Enhancing the New Player Experience

[Zyon Rockler]

I think if there were a dungeon design that took several weeks to get through it would keep player's attention and they would stay to build their template.

The dungeon could be designed so as you go in the spawn is easy, like skeleton. Once you reach a certain skill level you are able to proceed. This way you would have to work up to a certain skill point before seeing what's next.

It would be important to have good music and a real interesting type of interaction with the spawn. All the skills should be considered so that all groups could walk the same path. You should be able to roll out a sleeping bag and set up camp to log off so that you could stay inside the dungeon and not leave until you've reached the final level.

There could be simple things to tame in the beginning. There could be treasure maps that could be found easily maybe by placing an X on the map as well as on the ground. Any kind of gear that is needed should be found on the loot, such as, reagants/lower reagant armour, bandages, arrows.

All the skills should be considered starting in the first level, lockpicking, barding, so no matter what type of player you are creating you can find what you need to gain in skill and protect yourself, such as armour and weapons.

As you get better there could be a storyline that runs alongside to document your achievements and help make the dungeon more interesting. There could be things that will change over time but not change the functionality of gaining skill and acquiring gear.

Bosses could appear at the end that might take teamwork and they could offer skill gains and special gear that will help your journey along, including titles as long as a person carries a certain title they may be able to do more damage or be more proficient so that it would not just be a title. They could leave the dungeon around 80-90 skill with some pretty decent gear. They could be given the option to leave the dungeon and re-enter.

It would be nice if this could be done where it could keep the player actively questing through the dungeon for about 1 month or X amount of hours. I think that would be the key in designing the dungeon. The time it takes and the intensity and addiction to finish.

This of course is just an idea, hopefully they could create something where the hours would pass by and there could be a surprise around every corner. There is so much content in UO, if everything was used and placed into this dungeon it could be the greatest ride ever.

 

[Maplestone]

You're saying they should implement a Nethack minigame?

 

[Duskofdead]

The problem with any long dungeon idea is that if players have the alternative of going and hooking up with older / more developed friend's characters and go farming easier things for similar rewards, that's what they'll do. You'd have to go out of your way to make it worthwhile.

 

[Ancient Sosarian]

Hail Sosarians & Britannians,

This is NOT to boast or pat anyone on the back. It is merely a story of aid to new and returning players.

On Baja, for better or for worse, Luna has become the dominant Town. A Baja Community Center has been created within the walls of Luna for the use of all of Baja's citizens. All of the crafter and training items are there for public use (Training Dummies, anvil & forge, loom & spinning wheel, complete set of Dyes tubs with dyes, arcane circles, Tram & Fel T-Map Runebooks, Quest Runebooks, small and large group meeting spaces, etc). Bulletin Board for messages or questions. Other Tomes (books) with info about a wide range of topics.

Located on the Northwest corner of Luna it is continually being tweaked to better aid New, Returning, and even Veteran Players. My next 2 projects are to place Runebooks with runes in them to some of Baja's largest, smallest, and niche & unique vendors...And a Guide to Baja's Guilds with Guild summaries, contact info etc.

While I applaud this Thread and all attempts by our Dev Team to improve our world, especially for NEW players, I believe our players may also immediately do the same without waiting upon the Devs.

I encourage every shard to do something similar, and welcome all suggestions from Bajanians (or other shards) for improving our Community Center.

An Sos

 

[Ancient Sosarian]

Hail Fellow Sosarians & Britannians,

Having read all posts in this thread I wanted to add one additional comment.

If EVERY Guild would CHOOSE one Town as its Primary Town and conduct all of its business exclusively in that Town (banking, NPC buying and selling, crafting, stabling, etc) Towns would again gain reputations for certain types of activities and more folks would continually be seen and found in most if not all of our Towns. Sort of an "Adopt-a-Town" program for Guilds.

As examples on Baja where I play, the Society of Archers home town is Skara; United Tamers of Britannia is De Lucia, not sure where Underground Knights, Mage Tower, and others gather as a rule, but we have more than enuff Guilds to reasonably populate all of our towns if folks (Guild Leaders) would merely embrace and enforce such a plan.

We Players have far more power then most realize. Put on our Creativity Caps and lets us lead the way to a Better Britannia.

An Sos

 

[Extra Value Meal]

As a veteran player myself, it is hard to remember the days when I didn't know everything there was to know about anything. You forget the days where you walked around in utter confusion trying to figure out how people managed to GM (or Leg) a skill or where they got their clothes and items.

I believe UO has a very steep learning curve, I remember reviews of UO from 6 years ago saying it was two to two and a half hours alone. In todays' UO though, I feel it is much longer than that. Now I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. Its good to know that UO cannot be "beat" in a few days, but as I talk to new players it would seem at times that they don't know what to do next or how to do it.

I feel that certain things need to changed ranging from starting equipment to helpful ingame hints and information. These ideas will be in a simple list form and not in any particular order.

Starting Equipment

I feel that new players should be given more starting equipment. The 1000 gold already given is more than enough but I'm referring to other more useful items at this particular time.

1. Melee based and Archery based classes should start with a weapon that has 25% DI so they can inflict some damage from the start. The name of these weapons could be "A Family Heirloom" to add a little bit of RPing and story as to how they managed to acquire said item. Melee characters can also start with a suit of ringmail and archers with a suit of studded armor. Players at the start would also recieve a message saying that a portion of their families' treasury was dropped off at their bank box (this would contain most of the starting equipment), which is another way to add some backstory to the character. Depending on the town the player started in they would receive a book detailing directions to the nearest town bank and other town locations.

2. For mages I feel that 30 of each reagent isn't enough and they should be given a bag of several hundred instead (dropped off at the bank). Mages can also be given a backstory that they recently graduated from the local mages guild and were given a 50% filled Spellbook as a token of achievement.

3. As for crafters and the like, each profession would receive several hundred resources at the start. The amount will not stack, so if you receive 200 wood for carpentry you will not get 400 if you select carpentry and fletching. As for miners, they will automatically start in a town that has a local mountain or area with mining capabilities (more tools provided as well). This will stop some of the confusion when new miners select a town with no mountains.

4. I also feel that all of this starting equipment should be blessed (or newbiefied) like during the days of old. This is because Insurance is too expensive for newer players while equipment and gold allocation is extremely important in the beginning, especially when players aren't sure what to even buy. This "blessing" would only pertain to starting weapons, armor and reagents.

5. Prior to character creation perhaps players can also have a choice of a designated starting mount. It could be any of the ridables that only require one follower. These mounts will just be like any other (unbonded) mount except you start with them. Information on where to purchase fruits and meats could also be provided in order to care for the mount.

Skill Gaining

Even now as a vet it is sometimes confusing trying to figure out what I should be doing next to raise a skill even further.

1. Perhaps for menu-based professions, selections and items would highlight and blink in red. This would designate the recommended items one could create in order to achieve skill gain.

2. For other classes like taming, fighting and the bardic arts, players could start with a book detailing several locations one could go for proper skill gain or perhaps recommended monsters to combat.

In-game help and Information

Because knowledge is power.

1. While using the moongate and selecting Felucca alerts new players that Felucca is a Non-Con area and is not recommended for them. A better option would be a Yes or No prompt, asking them if they're sure that they wish to go there before actually doing so.

2. Information can also be provided that informs the player of reputable knowledge based websites they could go to for further information on anything (namely uo.com or uo.stractics).

3.Instruction of proper macro creation and Option use to a new player is VERY important and should be a separate tutorial in and of itself.

In conclusion I feel that UO has tons to offer newer players except that many aren't even aware that some of the content exists. If players are made aware, informed, and instructed on how to achieve their goals, players may feel a lot less confused then they already are.

I hope that my ideas may be of some help to new players (if implemented) and I appreciate any and all feedback or new ideas. Minus the flaming of course.[grin]

Take care!

 

[Basara]

Ever since its creation, Haven had been a quite buggy place (I'm talking from the player viewpoint, not the character).

Your character could be moving along, then suddenly rubber-band back a distance, then sring back to where you would have been with your total movement. It was worst in the area around Uzzeran's Keep, and the area around the wooden fort to the "newbie training area". In fact, the whole training area was bad, and that was one of the reasons why the mine there was closed. The south island had some minor problems as well.

Once, around summer 2003, I saw my guildmaster on his nightmare, standing outside the fort. I tried talking to him, but he didn't answer. Then, I saw him talk in party chat, and I asked him where he was. He was IN the training area, past the fort, training a pet drake. Somehow, he had left a static ghost image I (And others) could see - even drag a bar off of, and watch his HPs rise and fall from attacks inside. I think I was even able to heal him via targeting it, using Close Wounds! When he finally came close enough to where he might have seen it, the game realized there was 2 of him, and the duplicate disappeared.

Not long afterward, at the Gen Con Indy meetup back then, I talked to Vex, Binky, and the others at the EA booth, where they actually had kiosks set up for people to play trial accounts of AoS. I got them to let me log in for my BOD runs, and I used both 2D & 3D to show them the odd bugs (which were even worse on Lake Austin than on the other shards, but were present in some form on all the shards that had Haven).

At the 2007 meetup in Columbus, I talked to Draconi and the others about what I'd showed their predecessors. The areas that were destroyed in the "blowing up" of Haven corresponded to the old buggy areas, and they confirmed that they had TRIED to fix those areas, but in the end, the attempts didn't work, and the only way to get the fixes to work was to simply redo the entire map, and make the areas, if they remained buggy afterward, remain inaccessible.

