Probably the only thing I actually liked about the "virtuebane" story arc was the fact that it allowed us to actually pick which side we fought for (though in the end it had no impact on the story....it was pre-chosen for our side to lose :/ ) Why was that entire system abandoned after only one event? This new event lets you play the "good" side only....what about those of us who want to fight on the side of Exodus? (I mean...we're minax faction...it doesn't make a lot of sense for Exodus or it's minions to be attacking us anyways, should be naturally allied anyways) With the bane story arc it actually led to some fun fights where we'd actually have players allied with each side pushing the NPC's in and out of town..it was interesting having an actual army fighting alongside you.
I don't even care if theres no reward! Just let us ally so we can assist the invasion (and perhaps this time actually allow each shard to have it's own outcome based on how each side does (it was tracked via the bells in the bane one....but they didn't seem to mean anything in the end)....It would give me and many others who don't really care about the event as it's being forced on us now as a huge item grind actually have a chance to have a LITTLE fun with it.
Hmm, typically I have a huge long response to this, covering both monetary real world aspects and ideas for ingame.. all far fetched and silly as usual
So here goes.
REAL WORLD/Funding and production: For one, this takes a lot of effort to co-ordinate having options for more than one side. We have to realize that UO although having survived for 15 years needs to make money beyond the scope of simply maintaining servers and such for us to continue to receive any kind of new content. That being sad, I'm extremely thankful they are at least trying to continue pumping out stuff for my favorite MMORPG, but I'm always gonna hope and wish for more. I like the new town loyalty concepts, and perhaps this is the ground work for something more in line with what you're talking about.. instead of having a good or bad though it'll be a "this city wants this, but wait this city wants the same thing" situations.
Back onto the funding side, UO is UO is UO. But to get the message out to new people or perhaps even people that tried it in the past but didn't stay with it and ultimately don't realize it's still there and constantly changing the parent company needs to ADVERTISE! I get around here and there, and I see "Lord of Ultima" banners.. but let's get a flippin UO banner already! And I'm not just saying putting a banner up on UO related websites. This costs money, and may or may not see return on investment in a reasonable amount, but it's a step in the right direction. Not sure how much it costs to get a digi-advertisement these days, but hopefully can't be too much to toss one up here and there randomly alongst the interwebz. Also, before going nutz with advertising, the legitimacy of a product relies heavily upon the state of the product. You don't want to advertise Ultima Online, then somebody does get it and sees the game is buggy or something. For the most part, it's playable yes, and all that jazz, but there's still a few bugs here and there that need their buggy asses squished. Also, a recent bug of someone trying to put their ladder up in their keep and being told "You do not have permission from the ships' captain to do that" may seem kinda minor and trivial but people that are used to other top shelf mmo's will just scoff at the idea of giving UO a whirl. (But it doesn't keep me from enjoying this warm apple cinnamon pie of game
) So squish bugs, advertise!
Moving right along here: Production. Where do we begin. Production here recently seems to have increased ALOT. And there are some really cool new things coming out, and it's coming out reasonably quick! Nobody can deny that, over the last few months we haven't been getting lots of attention in the dev side, not gonna say whether it's good or bad, but we're getting there! But by and large what we're getting is some serious attention in areas that were stagnant as a septic tank in an abandoned neighborhood >.> Srsly. This is costing somebody some money. Us for the most part, the gamer playing this game. To increase production values, there just needs to be more of us. And I think to get this started drawing in more people the things they are doing have to be done to draw back old bored players, and as that money is added to "resource" pool they can start to add new levels of depth to the creativity, like giving us the option to have that "good" or "Bad" side. To even have any side at all, takes time to plan that out, but start throwing in even 1 other side to it just on a story level and without any kind of perceived reward means adding new npc's to have said story who's telling "Yes excellent Morticus, bring me more innocent peoples intestines" or whatever random canned badguy stuff there is to say. And time. Now, as far as advertising and such, I notice we're getting into the WayBack Wednesdays and that's being broadcast on MMORPG.com which is awesome, hopefully people are checking that out from that website that don't already have a UO subscription, and we'll see the fruits of that, but advertising needs to be budgeted into every equation of any business.
