Heroes vs Villains in UO

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I disagree Trebr. Some kind of game mechanic was needed to make sure that there were adequate consequences for killing innocent players. As you know from discussions in the Classic Shard thread, my guild spent our time doing what you are describing, but we were woefully out numbered when it came right down to it. Even at our height, at 150+ members, you could only get a third to one half of those people online at the same time, and even then, the logistics of planning an outting of that size is almost more trouble than it is worth...believe me, I know. Most often, we operated in squads of 5-10, unless we called in backup. Most of the PK groups back then operated much the same way, in groups of 3-10, but there were WAY more PK groups than Anti-PK groups. So the end result was that we could not be in all places at all times...and thus PKing ran rampant.

It was just too easy to be a PK in the old days. No doubt about it. You could just hide, and wait for a player to get really low on hp, then ebolt that player and take everything he or she worked hours for. Then move on to a new target. In a single night back then, a good PK could earn more than most non-PvP players did in a week (except certain crafters).

You know me well enough to know that I am not advocating for a Trammel type solution...never! But there had to be more in place that what was in place. It would have taken work, trial and error, resources, and the devs or producers or someone didn't feel it was worth it, so we got Trammel. Now the ideas that are being discussed here are all moot...unless of course we get that Classic Shard I am always begging for

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Kaleb, your talking about a respectful red, one who plays a villian well. PK encounters are not the problem, it's the difference in tactics used to kill a person. Being red shows that you've chosen to show you are a PK but there are PKs that join guilds to kill, so they don't have to turn red or join factions so they can undermind the games rules and mechanics.

If your not in a guild or a faction when you kill someone you have to face a penalty of turning red but if you join a guild you can work around that rule and cause even more damage with less penalty. Being a red villian is a good thing because it gives us something to fight and it gives the game meaning. I would have to agree with you
one rule set for all!!

Thank you for the reply, i'm really happy you read it Mark Of Mythic. I hope you did not think I meant you, I was talking in general of the statement (it's just a game).

I just can't agree with that for some reason I find it very uneasy. I mean Monopoly is just a game because the pieces you move around the board are just pieces and cards, that's just a game also.

In UO though, you can own your own home and people can steal from you. Take something that means something to you and not just in game meanings but long forgotten friends. There is just way to much real that shifts back and forth. We don't say when we talk in the game, that we are talking to a game piece, we say we are talking to someone.

It opens up both worlds to me, the real and the unreal. We have to create hereos and roleplay our villians but we need to do it with class and honor. In a way it teaches us positive fun.

 

[Trebr Drab]

I disagree Trebr. Some kind of game mechanic was needed to make sure that there were adequate consequences for killing innocent players. As you know from discussions in the Classic Shard thread, my guild spent our time doing what you are describing, but we were woefully out numbered when it came right down to it. Even at our height, at 150+ members, you could only get a third to one half of those people online at the same time, and even then, the logistics of planning an outting of that size is almost more trouble than it is worth...believe me, I know. Most often, we operated in squads of 5-10, unless we called in backup. Most of the PK groups back then operated much the same way, in groups of 3-10, but there were WAY more PK groups than Anti-PK groups. So the end result was that we could not be in all places at all times...and thus PKing ran rampant.

It was just too easy to be a PK in the old days. No doubt about it. You could just hide, and wait for a player to get really low on hp, then ebolt that player and take everything he or she worked hours for. Then move on to a new target. In a single night back then, a good PK could earn more than most non-PvP players did in a week (except certain crafters).

You know me well enough to know that I am not advocating for a Trammel type solution...never! But there had to be more in place that what was in place. It would have taken work, trial and error, resources, and the devs or producers or someone didn't feel it was worth it, so we got Trammel. Now the ideas that are being discussed here are all moot...unless of course we get that Classic Shard I am always begging for

That's what I meant by "tools and ground floor rules". If you look up farther in this thread, I state that there has to be a working justice system. There has to be a punishment for "crime". Everything else is spelled a-b-u-s-e.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

That's what I meant by "tools and ground floor rules". If you look up farther in this thread, I state that there has to be a working justice system. There has to be a punishment for "crime". Everything else is spelled a-b-u-s-e.

I agree with that 100%.

And to Zyon:

Having an infiltrator in your guild is not pretty. But you do have the ability to eject said person from your guild.

I would have personally liked to have seen guilds have more depth in UO. The current structure, with the GM, the Warlords, etc. is nice, but we always ran PoV with a guild council. The council would vote on matters and issues.

If mechanics were in place, an infiltrator could be labeled a Traitor, which is worse than a murderer. Imagine having a permanent label on your paperdoll, 'The Traitor So and So'. Certainly handing a guild leader that power would be too easily abused, but if a guild council, or the guild as a whole, had to vote for it...then it might be more fair.

It makes me sad when I consider the unrealized potential this game once had.

 

[Sturdy]

Great discussion, thanks all.

I am a pen and paper gamer from the beginning and have had some experience with "playing at" good and evil. (Twighlight 2000 or Boot Hill anyone?)

I still remember agonizing over weather or not to kill the prisoners in an RPG game twenty years ago.

I think really deep plumbing of good and evil is best left for personal interactions where human relationships can temper and give meaning to the experience. For me the online, and dare I say- cartoonish, nature of UO does not lend itself to this kind of thing. This does not mean that interactions in the game are not real, it just means we should be cautious about what topics we approach in an online game. I like the idea that developers are entertainers and we are the audience. (A heckling, slack-jawed audience that wont get off the stage, but still an audience)

Seven years ago, before leaving UO (back this year) I was an AntiPK on Siege. We roamed around looking for reds to kill and in many ways were were much worse than reds. The reds at least chose to display their intentions and invite conflict while we hid behind the game mechanics and ruthlessly exploited guard zones and such.

It was tons of fun. I guess what I am trying to get at is that fun is a lot more important to me in UO than good or evil, or even fare. If we focus on fun the other stuff will follow. We cant escape human nature.

 

[Gheed]

You find a guy bleeding to death in the street in front of the healer shop. The paladin says, “I rush into the shop to buy the guy a heal potion because I’m out of heals for today.” I say, the shop keeper isn’t there but there is a display of healing potions on the counter… what do you do?”

I have been thinking about this tidbit for quite a while. There are a lot of powerful things you could do with simple situations like these. Think of re-vitalizing cities in UO with a hero/villain system.

Each city has a look and layout now that gravitates playstyles with certain personalities toward them. A few examples: (former) Magencia: city of mages, Buc's Den: the brigand stronghold, Britain: the proud and bustling capital of Sossaria.