So, because I reported and demonstrated a bug in the server/client interaction code for Haven, and that bug could not be fixed, Haven paid the price. It was the opportunity that getting rid of the buggy area provided to give a place for the new beginning player quests to occur, that resulted in New Haven, but I get the feeling the devs were too busy trying to debug KR (after it was force launched too early) to give it their full effort.

So yes, Virginia, there was a reason why Haven had to die - and in a strange sort of way, I'm responsible.... rolleyes:

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

I feel that certain things need to changed ranging from starting equipment to helpful ingame hints and information. These ideas will be in a simple list form and not in any particular order.

Starting Equipment

I feel that new players should be given more starting equipment. The 1000 gold already given is more than enough but I'm referring to other more useful items at this particular time.


Many good ideas in this post! From the wiew of a new player it looks very discouraging how to get the equipment the less new players have , and you think its nessecery to have it to play the game. You check vendors and see the pieces costs millions each and the Old Havemn Creatures gives a few gp.
For an old returning player its easy to get back on track as the knowhow means everything.

One thing thou. All young players nowdays start in Haven and there are trainers questgivers mountains etc. It should just need a makeower and better items as you suggested.

Waiting for all theese improvements , this is what we now do on Europa:
We have a small guild of vets, HLP patroling in Haven to catch as many new and returning players with new accounts as we can.

We first find out if they have any knowledge or not. We give them a rune (marked at Haven bank) labled with our web page, made by our leader Lord Paidric:

http/haven.uosites.com

This is mainly a guide for new players and its very useful.

Then we check what kind of armour they need and weapon and books plus answering questions.
A warrior gets a good resist armour fast weapon(s) and a runebook with some cities and some dungeons and training grounds. One rune to an assosiated shop with repair deeds and a rune library.
Mages get eighter full LRC suit(returnings ppl that doesnt lose it the first day)
or a 60-70 LRC suit with good resists. They get a full spellbook(normally LRC) and a runebook with a rune for Haven and one for the rune library so they later can mark more runes.
They can always come back to us if they get in trouble or need free repairs or advices.

We are able to give them very good runic made armour mixed with exeptional plus jewels nowdays as lots of people on Europa donate very good pieces for us to put togeater to nice looking good resist armours.

The reasons for doing this is several.. We want our new people to feel welcome and also not get discouraged and give up.
Its also good for our shard , we need fresh blood all the time!
I also think its a way for some old people that loves UO to give something back for all good times we had in the past..

 

[Goodoljoe]

This may been a dead overbeaten horse point but I believe loot tables need a quite serious revamp,have you killed an Ancient Wyrm lately? I seen better loot on ettins and trogs and in the time the average folk kill an AW for 2k gold he killed 20 ettins for much more.And risk free.If not just make monsters drop better stuff,im all fine with making the big nasties harder,but with much higher benefits to encourage teamwork.The ammount of random generated crap needs to be done away or drastically reduced imo,and make redudant monsters(of enough dificulty) have fixed drop tables based on rarity.

 

[Dragonchilde]

I just wanted to mention that a mentoring system used to be in place. They were called Companions, and I was one. The program was introduced not long before the free accounts for volunteers were eliminated... which means I started the program with the understanding that I'd get a free account. I wanted to help new players, but that was definitely incentive. I was referred by a friend on Chesapeake (leader of the Church of Steel, who I always suspected was really a GM or Counselor elsewhere, but Sir Dev would never confirm it.)

I was a lead Companion... they had gold robes just like Counselors and GMs. It was fun! that was back when Haven was newbie-only... no one could get on the island but other youngs and Companions.

Regular companions were regular characters with a few extra powers, namely, the ability to "recall" instantly to the location of a newbie in the queue, and appear invised. I believe it was similar to the counselor queue, but I could be wrong; it's been a long time. That marble patio you see in Old Haven was actually the Companion's hall.

I don't know why the program was shut down. It was a great one, and meant all new players had someone to one-on-one help them and answer questions. It makes me sad that most people don't know about it, haven't heard of it, and have no idea what I'm talking about when they mention it.

One thing that definitely needs to be altered is the newbie tickets... I have no idea why they disabled the ability to use them in a trade window, but that was stupid. Most people aren't going to trust anyone with them, especially since the tickets themselves say "don't give this away! it'll only work for you!"

I had to find a veteran player with a spare.

 

[Duskofdead]

This may been a dead overbeaten horse point but I believe loot tables need a quite serious revamp,have you killed an Ancient Wyrm lately? I seen better loot on ettins and trogs and in the time the average folk kill an AW for 2k gold he killed 20 ettins for much more.And risk free.If not just make monsters drop better stuff,im all fine with making the big nasties harder,but with much higher benefits to encourage teamwork.The ammount of random generated crap needs to be done away or drastically reduced imo,and make redudant monsters(of enough dificulty) have fixed drop tables based on rarity.

Are you asking for there to be one ultimate monster that drops the best loot, which every single developed player farms all day, and which every progressing character is trying to hurry up and max out skills so he can go farm too?

Because that is precisely what happens when you provide an obvious best choice in terms of what monster to farm for reward.

I dislike the concept greatly. If you want the chance of an artie, go kill the super high end stuff that takes 7 minutes to kill. But meanwhile someone who was 2x GM killed 20 Earth Elementals and made as much, or more, raw money. It should be that way, to preserve choice and equal reward for different paths.

If you propose a direct correlation of hard mob: best loot, you just turn the game into WOW where everyone is just trying to hunt the same mobs at the endgame all day. This already happens enough with champs, I'd hate to see it get worse.

 

[Corvak]

one thing that's helped the new player experience - at least on Catskills - is the town invasions...

...Forcing us from brit, our guild/alliance has adopted haven as our new 'home' city. And we generally make a habit of giving freebies to young players from time to time.

 

[SoooooLost]

This is a long thread, and quite likely a lot of what I will add has probably been stated, in which case I am probably reiterating, though a longshot perhaps saying something new.

Background: Quit UO when the thief death came in (insurance). At that time had a Tram T-hunter/farmer/bard, a pure thief, a pure mule, a stealth alchy suicide bomber and a few other mishmash templates I'm sure i've forgotten about. I miss crazy joe and the other cartoons created about UO in the old days.

Anyhow- moved to quite a few online games from here (OMG Even did SIMS online). What made UO irreplaceable and amazingly was not in my experience copied anywhere, you can do ANYTHING! You can spend the day, fighting, dying, fishing, begging, mining, stealing, stealthing through places nobody goes because its just impossible for most. Tame rabbits and sick em on ettins, or reds if so brave, get your toon drunk and have fizzle ebolt wars on top of castles (miss the fred vs. bob wars). Any single item you pick up, you can place anywhere! At most you are anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months from capable of experiencing the entire game.

Now having returned, what other games have done better (or UO COULD do better) to integrate the newer players into the existing player base (again in my egomaniacal opinion ) is this: Explain better the give and take of skill selection! Explain skill progression better. Allow a search for guilds online and recruiting- SOOO important!! Cannot explain how amazed I am with vets, even notorious a-holes on the shard forums who have either A GIVEN or B offered anything I wanted in trying to catch up. EQ2 did it right with the ability to send a tell to a guild recruiter! This got you a vet to explain to you what was happening, often popping up to assist you in (yeach) levelling and equipping you along the way. SOOO many vets would gladly give their left arm to assist a noob along if given some opportunity or indication, however there is none.

A simple intro to PvP - much like a dueling arena- would bring MANY to FEL! Its the humiliation and feeling like a noob that I believe keep soo many out. An arena would allow newer players and even old vets to test out template, hopefully with a patient veteran to explain where they went wrong and why. Ex: (and this maybe outdated as i do not know now) I realized by xxxx you had no resist, therefore i para-exploded you, or your int vs other stats was too high so used xxxxx.

I have KR, and other than the random crashes I really enjoy the graphics and macro ability. The hotkeys are direct from EQ and a nice upgrade! EQ has one edge still, epic quests.. quests that you know at the start will require help. Also the tile range is an adjustment with KR vs. 2d.

Lastly, death vs. any other game in UO is a pain. I thankfully knew this, the noob quest string doesnt explain this really well. Auto equipping your setup as it was before you died is a nice change... yet still, seriously lacking in both explanation and implementation. Perhaps changing the experience from go get your crap (which can ONLY do in haven) to is it worth risking getting your crap? will ingraine in newer toons the risk/reward insure/not insure ratio.

Anywhoo- the vodka is kicking in, and I'm unsure what i wrote before, and this is mighty long enough, and Superbowl is tomorrow(!!!!!!) and I just hit 95.9 inscription, and heh, I'm gonna go now

Sure I missed a bunch of crap, but can't remember atm how many shots I've had soooo..... (stealing from a poster who is STILL here from the time I left long ago)... LA!

 

[Harlequin]

As others have mentioned, I find the major problem is the steep learning curve new players have.

The Lady in KR that guides you along the initial interaction is a great start, but ends too soon.

Instead, I suggest an animal or a sprite companion that will stay with newbies until their young status has expired. The companion will advise the newbie and fill him in on details along the way (sprite's speech will only be visible to the newbie).

Eg, What town they are in, where's the bank, then lead them to talk to the newbie crier guy that tells newbies where to get their skills honed.

If they get into combat, the companion will jump into the fray and help the newbie just like familiars. Of course, for generic purposes, using a sprite is better, since they can heal the newbies if they require it.

