Another New/Returning Players Perspective On The Current UO

[OldUO]

Hello everyone!

It seems that there has been a wave of returning players to the OSI/EA/Mythic/Broadsword Ultima Online.

My background, I played UO 1997-2001 AOL Legends & Atlantic.

Over the last few months I dabbled with free shards but ultimately wanted to see what the state of the production shards were. I was able to reactivate my old account and away I went! Now I am going to criticize the current developers, if you get offended easily please stop reading now, I am going to be real about my experiences.

My thoughts and evaluation of the current state of the game.

Account management systems, customer service and the ability for returning players to come back to the game needs to be a TOP priory for this team. I had to jump through hoops to be able to access my old account. I never talked to any CSAs that were actually familiar with UO even though the account needed to be registered through EAs Origin account management systems. I was able to finally pair my old UO account with my current Origin account. I was not able to do this manually, it took someone finally on EAs end whom had some experience, I am assuming with UO, to migrate my accounts. I searched on Google prior and that is actually how I found these forums. A thread came up in the search about account migration and it did help point me in the correct directions.

All said and done, to an average person they may have given up at that point.

My overall rating of EA/Broadswords Account systems. C-
(needs major improvement and needs to be streamlined)

Signing in for the first time after not playing in over 15 years.

To my surprise I logged in on legends to find all my old characters intact! The gold system at first took awhile to get through my head, but I really like the new system and now being able to transfer money via trade windows versus counting out gold piles or checks. My old houses were gone, which I assumed they would be. So I was starting from nothing. Legends was a ghost town, I found no one on my journey through Felucca. I only finally found people at Luna (Malas) seems that no one hangs out at Brit anymore. I did meet a few nice people but for the most part no one was willing to help me or answer my questions. (or even say Hi) I then logged off promptly and decided to look on Atlantic. To my surprise there were far more people inhabiting this shard. People in Felucca and at other banks! People were willing to answer my stupid questions and even give me items. Some people tried to take advantage that i was a returning player and kept bugging me about "Old named items or old sewn by items or old (blessed) items" Some things never change, hence why I loved UO. You get the good and the bad, the amazing people and the greasy people. After getting geared up and a few gold pieces in the bank I decided to try and find a house spot on Atlantic (as at this point I decided this is the shard I should play, more community) I found a nice quiet spot in Felucca to put down my roots.

My overall rating and first impressions. B+
(Dead shards need to be removed or consolidated, the player base shouldn't be so spread out)

One week of play (part time).

The Grind. My original characters needed to be retrofitted in order to actually get anywhere with the current style of gameplay. With the help of two amazing players they provided me with soulstone fragments which allowed me to swap skills between characters. I finally was able to put together the starts of a "PVM" style archer. My current skill levels were low (70s) the grind to get my archers skills up were painful with the low quality gear i was using. If a new player did not have any help they would be totally loss with what literature is available in game and on the official website. Thank goodness for this forum and the other resource I used was uoguide.com After studying builds/gear I was on a right track to getting my character ready to make some gold. I found that attending champion spawns and looting the end boss allowed me to get a suit togeather that worked (even though to most it would be very low end) But with this suit i was than able to start doing actual damage and even getting chances at a drop! Now with an average player or a very new player coming to this style of gameplay may never happen as the systems are so convoluted and very frustrating. Formulas.. skills.. damages.. etc etc. Why can't I loot monsters?

Broadsword needs to link gameplay data better in game/help options. The Advisers are a great resource, I used them countless times and they were very accommodating. But some people, like me, gravitate to the help options in game or to the official site, and unfortunately the information on both are very outdated or do not explain enough. At the end of the day it was the very accommodating current player base on Atlantic that held my hand through this new learning curve. It was totally worth it as now that I am more familiar with the new updated systems I feel that I can progress my characters build and venture out to more dangerous areas.

My overall rating for gameplay (one week in) C+
(Need more new player resources, links to 3rd party sites)


I am still gathering opinions I really think that the current UO could be still a very viable market. This game offers so much which current games do not have or even come close to. History, Nostalgia, Community and so many things to do. I personally love the old client and the old graphics, maybe I am one of few that thinks they should NOT invest time in updating the graphics but leave them as is and just start polishing the current game systems.

Anyways, of you read through everything I posted, thanks I hope i was insightful. If not, than sorry to waste your time.

Hope to see some of you server side!