What if the townsfolk of these cities were given personalities of their own to match the city they lived in. Then apply the guy bleeding to death in the street scenario to those personalities for different outcomes. Your response would make you more of a hero or villain of that city.

You decide to play the scenario like this:

In a rush, you smash the glass on the display case, grab a healing potion and heal the dying stranger. Later you return to the healer shop to admit to smashing the case and taking the potion to save the dying man. You apologize and offer to reimburse the shop owner for his loses.

Here is how your actions are viewed by the citizens if you performed this act in their city:

(new) Magencia: The town had suffered a horrible destruction and has just been rebuilt. The citizens were horrified by this act and thought another invasion was starting. Even though you saved a man's life, you are considered villainous for almost destroying the town again in mass hysteria. How inconsiderate. The townsfolk start to shun you.

*You should have found a wandering healer or ran to a different shop with later hours*

Buc's Den: The citizens are outraged! That mangy dog should have died where they left him. You've been thrown in Jail and will have to bribe the guard 100k to get out.

*you should have looted the man's belongings and left him for dead*

Britain: The shop owner was very pleased you returned to reimburse him for his display case. The whole town has heard the story of the dying man's unknown savior. Now that you have come forward, they have a name and a face to add to their hero's story.

With all of the different cities, you have a pretty wide range of personalities to offer. The player will eventually form a strong bond with the city he/she feels best fits their personality and choice of play style.

The cities themselves reward your effort in all sorts of ways. They could offer more specialized stock in their shops, lower prices, pay more for your goods, offer you unique items or abilities.

To customize the experience more you can give the EMs tools to create their own quests in these cities offering the best chance of completing the quest to heroes of the towns they create them in.

To prevent one character from trying to play to the needs of the city, just to be a hero (or a villain) of them all, allow your stories to be told by travelers and merchants to members of other cities. So your actions in one city effects your treatment in all cities.

But not only are you offered benefits to cities you a hero in, you have the ability to influence citizens in other cities. A hero of Buc's den may be considered a villain in other cities for example. Perhaps you could steal and harass citizens other towns. Making you more of a hero in Buc's. At the same time the citizens of other towns would lose morale and offer their heroes less.

Seems like an awful lot to balance out. But it ties in so well with the virtues. With so many areas and so much land, you really have a broad palette to work with.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Gheed, that's just another points system. Leader Boards. A hero is not made in such ways. And everyone will know that these heroes are nothing more than quest runners. All the while, they may be "blues" who run with PKs, looting their kills, sharing the loot with their "red" friends.

These things only work on paper as stand-alone objectives. That's why they work in single player games, but not in MMORPGs.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

One big problem with MMORPGs is that game designers try to code in too much of the social sphere. Leave that to the players. UO used to have the perfect system to recognize "good" and "evil". The players did it.

It is one thing to recognize good and evil, and yet another thing if players are able to create a balance.

Back in the Early Days of UO, players left in great numbers because they failed to create a balance. The players were not able to do it!

As much as I despise the Trammel/Felucca split as a solution, subscription numbers increased noticeably after this change. This only proves that game designers actually have the duty to code in mechanics to balance the social sphere. Otherwise the game will fail, because one side will always be victimized and grieved.

To my opinion, splitting the world was not the best solution, because it destroyed the social sphere altogether.

 

[Trebr Drab]

@ Hawkeye

That's what I meant by "tools and ground floor rules". If you look up farther in this thread, I state that there has to be a working justice system. There has to be a punishment for "crime". Everything else is spelled a-b-u-s-e.

 

[Chad Sexington]

There's nothing wrong with stealing and murdering as part of game design. The problem was that risk vs. reward wasn't balanced. There was little reason to not steal and murder. Everyone who says, "Where's the risk for a red who kills nothing but vendors and newbies?" is right.

Here's my perma-death idea that most people hated when I first posted it:

1) Remove Insurance - A reason to kill and steal.
2) Get rid of the Trammel/Felucca split - The player base should never have been split.
3) Players go red after 1 murder - Players shouldn't be able to burn counts.
4) Hall of Fame for Murderers - A reason to murder. This hall of fame would include statistics for everything you've done and the people you killed while you were a murderer. There would also be Hall of Fames for other in-game activities. But the halls would be public and they'd be official.
5) Perma-death for murderers - A reason for people to band together and hunt down these killers. There should be consequences to killing people.
6) Fix Factions - A reason to pvp without having to murder.

As it is right now, there's little reason for people to band together to help anyone else against a murderer. There's little difference between blues and reds. If my idea was in place, if a shop keeper ran into the bank and started yelling, "I was just killed by a red! Help please!" I think everyone in shouting distance would get together and help the poor guy out.

I had a couple ideas about stealing, mostly having to do with jail, detectives, and marking stolen items.




edit: You would also have to introduce things to prevent blues from interfering with faction fights, spawns, and things like that. You should go gray to a faction if you do anything like that.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Chad, I pretty much agree except that perma-death isn't acceptable to most players, even for PKers. I think that is a big problem with the idea. I'd love to see it, but in my opinion most players would think it's going too far, and likely most developers too. But then, I'd like to see a game where the most foul and evil MOBs can permadeath anyone they kill.

Talk about real heroes, those who slay such beasts of the dark would truly be!
(But that's another story entirely.)

Another problem with your idea, in my mind, is that it doesn't allow for players to kill jerks who ruin their events or otherwise just play jerks. I think there needs to be a little leeway in there.

 

[BajaElladan]

Hail Folks,

Trammel was neither the only nor the best option! They could have simply added to the log in process a toggle: A) normal Felucca rule-set, B) what became Trammel rule-set.

The toggle could only be switched during log in. This would have allowed all those Players opposed to PvP, let alone PK and Ganking, to opt out of the non-consensual Felucca rule-set and given the UO demi-gods time to refine the other "problems" with Felucca.

The land and Community need not have been divided. Sadly, now that they have been divided I am unsure if reuniting them is possible, let alone feasible.

Clearly a large majority of Players believed Felucca, as it was, provided criminals vast rewards for far too little risk, and victims far too much risk with no reward.

Regardless, as Dev's like Mark and others consider the present Sosaria, and plan for its future, hopefully they will have learned from our history. Let them determine, as best they may, what the Players consider to be "fun," and what they consider to be infuriating to the point of quitting, and provide much of the former and little, if any, of the latter.