These functions stop working if the newbie enters a dungeon (like how the young player flag works when preventing monsters fro targetting the newbie), but they will continue to give advise.

eg "This is the Dungeon Deceit, I am afraid I can't help you in battle in here, but I can still provide advice"
"Dungeons are normaly dark places, to enable yourself to see better, you should light a torch. There are also other means of light sources, mages can cast the spell: Night Sight, alchemists can make a similar potion: Night Sight, also, there are magical equipment may randomly have the night sight power. Finally, if you are an elf, you have an innate ability to see in the dark and do not require such items at all."
"If you wish to understand more about these, selecting any of the keywords will bring you to the relevant section of the codex"

Besides that, I would like to see the perma newbie-fied stuff like clothes, tools, regs reinstated.

 

[Duskofdead]

Harlequin, I thought that post was great.... but I think we'll likely never see any such system implemented. Even if we did, I don't think there is a large enough number of true new players anymore to warrant the resources to program it. A solid 95% of the young players I've interacted with were returnees and any learning curve they had was just catching up to the changes since they left. (It seems a lot of people from my era-- pre-AoS, have returned in the last twelve months.)

From the perspective of being one of those players (newly returned, was not present for the changes which introduced itemization, 120 skill caps, new skills, etc.) I can say this--- some of the problem is the players. There are so many people with their head totally crammed against the endgame glass ceiling, don't need money, don't even bother looting, just want to do the hardest stuff with chances of dropping arties, which new players aren't equipped for, can't handle, and get nothing out of, that trying to meaningfully learn from more established players is an exercise in exasperation. "U got 2 get better gear" doesn't help when people I play with only ever want to do champs (without explaining what's going on to me) or go to balron rooms or other things I can barely hang in there and hide and maybe not die too many times, but never get any drops or loot. I think there's a presumption out there-- the game feels a lot like Diablo 2 in this respect nowadays--- that there's just an "obvious" build and "obvious" set of gear which obviously, everyone has, knows about, or is in the process of achieving.

People come up to me and ask things like, "why don't u have your tali yet?" Well, what the heck tali are you talking about? And why would you presume I should just know I should want it, where I can get it, and that I can afford it or kill the types of monsters that might drop it? I have no clue. To be honest I get annoyed when players act that way like "naturally" I would know the best build and set of gear is whatever template is in their heads.... or presume that I would even know what the "best" template would be. I don't anymore, things have changed too much. And when I do ask for help usually it's older players just saying well u should get this tali and ur cinc and x and y and listing off some incredibly rare stuff I don't have multi-millions to run out and purchase (not that you see these things on vendors very often, because you don't.) In fact it feels JUST like D2... where everyone asks if you have "gone and bought your Enigma yet." (Enigma is a runeword that can be placed onto gear to mkae it, essentially, godly-- but the mats for it are such rare drops that almost no one makes their own enigma without resorting to online item/gold buying sites.) And if you don't buy your enigma, well, you're trying to keep pace with all the people who do have one.... and faring poorly. That's kinda how I feel in UO with the new itemization junk, to be honest, running around champs hiding behind tamers and melee with gear I don't even know where it came from.

 

[Maplestone]

The problem with a guide/quest is that they are ... well ... quests, in a game which is not quest-based. It gets people off on the wrong mindset. It's also very hard to maintain - every time a publish comes out, the guiding quests need to be checked over.

A "tip of the day" popup when you log in could help get people discover hints of systems they didn't know existed (with filers like "new player", "recent patches", "obscure systems", etc). These would still need to be reviewed, but shouldn't be difficult

We also need to be sure we aren't trying to turn new players into instant X-year veterns playing the endgame systems.

 

[Duskofdead]

We also need to be sure we aren't trying to turn new players into instant X-year veterns playing the endgame systems.

Problem there again comes back to the player community. A majority of the established player community sees little point in doing anything but the endgame stuff. And newer players going out and killing orcs by themselves si only exciting for so long. So naturally they want to hurry and catch up, start going to Ilshenar with other players, etc.

When you make itemization and linear progression and mob difficulty on a linear curve... that's what happens. Everyone huddles at the end and the beginning is just to burn through while "levelling." Few MMO's seem to have learned yet that the linear progression curve, while MAYBE holding people longer (people invest time and then want to make it "to the end", the max level, or max their skills)

It's no fun to be the only person you know at the beginning of a linear curve... with everyone saying "hey! It's great here from the end, hope u get your GD/soulseeker/artiegear/whatevs and then you can run with us."

 

[Maplestone]

*ponders* Well, it was fun for me

 

[Lady_Emma]

How to improve new player experience is a tough question. I know that giving new players everything is not the answer because I was a SI companion for about a year. If you give everything to new players they think they beat the game and quit. They really have very little invested in the game so it is not important to them. The new haven quests lead players to think they will never die and they do not have to put any effort into this game so when they leave New Haven they are in shock and quit the game. The faction thing is nice for new players because they do very little and get a lot. They probably will play for about three months and quit when they get bored with factions. Most of the new faction players have no uo experience so even with the fancy gear you give them are ineffective. . The exception are the old time pvpers who have become more leather as they can really use the new faction gear and have long time game experience.

When i started playing, 9 + years ago, it became very apparent in a short period of time that you die. In fact every time I logged on, I knew I would get killed by monsters, and maybe retrieve my belongings or I would get pvped ganked or killed because I lost connection in the fight, computers and the Internet not being what they are today. Players should be told from the beginning, “you will die but dieing is okay and part of the game”.

There was no Trammel back then. Cities were safe unless you were in warring guilds. Many huge guild wars broke out in cities and because there was no insurance the bodies presented great opportunities for good loot. One had to be careful, however, because if the body was not prey, the guards quickly killed the looter. Hunting also presented great opportunities so new players spent a great deal of time hunting. Everything on most monsters could be sold in the towns so very little was thrown away. In addition, monsters occasionally gave great loot that could be hawked in Brit.

New players found ways to serve old timers to gain money. Food was necessary and the pursuit of it was beneath the efforts of most established players so making a fisher, a cook and a hunter were early pursuits. Collecting wool and making bandied for pvpers and tamers was a lucrative trade and while at it many newbs made tailors. Players collected feathers to sell for arrows while building lumberjacks and lechers so that they could make ammo for archers. The ultimate crafter was the smith/miner. He did repairs for free and if he had a good personality was know far and wide. If players thought his armor and weapons were superior, he would be sought out by guilds and seasoned players. Doing all this building took a lot of time and effort but it was the way to greater things and it made players that were invested and were in the game for the long run.

Maybe trammel, rather than giving less raw materials could give more so that new players could get enough money to build more superior characters. New players should be given more realistic plans and directions for building support characters. While I don't like factions because it gives all the best equipment to everyone and negates my efforts by giving away better stuff than I have, the faction tinker idea could be expanded so that other trades would be important to faction groups and new players could go in that direction. Monster loot could be improved so that once in a while a newb would come up with sell able items that have real worth and that he could use. As it is not nothing of value can be gotten through hunting.

While it is tempting to copy ideas from other games, they have not stood the test of time as UO has and people that like that stile of play have plenty of games to choose from. I think it would be better in the long run to keep this game different and to use its attributes to develop a new group of dedicated players. This is was promoted as not a game but a place to live. Beating it was not the objective, but rather building a life was. This game should stress that it is not a game to beat, rather a world to live in.

 

[YuriGaDaisukiDa]

It is too hard for a new player to know how to level up.

Most game have areas that are designed for "levels" but UO doesnt

I like the setup of UO's world better than any other MMO, it feels more like a real world, but the consequence is that it is harder to find a suitable challange for a new payer.

all us vets know that despise is a good place to level up a weapon skill around 60, and that shame is good for 80+ but, how are new players supposed to know that?

then there are non enemy based difficulties like magery where you can fighy anyhting, but how can you know whats safe for you to fight?

I think there should be more quests around main cities, on all continants even malas and tokuno, that are geared towards specific skills at the higher levels.

for example:
if you have more between 60-70 in any weapon skill there will be a fletcher outside scara brea, or minoc that will give you a quest, to go collect harpy feathers. They will suggest covetous (which can get players familiar with dungeons).

once you collect oh lets say 10000 feather (200 harpies) you will give them to the fletcher and the reward will be some gold, maybe a unique magic item (harpy slayer with some cool mods maybe, and a cool look)

and the real reward, a scroll of transendance, that is only usable under 90 skill, and is bound to the player

this way a player will complete a quest with around 70 swords, and get an increase in swordsmanship as a reward for completing the quest.

