• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

Mending the shabby little corners of the game.

Meatbread

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
This is an open thread for posting things you'd like to see the devs do to the game. But not huge things. Not even really balance-related things. Just small things you'd like to see fixed, little things that make the game feel a little shabby and neglected as is. Things that wouldn't take a huge effort to fix, but have probably just been forgotten about. The little things contribute a lot to one's overall impression.

I'll go first, and maybe make clear what I'm talking about.

1) Can we have gypsies back? Someone randomly decided to add tents to the spawn a year or two ago and it was just a disaster, and rather than ditch the tents they just removed the spawns entirely. Makes the world feel kinda empty when you're running around. This is a prime example of what I mean by a very minor thing that makes the game feel a bit shabby. The game had gypsy spawns for its entire first 13 years or whatever, then some random intern broke them derping around with tents, and now they'll probably never get fixed.

2) How about NPC paladins while we're at it? They seem to have mysteriously gone extinct for no reason around the same time.

3) Look this one isn't a bug, but can you PLEASE get rid of the obnoxious barks and nonsense associated with getting drunk now? Or at least restrict them to player-brewed booze? The only people who even wanted to brew booze were roleplayers, and they're the last ones who would enjoy garbage like this. My dour knight dares not touch even a drop of cider, for fear that the hand of some random juvenile developer will reach through the ether and force him to go "HEY LOL BRO LISTEN TO MY SONG" while ripping his clothes off. UO had booze you could actually drink for its first 13 years, then some dev broke it in order to make a joke fit for a five year old.

I guess that's it for now. Just "Hey you broke this now fix it!" type stuff. Stuff they probably don't even realize they broke.
 

QueenZen

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Get rid of jungle noises that do not stop even WHEN ya leave the jungles. Ditto for the silly Felucca leafless tree bug with weirdo sounds that stick on ye character like some bug, even when ya exit felucca, your Zento trees go naked !! :)

And for crying out loud, when I make my OWN gate, especially on SIEGE please do not inform me I am going to FELUCCA ! LOL I KNOW THAT all of SIEGE is Felucca ! lol Even if on Chesapeake I made the gate I think I know where I am taking myself !! Quit warning me where 'I' am taking MYSELF ! I know where I am going, unless it is before my morning coffee then that is my problem if I gate me to where I really didnt want to go ! lol
 

yars

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
the "this book needs to recharge" after trying to recall
the random skill timer reset that i need a gm to fix on a monthly basis it seems
make more things dyeable with the new dyes, shroud of condemned, also make the garg wearables actually show the color your dyeing them
bring back silver steeds for paladins
fix the lvl moongates in shame, you cant walk in a straight line to the gate anymore, at least the eternal gazer gate is that way on pac
make animal lore gump window refresh or "live" updating the pets info like char status bar
combine POF possible
can we change the weight of boards to reflect the same as ingots? i can carry 2000 ingots but only 200 boards?
certain weps from ML(bladed staff i.e.) dont sit well in a pac, they automatically stack in certain areas of the pack, annoying for vendors and carrying around, not everyone uses the EC!!!
wep loot from the new dungeons (if the elemental percentage is higher than the physical it still shows it as that greyish color,and why is that greyish color anyways?).
either make arcane focus last longer or raise the bonus at west brit to 2.
fey slayer bard instruments, and make it imbueable on weps.
more alterables for gargs, the neck/earring slot is killing me!!!
Clean up the useless EM/quest stuff sitting around that isnt being used anymore (i.e. boxes sitting out in middle of nowhere/items stuck to the ground)
 

QueenZen

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just thought of another silly one

'your spirit lacks cohesion' ...to go thru the gate ya just made yet...ya go thru it without issue so um, what cohesion am I lacking cuz I just went thru it anyhow, silly words tellin me I/we lacked cohesion yet lets us go thru our gate ANYHOW.
 

Doubleplay

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Loose gold in your bank box should stack into one pile. If that pile becomes millions, so what?
 

Martyna Zmuir

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
3) Look this one isn't a bug, but can you PLEASE get rid of the obnoxious barks and nonsense associated with getting drunk now? Or at least restrict them to player-brewed booze? The only people who even wanted to brew booze were roleplayers, and they're the last ones who would enjoy garbage like this. My dour knight dares not touch even a drop of cider, for fear that the hand of some random juvenile developer will reach through the ether and force him to go "HEY LOL BRO LISTEN TO MY SONG" while ripping his clothes off. UO had booze you could actually drink for its first 13 years, then some dev broke it in order to make a joke fit for a five year old.
THIS.

