Ultima Online

[Robert Laverick]

If UO is anything like Diablo II (I mean in the way it works not in the 
things it does, let's not start an argument over which is better or anything 
silly like that :-D ) then it must have some form of protection, probably 
checking that the game is intact and un modified when you try to connect 
(possibly in the updater too?) which leads me to think that if this is where 
it fails, then it fails at the same place as diablo II, wich works Flawlessly 
in singel player, but can't validate the version to it's server.
as far as I can see there's three possible problems, well ok there's lost 
more, but these are the three I would think logical....

1) the game under wine is incorectly generating the checksum that it sends to 
the network, could be a problem with reading the files, or in the calculating 
of a checksum.

2) there is some problem in the way that it is communicating, which I find 
unlikly since it validates my CD without comment, but that's hardly proof.  

3)  since I presume that a NO CD crack is needed to make the game run in 
linux (as it seems most games do at the moment)  it could be that the cracks 
that are avaliable are exploting subtle parts of windows, that as yet are 
un-replicated in wine, to allow it to fool the validation checker.

of the three I would put my money on 3, which leaves two possible ways to fix 
it, fix the problem directly or find a different way of getting round the CD 
copy protection issue, maybe there's some way of producing a dirty hack 
that'll just answer correctly for a specific aplication.
Well whatever the solution, it probably needs some work by someone who knows 
their way arround wine, which unfortunatly isn't me -  yet, one day it will, 
but not today <G>

Good luck!
Rob

On Monday 10 September 2001 15:40, you wrote:
> I'm interested in trying to play Ultima Online in WINE.  However, the
> compatability info I've read says that although UO itself works,
> UOAssist does not, and neither does the automatic patching procedure.
>   Is this information out of date (I hope)?  Are there any workarounds?
>   Also, does anyone have information on using the 3D client?  How about
> other UO utilities?
>
> I don't mean to criticize WINE; what it does is impressive -- but in the
> case of UO, if autopatching in particular isn't possible under it, then
> I don't see any point in running the game under WINE... I'd have to use
> Windows for the autopatch anyway *scratches head*.
>
> Bruce
>
> _______________________________________________
> wine-users mailing list
> wine-users at winehq.com
> http://www.winehq.com/mailman/listinfo/wine-users