These quests can be more complex as well, for example
requirements to qualify for quest
80 magery
80 eval
80 necro
80 spirit speak
quest found in umbra

"ahh, a real necromancer, i havnt seen a lot of your kind latley, i need some help"...
this could a much more interesting quest making a charcter travel all over the world and doing intersting things (not just grinding monsters or picking up items)

at the end of the quest youll ahve 90 in all four of your skills

these quests should have a cap of coarse, at 80 or 90 your no longer a noob and can start to learn things on your own

i would also like to see some more interesting solo and group quests for veteran players with cool rewards

not these lame peerless quests where you kill one big monster and get some magic items, i mean like a real quest with a real reward

something like save the princess from the tower than defend the castle as the undead try to take her back

than you get a reward armor set of the royal guard or something

 

[Nystul]

Most games now have quests from begin to end game. UO does have early start quests but mid to late quests could also help. Also a simple permanent event like the "Spring Cleaning 08" but more so easily completed w/ items new players may come across would be decent. Of course different rewards, actuall useful ones like low end set items and/or mid grade artifacts similar to ilshenar would be nice. There's no reason it should be limited to the established players or only for the benefit for players to farm and/or make gold but more so to give something for new players to invest some time and work into to be able to be rewarded with items (Armor, weapons, jewels etc.) that may be of use. (Hell even the rare sets from ML are basically junk w/ the exception of what, assassin suit? lol... Kinda embarassing for uo)

 

[Duskofdead]

Most games now have quests from begin to end game. UO does have early start quests but mid to late quests could also help. Also a simple permanent event like the "Spring Cleaning 08" but more so easily completed w/ items new players may come across would be decent. Of course different rewards, actuall useful ones like low end set items and/or mid grade artifacts similar to ilshenar would be nice. There's no reason it should be limited to the established players or only for the benefit for players to farm and/or make gold but more so to give something for new players to invest some time and work into to be able to be rewarded with items (Armor, weapons, jewels etc.) that may be of use. (Hell even the rare sets from ML are basically junk w/ the exception of what, assassin suit? lol... Kinda embarassing for uo)

I think it should be noted regarding the last couple of posts that yes, the new player does start off a bit clueless and yes, quests are not available to nonstop lead new players by the nose until they're a developed character. But that's not how UO ever was. I think that the major MMO's have adopted the philosophy of make it so easy to end up with a developed character by just following the signposts through quests and such that it's idiot-proof. UO was never that and I think suggestions to overlay nose-leading over the whole game is a suggestion to just further emulate Blizzard and EQ more than UO already has.

Part of what UO is, is figuring out for yourself what you like and what kind of character you'd like to build, what skills do, and what they're good for. What's being advocated here is a powergamer mindset of leading new players to introductions to the "best templates", and I don't think that's really what UO is about, even though the itemization changes and such have forced that to be a requisite for certain higher end activities like PvP or "optimal pvm."

As an alternative to noseleading new players to a "powerful template".... why not just set up counselors again, even if only a volunteer basis? I think we're stretching beyond the realistic constraints of how much UO is likely to ever experience true new growth again, and the budget EA is willing to give UO, thinking that an overlay of major new programming just for newbie quests is going to happen.

 

[Nystul]

I think it should be noted regarding the last couple of posts that yes, the new player does start off a bit clueless and yes, quests are not available to nonstop lead new players by the nose until they're a developed character. But that's not how UO ever was. I think that the major MMO's have adopted the philosophy of make it so easy to end up with a developed character by just following the signposts through quests and such that it's idiot-proof. UO was never that and I think suggestions to overlay nose-leading over the whole game is a suggestion to just further emulate Blizzard and EQ more than UO already has.

Part of what UO is, is figuring out for yourself what you like and what kind of character you'd like to build, what skills do, and what they're good for. What's being advocated here is a powergamer mindset of leading new players to introductions to the "best templates", and I don't think that's really what UO is about, even though the itemization changes and such have forced that to be a requisite for certain higher end activities like PvP or "optimal pvm."

As an alternative to noseleading new players to a "powerful template".... why not just set up counselors again, even if only a volunteer basis? I think we're stretching beyond the realistic constraints of how much UO is likely to ever experience true new growth again, and the budget EA is willing to give UO, thinking that an overlay of major new programming just for newbie quests is going to happen.

I'm talking about quests there moreso to equip a player and/or assist them with items. Todays new players are all about and 100% used to games where they have the ability to partake in some sort of system that may reward them with their next sword or gloves. For a new player there is little to nothing but grinding for ONE thing in the game to next equip yourself better; Gold. Which in Ultima unlike EVERY OTHER mmorpg the gold they're grinding for only results in worthless items from the NPCs. What do they do? They goto the only place to easily find things of quality forsale at multi million prices and look at their bankbox of 28k...

I'm not talking about quests that teach or tell a player to play the game. That's for them to figure out. But good job on clearly overlooking the point of some peoples posts and making it seem like they were suggestion what you think they were.

It should also be noted that it's pretty obvious quests for skill gain etc. wouldn't work as gaining skills in ultima with the exception of few have nothing to do with "normal gameplay".

 

[Duskofdead]

I'm talking about quests there moreso to equip a player and/or assist them with items. Todays new players are all about and 100% used to games where they have the ability to partake in some sort of system that may reward them with their next sword or gloves. For a new player there is little to nothing but grinding for ONE thing in the game to next equip yourself better; Gold. Which in Ultima unlike EVERY OTHER mmorpg the gold they're grinding for only results in worthless items from the NPCs. What do they do? They goto the only place to easily find things of quality forsale at multi million prices and look at their bankbox of 28k...

I'm not talking about quests that teach or tell a player to play the game. That's for them to figure out. But good job on clearly overlooking the point of some peoples posts and making it seem like they were suggestion what you think they were.

It should also be noted that it's pretty obvious quests for skill gain etc. wouldn't work as gaining skills in ultima with the exception of few have nothing to do with "normal gameplay".

I agree that's definitely a problem. But we have to bear in mind some of that problem is SO MANY endgame-topheavy accounts still lingering around, rich, full of arties, doing trades in the millions rather than the hundreds or thousands, etc. Buying top-end rare artie gear for their alts even on the rare occasion they are still levelling any...

I'm not sure quests would fix that per se, unless they were handing out rewards similar to arties...which of course would cause an uproar. (I don't think that's a bad idea mind you, I Just think it would be wildly unpopular with all the players who've geared their entire game around farming arties and selling them for millions of gold.)

Gold is definitely the peso of UO. It's worthless in small quantities, yet still hard to farm in the quantities necessary for good things. Again I don't really know what the fix is here short of a restart or opening a new shard... because the prices truly are dictated by people's ability and willingness to pay... and a new player is competing with people who have 7 accounts and have been in game for 11 years hunting idocs, trading and acquiring rares and arties, and want for nothing in the world. Me? I'd love to have one of those statues that spawn regs. I just think they look pretty. I go in some houses and every available tile on the open floor is one of those statues. Gee. I wonder why they cost over a million gold when people are bored enough and rich enough to buy like that...

I agree it'd be nice to have "worthwhile things to do" from beginning to end. I think the reward part gets tricky though. In games like WOW you do all the quests and put up with the 99% worthless rewards because they help you level. Levelling isn't an issue really in UO, unless they assigned accelerated skillgain status to various quests (above 50.) And even then, if the rewards aren't good, you're talking about people just grabbing a quest, working the accelerated skillgain, and dumping the quest. Yet, make the rewards worthwhile, and allt he people who've sunk millions of gold on equivalent things before will scream.

Dunno what the solution is. I do though think that new players' best bet is older players willing to help. And while UO has more of that than other games, it still is a bit shameful how few stop to talk to a young player when you knwo they're not doing anything more important than going back to farm an artie or afk at Luna.

 

[Maplestone]

I think the solution is that we need to make sure the mid-game is fulfilling ... that one doesn't *need* a maxed out character in terms of items or skills in order to enjoy the game. I realize that this is a much more difficult task in PvP but even in PvM there is a temptation to rush people to the end.

One of the things I really liked about the blackrock mechanic was that it worked across all levels of play - whether you were infecting mongbats or peerless, you had the choice to take one a little more risk, taking whatever you were hunting and making it a touch tougher.

Personally I think there would be a lot of fun in having a series of quests like the one to gain entry to the library (but with better directions to those who don't know where to find random NPCs and spawns across the entire world), that then unlocked BoD-style systems of collectable quests. Build a system like this centered around each skill and not only would it nicely follow-on from the New Haven quests and adds a little non-intrusive backstory to each system, but you would have nice paths that new players could follow to specialize in.

 

[Duskofdead]

Very good point, Maplestone. What most if not all MMO's are getting wrong is they add a linear progression to itemization, skills, levels, and difficulty curve (at least in PvM), but everything that is most worthwhile is at the end. Whether you're talking about loot dropped, fame gained, gold earned per hour, chance of really good rewards, virtue increases... anything.

What happens when you work with the linear progression model and just keep adding to it... is that you gut, ultimately, the whole game except for whatever's crowded in at the end. Releasing great new superior gear is cool... except that it makes everything before it obsolete. Tougher, more dangerous than ever monsters, hooray. Now you will never see anyone killing lizardmen in the swamp. Few to no one will plan a build around having 60 points in this and 40 in that, unless they're doing it for RP purposes or just to fill leftover points. Because with 100 and 120 being so much more effective, there's almost no reason to do anything but 5x Legendary or 4xLegendary 2xGm or whatever.

In a way I miss the days before skill/stat locking, because then there was far less obsession with min maxing your skillset. It was impossible, or nearly so, to keep certain skills maxed at all times. So no one ran around bothering to stay perfectly 7xGM , not that it was easily possible. You certainly saw a lot more creative skill templates and mixtures back then.. though I realize it was at times quite inconvenient.

Unfortunately when you do choose linear progression as a design mindset... I'm not really sure how to get away from the fact that people aren't going to "choose" to spend more time at a less-than-optimized point than they minimally have to. I think something like WOW's concept of soulbinding would have to go a step further.... possibly adding a time component to the item. Let's say for instance, you must have had minimum of 80 strength for one month to wear this item. Or you must have had a minimum of 90 archery for one month to use this bow. Whereas for weaker items there would be correspondingly much lower requirements and thus there'd be demand for various levels of gear throughout the course of time, on every character. No macroing to 120 and then just slipping on some arties your main paid millions for, which seems par for course at the moment.