The canned barks from booze simply do not belong in UO. They don't make sense and are annoying. The song singing especially. Nothing like "XXX begins to sing Ultima VII / Serpent Isle Combat" to rip you out of the moment. Or spouting "I'm not hammered!"

The whole booze system needs reworked... Nobody cares that its a bottle of "Strong Spiritus"...or even that it IS spiritus.. We care about being able to name the brew and having THAT be all that it says for the name. In other words, player-made booze doesn't need an AoS-style list of properties. While you're at it, double the character length for the name...
 

Martyna Zmuir

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Clean up the useless EM/quest stuff sitting around that isnt being used anymore (i.e. boxes sitting out in middle of nowhere/items stuck to the ground)
I think the EMs need to leave more of this stuff around... It helps make the shards look different from one another and adds a little bit of history. Someone might be curious as to why an item is where it is, etc. It adds to the sorely-lacking exploration element in UO.
 

yars

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I think the EMs need to leave more of this stuff around... It helps make the shards look different from one another and adds a little bit of history. Someone might be curious as to why an item is where it is, etc. It adds to the sorely-lacking exploration element in UO.
That's the problem,no one knows where it came from,no tag,or date,just an item or npc sitting around with no interaction
 

Meatbread

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
The canned barks from booze simply do not belong in UO. They don't make sense and are annoying. The song singing especially. Nothing like "XXX begins to sing Ultima VII / Serpent Isle Combat" to rip you out of the moment. Or spouting "I'm not hammered!"
Yeah WTF is up with characters "singing" instrumental pieces?
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The gypsy tents were added because of the moonstone jewellery, that may inhibit turning them back on. Unless the tent can be replaced by simply adding an extra container to the camps.
Would the drunken sayings be more acceptable if they were more RP appropriate? Maybe we could suggest replacements?
 

hen

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The drunken songs are juvenile and awful. Many people made this clear to the devs at the time, and some of us requested a toggle, but in their wisdom they went with the singing, spewing, stripping and sleeping with no toggle.
 

kRUXCg7

Sage
Stratics Veteran
The drunken songs are juvenile and awful. Many people made this clear to the devs at the time, and some of us requested a toggle, but in their wisdom they went with the singing, spewing, stripping and sleeping with no toggle.
I am glad I haven't seen this yet.
 

Meatbread

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
The gypsy tents were added because of the moonstone jewellery, that may inhibit turning them back on. Unless the tent can be replaced by simply adding an extra container to the camps.
Would the drunken sayings be more acceptable if they were more RP appropriate? Maybe we could suggest replacements?
Wait, what do the tents have to do with the jewelry? Weren't the moonstone things supposed to just drop from dead gypsies? In any event, I'd rather have gypsies with no moonstone junk rather than just no gypsies at all.

As far as the booze goes, pretty much any change would be an improvement, but if I could snap my fingers and have my way I'd just do away with the singing/stripping/barfing completely. It's really just lame and incredibly out of place. If someone really wants to scream "I'M SO WASTED!" they can just... you know... type it, as far as I'm concerned. Put it on a macro and run around spamming it for all I care, have a blast, but leave me out of it.
 

Ashlynn_L

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Here's my list. It's mostly world/immersion related which is probably why it has never been looked at since launch day 15 years ago (and the game has suffered for it imo).

