Sherwood MMORPG tricks and tips

wasd2uldr is a trivial AutoHotKey script to enable the w, a, s, d keys in the Sherwood MMORPG. Toggle them on and off (so you can chat!) by hitting any of ScrollLock, NumLock or PrintScreen.

Download wasd2uldr.exe(197KiB)
  or
Download wasd2uldr.ahk(1KiB, but needs AutoHotKey installed)

Known bugs: sometimes "tab" stops working. Toggling the script off, hitting the cursors and w/a/s/d keys, then toggling it back on seems to fix this. If you find a better fix, let me know! (mail me at "dewi at morganalley dot com").

The exe was compiled using ahk2exe, so is big. If you have AutoHotKey, then you don't need the exe, just download the .ahk file instead. I recommend this, as then you can read over the script and make sure there's nothing nasty in it.

Here's the script:

; AutoHotkey Version: 1.x
; Author:         Dewi Morgan 
; Script Function:
;   Enables the W/A/S/D keys in the Sherwood MMORPG. Toggle them on and off
;   with ScrollLock, NumLock or PrintScreen.
; License: 
;   This code is explicitly released to the public domain under the "code
;   sample" precedent. You may modify, reuse or relicence it in any way
;   without informing or attributing me. Truly free, not just "Free(tm)".

#InstallKeybdHook
#Persistent
#SingleInstance force

#Ifwinactive MMORPG in Sherwood
$*w::Send {up down}
$*w up::Send {up up}
$*a::Send {left down}
$*a up::Send {left up}
$*s::Send {down down}
$*s up::Send {down up}
$*d::Send {right down}
$*d up::Send {right up}
ScrollLock::Suspend
NumLock::Suspend
PrintScreen::Suspend

Commands

Not all these commands are documented on the site or in the help. Others were found using Cheat Engine to search through the memory for strings.

Frame rate

One of the problems with the game is that some aspects of it are strongly related to your frame rate (how many times it can draw a picture of the world onto your screen, measured in "frames per second" or "FPS"). For instance, your movement is related to your frame rate, but sliding on a slope isn't. So, the lower your frame rate, the more you slide on the grass between each frame. Below about 6FPS, many of the ramps become impossible to walk up, because you slide down far faster than you can walk up. Grassy hills become like ice rinks.

The /fps command will show you your current FPS. Somewhere between 9 to 25 is apparently normal.

The first way to try to increase your FPS is to try a different renderer. The /opengl and /directx7 renderers make use of your videocard acceleration hardware, so should be fast. Try both while facing a wall: something simple, where people won't walk in front of you and affect the measurements. Use whichever one gives the best FPS.

The solution is Cheat Engine. Select the process or window for your browser (top left button, looks like a computer screen), then check the "enable speedhack" checkbox. The "speed" setting is how fast your player moves. To double your "virtual" FPS, change "speed" to 0.5. Your character will move slower (your *real* FPS will drop, but the game will THINK they went up). This way, I can get "virtual" FPS of a reasonable amount, so I can actually walk up ramps and stuff. Using a "speed" value of 0.01, I get 111 "virtual" FPS... but it's unplayably slow!

If you go the other way, setting it to 2, or 4 or higher, then your character will run faster, maybe even outrunning the camera and running off into the distance! But you slide down even the tiniest slope, so it's pretty useless. It might give you an advantage in a fight, since it makes you strike faster... but I think it also does the same for your opponent. Not so sure about PvP though.

When entering a new area (including when starting the game), using a speedhack (eve at 1.0 speed) seems to crash the game, so you should uncheck the checkbox before going through any portals, typing /join, /level or /teleport... or indeed before dying!

Glitching, aka noclip hacks: I haven't got this to work myself, but apparently if your FPS are high enough, perhaps using CheatEngine, you walk into certain areas (the outside sides of bridges, various angles in walls), you can get right through them, allowing you to get to places you otherwise would not, such as walking on the bridge railing.

Levels: Dungeon levels are generated for you when you enter them, probably using the level number as a seed. If you know the number of bits used to store the level, and whether it's negative or not, then you can figure out the lowest dungeon level.

Player levels aren't counted when you're fighting someone else - nor are your weapon levels, or anything else "leveled". You fight as equals.

Item Spawning: When you enter a dungeon level, or die, the chests & barrels are repopulated. When you take things from chests, they're only gone until you leave the level and come back... and then they're back in the same chests. So if you find a cool sword near the stairs, go up, go back down, and get another! Each person sees a different "copy" of each chest - so if you empty a chest and see it disappear, other people won't see it disappear until they've taken their copies of the items from it too.

Monster Spawning: Monsters in aboveground areas spawn near anyone who stands still for long enough. In the dungeon, they spawn if someone comes within a certain distance of their spawn point, marked as a grey dot (purple for leaders) on the map. This can be a problem if you're fighting monsters, then someone approaches - suddenly twice as many monsters appear! Once you kill a monster, its spawn point won't re-trigger if you walk near it, but it will trigger if someone else does, unless they've already killed it too. For this reason, you may prefer to /join a private chatroom, so you can clear a dungeon level out in private, without encountering others or encountering monsters that have been respawned in areas you've cleared.

Level Capping: Weapon/item levels are capped to the lowest of the current dungeon level and your own level. That means if you are experience level 10, then on dongeon level 5, you'll only find level 5 (capped by dungeon level), but if you go down to dungeon level 15, you'll still only get level 10 items (capped by your experience level). I believe monsters are capped only by dungeon level, so on level 15 you'd fight level 15 monsters for level 10 lewt.

In the aboveground maps, the monsters will be the closest level to yours, capped between the recommended level for the area, and several levels above. The stuff they drop is capped at the lower of: your level; and several levels above the recommended minimum for the area.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the Sherwood Forest MMO, CheatEngine, AutoHotKey. They're just good tools, and I use them and recommend them.