Elladan of Baja

I disagree Trebr. Some kind of game mechanic was needed to make sure that there were adequate consequences for killing innocent players. As you know from discussions in the Classic Shard thread, my guild spent our time doing what you are describing, but we were woefully out numbered when it came right down to it. Even at our height, at 150+ members, you could only get a third to one half of those people online at the same time, and even then, the logistics of planning an outting of that size is almost more trouble than it is worth...believe me, I know. Most often, we operated in squads of 5-10, unless we called in backup. Most of the PK groups back then operated much the same way, in groups of 3-10, but there were WAY more PK groups than Anti-PK groups. So the end result was that we could not be in all places at all times...and thus PKing ran rampant.

It was just too easy to be a PK in the old days. No doubt about it. You could just hide, and wait for a player to get really low on hp, then ebolt that player and take everything he or she worked hours for. Then move on to a new target. In a single night back then, a good PK could earn more than most non-PvP players did in a week (except certain crafters).

You know me well enough to know that I am not advocating for a Trammel type solution...never! But there had to be more in place than what was in place. It would have taken work, trial and error, resources, and the devs or producers or someone didn't feel it was worth it, so we got Trammel. Now the ideas that are being discussed here are all moot...unless of course we get that Classic Shard I am always begging for

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Morgana LeFay of (POV), that's not true. I have had mostly guild team infiltrators and they wait a few weeks, so you add enough people where you can't tell who the villians are, then they use disguise kits and wait for the GM and all Emissaries to be logged off. They also target the people for their items, or if they are weak.

Usually one will kill but they are in there with teams of 2 or more, so you don't know who they are and they can't be kicked. In most cases, people would just leave the guild so that their attacker could no longer attack them. After weeks of losing alliance and people, we figured it out and changed his title to Guild PK.

The system should not have its' own rule, the kingdom should have one system, one law, so, if you wish to report a murderer, you can. I'm not saying remove Trammel, i'm saying put them all under the law of one ruleset, although, perma-death is fascinating.

If we look at history, what is missing from this time period? Guilatines, stocks, shackles, stretching table, dunking, flail, torture, laws, jails, even if your already red, there has to be something more.

I like sending people to jail because it's fun, like being in detention. Have a guard that walks around, once he's out of sight, you make a break for it. Like 3 minutes in jail, enough time where they can confront each other and realize they've done something wrong. I could see that conversation people would have with each other. Hey what did you do? I killed X, LOL. No kidding, I got his boat key.

Anything that allows to first mark as criminal and then equal justice would be a good starting system, but i'm sure there are alot of ways we could implement law, program association and produce penalty to our villians.

 

[Gheed]

Gheed, that's just another points system. Leader Boards. A hero is not made in such ways. And everyone will know that these heroes are nothing more than quest runners. All the while, they may be "blues" who run with PKs, looting their kills, sharing the loot with their "red" friends.

These things only work on paper as stand-alone objectives. That's why they work in single player games, but not in MMORPGs.

Not really a conventional quest system... as they are in UO today. That guy isn't always lying in the street bleeding to death. You don't log in, talk to npc x, fetch item y and get result z.

We all live are lives making good or bad choices. These choices shape how the community reacts to us. They also shape how the community grows. There are good and bad parts of town depending on the morality of sort that lives there.

Through your travels in life, turning points surface. Betraying a friend at work for monetary gain, being offered drugs or alcohol... a cigarette. Things that will change your life forever. Your reaction to these critical events are influenced heavily by your environment and upbringing.

As you make your critical choices in life, so will your community react severely. You can spend a lifetime doing good things and screw it all up with one mis-deed. However, if you get it right, you confirm yourself in the eyes of the community and elevate your status... you may even become a hero.

But that's the hard part about putting a system like that in UO. Back to the point of the dying man scenario. It can't just be a 24-7 quest you accept and complete. This would be one of those rare critical moments that solidifies your status in the community. You get one shot at the scenario and how you react will greatly change your relationship with that town. Knowing how to react involves knowing your town's history and the personality of the community. You weed out the power gamers and exploiters because it takes time and effort to evolve your relationship with the town. As you interact with each town, you pick one as your favorite and become part of that community.

Yes you would still have small daily or repeatable tier 1 "get your foot in the door" quests that gain you a little favor and small bonus or reward. You may also have a random monthly quest that helps out even more. But the critical scenarios that elevate you to hero status come few and far between. Offered up during dev created events and story arc.

Consider your town having a wide area of influence outside of it's borders. People who live in this area of influence also get small bonus' to activities performed in that area. If you are a hero of the town, NPC healers in the area of influence would know your name well. If they see you are in a fight and getting hurt, they might jump in and cure/heal you. Offer various buffs like resource gathering, gardening(growth/yield), stat regen, skill gain, reduced vendor fees. All to residents of that area and/or increased further by their status in the town.

Now you've taken a great amount of time to build your status in the community.. because you like the community and/or want to reap its rewards. The great risk now becomes losing that status by one mis-deed.

Say you are blue and healing a murderer as he is flagged as an aggressor to another blue. An NPC wanders by and sees you performing this act. The NPC may report you. If this happens, your status will be severely changed in your city. Your could risk loosing all of your status and starting over again. Same for looting corpses... heroes of Brit don't do that sort of thing.... Heroes of Buc's Den do.... maybe it doesn't matter for heroes of Trinsic.

Another big piece of the system is just not knowing all of the rules. Have hidden effects. If you run to a healer too many times in a fight, you may actually lose status slightly.

No leader boards, no one town ever gains any real advantage over another, no sigils to steal. Just a town conceived to a purpose... supporting the surrounding community in achieving that purpose.

 

[Zodia]

Lots of good ideas in this thread. I just wanted to add something real quickly:

I always thought a solution in classic UO to the PK problem was that if you were a Red murderer, you could not log out. (Follow me for a second here.) Sure, you could leave your computer, but your character would remain in game for 24-48 hours for each murder over the limit. You would have to hide somewhere. And this was before houses could be set to "private". So no matter where you hid, you could be killed somehow.
Then, a system is put in place using player skills (forensics, tracking, the bounty system, lockpicking to get into your house) that rewards bounty hunting. This solves the problem of the bounty system, which made it almost impossible for Good characters to actually "track" and find the Evil persons: the evil person simply logged in, did their killing for an hour, and logged out, removing themselves from any harm.

Additions to enhance tracking, forensics to make it so you could actually find the person would create a cat and mouse system where murderers couldn't hide. They would be always on the run, just like in real life in a lot of ways.
And match that with a very large reward for finding/killing the murderer and you've made it "fun" to be Good.