  • Music. Specifically the triggers need fixing. Well that and I liked the old music more for the most part (thanks stratics for hosting all those mp3s!). And it needs to fade in/out when it changes tracks. I (and many others I suspect) usually turn the music off and have a music player open instead because of issues like that even though much of it is really good.
  • Sound effects. They generally need an overhaul. Many are ok. Some suck or just need improving in quality or need a bit of variety. Speaking of...
  • Environmental sounds. We need more ambient sounds (wind, waves, insects and crickets, animal sounds, etc etc) which are immersive but not annoying. The jungle sound is one that just plays over and over and sometimes doesn't stop. It is an example of why they need to be more varied. All of the Britannian coast needs a seashore sound too. And it needs a DISTANCE FADE and properly placed triggers. Rain also needs a sound effect and maybe a little thunder and lightning now and then, which leads to...
  • The weather. We have blue confetti and no rhyme or reason to how it works. My house lives under a constant deluge so I'm surprised it's not a swamp. We need proper weather cycles that look and sound nice.
  • Environmental Visual Effects. A few more would be nice. Like fireflies and little things like that. We get glowing red mushrooms in the EC though! \o/
  • Night and Day. Personally I think night and day would work better tied to the server time but I can understand sticking with the traditional UO day length. I any case, the transition between night and day is a little (understatement) jarring. It should be a fade in/out at the very least. And night should be darker too (and night sight should look a little stranger being a magical effect).
  • Out of place or badly placed tiles need fixing.
  • (EC Related) Many spells are missing visual effects. Completely. You get nothing but a (recycled) sound.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Loose gold in your bank box should stack into one pile. If that pile becomes millions, so what?
Piles of anything cannot exceed 65,536.. it's a coding thing. The original Devs rounded it down to 60,000 for conveniance.
 

Phangs_of_Phage

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
In the doom gauntlet if you turn on circle of transperency there are many places by the bottom walls that are dirt and not the floor tile.
 

Promathia

Social Distancing Since '97
Premium
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Just thought of another silly one

'your spirit lacks cohesion' ...to go thru the gate ya just made yet...ya go thru it without issue so um, what cohesion am I lacking cuz I just went thru it anyhow, silly words tellin me I/we lacked cohesion yet lets us go thru our gate ANYHOW.

That was put in to fix an exploit. Im not sure if its still needed tho.
 
S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
evil mage camps
treasure sand decay if not in backpack or locked down
weight issue when converting ore
blackrock infection
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
In the doom gauntlet if you turn on circle of transperency there are many places by the bottom walls that are dirt and not the floor tile.
That is not the only place. There is a couple of spots in Nu'Jelm where it also has that problem. It's annoyed me for YEARS. There are also a bunch of buildings around with missing corner tiles. Sloppy if you ask me. It just is the perfectionist in me or something wishes I could go around and fix a multitude of things like that ..... how about the wood flooring in the moat around Trinsic? What's up with that?

There are dozens of water tiles and such in places where they ought not be.

I wonder if at some point we could take screenshots of these things with the co-ordinates and someone could eventually "fix" them.

I HATE the drunk messages.... another thing I find totally stupid why the heck does my character have to rotate in his seat whenever he's drinking... and the *hic*..... do we seriously have to do that so freaking often? In a Tavern full of drunks you can't read what the devil is being said because 45 *hic*'s fill up the journal before you get a chance to see what the heck someone said. I refuse to sit at seats where my character is going to turn if I can help it.

I want blackrock infection turned back on!

Why do I only get one board per log and why do they weigh so much????

I like each of the shards having unique stuff thanks to the EM's.

Can we do something something about the 4,000,000 water troughs and stew's that litter the lands?

Stop the flipping of hats in the EC. Drives me nuts to see everyone hat jumping all the time.
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
A true in-game messaging system would be nice. The mailbox nonsense is not nearly as good given what's required. Star Wars, Warcraft, etc. all have it. Dark Age of Camelot had it.
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The gypsy tents were added because of the moonstone jewellery, that may inhibit turning them back on. Unless the tent can be replaced by simply adding an extra container to the camps.
Would the drunken sayings be more acceptable if they were more RP appropriate? Maybe we could suggest replacements?
they also turned off brigands when they turned off the gypsies which where both a "go-to" mob for lower level characters training and kept the vast expanses of the world lively also, those and the evil mage camps REALLY need to be turned back on as well as the world just feels completely empty and devoid of life without any spawning npcs...i could care less about the jewlery, take it out and just respawn the camps like they did for 14 years.

Forcing the characters to say ANYTHING not your choice isn't RP appropriate, and some of the effects actually kill the ability to drunkenly get in fights (like freezing and taking off your armor....). You may have noted in most of my older screenshots and videos my backpack was generally full of booze....since they added this crap though all of my characters have been on the wagon..
 

QueenZen

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The new tinkering sounds are annoying too. Tinkering sounds should perhaps sound more like we have a quieter handful or box of nails or bits of wood or tin in our hands,
not annoying CLANG CLANG sounds.

