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Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

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Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#101

Post by mwigdahl »

eclipticplane wrote: post #77
codezero wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this unironically, but a lot of bugs. The bugs are what made UO fun, and the team often treated the bugs as features because the community demanded it. The most famous example (I think) is the "true black" dye. Another bug I ran into was when a certain shade of brown hair got turned "true white," I was able to petition a game master to let me keep my true white hair after the bug was fixed because I made it par…

UO came out when I was in high school. I would time my morning routines around the server reboot to grab those special items, some of which didn't respawn during routine reboots. The bugs were part of the game culture. The first time that you learned that items in the bottom right corner of your first house -- because they could be stolen through a bug even if your house was locked -- was something everyone jointly w…

How does the economy compare with the structures in EVE Online?

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#102

Post by gopher_space »

freedomben wrote: post #73
squidleon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to mention, the entire web part in React was done by Codex. I hate developing frontends!

Did you have to massage/guide the UI quite a bit? I've had terrible luck with codex, claude, and gemini at doing frontend. It's always so close but so far at the same time

I just have them stub out something I can open in a more specialized tool. Sometimes I can use the results as an example.

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#103

Post by godrae369 »

Hey man, read your breakdown on the Moongate architecture. Using Source Generators for DI and Lua for behavior decoupling so you never have to recompile C# is a beautiful setup. Strict domain separation is the way to go. I saw your 'What's missing' list includes NPC AI. I build AI agent workflows. Instead of building traditional, boring finite-state machines for NPCs, what if we plugged an LLM microservice into your Lua scripts? We could give key NPCs actual contextual memory and dynamic dialogue. Players could physically type to a merchant, negotiate prices, or ask for rumors, and the NPC would generate a response strictly within the lore of Ultima, triggering the correct Lua events (like handing over an item or opening a door). Since you have the packet layer and Lua environment solid, the integration would be incredibly clean. I'd love to contribute and map out the AI logic for this if you're open to exploring it.

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#104

Post by squidleon »

godrae369 wrote: post #103

Hey man, read your breakdown on the Moongate architecture. Using Source Generators for DI and Lua for behavior decoupling so you never have to recompile C# is a beautiful setup. Strict domain separation is the way to go. I saw your 'What's missing' list includes NPC AI. I build AI agent workflows. Instead of building traditional, boring finite-state machines for NPCs, what if we plugged an LLM microservice into your…

I am interested please write me on GitHub!

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#105

Post by mungoman2 »

godrae369 wrote: post #103

Hey man, read your breakdown on the Moongate architecture. Using Source Generators for DI and Lua for behavior decoupling so you never have to recompile C# is a beautiful setup. Strict domain separation is the way to go. I saw your 'What's missing' list includes NPC AI. I build AI agent workflows. Instead of building traditional, boring finite-state machines for NPCs, what if we plugged an LLM microservice into your…

This is a very fun idea. Would also be very interesting to see if one could have a system where talking to an NPC could alter the world.

One maybe obvious way would be that asking for rumors will actually creates the scenario that the NPC describes.

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#106

Post by shiftpgdn »

haolez wrote: post #34
squidleon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a good observation. UO had a real economy and social hierarchy because power wasn't handed to you. You could spend months as a fisherman or tailor and still have a meaningful experience. The gap between a grandmaster swordsman in full plate and a guy selling fish at the Britain bank was enormous, and both of them were having fun. Modern MMOs are theme parks where everyone gets the same ride (with pay per…

If starting from scratch, what would an MMO need to replicate that? I've experienced it first hand, but I can't grasp why it worked well like it did.

I still think 90% of what made UO unique is the fact there was no Google or central repository of expert knowledge. Yes, UOStratics existed, but it wasn't perfect. A lot of the fun was in the fact basically nobody knew the BEST way to play, and therefore everyone was just doing whatever they thought was fun.

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#107

Post by general_reveal »

haolez wrote: post #18

UO was the only game that I've ever played where you had "commoner" players. A lot of players failed to scale up, or to obtain top notch equipment. But the game was fun even for underpowered players, so they kept playing. The really powerful players were famous, like celebrities. It's very different from modern games, where each player looks like the fantasy version of a Marvel super hero.

Sounds like Vanilla WoW before Blizzard killed 40 man hardcore raiding. Only a few guilds on the whole server had the top gear.

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#108

Post by eclipticplane »

mwigdahl wrote: post #101
eclipticplane wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UO came out when I was in high school. I would time my morning routines around the server reboot to grab those special items, some of which didn't respawn during routine reboots. The bugs were part of the game culture. The first time that you learned that items in the bottom right corner of your first house -- because they could be stolen through a bug even if your house was locked -- was something everyone jointly w…

How does the economy compare with the structures in EVE Online?

It was smaller scale and simpler, easy to understand without spreadsheets. Even a middle school student could understand their slice of the economy.

Re: Show HN: Moongate – Ultima Online server emulator in .NET 10 with Lua scripting

#110

Post by NoOn3 »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #106
haolez wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If starting from scratch, what would an MMO need to replicate that? I've experienced it first hand, but I can't grasp why it worked well like it did.

I still think 90% of what made UO unique is the fact there was no Google or central repository of expert knowledge. Yes, UOStratics existed, but it wasn't perfect. A lot of the fun was in the fact basically nobody knew the BEST way to play, and therefore everyone was just doing whatever they thought was fun.

If someone create a new MMORPG in which rules changes a little every day or several days in unpredictable manner then no one will be knowing the BEST way to play or at least harder to find the BEST way. But maybe there will be no balance.
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