So, give us a classic shard with the above changes and you'd see roving bands of bounty hunters, constantly on the search for the Evil Reds whose characters were ALWAYS logged in, hiding somewhere, on a boat, deep in a cave, in a tower behind doors that need to be lockpicked. And red guilds would be formed to guard each other while they were AFK. Because being Red would mean you are always vulnerable.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Hail Folks,

Trammel was neither the only nor the best option! They could have simply added to the log in process a toggle: A) normal Felucca rule-set, B) what became Trammel rule-set.

The toggle could only be switched during log in. This would have allowed all those Players opposed to PvP, let alone PK and Ganking, to opt out of the non-consensual Felucca rule-set and given the UO demi-gods time to refine the other "problems" with Felucca.

The land and Community need not have been divided. Sadly, now that they have been divided I am unsure if reuniting them is possible, let alone feasible.

Same end result, different method.

Having any kind of PvP switch creates a division, even if not a geographical one, between the community.

The idea that people in a virtual world should be completely invulnerable is silly. The idea that people, in a game, should be completely invulnerable is silly as well. There is no realism in it, and no depth. It does nothing to create a community of 'heroes vs. villains'...which is what UO was, and should have remained.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

<snip>

Long time vets are fed up with the lack of community spirit in UO and part of the reason is its all item based and with the sampire template meaning groups are not needed for most things it takes away yet another reason to team up.
The one good thing WoW does manage is the need for group play.

I think your comment focused incorrectly on a character class rather than the avatar of a person playing that character. Community did not die because of fighting monsters alone. I don't mean any of this against you on a personal level.

The community back then was at its infancy prior to Trammel. Community formed from many aspects of our lives back then. Part of the community aspect was due to people taking things away from us like our time, loot, and placing us in a world they controlled. We started to form groups that would go out on posses or groups to protect miners in the Minoc caves. In a way Trammel broke the community, but it wasn't items. Trammel put an abrupt end to the early cowboy world and communities were just beginning to grow into larger formations. We even had T2A boat communities and there were markets there in a creative form that had nothing to do with developers. We didn't go out alone just like mostly going out in the woods alone isn't a good idea in RL.

The loss of community was not because some individuals are shy or quiet characters that fight alone. What I mean is Sampires are very cool classes that were created in UO and you don't find them in D&D player books. It isn't that they take away community just because someone makes that class of character and fights peerless on their own. At this point developers have an opportunity to create more advanced creatures requiring multiple Sampire class characters or enhanced group combinations.

I think it is possible that Trammel wouldn't have been necessary, but to police the entire land would have been impossible. We would have needed sheriffs and jails. We would of needed both a positive or negative feedback system control and the world would need inputs so we could apply the feedback into the correct locations in the system either positively or negatively.

-Lorax

p.s.

There were lots of bugs that caused lots of problems, but were in a way kind of fun. For instance groups of people would gate Hythloth monsters into Covetous to wipe us out. It was exciting times where if a gate opened people would scramble.

 

[BajaElladan]

Your view was well known, and back then widely held by a small minority. The exodus of Players was quickly going to result in Ultima Online's demise. Non-consensual killing was going to leave all but the mass murderers dead and gone.

The "same end result, different method" you decry clearly turned off the mass exodus and even turned it around.

Same end result, different method.

Having any kind of PvP switch creates a division, even if not a geographical one, between the community.

The idea that people in a virtual world should be completely invulnerable is silly. The idea that people, in a game, should be completely invulnerable is silly as well. There is no realism in it, and no depth. It does nothing to create a community of 'heroes vs. villains'...which is what UO was, and should have remained.

 

[Kaleb]

Your view was well known, and back then widely held by a small minority. The exodus of Players was quickly going to result in Ultima Online's demise. Non-consensual killing was going to leave all but the mass murderers dead and gone.

The "same end result, different method" you decry clearly turned off the mass exodus and even turned it around.

Wrong, There happened to be the release of an MMO with innovative graphics that at the time were cutting edge. The fullest player run servers are nontrammel pre AOS and have a larger combined player base than today's servers.

Now dont get me wrong, trammel was a good idea in theory, but the way they implemented it into UO was wrong. They should have been made separate servers from the start.

As a general example Siege was very populated even more so than today's standard servers save for Atlantic. It had every playstyle you can think of, Player towns were used more than the citys, factions and Chaos/Order was very active, and it was common to have epic 3-4way pvp battles of very large guilds (would be considered Zerg on standard servers). Its playerbase started to die out around pub16 when they introduced power/stat scrolls but kept a semi healthy playerbase. AOS was released and shortly there after The population fell through the floor, 2004-2005 It was so dead i even left and went home to Pacific.

There is great demand for a dangerous UO and a want of a lot of players to go back to that feel of gameplay, if you look at the classic shard thread you will notice that 90% of the posters have agreed on the core rulesets and all that is remaining are just the extras, some like chocolate sprinkles on the cake, some like tofu on the cake. When it was said there has been a talk of a possible classic shard, it created a Buzz in the MMO world. And opening up a classic server is one way of bringing back the Hero vs Villain.

Another way if classic cant be done, Being Siege is its own monster, is if EA made a couple servers and turned off one thing with the current code and that would be Trammel, and turn on almost all Murderer penalties, Statloss/Skill loss timed though, NO GZ, No red healers. A shard just like standard servers one ruleset again bringing back that Hero vs villain feel w/o really writing a whole new game.

 

[BajaElladan]

You are welcome to your opinion, of course. But history and facts refute any claim that UO wasn't experiencing a heart attack, and providing Players a non-consensual combat free option WAS the CPR that saved the patient.

Moreover, it is equally true that despite EA trying everything conceivable to lure folks back to Felucca, it remains the place of inhabitation or visitation of the games smallest minority.

Regardless, today's challenge is merely to ascertain what Players consider "fun & interesting," and to provide that in ways that maintain and increase subscriptions.

I hope we may all at least agree on this.

Elladan of Baja

Wrong, There happened to be the release of an MMO with innovative graphics that at the time were cutting edge. The fullest player run servers are nontrammel pre AOS and have a larger combined player base than today's servers.

Now dont get me wrong, trammel was a good idea in theory, but the way they implemented it into UO was wrong. They should have been made separate servers from the start.

As a general example Siege was very populated even more so than today's standard servers save for Atlantic. It had every playstyle you can think of, Player towns were used more than the citys, factions and Chaos/Order was very active, and it was common to have epic 3-4way pvp battles of very large guilds (would be considered Zerg on standard servers). Its playerbase started to die out around pub16 when they introduced power/stat scrolls but kept a semi healthy playerbase. AOS was released and shortly there after The population fell through the floor, 2004-2005 It was so dead i even left and went home to Pacific.