Oh and what did they do with the sound we used to get when cutting up cloth or leather ? Are our scissors now muted and silent or is it just me or what ? Who asked for the scissors to be silenced ?
 

QueenZen

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Aye those annoying blue dots that are supposed to be rain, just look like a slew of diagonal polka dots that *never* seem to quit raining their blue dottedness upon us, even when we leave an area where it might rain.
Shouldn't rain all the time 24.7 anywhere anyhow.
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
What I wouldn't give to have a true change of seasons.... Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall... and they should each last one week if you want to stay true to timeline. Since most RP communities roughly agree that one month in UO is relative to a year. So each season should begin on say Monday's. That would bring a new sense of immersion to UO that would certainly be inline with the vision of UO. Just saying.
 

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Things I'd like to see fixed...
Where do I begin.
Let's see:
Oceania - the luna chests are on top of one another not to mention on a few shards chests are out of alignment.

Missing tiles . or wrong tiles in spots. Almost every shard has tons of these..

There is a mining cave that was once commondeered for a past life for haven, reopen it for mining fix the gaff and lets go

Past event and quest set ups all over , in passes and around old venu's used for old story lines.. clean them up and open the ares for use again.

The ship's cannon's are all over the place... ether let players pick them up once they are non- ship placed (I have even seen them mid ocean!) or give them a decay timer. They would make a nice house deco.

There are lanterns and old 255 stone items stuck everywhere.. make them axeable. Another thing GM's time is wasted on getting rid of that players show be able to do on their own like the cannons.

my list is bigger but this is enough for now....
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Revamp quests... turn all the old quest systems off and rebuild them using the new quest system. Shouldn't have 5 different questing systems, it's confusing.

Another thing that needs fixed is the spawn locations. There are 100's and 100's of spots where things spawn where they shouldn't. Like the things that spawn in the walls in Trinsic, Jhelom, Britain, and Serpents Hold... Monsters in dungeons that spawn out of reach.... Monsters in Ter Mur that spawn out of reach... Monsters in the Abyss that spawn out of reach. These spawn spots need fixing. It's one of the old pet peeves that returning players whine about... saying "OMG they still haven't fixed this!"... it gives the game a bad image and it gives the DEV's a bad image. Same with all those tiles that are missing or not right. It makes things look bad. If I could I'd fix it. That's the Lab Tech mentality in me for perfection. Believe it or not it's small things like that which players remember and will criticize.
 

QueenZen

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just thought of one more tiny issue. NPCs timers.

Are they not supposed to re-up their stock in say 10-15 mins of rl time ?

Some of em are very pokey at restockin whatevers they sellin us.

And TANDY down on the High Seas docks on Siege needs to be fixed or FIRED !

One you can not *park* your ship at the high seas dock for very long till ya get the
message to remove your ship, or it's gonna be removed for us ? !

So there ya are hopin to maybe BUY some saltpeter and Tandy only bothers to offer us on Siege 20.
She does not restock/re-up her total from 20 to 40 saltpeter, some days, till 45-60 mins LATER.

So your choice is drydock ye ship; to wait on her broken pokiness to re up the saltpeter to a puny 40 if lucky, buy the 20 she does offer, and leave the dock, rather than sit around down there for 45- 60 mins waiting for her to bother to sell ya maybe 40 saltpeter.
And like 40 is not even enough to make diddly with when Tandy DOES bother to re up from 20 to 40 saltpeter.

On Chesapeake IF ya in the mood to BUY it instead of mine it, ya get 500 saltpeter ya can buy first round pricey @ 379 or so gp per saltpeter,
whereas on Siege saltpeter is only 24 gp [but all ya get is 20] and have to WAIT FOR FOREVER to maybe see another 20 or possibly 40 if lucky after waiting on her for an hour,
or leave before ye ship gets removed.