I've always liked the idea (failing no linear itemization, which would be my #1 preference) of capping the number or quality level of gear mods you can wear at once. Like let's say you have 200 "equipment points", universally all characters have this. A helm which adds +15 to every resist would have some value attached to those resists... say 35 equipment points. So you could still mix and match gear, but simply gallopping around in the best possible everything wouldn't be possible.

This seems to all be off topic from enhancing the new player experience, my bad. I think perhaps some kind of small bonus to people who log x hours in a volunteer councilling capacity... (no mod or GM powers of any kind, but advice on builds, skills, how to raise things, what templates are good for what, where to find the supplies or equipment you need for certain skills) getting some small bonus, a subscription discount or minor deco items, would be great.

 

[Harlequin]

This seems to all be off topic from enhancing the new player experience, my bad. I think perhaps some kind of small bonus to people who log x hours in a volunteer councilling capacity... (no mod or GM powers of any kind, but advice on builds, skills, how to raise things, what templates are good for what, where to find the supplies or equipment you need for certain skills) getting some small bonus, a subscription discount or minor deco items, would be great.

When the volunteer programs were active, they used to get free game time if they logged a certain number of hours. It's a pretty nice gesture.

However, due to issues like lawsuits/timezone/availability, I think that an automated system like a helper sprite is better able to reach out to the new/returning players.

Not in a quest like kind of way, but area triggered - ie

1) it'll say something about guardzones (and how to call guards) and shops when you are in town
2) something else when you are near the bank (such as what you bank box does, how to access your bank, creating a bank macro etc)
3) info pertaining to vendors when in shops
4) info on bods or runics when accessing a crating menu
5) dungeon stuff when in a dungeon

Etc, just short generic stuff like how to use potions and spells to allow you to see. With hyperlinks to the articles in the codex.

Continually updating the codex will take a bit of effort, but perhaps they can involve the players to update/send in articles. The devs can proof read and select the articles required. With credits to the authors in the codex if their articles are chosen. Maybe throw in 1 month's worth of free game time to sweeten the deal.

 

[Harlequin]

Oh, and booths around the banks for guild recruitment too!

If they are looking for recruits, guild masters registers their guild name and their guild's mission charter in the booth.

Players looking for a guild to join can go to the booth and scroll through the list of guilds recruiting, see which guild's mission statement suits them best and petition to join.

Guildmasters when they login, will receive a message to inform them if someone has petitioned. They can then go to the booth to see if the recruit is still online (like what you see in the currect guild roster) and message him in game to meet up for an interview. From there on, approve/reject the recruit as per normal.

Just an idea in the rough, need to ensure that it can't be exploited. Also, if the guildmaster can't be online all the time, the emisarries can also do the job.

It really helps to have real life people to play with and guide you when you are a newbie.

 

[Harlequin]

The angle I am looking from regarding "Enhancing New Player Experience" is not:

"There aren't many new players, so it's not going to be useful"

But rather, this:

"What if there are? How do we make this an enjoyable experience for them and keep these players?"

Not sure if that makes sense...

 

[Valentina]

I think the best way to improve the new player experience is first by discerning the holes in it. And the two biggest holes, I think, are first that new players graduate from the auspices of new haven with no more than 50% of each skill they have trained, and the fact that UO has extended infinitely beyond learning how to train skills and collecting gold from escort quests. Taken together, these holes ensure that new players will stay in the game for a week, but it is an act of faith to believe they will stay in the game for a month. If we want to establish longevity, if we want to make new players into old players, we must plug these holes.

I don't think that better rewards for new player quests are going to help. First, if the rewards are good enough, one runs the risk of scurrilous vets creating new chars over and over and farming the rewards. Second, the new players don't seem terribly troubled by the rewards. I've been apprenticing a new player recently, and he gets very excited over recieving newbie blessed items in quests. Frankly, true newbies havn't been around long enough to know these items' attributes are nothing spectacular, and they're not yet strong enough to go up against enemies with whom it'd matter. Thus, there needs top be a transitional series of quests, perhaps taking place in other cities throughout sosaria. If I remember correctly, years ago your starting skills determined the city you started in. Perhaps the designers could introduce a secondary newbie system, kind of like uo high school, where new players move on to a city appropriate to their skills after new haven, but are still bound to that city by quests which will help them gain to 75. These quests could be comprehensive, in order to teach how skills compliment each other and other aspects beyond direct gain. For example, lets say a new player starts a basic mage in new haven. Pyranno, who i think is the career guide in the new haven magery school, sends them along to moonglow once they have finished the basics of magery, eval, and the like. When they get to moonglow, another mage greets them and offers them a choice: do they want to train up inscription to make the magery more effective, or would they rather add another skill that is also intelligence dependent? They make the choice, and the npc gives them a quest. So lets say they choose inscription. The NPC then sends them on a quest to X dungeon, maybe a crypt or something, where they have to fight their way to a chest containing a scrolls commodity deed that will only open for the new player quester. This quest can be repeated for as long as the player is under the tutiledge of the inntermediary instructor, supplying them with scrolls and placing them where they can continue training magery up to 75. Thus, they continue training, learn about complimentary skills and stats, and even incorporate a lesson about commodity deeds (which my apprentice didnt know about until yesterday.

This is just one example of how an intermediary newbie quest could work. There are endless possibilities and combinations for every template. I'm sure it would take enormous planning and programming, far beyond my own capabilities, but that's why I'm paying ea/mythic instead of them paying me, lol.


So what about the rest of training, and what about all the esoteric stuff bey ond just templates and skill gains? The idea of placing a book with links to more info in the new player backpack is a great one, but lets do more than that. When i first started, years ago, I didnt wanna read about UO, I wanted to play it. So maybe, after intermediate training, there could be an apprenticeship system. Vet players who meet a minimum account age could sign up to be paired with a new player, one-on one, and agree to spend a determined minimum playing with the new player. In the case of fighters and mages, the vet could accompany the new player in dungeons and hunts, guiding them and protecting them and answering their questions in real time. In the case of crafters, the vet could join the apprentice in crafting and resource gathering. Of course, this wouldnt simply be an act of charity. I propose that the vet would reap certain rewards. In the case of fighters, perhaps the vet could enjoy an increased chance of getting an arty in anti virtue dungeons, or have a chance to get one based on the apprentices skills and kills. Or perhaps there could be another community collection, in which the vet recieves points for kills made in his presence that can be redeemed for items. In the case of crafters, perhaps a certain percentage of the resources the apprentice gathers could be duplicated to the vet, or while crafting the vet could enjoy an increased chance of exceptional outcome in the presence of the apprentice. Thus, the apprentice would learn all sorts of interesting things in the presencce of the vet, including comfort in meeting people in-game, and the vet would still reap rewards beyond a warm snuggly feeling for doing good. Again, the possibilities are endless, and I think these sorts of systems would avoid economic imbalance or item flood.


Okay, that's my two cents, or actually my three dollars. Dont get me wrong, i'm not some wierdo who has nothing better to do that write dissertations on welcoming new players into a reality that isnt real; in another post, I wrote about how boring it is to train inscription; this lengthy tome helped to break the monotony.


rage

That is an excelent idea, and I agree copletely. Speaking AS a (for all intents and purposses) new player, I find that compared to other games UO's starting structure tends to leave players out in the cold. Once you have completed the new player quests, and perhaps trained your skills up higher on your own initiative (not that any of the NPCs explain how to do that effectively), there's nothing and no one to tell you "what next". Where do you go, and what do you do after you're done with New Haven? How, essentially, does the rest of the game work, and what do you have to do to play it beyond running around randomly killing monsters in the wilderness? Other games I have played, like World of Warcraft and City of Heroes, have very effective setups for easing new players into the game's quests-structure, and introducing them to its geograhy and plotlines. UO just drops you in Sosaria and says "go find something to do" without giving you any idea of where to look.

The starter quests need to tie into other quests, elements of the seting, and dungeons. Also, the existing quests, I find, could use a bit of a re-work of their text to amke them more user friendly - the NPCs have a bad habit of sending you to go kill X number of some obscure monster you've never heard of (if you're new) but not telling you where to FIND said monster. This means you ahve 3 options: go look up things on third-party websites, and sometimes even then ahve difficult following the directions which are unclear becuase thye assume everyone already knows certain basics about the area... which most players in general dont do, and shouldnt have to; OR ask someone else for help... except that if you're new then you dont KNOW anyone to ask for help; OR 3 give up in disgust.

Essentially, because of its age, UO has a very, very steep learning curve, not in terms of its basic mechanics (although thats true too) but in terms of actually being able to play it. That curve needs to be flattened out to attract new players.

And yes, there ARE new players. I know becuase I'm one of them (technically I played for about a month 7 years ago, but I'm still a big noob, and it wasn't nostalgia that made me buy a subscription when KR was released). THere might be MORE new players if the game were a little more accessible. As long as the attitude is taken that there's no sense accomodating noobs because the game will never attract any new players, it wont. Sort of a self-fullfilling prophecy. But games that dont grow, tend to shrink, and I don't think this community can stand much more shrinkage.

 

[Gladius]

A long time ago i landed in a place called new Haven.

It was a week before I found out I could buy a horse..

It took about two more weeks for me to find out I could go to other places using a runebook.

I was new and was afraid to ask questions. I simply went by day after day trying to kill Dreglor the Impaler.

Until a good soul showed me the way and gave me a runebook and showed me the place where the gate was located.

Sad state of events huh? But that's my story,nobody really cares for you at the start including the one's who responds on the HELP buttons.

-G-

-G-

 

[MikevonHammer]

I miss being a smurf. I was Tarl on Great Lakes for nearly 6 months, up until the program ended due to issues raised by a former smurf and it's lawyer.

