General Information

What can we do with the UO pre-alpha client?
For those of us who played the pre-alphas, or those of you who wanted to, here's our chance at playing them again.

How will we do that?
I see (2) options for having a playable pre-alpha again:

1. Writing a server system (much like UOX, Greyworld, TUS, Sphere, etc etc) that would use the pre-alpha client in situ. While this might be the best way of getting the most out of the pre-alpha client, I don't think its the most efficient nor time-saving way.

2. Modifying one of the existing server systems, like Sphere, to "play" like the pre-alpha. This is easily possible by creating the pre-alpha's tiny custom map based on existing screenshots and memories of ex-alpha testers. Next, the existing "release" UO client would have to be modified by replacing its animations, tiles, music and sound with graphics & audio from the pre-alpha client. This might be possible by extracting them out of the pre-alpha client, and then importing them into the release client.

Technical Barriers
There are quite a few technical problems that stand in the way of getting a working pre-alpha game going (in no particular order):

1. Having InsideUO or some similar utility to read graphics (tilesets, monster animations, gumps, etc) from the pre-alpha client. Currently, InsideUO seems capable of extracting the WAV audio from the client without any problem. MIDI files already exist in a subfolder of the pre-alpha client, so they present no particular problem.

2. Choosing a server system as a foundation for the game. Sphere seems like a good choice due to its deep customizability and simplicity of scripting.

3. Creating a custom map with Sphere and Dragon that reasonably matches the pre-alpha map. This can be based on the existing overhead view map of the pre-alpha, as a hundred screenshots of varying areas of the game.

4. The pre-alpha system was based on Experience, not skill levels. Sphere would have to be modified to play an Experience-based character system. That doesn't present much of a problem luckily, since many people have already done this with Sphere.

5. Gumps would have to be modified with Sphere to reflect the old client's Gumps.

6. Inserting all existing graphical data into the release UO client. I assume this can be done with a combination of utilities out there, although I'm not sure if monster animations will import very well.

Why does this site exist?
If anything, just to archive most of the dying information out there on this old relic of a game. It took about 25 hours of searching Google, and archive.org for traces of UO pre-alpha information. Most screenshots have been archived, although some are still missing (ie. Chandar's). It took 2 years to find the pre-alpha client itself (yes, 2 years!). If a pre-alpha project actually got going, this would be the place to get started.

How can I get more information?
Send some e-mail to: wintermute.turing.ai@REMOVE-THIS-NOSPAM-TEXTgmail.com

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