Either fire Tandy on Siege's high seas dock or FIX her to sell more saltpeter than a stinkin 20
and up her timer to work as it should,
or make the *your ship will be removed* to be timed later to coincide with the pokey npc down there, named Tandy, cuz she is pretty worthless as she is especially only offering 20 saltpeter an hour or so ! :*
 

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Poor Zen!
Yes that too is on my list.... NPC's that are so late on restock that you litteraly fall asleep waiting!!!
And the prices!! salt peter is not a big deal why so bloody high.... high seas is falling badly out of favor.. its the cost of the things needed.. and boat timers oi vey!
I have had to replace my son's Queen Ann's Revenge 3 times... where as his other ship the Black Pearl is fine.. same time in the water, refreshed the same time and the Revenge has gone poof 3 bloody times .. mind you cost is not the question but the timer! What gives? Dont tell me you cant even tell time over there... (grumbles aboput dev's education)
As for the mining of salt peter....... its all well and good we can mine but why couldnt you just have made it so it pops in our bag or was grindable . I have pulled the big rocks many times to have it swarmed over by others who need it too and are greedy to take my hard earned rock and mine it dry from me.
Golfers have a saying "follow through" it means to finish up what you started. Dev need to take this to heart.
if it wasnt for tree stumps id get no frost wood
if it wasnt for ore carts or sheep etc.... you get the drift. We had ways to get it only you messed it all up so its hard on crafters to do so..... My son laughs so hard when his warror can "mine " more ore and chop wood more then his crafter can..... (no his warrior is not a lj or miner but he kills that which gives it and beats out his crafter gatherer!)
This is when you know the game is fubared.
 

LordDrago

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Poor Zen!
Yes that too is on my list.... NPC's that are so late on restock that you litteraly fall asleep waiting!!!
And the prices!! salt peter is not a big deal why so bloody high.... high seas is falling badly out of favor.. its the cost of the things needed.. and boat timers oi vey!
I have had to replace my son's Queen Ann's Revenge 3 times... where as his other ship the Black Pearl is fine.. same time in the water, refreshed the same time and the Revenge has gone poof 3 bloody times .. mind you cost is not the question but the timer! What gives? Dont tell me you cant even tell time over there... (grumbles aboput dev's education)
As for the mining of salt peter....... its all well and good we can mine but why couldnt you just have made it so it pops in our bag or was grindable . I have pulled the big rocks many times to have it swarmed over by others who need it too and are greedy to take my hard earned rock and mine it dry from me.
Golfers have a saying "follow through" it means to finish up what you started. Dev need to take this to heart.
if it wasnt for tree stumps id get no frost wood
if it wasnt for ore carts or sheep etc.... you get the drift. We had ways to get it only you messed it all up so its hard on crafters to do so..... My son laughs so hard when his warror can "mine " more ore and chop wood more then his crafter can..... (no his warrior is not a lj or miner but he kills that which gives it and beats out his crafter gatherer!)
This is when you know the game is fubared.
Lost my ship for the second time last night. Haven't had the heart in it today to go replace it. Guess I will stone off fishing for a while.
I have tried mining saltpeter too. Have given up on that and just accept that when I do find some, I just consider it a bonus.

Love the golfer analogy.
 

Meatbread

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
"Rebuild the whole quest system!" and "Add all 4 seasons to the game!" and a lot of this stuff is all way beyond the scope of this thread.
 

OvenBird

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What I wouldn't give to have a true change of seasons.... Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall... and they should each last one week if you want to stay true to timeline. Since most RP communities roughly agree that one month in UO is relative to a year. So each season should begin on say Monday's. That would bring a new sense of immersion to UO that would certainly be inline with the vision of UO. Just saying.
It took a while for them to remove the snow. If they could just save the maps and put them on a timer thatd be awesome. Something tells me that it's not that simple, but I think this is a great idea. Just downloaded the CC for the first time since the millenium the other day, and was surprised at how much I missed seeing something like 'There's a storm approaching.'
 

Mervyn

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If they can't fix real bugs, they're never going to have time to improve the game, they're too busy adding more buggy content to complicate the game.
 