It was fun helping people, it was frustrating not being able to help people as well.
For calls like "My stuff vanished" or "How long till my counts go away" to hosting a wedding [I did 1]

 

[vinque]

I think there have been some great replies here. I think others have come up with great stuff for helping the new player "getting started" (better than anything I could suggest), but I really want to emphasize what has already been said about needing a "UO High School" or something similar to help not only new players but returning players. As a returning player starting a new account I was able to get started pretty quickly because I "knew what to do". However, after raising my skills up and acquiring a decent amount of gold (for a new player or new character a couple hundred k of gold would be my definition of decent) I found it discouraging that I could not buy the "next tier" of equipment I needed. NO ONE sells GM or what I would call GM+ equipment (others would probably call this trash equipment created with runics) anymore. So a new player has a problem when they get to the point of wanting to take on more challenging creatures but don't have the equipment to do so. It becomes a catch 22 (if I could fight better creatures I could get the loot I need to fight better creatures). The most obvious solution a non-creative person like myself could come up with is have some quests to get "mid-grade" equipment. Of course, I would love to see vendors sell this stuff *pauses to look back foundly on the days when there were tons of venders selling this stuff and you could try to bargain shop* but that's a pipe dream. Anyhow, just my two cents.

 

[Maplestone]

NO ONE sells GM or what I would call GM+ equipment (others would probably call this trash equipment created with runics) anymore.

I always keep a couple of suits of GM spined leather with 70 physical resist on my vendor just for such people.

One problem with low end runic equipment is the difficulty in assembling something that is a recognizable "commodity" so that new players can be told what to look for. I'm hoping that with imbuing it will be possible to offer a wider range of "starter suits".

 

[Elaysia]

1. World Chat

2. In-game Mailing system. Post office for the win!

3. Make UO free up to AOS or even Samurai Empire. This does not include housing, must have a sub to have housing and to get vet rewards. This will fill up the empty lands no one is playing in and has a high possibility of gaining more subs and or buying more items from the UO site.

 

[Miss Smoocher]

when i first started UO 4 years ago i had no clue what i was doing all i knew was i could buy skills and i did 700 points worth in the first 2 hours of play i lost my Young status and the dying started and playing with people who have played for years dont always show you the right things to do. maybe doing something other then letting them buy skills would make them under stand and learn more.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

How to fix UO for new players (and the rest of us, too!)
The Devs, in their devotion to the Random Number Gods, created the most godawful item system in any video game in the history of the world. The item system used to be simple: Armor resisted physical attacks, and the resistance skill resisted magic attacks. There were 5 qualities of armor and weapons, ranging from ruin to vanqs. And only about one out of a few hundred monsters would drop a magic item. The rest just dropped normal armor that you could only sell to vendors, if they dropped an item at all. Most just dropped gold, jewels and regs. Now, if you kill a monster, even veterans need a calculator and a cheat sheet to look up whether the properties on a weapon or armor are any good. Players wear the most godawful combinations of plate, studded, leather, whatever because you can't just make a suit that matches. Crafters have to spend ungodly amounts of time farming BODs just to make one good item. And nothing ever wears out, which means that the vendors are so crammed full of crap that players don't even want to look for stuff anymore.
In the old days, when UO had 300,000 subscribers, you didn't need a calculator to figure out whether a weapon was worth keeping. Warriors needed 95 strength to use plate armor; mages couldn't meditate in heavy armor, so they couldn't wear anything but leather. Thieves couldn't stealth in plate, so they couldn't wear anything above studded. The Devs should:
1. Make Powder of Fort either a really high-end reward, with a charge costing a fortune, or remove it from the game entirely. Items should wear out eventually. And the maximum durability should drop back to about 100 or less.
2. Go back to a simpler system for weapons and armor. Get rid of "mage armor"; mages should be relegated to leather armor that has lower resists, warriors should need heavy armor and magic resist skill to survive against mages, and people should be able to make suits that match and look good. In the old days, lots of mages just wore clothes. All plate armor looked alike. And people wore matching suits of armor. Practically nobody wore robes to cover up those neat clothes that they bought from the GM tailors, or that invulnerability suit that they had worked months to get. Bank sitters would show off their wares for people to buy. UO was FUN. Not some dungeon-and quest-dominated Diablo or WoW clone.
3. Make crafting more fun and less tedious. The BOD system is even more complicated that the godawful mess that we call weapons and armor. And make sure that players can be proud to wear the suits that craftsmen make. The craftsmen aren't out to get rich; they want to have pride in their work. They would sit in Britain smithy for hours on end, repairing armor and making new sets for free, if the player just brought them the materials. Now, it takes forever to get the items necessary to make the one suit that they can craft.
Trammel was great for people to PvM in safety, but there wasn't any incentive to go back to Felucca. Factions started out as a great idea, but the devs kept changing it until it wasn't any fun. And power scrolls were the WORST.IDEA.EVER. They limited players to just 6 skills, instead of the former 7, and the Devs wouldn't increase the skill cap to 840 to allow players to keep that 7th skill. This one is easy to fix. Just raise the skill cap to 840, then make the 120 power scrolls spawn much quicker, so that new players can afford them, or get rid of them entirely and just set all the skill caps to 120 for all players. And re-balance the skills so that people have to choose between being a mage or warrior, or a knight or samurai, or ninja, not some bastardized combination of all of them. Or do the one thing that WoW got right: Make crafting skills separate from battle skills, so that players can have a couple of crafting skills in addition to the skills they need to play in the dungeons.
UO did a lot of things right. We love having a house to display our trophies. We love having Trammel to play PvM and Felucca to play PvP. We love having the freedom to pick up any 7 skills that we want, and that we can change, instead of having a game try to pre-set us to one play style. We love having a world to play in, that isn't just about quests and dungeons.
Get rid of the beginner quests entirely. Just start new players out in their choice of cities with some blessed armor that they can use until they get better armor. Scale item insurance so that it's really cheap for low-grade stuff, and expensive for the super-ultra-uber stuff. Maybe 100 gold for a beginning set of armor, 100,000 for a set of artifacts. Make things easy to understand, like in the old days. Remove the lobotomized NPCs and make them interactive again. Let new players wander around, explore the vast world that is UO and tackle a few ettin before they enter a dungeon. Put some monster spawns back in the forests. It used to be dangerous to wander off the roads for fear of getting attacked. Give veteran players new incentives to help the new players figure stuff out. Re-balance tamers, thieves, warriors, mages, ninjas, samurai, etc. for quality PvP. Maybe set up some arenas and watch them fight, then balance them so that they are all about even.
UO isn't close to dying yet, IF the devs quit sacrificing us players to the Random Number Gods and try to make the game more fun and less tedious grinding, more interactivity and less quests, an armor system that is easy to understand and makes sense, an online world instead of just a big battlefield.

 

[zoop]

I have to say I agree with most of that wall of text.

I wouldn't want crafting skills seperate though. Ive enjoyed my smith being a craftsman and having to navigate dangerous mountains carefully. It gave my character more depth than just being all powerful.

Im not sure how I feel about the powerscrolls; every time I think about it I see new perspectives. I do I mind the ability to stack insane amount of +skill. Combine that with the unfair advantage veteran accounts have (wth EA?) and you have some broken mechanics right there.

...

My wife is sitting next to me playing WoW and I tell her how awesome it was to have people walking around wearing armor with my name on it. I have bags with different sets and different looks, but too many of the enthousiastic stories I can tell my wife about what makes UO rock - are things that are in the past. I was one of the smiths repairing your armor in Brit. I am out of a job - even if I one day get a runic hammer, I will make 15 katanas and retire again.

My tamer looks like total crap wearing a patchwork of different items because the modifiers rule the game.

I think I'm going to sell off all my cloaks with bonuses on them tonight. We are forced into all wearing pyjamas because they have stats and all armor is too ugly. Does that not sound wrong Devs?

It's funny because it seems that they're keeping UO afloat by throwing everything at it that so called "standard mmo's" do. Increased item and mob inflation, more ++, more %%.. all the way slowly chipping away at the core strengths of UO. They are fighting a battle they cannot win - because so many other companies does that better.

UO is still as bug ridden and unpolished as most other games when they go to press. I keep coming back because no other publisher even tried to make a game like this - but damn do I hope someone does. The new player experience is a punishment that only the hardcore survive (or the oblivious).

 

[georgemarvin2001]

Yeah, I don't want crafting skills separate, either. It would be much better to just raise the skill limit to account for power scrolls and make it so that each of the major combat groups has limitations so that mages have a penalty for being necros and mystics, warriors have a penalty for having ninja, etc.; when they removed all those penalties, it forced people to take a lot of extra skills just to be able to compete in PvP and PvM; no room left for crafting skills.

You're right; most of the reasons I would give people to join UO died with the introduction of the new item system. I remember when there were like 2 or 3 of us blacksmiths sitting at Brit smiths most of the time to repair peoples' weapons and armor for tips. They would bring us the materials and we would make them new armor when their old armor wore out; we did it for free because it was a matter of pride to have them wearing armor with our characters' names on it. I had several regular customers who wouldn't buy anybody else's armor but mine, and my vendors did a nice little business selling armor; it kept my warrior from dying of starvation. Back then, crafters and treasure hunters made the gold, and warriors barely made a living. I always did arms lore and item ID on my items; excellently crafted could still vary in quality, so only the best would go on my vendors.