Cheers

 

[OldUO]

And as a foot note, the Developers should realize by now that THIS is the time of the year to focus on new and returning players. Everyone that I have talked to says October through Christmas is the funniest time to play UO. Notoriously more players, more events or things going on. Fun time to be in game. I know that there really isn't much of a team left in the wheel but maybe they should get more players involved in assigning in game activities.

 

[MalagAste]

And as a foot note, the Developers should realize by now that THIS is the time of the year to focus on new and returning players. Everyone that I have talked to says October through Christmas is the funniest time to play UO. Notoriously more players, more events or things going on. Fun time to be in game. I know that there really isn't much of a team left in the wheel but maybe they should get more players involved in assigning in game activities.

They have tried they hired the PEC who does work with ANYONE willing to do events. However the worst part of that is that people coming to events expect to get something.... and since you can't even use a decent mob that might drop something worth getting like Lady M, or something like that as one of the mobs it really is a self defeating issue. Players do the events..... they spend a lot of time killing the mob.... and the loot SUCKS. So you get folk to do one or two events but then they won't come again because they don't get anything.

So outside the story which most people besides Role-players could give 2 poops about... players can't really do squat to make the game more exciting other than group up to do activities but most group activities either take too damn long, (ie Exodus since getting the keys is such a freaking chore, doing the roof takes too long for most groups and most peerless are solo'd anymore) This leaves groups with little to NOTHING to do. If you go as a group to kill something like Navrey.... the wait in between the spawn is so long people tend to get bored and leave. Doing Despise while it can be rewarding to a few is often a problem with griefing...

You can only spawn Scalis so many times before folk get bored..... and again more often than not you don't get anything. You can do a run to Corgul but again once you kill it ...... you have a LONG wait till you can do it again and people get bored and leave.... you also run the risk of getting the map and going there when it's already been done recently... and not only did you waste a map and time but you annoy folk who came along because nothing happened.

Hunting Pirates is more a thing for 1 or 2 people to do..... and many solo that.... the EXTREMELY long voyage to and from the market make Tokuno the ONLY choice for turning in the pirates as NO ONE wants to sail all the way to or from the Sea Market. This ENTIRE thing ought to be moved somewhere South of the Serpent Pillar in the SW area of the map... MUCH closer to the area where the Pirates spawn.

Just saying. And finally.... while we are on the subject of returning players... ALL the expansions need to be consolidated so a new/returning player doesn't have to buy 10 things to catch up. SA, HS, ToL, and Rustic and Mythic collections, 7th char slot etc.... on and on and on..... along with the monthly sub fee and so on and so forth...

 

[It Lives]

Hi welcome back,

First impression b+ player......then the lack of patients/learning curve on most every aspect of game , wants consolidated shards, wants third party interferance in first week back from a 14 year return.

Overall rating D+ player

1. player will be around for less than 6 months.

2. player is an instant gratification junky.

Everone is a critic... just saying.

 

[Viquire]

Don't mind him. He's probably a heck of a solo gamer but not much of a community oriented person.

We could use a few more community oriented players IMHO.

 

[OldUO]

Playing the game is a Grind, I get that and experienced it last night with trying to raise my tactics. I have not tried any of the new bosses/spawn but after how you (MalagAste) explained the difficulties faced with it I might not until I find a guild maybe to join up with. I do agree that they should have one token or purchase available to upgrade my accounts for the new content. Kind of a pain.

Either way, I am enjoying my come back. Sometimes I think its good to walk away for awhile if you've played too long or become bored with the game.

If anyone has any guild/rp based guild suggestions please let me know! Thanks to everyone whom posted

 

[lucitus]

I think not updating the graphics was a huge mistake, for me and many of my friends the game is over. The last addon was a joke, hehe not more than, i dont know dinosaurs in UO . But i dont want to spoil anyone the game, have fun and have nice holidays!

 

[OldUO]

I think not updating the graphics was a huge mistake, for me and many of my friends the game is over. The last addon was a joke, hehe not more than, i dont know dinosaurs in UO . But i dont want to spoil anyone the game, have fun and have nice holidays!