In Game Stuffs: As far as sides go, it does make one wonder why goodie goodie creatures attack people with negative karma, but regardless almost any creature that would normally attack anyone will attack that same negative karma person. I suppose it makes the negative karma guy wonder why the goodie goodie creatures don't attack the goodie goodie karma'd player as well. Adding town loyalty was a good idea, but I think there can be new concepts altogether tossed out there that are just wicked cool. Perhaps a religious aspect that adds another layer to the current Karma system (which needs to be finished btw. I'm staring at you Humility.. Spirituality) Now that we're having rioters and protestor's perhaps it's about time we get some Religious structuring in place to teach these crazies some manners! Put churches in our towns to give people comfort and such, and we the players new shinies to play with if we so choose to dabble in that mess. Also, make multiple types of temples/chaples. Maybe 2 or 3 religions and each one recieves it's own little perk, from perhaps a spell to the ability turn into a motorcycle and fly into space or something. Seriously though, here's a few ideas, let's start with a goodie goodie one. Saint Randomgoodguyname Religion carrying out deeds and such for this chapel grants the power to dispel negative effects akin to Remove Curse from Chivalry or perhaps not due to Overpoweredness it may cause but you know random good guy ability with a 2-5 minute cool down, but make it powerful enough to be worthy of the effort it would take to get that. Let's go to slightly more twisted and bizarre. The Temple of Lothisl, a temple of strange named evil people, and carrying out deeds and such for them allows you to gain certain "transformation" type abilities, like your blood being shed is treated like fighting with a monstrous Interred grizzle in that you spew acid for like a 30-40 second period with a 10-20 minute cooldown. And this could have extremely limited if any at all pvp implications as pvp is already in turmoil in terms of balance anyways. And then the church of Randomly Named Craft Diety person.. Carrying deeds out for this chapel gives the penitent crafter both an increase in Success and Exceptional Success of 14% (orsomething like that) on a 30 minute cool down that lasts for I dunno 5 minutes. Or perhaps he can peddle crated wares to an NPC merchant with 14% increased profits for 5 minutes on a 30 minute cool down or something, but this is all never gonna be implemented anyway, just wanted to give some examples of things that "could" be done to help give that feeling of choosing a "side" without getting too costly and time consuming on a developmental level.
Anyhow to further segregate and add depth, perhaps make it to where each church or temple is only related to certain cities. Like let's say there was god of magic, Naturally his or her chapel should be in Moonglow and let's also say Britain. To even begin taking quests on for the church related to the god of magic, you have to be at least let's say Respected with the pertinent city, in this case, either Moonglow or Britain. You get to the point where you can start taking quests on for the church. These quests should be somewhat in theme with Magic related stuff. "Brother JaphusSmaphus Creedsomething was ambushed by bandits on his way back from Minoc and lost his supply of reagents.. I've tried to convince him to upgrade to an LRC suit, or Stygian Abyss to give him some new stuff but he insists that Reagents are the way to go. Could you bring her 50 of each magery reagent?" and upon completing this task gets you some points. Perhaps draw the process out so that the quests can only be gotten once per 4 hours or something and at certain points, add dynamic boss battles. Like at a certain point, to progress in your faith, you'll be tasked with slaying a powerful creature. And it's got to be bad ass! No skimpin here. Like let's say at some during your reg drop offs Brother JaphusSmaphus Creedsomething actually starts giving quests but in order to take his quests you need to prove yourself worthy to him, so he gives you a "key" type item. And you take this "key" type item and take it to a drop off point somewhere and drop it in the "spot" kinda like dropping the various types of keys on the table for a travesty run, but instead of getting Master keys you just spawn the boss you have to kill in order to complete the quest. He can or cannot drop something, but that's not the point here, it's being able to progress with the church you are trying to get in with and get those cool powers from.
Anyhow I think I mentioned limiting the pvp applications of these skills, and I suppose the simplest way to do that, is just not make them work in Felucca at all? And perhaps it's too advantageous to think we have anything at all in store for us of this nature, but even without a special new skills added on for being pious and being a church goer of whatever religion, some kind of neat deco would be cool too, but deco is starting to become the new chuck norris joke, as in it seems we're getting a lot of it lately, which is good, we need more types of it that's for sure, but deco only rewards only go so far. Perhaps somebody can mutate some of my brain fartings around and cool ideas will come out of them! Perhaps not. Meow.