The robes with stats were another very bad idea by some hacks who EA hired to replace the people who had made UO great. I remember way back in like 2002 when they came up with the veteran robes; it was to stop people from complaining about having to wear crappy, mismatched armor; they said that the robes would cover up the ugly armor and give players a bonus to stats. It was sort of a bone for those of us whose mages suddenly couldn't just wear clothes, and had to wear godawful ugly combinations of plate and arties, and us warriors who had to wear a crappy mismatch to replace our shiny valorite plate suits excellently crafted by Zeus, Iron Man, Old Hippy, Hephaestus, etc.

No, they're not keeping UO afloat by making us buy the latest new expansion or face playing at a tactical disadvantage or quitting. The fact is that doing so is just chipping away at their player base. When faced with the prospect of shelling out another $30 or not being able to compete, quite a few veteran players just quit. Some veterans come back to check out the new lands, but they would have come back regardless. EA is following a suicidal strategy. Opening up new areas to explore and giving the veterans who buy the new expansion some non-combat in-game gifts or even a couple of artifacts of their choice, and giving new players a half-dozen advanced character tokens so they can get up to speed quickly would be a great reason to get players to buy an expansion. It would let new players compete while giving the veterans some new content to explore. An expansion of that type would bring back the people who got bored because there wasn't any new content and quit, and bring in some much-needed new players. Instead, EA has gotten the idea that they should use the high-pressure, short-sighted strategy of forcing the whole existing player base to shell out an extra $30 per year on top of the normal fees in order to compete, while doing practically nothing to help new players. It causes veteran players who don't want to shell out the $30 to quit and doesn't give new players a reason to join.

Instead of having the designers work on crappy new clients that nobody wants to use, UO should just do a tiny little bit of work enhancing some existing content and repairing the 2D client. When I came back to UO a few weeks ago to check out SA, I couldn't get the 2D client to download right; I kept getting a fatal error when I tried to install it, so I had to use the SA client for a few days till I managed to get the old one to download right. Personally, I hated it. When I told people I was using it, I got a variety of responses, from "You really like that POS?" to "I pity you", "Well, it takes all kinds, I guess" and "OUCH!!! Just thinking about it makes my eyes bleed!". I did get one positive reaction to it: "Yeah, I use it too, when I'm treasure hunting. Makes it easy to loot the chests. They never thought that some idiot dev would put like 50 pieces of crap in a treasure chest; I couldn't figure out what to loot if I didn't have it. And the zoom's great. The new map's good, too. I can find the nearest healer in no time. It's almost as good as UOAM was. Too bad "enhanced" looks like crap, doesn't have a heal self macro, and I can't get used to the new targeting system." For my part, the fact that I kept downloading the original client over and over again until it finally worked, while grumbling about having to play using that crappy "enhanced" client says it all. I have a dual core processor and 1 gb graphics card, so the enhanced client runs smoothly; it's just not very well designed.

I can see why the T-hunter uses Enhanced; I have been using it for T-hunts, too. My Treasure hunter does a lot of level 6 chests. He starts in 2D until he decodes the map and figures out where to go, because somebody forgot to give us a way to close the maps in Enhanced and I don't want to have to read the map, then log out then back in to get the dang thing to close. I stay in 2D until the chest pops up, then go to 3D so I can use the map find the nearest healer; the ancient wyrm means instant death. I used to have all the healers' approximate locations marked on UO Automap, but I can't get it to work anymore. I switch back to 2D to kill everything except the ancient wyrm; I have to just lure those away. No way to kill them anymore; they've been bumped up so that no amount of EVs seems to work, and they target me as soon as they appear on the screen. I go back to the chest, invis and switch back to 3D to look at all the loot; I pull the gold and 2 or 3 items that aren't worthless, then switch back to 2D to kill whatever monsters that have spawned and destroy the chest. It's a real pain in the @$$ to keep switching, but it does fix the problems of figuring out what to loot and finding a healer. On the small islands that don't have healers, I just have to use the "help" command to go to town then recall to my boat and go back ashore to finish the chest, since there isn't a healer on the island and it's pretty much one guaranteed death when the monsters spawn.

They should just think about updating the old UO Auto Map for the 2d client and getting rid of all that crap in treasure chests, replacing it with maybe 1 to 6 high-intensity items depending on the level of the chest, putting wandering healers back on the couple of islands that don't have them and have like a half-dozen level 6 maps each, putting some new high-end monsters into the older dungeons, putting in an auction house, putting in an arena like WoW has, except make it 1 on 1, cutting down on monster loot so that we get maybe 1 item to drop per 10 monsters, with its intensity scaled according to the level of the monster, instead of like 5 to 50 items per monster, make crafting a matter of pride again, and pretty much level the playing field so that new players can enjoy the game again. Until they do all of that, new players will be a rarity in UO.

 

[GWAR_LS]

Wow I agree on alot but do I really want to play a game with 3rd party programs. I mean really isnt that what the old smiths was about PRIDE. Well not many of thease fools who play have that anymore. UO has been dieing cause not only did they take the whole danger of playing out, but people cheat. Cheat call it what u wont it its going on in UO. I dont care if they are just spamming in luna, some people are doing worse. Nothing really being done cause they cant. U know what I was that warrior that was busting my balls to make mine. Started long time ago, man I was the guy who u repaired my ****. U know what I did when Pks where running my spots. I would go get leather and work my tailor or mage.
Dude it dont matter what they do to UO but its guna take more than just mondifieing this **** 2d. Too many people act like its just the **** but hey I dont see alot being wrong with the new cleint except the targetting and some bugs. Not that its perfect man but maybe you are in the wrong game. This game is being upgraded man u either go with the flow or you just become old and look like some 92 year old. I dont know about you but its a game u need the challenge or its not fun. I dont know If u pvp or just do treasure maps but I think u got to live like your dieing.

 

[Disease2]

I started playing UO in 97 on catskills on dialup and there was no one to help me other than other players and using my noggin to work things out.

I remember logging in for the first time grabing my apprentice sword and getting killed by a jack rabbit.

I remember saving up half of the 30k odd with some guy I met and adventured with to purchase my first small house (it took ages by the way back then). I then placed the house at the Brit Crossroads, PK Central, no trammel back then. I remember running to my house and trying to get in only to realise that a theif had stolen my door key out of my backpack, which got me promptly killed buy a band of PK's.

I remember the pride I had after getting to GM Swordsman Anatomy and Tactics, that was back when GM actually meant something and macroing would get you banned very quickly.

That was what attracted me to this game, the real sense of fear. The fear of dying and then watching another player picking through your corpse, the fear of not knowing if the monster over there will insta kill you, unlike most games now which use a con system.

I then sold my accounts and left UO just after trammel was made. I came back just before AOS and made a new account on Europa, stayed for a while and then left for other things. I have comeback again about 3 weeks ago and started playing, no matter how many times I leave it's uniqeness pulls me back.

How to bring players back and new ones in? Thats the million dollar question, and not an easy one as you can not go back to the golden days of one facet, I liked the idea of offering UO for free up to AOS but in order to place a house you need to sub, that is a great Idea to pull people in.

1.Stop cheats
2.Stop Macroing make it mean something to reach the highest levels again, the only skill that comes close to replicating this is Animal Taming.
3. Bring back the sense of fear
4. Find some way to free up housing because judging by the amount of houses on Europa there must be thousands and thousands of people still playing on that shard, or just 50 people with 300 accounts each.

 

[BlackMagus]

3. Bring back the sense of fear

Amen.

I also recently returned after a 9 year leave of absence. Sad thing, I thought I'd relocate my char in development to Felucca to raise the game stakes - only to find that even on Atlantic Felucca is practically dead.

I say: re-implement anti-macro code, remove blessing/insurance, convert all facets to Felucca ruleset, enjoy UO as it was meant to be.

 

[wanderer1origin]

obivious you should be knowledgeable
after not playing for nine years on what gfame needs

can u even log in

 

[BlackMagus]

Contrary to most here I can actually comment as a person who has lived the new player experience in the 90s, as well as very recently.

This qualifies me to compare the two experiences.

I also read this forum for long enough to see a troll for what it's worth... but what's UO without the trolls.

 

[Disease2]

I also read this forum for long enough to see a troll for what it's worth... but what's UO without the trolls.

Hhehe. so true.

 

[Llewen]

The day UO:Ren went live, OSI suck a knife in the chest of UO, and cut out its heart...and left it to slowly bleed to death.

That was a long time ago now, and it is time to get over it. UO "is what it is". It's a terrific game, and has an incredible depth of game play. I'm not saying Trammel was a good idea, all I'm saying is, it happened, it's not going to unhappen, and it's time to either accept the game as you find it, or move on.

I'm also not saying that suggestions aren't a good thing, or discussions such as the one being had here. But ten years of harping on something that is never going to change isn't helpful. If you want the old UO experience, there is at least one game out there that offers it, and more are in the works.

 

[Skylocke]

Well, I just lost my entire post I was writing which was like a billion words long, so I am going to just retype a summary of my main points.

As a person who has played when UO first came out, and someone who just came back to the game, here are my thoughts and suggestions regarding UO's current state:

1.) The economy is whack. New players, such as myself now, can not compete nor get established when even very simple items cost thousands if not millions of gold and it takes us forever to make even 20k.

2.) Too many fragmented land-masses across shards. We have Tram, Fel, the T2A lands, Ilsh, Malas, Tokuno, and now Ter-Mur and whatever else I am forgetting. I suggest a World of Warcraft style Cataclysm and mash some of these together to create new worlds done right. No more of this endless urban sprawl of player housing. Limit it to around the major cities. I don't want a large series of cluttered landmasses that I can run across in 7 minutes. I want a big open world to play in.

