Newbie POL user client questions

[Draugr]

Hi.

I've recently gotten the itch to get back into UO and I've looked around the last few days, experimented with UO98, and another older server compilation. Neither of those worked as I had hoped and so my quest continued.

Today I think I found what I am looking for in POL.

I'm about to go about the process for building my server, but I have some questions I need to ask so I understand exactly how to conquer the task of compiling a server. I hope some of the more experienced POL users might be able to give me some advice.

1. The UO client. What is the latest client that can work with POL and also which is the most reliable?

2. Does the old Kingdom Reborn client work? I've always wanted to try it, but only saw a few screenshots and videos back in the day. I really liked the look, but sadly never actually used it.

3. I want to run a shard that is as close to the good old days of the initial Gold release or T2A. Is the classic distro what I need? I'm hoping to avoid the newer features introduced during AOS and later and stick to the original style of play. Also, does the distro setup all the necessary features such as decorations, doors, signs, NPCs, monster spawns, animal spawns, loot drops, quests, etc?

4.OK now for some POL compiling questions. Can I unzip the core and distro on my local PC, use POL Configurator to create the server, then move the compiled server to my actual server box which is a different PC?

5. If I tell the configurator to just build Fellucia does that mean I'll have a shard similar to Gold in that only the original Britannia map will be available to play on?

Well, that is enough for now. Sorry for the long post. I'm so anxious to get back into UO, if I can just get the above questions answered I'll be on my way!

Thanks,
John

[Yukiko]

Answers:

Question 1: As far as I know the latest Classic Client from the Ultima Online website will work with POL.

Question 2: I don't know but if you are trying to reproduce "the good old days" then the KR client won't look like classic UO..

Question 3: Yes and no. The most of the spawns are left for the developer to set up. Some spawns are pre-configured. I don't remember which ones. As for loot on NPCs yes almost all of the NPCs are configured with loot. Some of the newer NPCs might need tweaking in the area of loot. This would include especially the new mounts. Also, the new mounts will most likely need their default sounds set properly. This is because I used the horse NPC as the template and either could not find the proper sound or just got lazy and never made the changes. Fortunately, as you are trying to recreate the T2A genre these new NPCs probably won't be an issue for you.

The decorations, signs, lamp posts, doors etc. are not installed by default but there is a command you can use that will place them in the world. From memory I believe it is decoratefacrts. It may have some bugs which place some items in the wrong place. If you use the command and find misplaced items I would appreciate it if you report them under the Distro Bugs forum.

Question 4: Yes with a qualifier. POL will run properly if you copy it from your machine to a server machine. However, if you are going to run ecompile on the server machine you will have to edit ecompile.cfg and enter the proper paths for that machine.

I suggest you use the tutorial I posted in the Guides forum to setup the Distro but I suspect you were planning to do that anyway given your reference to the POL Configurator

Question 5: Yes, mostly. There have been some map changes since Mondain's Legacy. Occlo and, I think, Magincia have undergone some changes. Thanks to the addition of gargoyles OSI "had" to provide entry to the Termur facet and I believe that is the reason for Magincia's modification.

This brings up a problem I am certain exists with the decoratefacets command. It was created using the Mondain's Legacy map. So I am fairly certain things will be misplaced in parts of Magincia.

Never apologize for a long post. Feel free to be as verbose as you want to. Maybe you will surpass me in the "long post department".

[Yukiko]

I must have accidentally locked this. Damn smart phone interface.

It is now unlocked. My apologies.