I totally get it, but I came from playing new games with "new tech/higher end graphics" so it was actually a nice change of pace to come back to the old 2D style of gameplay. I do agree with you that dinosaurs in UO is a little off and something I never thought I would see, but it does take progression with the ultima series.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

You don't need fancy graphics, just appealing graphics. I can't count how many times I've gone through might and magic 6-8. Those graphics are primitive but engaging. It's the gameplay issues I'm more worried about. I don't want to take the time to list all the issues here, just making the point that if the game is working like it's supposed to (and I don't mean ''working as intended'' TM with some of the irritating recent problems), UO graphics are really quite well done and good enough to engage the player - if the game is running smoothly

 

[OldUO]

Well said Yadd, they do need to focus on fixing some major game-play bugs. Even in my very limited time I have encountered numerous, listing each one down so I can email them in. I will say most of the bugs I have encountered do not effect the overall experience, but one thing Broadsword should really look at is getting rid of hosting the game on (AWS) Amazons cloud servers... the lag is unbearable at times. I ping the servers and I am always 32-40 but the in game lag is just atrocious.

 

[Eric Ravenwind]

My buddy IRL just started an account about 2 weeks ago. He tried UO about 5 years ago, and got nowhere. The only thing he could figure out was mining. I wasn't very connected with him at that time, so he had no guidance.

Now, me, as well as other guildies, have been walking him through everything we can. He said that if it was not for us, he would have quit because of the level of complexity.

One of this characters, his mule, is currently 120 Tailoring, 100 Tinkering, 100 Mining.
His other character, a bard/tamer, is currently 95 Animal Lore, 77 Animal Taming, 30-ish Veterinary, and 80 something Magery.

Now, compared to my first experiences with UO which started in 2002, he's got it made. I still remember having 55-ish Swordsmanship, and wondering why i couldn't hit anything with my Kryss (a Fencing weapon). I also remember wondering why my Magery would not go up from casting Magic Arrow at 60-70 skill level. Then, ooohh,, then! Wondering why my spells wouldn't do good damage because i had no Eval Int. Didn't even make the connection until I found info on stratics.

Making a bigger effort to help players find information would a nice thing, so players (including myself) know where to go for questions.

 

[MalagAste]

My buddy IRL just started an account about 2 weeks ago. He tried UO about 5 years ago, and got nowhere. The only thing he could figure out was mining. I wasn't very connected with him at that time, so he had no guidance.

Now, me, as well as other guildies, have been walking him through everything we can. He said that if it was not for us, he would have quit because of the level of complexity.

One of this characters, his mule, is currently 120 Tailoring, 100 Tinkering, 100 Mining.
His other character, a bard/tamer, is currently 95 Animal Lore, 77 Animal Taming, 30-ish Veterinary, and 80 something Magery.

Now, compared to my first experiences with UO which started in 2002, he's got it made. I still remember having 55-ish Swordsmanship, and wondering why i couldn't hit anything with my Kryss (a Fencing weapon). I also remember wondering why my Magery would not go up from casting Magic Arrow at 60-70 skill level. Then, ooohh,, then! Wondering why my spells wouldn't do good damage because i had no Eval Int. Didn't even make the connection until I found info on stratics.

Making a bigger effort to help players find information would a nice thing, so players (including myself) know where to go for questions.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.. many truly "new" players don't even know they have a bank box. They pick up and drop things all the time because they literally have no idea that they have 125 item storage in the game. That's sad.

There is NO new player training or assistance given by the game in the slightest unless you chose the EC which has a tiny in-game training which IMO sucks. Just saying. And what happens to the poor fool who chooses to use the CC? They get NOTHING. And yes if they are "lucky" they might find a helpful player or two. But depending on what shard they chose they may have trouble finding anyone other than the gold selling spambot at New Haven. And if they are even more "unfortunate" and try the game with a "free" trial.... they can't even get out of the totally unused Help channel... not that I want the gold selling spambot back in Gen Chat... but you have to admit it's contraindicated to having people join UO and actually stay.

And even more sad is the more and more complicated the game gets.... the less and less folk who aren't vets want to tackle all the complexity and quit. And the less and less returning players want to try to tackle it. The systems can be overwhelming.

IMO there are far too many mods on things... Sure it's cool and nifty to get that uber item with 20 mods..... but it's downright scary to try to make even a mediocre suit let alone something that is "good" or "exceptional" or "uber".... trying to calculate all the in's and out's of suit building isn't even the start of the problem with all the in's and out's involved in just deciding on a Template. And the in-game pre-built Templates that people can select are sadly CRAP by todays standards.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Eric Ravenwood said: "he would have quit because of the level of complexity."
MalagAste said: "the more and more complicated the game gets.... the less and less folk who aren't vets want to tackle all the complexity and quit."
Seeing a pattern there?