In patch 56 Renaissance will implement a custom system to make sure that the use of certain 3rd Party applications can no longer provide an unfair advantage for the players that use them. Rather than forcing our players globally to use the razor application this requirement will only be applied to players in certain situations. Renaissance has an amazing community of players who play with and without razor and we have worked very hard to make sure this can continue. Players however who engage in player vs player activities, faction combat, and certain other situations can be required to "Negotiate Features with Server". Details of the additional situations that can result in an automatic or manual negotiate features flag will not be explained in detail to protect the effectiveness of the system. However you can assume that any style of play that can benefit from the use of an illegal 3rd party application will be required to negotiate features. This will help ensure a fair playing field for all while having minimal effect on other playstyles. If your account meets these conditions you can see this message when you log in without this option set in razor. Once presented with this message you will have 30 seconds before you will be disconnected. However this is simple to fix. Navigate to your razor options tab and select "Negotiate Features with Server" as shown in this image. You will now be able to log in and play like normal. To be clear this has zero effect on razor or the capabilities of the razor application. It is simply ensuring that you are using razor and you have agreed to provide a clear handshake with the server. Players attempting to use other 3rd party applications will not be able to log in without a similar handshake. Should a player continue to attempt to use a 3rd party application that is not approved on the Renaissance server they will find a variety of the features in those programs disabled. We understand this might cause a minor annoyance for some players so if you have any concerns about this system please feel free to contact a staff member. Razor will continue to be the only approved 3rd party application on the Renaissance server. http://www.uorenaissance.com/conduct
So can we now negotiate with NPC's regarding the sticker price on their horses? I've seen a lot of horses that I'd rather pay at least 50 gold less for...
How does this feature restrict other 3rd party programs if it is a feature within Razor? I'm not opposed to the change at all; I just want to understand how it works.
Steam UO/Assist UO has a built in feature which based on the handshake from the server will disable certain features of the program. However this is an optional setting on UO Renaissance since we don't globally enforce negotiation like most servers. This is because players without razor can't negotiate features. This is why we have created a hybrid system so that our classic players who play with just the UO client will not be affected. After this patch however groups of players will now be required to negotiate with the server. This of course wont stop SteamUO/AssistUO but it will render it very very similar to razor in overall functionality.
It is turned on by default for anyone using the Renaissance Installer. So 99.9% of our players will not realize anything has changed. This is specifically targeted at players attempting to use something other than razor.
This is interesting. What causes ones account to flag for this? It is an automated process, like say, you being detected performing an action faster than should be feasable without razor or other software? Or is it just a sort of "People notice player X doing funny stuff" kind of thing?
It works both ways. There are a variety of actions which can cause it to be enabled for your account and should the staff suspect that you are using UO Steam they can set a flag on your account that overrides the automated system. For instance if you are in a faction you must agree to negotiate features with the server. Someone was caught auto taming bulls with a UOS macro recently, they were warned regarding this and the force flag was set on their account. This allows us an elevated level of protection from things like UOS's advanced macro engine and auto looter tools that can ruin the gameplay experience for others. While still allowing players to play without any 3rd party application should they wish.