There is great demand for a dangerous UO and a want of a lot of players to go back to that feel of gameplay, if you look at the classic shard thread you will notice that 90% of the posters have agreed on the core rulesets and all that is remaining are just the extras, some like chocolate sprinkles on the cake, some like tofu on the cake. When it was said there has been a talk of a possible classic shard, it created a Buzz in the MMO world. And opening up a classic server is one way of bringing back the Hero vs Villain.

Another way if classic cant be done, Being Siege is its own monster, is if EA made a couple servers and turned off one thing with the current code and that would be Trammel, and turn on almost all Murderer penalties, Statloss/Skill loss timed though, NO GZ, No red healers. A shard just like standard servers one ruleset again bringing back that Hero vs villain feel w/o really writing a whole new game.

 

[Kaleb]

You are welcome to your opinion, of course. But history and facts refute any claim that UO wasn't experiencing a heart attack, and providing Players a non-consensual combat free option WAS the CPR that saved the patient.

There were some but it was not the majority at the time. MMO's as we know today were new, UO finally had competition, a safe game w/ at the time cutting edge graphics. graphs that other posters have posted show that UO subs rose up to shortly after aos.

Moreover, it is equally true that despite EA trying everything conceivable to lure folks back to Felucca, it remains the place of inhabitation or visitation of the games smallest minority.

Again, Why do activities in a place where you have the exact same place on the server that is easy for the same loot as in the fel server? The reason its not as active at least since AOS (i remember pre PuB16 fel pacific was quite active everywhere) is the simple fact people tend to do things in easy mode if a harder option is available that offers the same end outcome. I dont see PVM a lot anymore but I do see resource gatherers all the time be it scripted or non.

Regardless, today's challenge is merely to ascertain what Players consider "fun & interesting," and to provide that in ways that maintain and increase subscriptions.

Really there is no challenge, EA/Mythic needs to offer more in regards to playstyles a lot like Blizzard did with its servers.

Current servers.
Current servers Fel only rule.
Siege/MUN
Classic Servers anything pre-pub16 with fel/tram rulesets just not on the same server.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Your view was well known, and back then widely held by a small minority. The exodus of Players was quickly going to result in Ultima Online's demise. Non-consensual killing was going to leave all but the mass murderers dead and gone.

The "same end result, different method" you decry clearly turned off the mass exodus and even turned it around.

I think some people believe it had to be an 'all or nothing' solution. I don't think that it did.

Introducing Trammel was just the quick and easy way to stop the mass exodus of players (which I have NEVER denied was going on). A PvP switch would have been the equivalent, but without adding a second land mass.

There were several, very inventive, ideas that were discussed back then that would have cut wanton PKing to about 10% of what it was, but left the possibility of non-con PvP intact. It would have taken too much time, and too much effort...or at least that is what the devs thought at the time.

Did Trammel save UO? - Yes, in the short term.

Did Trammel destroy UO? - Yes, in the long term.

What do I mean by destroy UO? I mean, the shards are still running, people are still paying, they log in and play the game, right?

It took a true virtual world, sandbox game and turned it into an EQ/WoW clone. UO was once unique amongst all other MMOs, but now it's just WoW for people that can't afford a good graphics card. And for people that are too nostalgic to quit...like myself.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Moreover, it is equally true that despite EA trying everything conceivable to lure folks back to Felucca, it remains the place of inhabitation or visitation of the games smallest minority.

I wouldn't say EA has tried everything conceivable to lure folks back to Fel.

First, if Fel was the only place you could get the best artifacts (like each expansion landmass has been since AoS), then people would have to go there. But they would complain and eventually EA would have to add them to Trammel...like they did with Champ Spawns.

Secondly, if they had left the old lands as Fel, and created new lands that were Tram rules, then there would be a need or want to go back to the old lands, but with an exact copy to play on with easier rules, why would anyone that didn't just want to PvP go to Fel? Destard on Fel is the same as Destard on Tram, except you have no PKs and you don't have blocking.


But more importantly, if they had just put in tough rules for reds, and done something to offer incentive for players to help other players...rather than just grief them and kill them, then Trammel would not have been necessary at all, and Fel would still be where everyone played.

 

[Mark_Mythic]

If free for all gaming is so popular, why don't more people play siege?

This arguement comes up every time anyone says, "This game needs to be more challenging." They get rebuffed with, 'If people wanted it to be more challenging, more than 40 people would play Siege. They don't want it to be more challenging, they want to gank noobs."

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world.

 

[kelmo]

I would love to hear an answer to that as well.

 

[Chad Sexington]

If free for all gaming is so popular, why don't more people play siege?

This arguement comes up every time anyone says, "This game needs to be more challenging." They get rebuffed with, 'If people wanted it to be more challenging, more than 40 people would play Siege. They don't want it to be more challenging, they want to gank noobs."

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world.

My guess:

If you took all the players that ever played UO, many more players would be playing Siege. The majority of those players have already left and have no intention of coming back. And many of those players still post on Stratics even though they don't play anymore.

It's as if you originally had this:


Over time you had a game more designed for and less for and you ended up with this:


And eventually this:


And now you are asking why a shard designed for isn't supported more by

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

If free for all gaming is so popular, why don't more people play siege?

This arguement comes up every time anyone says, "This game needs to be more challenging." They get rebuffed with, 'If people wanted it to be more challenging, more than 40 people would play Siege. They don't want it to be more challenging, they want to gank noobs."

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world.

It's only one character. In order to start out at all you have to join a guild. There is no way to support oneself especially if you play a shy character. The first thing I remember doing on Pac was to make a warrior and a crafter. Before I had a house I hid things and logged in and out for transfers. I played Siege for a few months about three years ago, but I had four accounts at the time with a house on Siege, but now I have two and I'm not relinquishing my houses on Pac.

-Lorax

 

[Berethrain]

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world

Because the number of people who do not like to pvp are greater than those who do.

Also given that Siege isn't as "easy" as a normal shard, it tends to cause people to shy away from it.

In the end no one wants to play on a shard that isn't that active with a fel ruleset because of the forementioned reasons.

That and can't you only have one character on the shard?

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world.

I can only answer for myself...but here goes:

- One character slot.

- Slow skill gains.

- Still has AoS crap, so why bother?

- To jump in now, and hope to get a character (your ONLY character) up to speed, would take longer than it would be worth.

