Agreed, it would really be nice to have some of these projects that the folks abandoned, passed on to someone capable, or even released open source. I do not understand why so many people begin a program/project, disappear and leave the community hanging. Whats wrong with just releasing the work when they know they will never return to it.. Dragon (map creating tool) was one of the first examples like that. It could have evolved to a really great robust map making tool, yet Darian just kept it to himself, and faded away... back somewhere in 2002.
As to what I meant by feeling like we are being ran off.. I only mean that these last many months, tools like AUO, UOS and even RunUO has been seemingly abandoned, no developers active on the site here any more, only real person left is Datt99 (bless him
) and the forum is starting to show signs of abandonment (like the search function broken, signs of future development have faded away, etc.). Tons of spam bots are posting away, no real sign of cleanup.. the grass is getting pretty tall around here.
Im not trying to stir up trouble, or even pointing fingers because I dont know what the reasons are.. these are just my observations. I mean, if I am seemingly so well knowledgeable and helpful around here.. somethings wrong! lol! Im just here voluntarily, on my own free will simply because I like helping others with the trivial code problems, and what not. But I am no professional! I have just been working with these things for a looong time!
A lot of times I pop on here purely out of habit, from having been a member now for some nearly 12 years.
If anyone reading this from the whats left of the RunUO team wants help, I am more than willing to step in and do what I can. I would assume my time here and efforts should show a little trustworthiness.. I dunno.
Anyways, [/rant]