Welcome to the U-Melange Project. 





•Hey: Page has moved!

Thanks to Evilded the UME has a new homepage: 
http://umelange.uox3.net 
Please update your bookmarks! 

•Legal stuff

To not hurt the TOS of geocities, this isn't just a "door" to the new page, the old page is still aviable here, altough it's no longer updated... 

•What is it? 

It is (or rather will be) a GNU-client for UO-Emulators (primary for UOX3). 
If the project is a success it will bring a new freedom to graphicals MUDs. 
A client that is really free and not owned by anyone! 

•How far is development? 

You can walk freely around around the world with your animated character, seeing all static data. 
In text based you can already log on to an ignition compatible server, walk around see others walking, and you can speak with them. 
If you are to lazy to try yourself, you can have a quick look at the screenshots... 


•In what language is it written? 

Here is somewhat a surpise. It's written in java. I'm often asked for the reasons, here are some: 


?It is platform independend! It will be running everywhere from standard Windows over all sorts of Unix including Linux to Mac. 
?The object oriented structure of language make huge project overlookable, and make it easy to devide code between developers. 
?Since of the safety of the virutal machine, the client should never ever hang your system, since it is not able to that. Worst thing that can happen, is that it stops with an exception message. Even in this case this exception will hold a call stack, and even in some cases the source line number of the error. So debugging is rather easy. In future releases all exceptions can be caught, and the client may try to recover from them, continuing work where it stopped. 
?Speed is not that a problem as java suggest. First the project can be (and is) native compiled for a specific platform. Second modern VM's (Virtual Machines) like Sun's new Hotspot-VM compile the project into native code while the program is running! 
However system requirments will be far higher than the original client, since the directX interface is not used. (yet) 

?I feel it's a good idea to develop in java making a really stable client. If the project is in an advanced state, it can still be ported to C++. 

?It's is simply cool, modern, und a lot of fun to program with. 


•What advantages does it bring? Why making something like this?

?First stands the new freedom. It can be legally used with emulators, it can copied free, it's gnu public source (GPL). 
?It could also be used as an ultimative GM Tool: 


¦Item creation by drag&drop from a "genesis backback". 
¦Teleporting by a simple click on the map. 
¦"Super-Fly-Mode": flying over the world viewing what's up where. (a lot like the "noline" mode now) 
¦Advanced GM menu's directly build into the game, no need for external (VB) spice up's. 
¦... more to follow ... maybe your phantasy brings up new ideas. 


?It could be made a WYSIWYG world editor. 
?A own protocol could be defined betweeen server and client. 
(For example one based on UDP instead of TCP, reducing the lag a lot, but that's now really future music) 
?Finally the races can be displayed differently. 
?A true AD&D mode could be implemented on server and client. With the old but good level and expirience points system. 
?Dynamically changing static content over the server connection, so shards will be able to build a very own world, that is downloaded while playing. 
?A skin interface allowing to users to easily change the way things are displayed. Also skins could be saved on a server, so each shard can implement it's own skin. 
¦Since the plans are to distrebute the client freely, there will be an official skin removing the need to have the .mul files from the official client. So not to have to buy a client to play on an emulator. 
If you are a graphical artist, who likes to design a whole new game, you are welcome. 
?... also more to follow ... 

•Contact:

If you have any comments or questions please simply mail:

Mail:  knoxos@gmx.net. 

Or you can now also check out the Ultimate Melange chat channel:
Server: irc.stratics.com
Channel: #umelange