- Did I mention one character slot?

 

[hawkeye_pike]

If free for all gaming is so popular, why don't more people play siege?

This arguement comes up every time anyone says, "This game needs to be more challenging." They get rebuffed with, 'If people wanted it to be more challenging, more than 40 people would play Siege. They don't want it to be more challenging, they want to gank noobs."

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world.

Siege suffers from the same problems we have on all the other shards in Felucca: Mass-ganking and player griefing, mass-murder without consequence, hacking and cheating. Only with an even more difficult ruleset (slow skill gain, expensive resources, no insurance).

That's why I think a classic shard will fail, too. Classic UO was a failure, as players left in great numbers due to the unlimited griefing under a Felucca ruleset.

There's no point in adding more challenge to the game by bringing back the flaws from early Ultima Online. What we need is a completely reworked "unconsensual PvP" system, not on a new shard, but on all productive shards.

P.S.: One other reason may be that people usually do not like to leave their home shard.

 

[Berethrain]

I can only answer for myself...but here goes

I think it pretty much covers everybody.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

That's why I think a classic shard will fail, too. Classic UO was a failure, as players left in great numbers due to the unlimited griefing under a Felucca ruleset.

There's no point in adding more challenge to the game by bringing back the flaws from early Ultima Online. What we need is a completely reworked "unconsensual PvP" system, not on a new shard, but on all productive shards.

P.S.: One other reason may be that people usually do not like to leave their home shard.

I think you are right Hawkeye, that we need a non-con PvP system on the existing shards, but I think it is too late for that. Most of the players that inhabit the old shards do not want to participate in PvP...and would likely quit if you forced them to.

That's the reason that so many of us are pushing so hard for a classic shard. With a Classic Shard...that has the proper non-con PvP system in place at launch...the option is there for those of us that wish to play in that environment, without forcing the current player-base to change their playstyle.

Sure, I'd love to log into Atlantic tomorrow to find AoS and Trammel GONE. But unfortunately...gone would be 80-90% of the players as well.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I think the disincentive would be having to start their characters over from scratch (assuming they deleted them to avoid the jail time). At first (like first few days of the game) that's not really a big problem...but after a certain period of time, these people would no longer be competitive because everyone else would have fully developed characters. Of course, I am speaking of the old UO, before skills could just be bought via jewels etc. In today's UO, your are probably right.

So basically no resurrection?

I guess in a way the old west probably survived by a little of "getting rid of the bad". Ultimate payment for bad.

-Lorax

 

[Trebr Drab]

That's why I think a classic shard will fail, too. Classic UO was a failure, as players left in great numbers due to the unlimited griefing under a Felucca ruleset.

There's no point in adding more challenge to the game by bringing back the flaws from early Ultima Online. What we need is a completely reworked "unconsensual PvP" system, not on a new shard, but on all productive shards.

P.S.: One other reason may be that people usually do not like to leave their home shard.

I think you are right Hawkeye, that we need a non-con PvP system on the existing shards, but I think it is too late for that. Most of the players that inhabit the old shards do not want to participate in PvP...and would likely quit if you forced them to.

That's the reason that so many of us are pushing so hard for a classic shard. With a Classic Shard...that has the proper non-con PvP system in place at launch...the option is there for those of us that wish to play in that environment, without forcing the current player-base to change their playstyle.

Sure, I'd love to log into Atlantic tomorrow to find AoS and Trammel GONE. But unfortunately...gone would be 80-90% of the players as well.

Yep.

Mark, ask why the following didn't work...
Felucca
AC's Darktide server
Any other game's free for all server
Shadowbane
Darkfall

While lots of these games/servers also had other problems, some had no problems different than their basic game. Felucca and AC's Darktide server are among these.

There's one key problem that's recognized by many, and why it isn't recognized by everyone by now is a mystery to me.
Free for all games end up just that, free for alls. You can't really play any other style of game, because it's a free for all out there. And in the end, you have your Kings of the Hill, those who can powergame better than all others, the cream of the powergamers, at the top. Everyone else is defeated. It's no fun. They leave. End of story.
As the bottom 5% leave, a new bottom 5% becomes the next set of losers. They leave, and yet another new bottom 5% is established, and on and on.
Very similar to the Powergamers situation in today's UO, only without the PvP. Those who feel they can't "win" and aren't having fun leave. And you Devs continue the foolish journey to self destruction by feeding it more. If you're going to do that, you need to make a WoW clone. That way, everyone is a designed "winner" all the way through. But good luck with that tired old effort to compete with perfection (with a shelf life), if that's the way UO goes.

Ya know, I'm not necessarily blaming you Devs, I know you have to answer to a higher power, but damn I'm tired of MMOs (that intentionally dropped the "RPG" I might add, remember that statement going around? "We're not making a roleplaying game", hehehe). It's almost comical. Everyone's crying for "something new" but the guys with the money are only interested in copycatting the proven. The proven that so many are tired of.

And UO sits here on it's dead arse, and still doesn't know where the hell to go? STILL can't see it or understand? Feed the powergamers! Continue down the path you are on! You're walking down a hill that gets steeper and steeper, and at some point it'll get so steep that you will just start tumbling. But for Gods sake, don't look up! Don't look up! You might see some sky, man. Oh No's, the sky, we can't stand the light!

Send your goddamned money man here. Your EA exec. Tell him/her/it to read this Fing board and get a freakin' clue.

OK, I'm all better now. rolleyes:

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

<snip>

IMO, this is the main reason that the original moral mechanic in UO didn't work. Ask yourself for a moment why more people don't just murder each other in real life and loot the corpse.... First, if I attack you, I might get hurt or killed. If I get hurt it will take me a long time to get better and it will... well... hurt. Second, if I kill you you ain't coming back in 5 minutes... you are just gone and I don't really want that to happen. Third, I think I might get sent to prison for more than half of my remaining time on this earth and I have heard bad things about life in prison. Finally, I would probably go to Hell... which I hear is a bit like prison but hotter and more permanent.
<snip>

-Shade

One of my thoughts a few weeks ago was kind of fun. It was a thought occurring in the shower...you know the type that are funny, but go nowhere.

The first thing was related to scars. What if at each battle a real scar could occur on the character? People could actually show their scars from battle and compare. Anyway, what if a critical hit occurs in battle and you lose an arm or a leg? Well, in this case your movement slows or defense chance or you have to swing with your other arm so your hit chance is affected.

Now what do you have? You have a character in the paperdoll that was affected by battle. On uogamecodes you could sell appendages or scar removers or even sell scars.