virtualhabitat

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Poor Zen!
Yes that too is on my list.... NPC's that are so late on restock that you litteraly fall asleep waiting!!!
And the prices!! salt peter is not a big deal why so bloody high.... high seas is falling badly out of favor.. its the cost of the things needed.. and boat timers oi vey!
I have had to replace my son's Queen Ann's Revenge 3 times... where as his other ship the Black Pearl is fine.. same time in the water, refreshed the same time and the Revenge has gone poof 3 bloody times .. mind you cost is not the question but the timer! What gives? Dont tell me you cant even tell time over there... (grumbles aboput dev's education)
As for the mining of salt peter....... its all well and good we can mine but why couldnt you just have made it so it pops in our bag or was grindable . I have pulled the big rocks many times to have it swarmed over by others who need it too and are greedy to take my hard earned rock and mine it dry from me.
Golfers have a saying "follow through" it means to finish up what you started. Dev need to take this to heart.
if it wasnt for tree stumps id get no frost wood
if it wasnt for ore carts or sheep etc.... you get the drift. We had ways to get it only you messed it all up so its hard on crafters to do so..... My son laughs so hard when his warror can "mine " more ore and chop wood more then his crafter can..... (no his warrior is not a lj or miner but he kills that which gives it and beats out his crafter gatherer!)
This is when you know the game is fubared.
Some months ago there was a big economy thread. Phoenix-Mythic responded to my complaint about the pricing scheme for saltpeter. He calls it a "Commodity Trader" algorithm. Here is What he said:

"Saltpeter's price floats using a "commodity trader" algorithm. As players purchase it from the NPC, the NPC raises its price, simulating scarcity. As players sell back to the NPC, it lowers its price, simulating glut. Thus, the price of the item is determined by actual supply and demand."

This has been a disaster on many levels -not just for saltpeter. I am sorry, but this algorithm has simulated nothing but scarcity. No one in his right mind would go out and sell mined saltpeter to the NPC knowing that it lowers the selling price. -not to mention they would have to shag out there on a boat to sell it.

If I were in the business of selling saltpeter, which I am (Heavy Powder), I want to see that NPC price go as high as possible. I have zero incentive to sell it to the NPC.
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Some months ago there was a big economy thread. Phoenix-Mythic responded to my complaint about the pricing scheme for saltpeter. He calls it a "Commodity Trader" algorithm. Here is What he said:

"Saltpeter's price floats using a "commodity trader" algorithm. As players purchase it from the NPC, the NPC raises its price, simulating scarcity. As players sell back to the NPC, it lowers its price, simulating glut. Thus, the price of the item is determined by actual supply and demand."

This has been a disaster on many levels -not just for saltpeter. I am sorry, but this algorithm has simulated nothing but scarcity. No one in his right mind would go out and sell mined saltpeter to the NPC knowing that it lowers the selling price. -not to mention they would have to shag out there on a boat to sell it.

If I were in the business of selling saltpeter, which I am (Heavy Powder), I want to see that NPC price go as high as possible. I have zero incentive to sell it to the NPC.
It doesn't work like this on siege, on siege it uses the normal trader system, where it doubles stock a hour or so after buyout or halves stock if it sits for too long....it literally takes 3-4 hours of buying out the vendor before you have enough to sink a single ship...thankfully as you keep buying it out the rate you get it increases until you get 999 per sale but it's pretty ridiculous. We also can't sell back to vendors.

So it seems it's a problem but for different reasons on other shards...there it's just expensive, here it's both expensive and takes a ridiculous amount of time to get enough to even use.
 

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Raptor is very much correct. Siege is very hard to get a vendor (npc) to double its stocks... and when it does can take practcaly all day. I for one do not have a time limit on play BUT the vast majority of players DO. Average time in UO for a basic player is about 2 hours. Most younger players who are under 18 dont have that much time to run around with school and homework. The adult working player can spend that 2 hours and perhaps a pinch more depending on the spouce allowing that much veg time. With the need for 1000's of saltpeter for the average crafter to make reasonable amounts of items needed out of it 20 salt peter is not gunna cut the mustard.
 

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I can't believe it took me so long to think of something that hadn't been mentioned (at least I think it hadn't?): Repairing boats/ships and firing boat/ship cannons!

-Galen's player
 

Meatbread

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Cal used to talk about an overhaul of the ship stuff if you poked him via PM back in the day, but that plan seems to have gone out the door along with his butt.

Hey has anyone seen one of those random orc camps since they broke the gypsies?
 

O'Brien

Thought Police
Stratics Veteran
Hey has anyone seen one of those random orc camps since they broke the gypsies?
Nope, which is unacceptable. And it makes me wonder just how many of those little things in the game have been changed for the worse over the years without being noticed. Devs probably think it's not a big deal, but it's the small details that added so much to the game. Like, wasn't there more than one magery casting animation before?
 
Top