilities to work with them for those of us with custom maps and artwork.

From what I can see, all UO emulators have lost a lot of activity in the last few months.

Am I depressed? Far from it. It's just that I am being realistic enough to see that our stable world of UO is dying but I will keep going for as long as there is an interest in the shard I work on.

I can't even find someone who wants to learn POL and let me train them in return for some work on my shard. It's so much hard work running a shard that there's little time for anything else.

I am not sure there are any new scripters being attracted to POL.

Would I turn to RunUO? Probably not, it's still UO and it would be years of work to even make the same shard.

There ya go MontuZ. Love hurts, but it's still love.

I am feeling the same thing as you ONG but as far as I can tell POL is still the best we have out there for as long as there is an out there to have.

You said it though and stated the same fears I have.

Unlike you though I am a bit depressed. I am tired in a way because like you I am or have been the solo scripter for what feels like ages, When I get someone to help they want to do what they want and it's like pulling teeth to get them to do things my way.

Frankly the devs dropped the ball between POL 0.95 and 0.96 and let RunUO get the upperhand and now it's a long hard battle coming back. Here we are again with a almost released new version with packethook memory leaks and almost no activity from the devs.

Now don't get me wrong. I understand how things are too. They are busy. The enthusiasm is gone. And the "new kid in town" (RunUO) has taken over the turf.

All I can say is please finish POL 0.97 and fix the leaks. I have supported POL and still do. Like I have said many times it is the best emu around. If POL dies I will not go to another emu. I'll run my shard for as long as I can and the good Lord lets me. I have been doing this for as long as you ONG and if I stop I think I'll be lost for a while.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now.

If the devs did not care I am currentely going through college and work in C++ and couple other languages, I would love to DEV pol if they would so let me. I can devote, between my book, college and work, about 10 hours a week to pol. Its not a whole lot but its a start. They are working really hard and like I have said before, real life just sucks.