Take this one thought further. What if acts done as a villain cause the "hospital" to not replace appendages until they increase their karma or walk the old lady across the street to show they changed their ways?

-Lorax

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Also...@ Mark_Mythic:


I don't see too many asking to go back to a "free for all". UO never really was a "free for all" but it was pretty close at certain points of its history.

What most of us old school UO players want is a controlled environment, but not a seperated environment.

PvP switches, seperate areas, seperare servers...none of those offer what UO once offered.

UO once offered a chance to interact with other players in a more meaningful way than a chat room. It was a working community, albeit a dangerous one. Players built towns, players developed rivalries and alliances. REAL alliances, not this loosey-goosey 'we can chat with your guild' stuff...but more of a 'if the **** hits the fan, you can count on us to get your back' kind of alliances.

Even the players that hated to be PKed...took it way too seriously...and supported the idea of PvP switches etc. had to find someone that they could count on to help them back in the old days.

Now, it's almost like a single player game, that just happens to have other players in game at the same time...unless you go to Fel...then it's like booting up your favorite FPS and logging into a deathmatch server.

There has to be a middle ground. It is my belief that this is what UO needs in order to compete with the newer games out. UO will never match the newer games graphically. UO will never match the newer games as far as game mechanics go. But UO can surpass all other MMOs out there by going back to being what it was meant to be...a VIRTUAL WORLD that has its heroes, and its villains.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

<snip>

At best, in any given play sessions (Although mine are brief and sporadic, I admit), I may be fortunate enough to cross ONE other person who might be recalling in and out of a bank in Trinsic Tram or Fel.. But they never talk. Trinsic used to be heavily populated, even after the Tram/Fel split. By comparison, it used to be a megalopolis. In my time, I would think it would have been at least STATISTICALLY plausible to see 3-5 people in that city at least once a year.. But this simply hasn't happened yet.

The old cities in Tram and Fel are practically VACANT, occupied by nothing more than NPC's waiting for a player to get close enough to kick off their subroutines so they can move again.

<snip>

I just what to remind people here that part of the reason people used other cities back then was because of the network connection problems. Britain was lag. The other was the starting location of new players was a choice. I happened to start in Vesper and all my initial friends were in Vesper. I placed houses there, pvp'ed there, and still go back there sometimes.

Our land is huge now. However, at the EM meeting last night outside Luna the EM said to go find the carrots at the end. Massive lag spike like I haven't experienced since since those days of modems and high population.

-Lorax

p.s.

I don't think the idea of segregating new players to haven and away from the veteran players helped the game.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Also...@ Mark_Mythic:


I don't see too many asking to go back to a "free for all". UO never really was a "free for all" but it was pretty close at certain points of its history.

What most of us old school UO players want is a controlled environment, but not a seperated environment.

PvP switches, seperate areas, seperare servers...none of those offer what UO once offered.

UO once offered a chance to interact with other players in a more meaningful way than a chat room. It was a working community, albeit a dangerous one. Players built towns, players developed rivalries and alliances. REAL alliances, not this loosey-goosey 'we can chat with your guild' stuff...but more of a 'if the **** hits the fan, you can count on us to get your back' kind of alliances.

Even the players that hated to be PKed...took it way too seriously...and supported the idea of PvP switches etc. had to find someone that they could count on to help them back in the old days.

Now, it's almost like a single player game, that just happens to have other players in game at the same time...unless you go to Fel...then it's like booting up your favorite FPS and logging into a deathmatch server.

There has to be a middle ground. It is my belief that this is what UO needs in order to compete with the newer games out. UO will never match the newer games graphically. UO will never match the newer games as far as game mechanics go. But UO can surpass all other MMOs out there by going back to being what it was meant to be...a VIRTUAL WORLD that has its heroes, and its villains.

You're on a roll, Morgana. Agree again.

 

[Evlar]

If free for all gaming is so popular, why don't more people play siege?

Simple... it still consists of post-AoS changes.

This arguement comes up every time anyone says, "This game needs to be more challenging." They get rebuffed with, 'If people wanted it to be more challenging, more than 40 people would play Siege. They don't want it to be more challenging, they want to gank noobs."

Actually for me, PvP is only a small part of the game, which I'm happy to participate in if it has a point to it. Again, it boils down to the post-AoS items and changes being added to Siege which puts people off some. I'm a crafter at heart, but prefer the simplicity of "before".

I would love to know why more people don't play Siege if so many like a more rough and tumble world.

Well, I most likely would have played Siege were it not for two factors.

· AoS (sorry for sounding like a stuck record... but) was implemented there.

· I'm in Europe and my ping there is crap. Try to attempt play against any other players from somewhere other than the country the server is based, isn't a challenge, but a frustration.

So, had AoS not been implemented there, I would have moved there and I would have stayed there, possibly even with being based in Europe.

 

[Gheed]

There are alot more to heroes and villains than PvP. There is alot more to community than PvP. I have spent hours watching players spend hours helping each other out. Those people have found something they enjoy and "protect it" by trying to teach others how to play. Those people are also heroes and that is what community is. Not just a group of houses or "I got your back" gang wars.

Remeber the Mag invasion? There were heroes protecting the town and villians destroying it. The event exploded on the boards and heated threads debating on good vs evil philosophy erupted constantly. That is also community... those were also heroes and villains. There were no player cities and very little PvP.

If there is any sort of community left in UO, the big one is PvP. Fel/siege are entire areas dedicated to that community....left behind or created strictly for PvP. We focus on that too heavily because it is one of the only things left people have shared passion for and a platform to shout it from. It is also the only system that has somewhat regressed... hardcore pvpers had had their sheep to protect/slaughter taken from them.

If devs want communities full of houses filled with like minded players working together to acheive a goal, then give them a reason to be together.... other than fear of death.... like any other real community does. That is the only tool in their bag that can have so much of an impact.

 

[Sturdy]

Hello again

On Siege,

I have been back for five months or so and have been attacked once. Siege basically has no non consensual pvp at the moment. Occasionally someone might take a run at you but the population is so low most people know each other.

The barriers to entry on Siege should be lowered. Speed ROT up a bit more, list the shard on the list for new players, allow character transfers (but no gear)

I dont care if people train on a production shard quickly and then transfer in. The more the merrier.

I personally feel like the focus on items in PvP is a self inflicted wound. Players feel like they need artifacts to PvP, but they do not. 1v1 artifacts certainly shift the balance, but day to day PvP is rarely just 1v1. (in my experience)

Anyone remember the Orcs on Siege circa 2002-3? The would gate in with regs, bandys, and the bare minimum -and smoke whoever was around.