3.) I like the diablo-esque feel of the item system. However, I hate the fact that to get good items, you are forced to wear a hodgepodge of mismatched crap. It looks ugly. Fix this!

Further on items, I hate the fact that mages can be as physically resilient to damage as a warrior. I also hate that warriors must delegate themselves to the magical arts to even be remotely competitive. My suggestion on this would be to implement property caps based on skill templates. For example, make resistances caps based off of tactics (or whatever skill deemed appropriate) so that at GM the cap for your resistances is 60, 70 at 120, and like 20 or 30 at 0. No more uber damage-sponge mages. Similarly, make caps for all other properties based off of skills or skill combinations. This makes mages feel like mages, warriors feel like warriors, and so forth.

4.) The environmental graphics on the enhanced client rock. I love the look of the lands and the water compared to the old 2d tiles (not that I dont like the 2d tiles, but still). My gripe is with items and character models. They blur too much with the background, often making them indistinguishable and hard to see. My suggestiong is either sharpening up the graphics to make characters and items pop a bit more, or implement a togglable feature that allows outlines or a glowing effect around items and characters, somewhat like the all-names feature where you can just press a couple buttons and things light up so you can see them.

Love the interface. Making self-heal macros and spell casting macros is a snap. Only trouble I have is manually selecting certain targets. Some monsters are very difficult to click on or select. This has caused numerous problems with silver serpents in the Tomb of Kings.

5.) There should be a veteran-rewards style system for guilds. Guilds that have been established a certain period of time should get to select from some special guild-only items, like something that dispenses bandages or reags or repairs equipment. This helps out newer players who join to have some resources to use (very difficult to obtain these when new!), as well as promotes and rewards the single main reason people continue to play UO: community.

6.) Useless skills need to be revamped or removed entirely. Camping and shepherding have been useless when I first played, and as far as I know, still are useless. It's a shame because I like making fires out of kindling.

On that note, food should play a larger role. If your character is starving, he should be losing stamina over time and be operating at a decreased capacity (perhaps his hci/dci/skills etc lower a bit over time) until food is consumed. This would make cooking a better skill and add more depth to the game. Animals need to eat, why don't we?!

7.) Seriously, urban sprawl is a big ugly problem (just not to those who have big houses and are rich).

8.) My main suggestion overall, which I would love to see more than any other, is a more complex, and in-depth virtue system.

As it stands now, the virtue system is a tiny little add-on that seems fairly useless and has no real impact on the game. I hate that. I loved Ultima 4 because you needed to utilize the virtues in meaningful ways. I was disappointed to find that UO only had the virtues as background ideology.

Your interactions with NPCs, quests, monsters, other players, etc should all have some sort of latent effect on your virtues. Giving to the poor increases humility, robbing from them decreases it. Killing monsters raises valor (the stronger the monster, the higher the valor gain), etc. Having your virtues at certain levels should impact how NPCs interact with you (I miss this simple feature that used to be based on karma), how certain monsters behave around you, maybe even effects your skills/stats or property caps.

Adding on to this, being a follower of the anti-virtues should all have the same rewards/drawbacks, just impacting different monsters, NPCs, skills/stats or property caps.

This would make the UO world far more engaging, add needed depth, and create for a play experience that gives the player the feeling of actual consequence to his actions. On the path that UO is on now, it is more and more turning into a WoW/Diablo hybrid clone. Bringing back what makes the Ultima world so unique and engaging, the virtues, would certainly bring old players back, bring in new players, and keep existing players engaged.

9.) More readable in-game books. Also, I want easier to get full bookshelves. Having a library of empty book shelves sucks.

The end.

 

[Tukaram]

I have a few newbie experiences. So I want to compare them:

1st
I started playing the first time in 97. No kind of newbie experience at all. My son and I both lived under a bridge because we didn't know about logging out at an inn. Bank? We have a bank?? Not a welcoming game by stretch of the imagination. We didn't stay long. (Unfortunate really)

2nd
I came back for LBR. Again no real help. My son and I finally got enough money to chip in together for a boat. During the trade, while trying to gather our funds, the gold hit the ground. For about 1/1,000,000th of a second. Whoever picked it up never admitted it but everyone else at the Haven bank was very upset. Two different people offered to replace the gold. And they taught us what a check was, and how to use a trade window. There's a couple good ideas the game should mention! We only accepted money from one, but let the other give us some armor. The older players have always been better than anything the Devs ever put in for newbies! (and unfortunately the worst thing for newbies too)

** The only decent newbie experience I've seen was in old Haven during the Paladin newbie quest. That old man in the big house was immensely helpful. They wouldn't even let you out of the basement until you killed the one mongbat in there (you already learned how to target and what war mode is). He tells you where the bank is. How to tithe (something very handy for a Paladin to know) Gives you a check and tells you how to cash it. Lots of very good lessons a real new player would need to know. (I wasn't a new player at the time but enjoyed the experience and wished I had one similar when I started). Haven was a very nice looking, well laid out town. Skill training was more logical too. You start in town and work your way out almost in skill building order. Around town you get Headless/Mongbats, then the graveyard, then Lizardmen, then Boglings/Ettins. Now you are ready to go travelling around the gates.

So I quit when they killed 3D and just came back last month.

3rd
On my trial account I did the newbie stuff in the new Haven and I'm glad I already knew the game. You gathered all the skill trainers together but no real game training. I didn't have to figure out targeting or game mechanics since I've already played. Which is good because nothing taught there would have really helped. The quest system might be called vague, if I was in a polite mood. The quest givers are no real help. For a newbie quest you need to tell them not just what to hunt but at least some idea of where to hunt. How to interact with NPC's, how to use the bank, log out safely, so much needs to covered. Most of which was done in Haven.

The old quest system has a better interface than the new one. (matriarch, hag etc - also these are more involved and more fun than the new ones). Old Haven just looks like a ghetto now. New Haven isn't much better. The buildings are in better shape but the town has absolutely no flow to it. Not a very welcoming sight, or site, for new players.


1. Tell them what and where the bank is. Give them checks and teach them how to cash them.

2. Teach them how to give money to NPC's to train skills.

3. Change how Young Status ends. Currently I believe it is 40 hours of game time and more than 450 points. So that means I can make warrior, play him a few days and lose young status for the whole account. Now I make a mage and can't leave town because everything attacks immediately. I think each character should individually have young status according the rules we have now. And the entire account could lose it after a predetermined time if you wish. Two weeks, four weeks, whatever.

4. It wouldn't hurt to at least mention the armor system and how it works. I was around when AOS hit and worked with it for quite some time; it is not a user friendly system. For a newbie it would be complicated if you explained it, but since you don't it is virtually impossible to figure out on your own.

5. A small dungeon near Haven would be good. You know, like the one the old man sent you to in the Paladin quest? The Brit sewers are very good, but a bit far away for a new player. (Put in a gate? Or a Haven entrance?)

6. Find a way to get new players into the EC. It really has so many features going for it. But too many existing players will tell them to use 2D, I know. In all honesty the only problem I have in EC is that I run too fast sometimes. I am going for a door and miss it. (Like driving my Toyota! )

7. Give some instructions on the new macro system. It is very difficult to learn, and is not an intuitive interface. It is a very good, powerful, flexible macro system, just not newbie friendly.

8. To really help the new player experience you need to bring out the files for the old Paladin quests and use them as a guide for all the other character types. And forget about any supposed story arc and fix Haven. Either restore the well laid out, pleasant, welcoming town or rebuild the new one into a 'town' not just a random collection of buildings.

 

[Llewen]

6. Find a way to get new players into the EC. It really has so many features going for it. But too many existing players will tell them to use 2D, I know.

/signed

The old players are used to the 2D client, and changing clients in a complicated game like UO isn't easy. But the EC is a better client in my opinion. It is a better client, and you don't have to pay an extra $15 to a third party to get reasonable functionality. The EC is even a better client than the 2D client with UOA. I've used both clients now for extended periods of time, the EC for a few months, and the 2D client for at least six years, and at this point if I was forced to go back to the 2D client, I would consider quitting outright, the EC is that much better in my opinion. There are problems with the EC that I wish they would fix, but even as flawed as it is, it is light years ahead of the 2D client in almost every way imaginable.

Overall a well thought out, intelligent post, with a lot of good ideas.

 

[Trevelyan]

Unless you release it in a box, I would say that the EC isnt good to suggest to new players.

What needs to be worked on is integrating a new player into the game by teaching them about the game in a relevant and up-to-date way. They need some time alone BEFORE they are plonked into the world at the mercy of other players and their guilds. A player will not be able to tell the difference between one neon robed guy ("sir helper") and another neon robed player (guild recruiter). I just feel that players are dumped into the world with no help whatsoever.

Bring back a newbie-only area, even if only an instanced area with a quest. There needs to be a way for new players to get to grips with the basics and player-made websites and other helpers that are just players are just an unacceptable way to introduce players to the game. You cant rely on paying customers to introduce other paying customers to the service.

I think that it could be an idea to make a big push to bring players back (maybe this is already in the works). As a part of this, recruitment could be done for players to act as mentors, aka, companions. Returning to old haven for new players would be great, and for new players only (and companions). This would be only accessible to new players for the duration of their characters youth and wouldnt need any explanation to integrate itself with the rest of the game because, well, its just for new players.

Focusing on a good new player experience shows commitment to growth and just generally looks good. Plus im sure many people would love to help in a more official capacity.