A Lesson in Fake News - How to Loot a Patio (Staff Statement)

Recently the staff has been forced to waste a significant amount of time dealing with the spreading drama of "patio looting". There has been an extensive amount of bad information passing around lately about looting items from patio houses. Initially we discounted it because the servers rules were correct and things, from the server side, were working as expected.

There are 3 commonly used clients for Ultima Online Servers.

The 5.0.8.3 Client (we default to this)
The 7.x Client (Most other servers use this)
The Classic Client (An open source replacement for the 5.x and 7.x clients.​

All of them work on, and are acceptable to use on UO Renaissance. The 7.x client is not used here very much because in the life of UO several core things were changed with the world maps. Notably Fire Island, Magincia, Ocllo, and other smaller places. So you can use it here, but head to any of those locations and the server will be in conflict with your local map resulting in getting stuck/ rubber banding/etc. The Classic client supports the maps from both 5.x and 7.x client installations and does not have this issue.

So recently some players discovered that you could do something with the Classic client that the 5.x client could not. Specifically when reaching into patio houses. This spread like wildwife between chat/voice channels with very few people actually testing.

This is just a short example of the wild PM's I received over the last 48 hours. Demands to ban the classic client as a cheat client, demands that players be punished for doing this, claims that new players will be disadvantaged from being able to play fair etc.

Now lets go back here a bit and take a look at the official UO Renaissance home ownership guide. Specifically two sections.

2B. Small House Home Security
This section covers safety regarding storing items behind a table wall.

2C. Medium House Home Security
And more specifically the section on medium house security.

Large Patios

The important part

Marble Patios

The important part

So for years, in the house guide attached to every house on the server there have been warnings that items in patio houses are not safe on the edge of the patio. But wait, you say that items are safe because you cannot access them using our client? When we started UO Renaissance we knew there were other clients with slightly different behaviors. And I will cover why those are in the guide below and why this whole situation is frustrating.

So lets look at the claims players are making.
- The restock agent can somehow allow you more access to items on a patio.
- You can access items 1 tile inside the patio from outside the house.
- You can access items 2 tiles inside the patio from outside the house.
- The classic client allows cheating or unfair advantages.

Lets look at some videos. Below are 3 videos of the same actions with 3 different clients performing the same actions. Notice something interesting?

Classic Patio - The UO Renaissance 5.x Client


Classic Patio - 7.x OSI Client


Classic Patio - Classic Client


Now lets look at the same tests run in a Marble Patio. A bit different as the 5.x client can access items 4z and above. But again you'll notice something interesting,.

Classic Patio - The UO Renaissance 5.x Client


Classic Patio - 7.x OSI Client


Classic Patio - Classic Client


You should have noticed that there is no difference between how the 7.x client (released by OSI) and the Classic Client (Volunteer Developed). While the 5.x client denies you access to items in a large patio below 7z and in a marble patio below 3z. The newer clients do not have this . . we can call it a bug I guess.

Note: Z axis is the 3 dimensional representation of items in the UO world. The world itself is extends from -128 z (below sea level) and 128z (top of the sky). A player character is 16z. Floors in houses are 20z.

So the moral of the story? Lets revisit the player claims.
- The restock agent can somehow allow you more access to items on a patio.
(The Restock Agent has zero impact on anything, it passes the same lift action to the server)

- You can access items 1 tile inside the patio from outside the house.
(Correct, with the only caveat being limitations of the 5.x client as mentioned above)

- You can access items 2 tiles inside the patio from outside the house.
(I suspect someone with gm powers on test center did not realize GM's can access items from 3 tiles away)

- The classic client allows cheating or unfair advantages.
(The classic client has some features that set it above current OSI clients, but in this case it offers no unfair advantage. It simply does something the 7.x client has done since the server opened.

So in closing, why was this such an issue? Because no one initially approached the staff with the concern or checked the home ownership guide (accessible from every house on the server). An assumption was made, it spread getting more and more inaccurate over time. And it played on the bias' of certain players who have already set opinions of the classic client and some people involved with it. Fearmongering on discord travels at the speed of light, while the truth moves very slow and takes our beleaguered staff 2 days and 4 hours of missed IRL work to address.

Patio houses were never meant to be bastions of items security in the way some players might expect. If you can drop something over a wall, it is best to assume that someone can find a way to pick that something up. No one can make a client that can override the servers rules of access to magically allow house looting.

The next time you wonder why patches are always delayed around here. Situations like this is why.

Side Note: There are currently 98 large patios on the server and 33 marble patios. Out of 2,600 total houses.

A small note. Several volunteers are hard at work developing the Renaissance approved Classic Client Installers/Instructions for Mac/PC and Linux systems. It should be more accessible to all player soon should you have any further concerns.

Its in the works thanks to some player volunteers.