Or what about the Bobs (pink robes, bald, all named Bob)- They would roll new, train to 70, and gank. On Siege the poor factioners spend more time trying to buy back their gear than they spend fighting. My focus is on fun, here is my idea:

Since we cant roll back time on existing servers just make crafted gear a little better than it is. Imbuing does this but I mean just make the spread between artifacts and everyday crafted gear less wide.

This would make the game less item depenant in terms of the time spent getting the items. Artifacts would still be better - but only a little better.

Crafters would have more customers, pvpers could worry less about gear, and the fights could resume.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

There are alot more to heroes and villains than PvP. There is alot more to community than PvP. I have spent hours watching players spend hours helping each other out. Those people have found something they enjoy and "protect it" by trying to teach others how to play. Those people are also heroes and that is what community is. Not just a group of houses or "I got your back" gang wars.

Remeber the Mag invasion? There were heroes protecting the town and villians destroying it. The event exploded on the boards and heated threads debating on good vs evil philosophy erupted constantly. That is also community... those were also heroes and villains. There were no player cities and very little PvP.

If there is any sort of community left in UO, the big one is PvP. Fel/siege are entire areas dedicated to that community....left behind or created strictly for PvP. We focus on that too heavily because it is one of the only things left people have shared passion for and a platform to shout it from. It is also the only system that has somewhat regressed... hardcore pvpers had had their sheep to protect/slaughter taken from them.

If devs want communities full of houses filled with like minded players working together to acheive a goal, then give them a reason to be together.... other than fear of death.... like any other real community does. That is the only tool in their bag that can have so much of an impact.

The only thing that brought any players together during the Magincia invasion was greed. Everyone was out to collect as much soon-to-be rare/soon to sell for billions of gold crap they could get their grubby little hands on.

Was it a good event? Not to me. But I suppose some players had fun...and many got even more ridiculously wealthy than before...but that is not community.

The community that UO had pre-Trammel was that of a social system...all we have now is pack-rat item hoarders that step on one another to get their hands on the latest thing they can lock down in their garish custom houses, or sell on their neon-clad vendors for $4,399,999,999 gold.

 

[Gheed]

The only thing that brought any players together during the Magincia invasion was greed. Everyone was out to collect as much soon-to-be rare/soon to sell for billions of gold crap they could get their grubby little hands on.

Was it a good event? Not to me. But I suppose some players had fun...and many got even more ridiculously wealthy than before...but that is not community.

The community that UO had pre-Trammel was that of a social system...all we have now is pack-rat item hoarders that step on one another to get their hands on the latest thing they can lock down in their garish custom houses, or sell on their neon-clad vendors for $4,399,999,999 gold.

We played different mag events then. Sure there were villians blowing up the town for greed. There were also heroes saving the town. I was one of them... until somebody ran through with a blackrock infected demon nuking the whole town. Then I ran with a group who shared rare spawn. Everyone got at least one. I met these people during the event and still talk to some of them today.

I spent alot of my time in the pre_tram community finding a res or running. I learned to stick up for myself and had a pretty good time. Yes it was a rush. It was heart-pounding and rewarding. No I do not ever want to play the game like that again.

UO was more social then, but that was a time when the internet was still new. People were starting to communicate with each other as they never had before. It was a novel fad that we should feel more privelidged to experience and less inclined to dwell upon. Today we call it facebook.

There was still plenty greed in the good old days. There were less items to be greedy over but it was alive and well. A hell of alot of vendors back then too... maybe even more than there are today. The amounts weren't as high but proportionate. Things cost 100 times more today but take 100 times less effort. I would often wonder why one player needed 11 houses when I didn't have one.

 

[kelmo]

*shakes head*The villains will always outnumber the heroes... That is what happens when everyone wears a "mask". A classic shard will be as much of a failure now as it was then. Mark is right. Siege is a perfect example.

Some few of us cling to what we feel is a community... Most view it as a "third person shooter".

 

[bjornef]

to be honest i used to want a old chard but then i moved to fel and found out how easy it is to live there this days so i figured why not stay as it is hardly any one in fel exsept for in the yew gate and shamp spawns

no one seem to even want to kill me this days so i say all good

 

[Zodia]

Siege is NOT Classic UO.

ROT sucks. I absolutely hate it. That is the #1 reason I don't play Siege.

Whereas a Classic Shard I would play in a second. Along with THOUSANDS of other returning vets. Anyone who thinks a Classic Shard would fail is insane. It would be incredibly popular. So popular in fact, they might need to make 2 of them with all the interest it would encourage in the game again.

 

[kelmo]

Never said Siege was classic. *wonders where these numbers come from...* Thousands... 40... *shakes head*

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

A classic shard will be as much of a failure now as it was then. Mark is right. Siege is a perfect example.

I don't see how anyone, including Mark, can equate Siege to Classic UO. Siege is it's own thing. It always has been. The limit of one character alone is enough to turn off most players...then throw in ROT..."advanced" economy...etc...and you get something that is completely different (besides the clients) from the other shards, now or then.

And for what it is worth...if the Devs would revert Siege to Pre-AoS, I would move there in a heartbeat and never look back.

But I think to say that a Classic Shard would be a 'failure'...is just sour grapes because of the demise of Siege.

Sorry Kelmo...I know you love Siege, but its a dead shard. It has little to do with the fact that it is Fel only...and a lot to do with the fact that it is just as tainted as the other shards, but harder to advance on.

UO is stagnant...and dying. Sure, it was "dying" from day 1...we all are...but UO needs something to breathe new life into it...and if history has taught us anything, it is the following:

- The playerbase could not care less about new clients...especially new clients that change the look of the game into something else.

- Each expansion is less successful than the one before it...mainly because they don't add anything truly innovative...just more of the same.

- There are other games out there right now that are wildly successful that offer what UO currently offers, but with better graphics.

- The playerbase for UO is, as a whole, very loyal...and mostly made up of Vet players.


With that said, I still submit...a Classic Shard is the next logical step. It will allow UO to offer something to the Vets that make up most of the playerbase that no other game can.

 

[Storm]

creating a new pvp shard no matter what the time frame is going to do 1 of 2 things its either going to die from lack of use or its going to draw pvp players from each current shard making those shards pvp arenas even worse than they are now!
and why create and spend the money on the minority of players at the xpense of the majority is just foolish!

now that i think about it though great idea take the pvpers somewhere else is fine by me you got my vote

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

*relishes his ignored status and stays moot*