JEREMY: What I've been missing at the Town Hall

[hawkeye_pike]

Apart from announcing a lot of new exciting stuff, I noticed that the focus of the Town Hall dialogues, discussions and suggestions were a bit one-sided. Let me explain:

I guess 100% of those people who asked questions or asked for changes are experienced veteran players like myself. To my opinion, our view of UO is very important, as we know the game mechanics very well, and we know all the flaws.

However, it struck me that our view is kind of narrowed, as is the view of anybody who does the same thing for a very long time. All our questions and concerns are about items, BODs, house tiles, flying mounts, vet rewards etc. - basically stuff that is only interesting for veteran players. Of course, these things are important and need to be addressed.

BUT, what this game needs most, are NEW PLAYERS. To new players, completely different things are important. (Like functional quests that lead them through the interesting places of Britannia. Simple ways of accessing the complexity of this game and learning its features. Etc.) I haven't heard anything at the Q&A that concerns new players.

I now wonder, how the DEV team will make sure that UO will be more fun for new players, and how they plan on making new players join UO. Or do they just care about making us veterans happy???

Currently, the communities are shrinking more and more and many veteran players rather care about items than communities. If this doesn't change, the game cannot succeed, no matter how many expansions, new items and new features you will add. As you said by yourself: You cannot prevent that people are grinding through the new stuff quite fast.

Jeremy, can you please make a statement about whether you are aware of this problem? What is your point of view?

 

[MalagAste]

I believe it is very difficult to balance making vets happy with helping the new. New Haven was a good start at helping the new.... However it is LARGELY unfinished!... There are a GREAT many skills still not really covered nor addressed in New Haven... and New Haven will not SOLVE all new player needs... They need a reference to access that is up to date and accurate... unfortunately there IS NO such reference..... Stratics and even the new player guide on UO's own website are DATED.... UOGuide helps some but even that is not 100% up to date. New players need what I had when I started .... a BOOK... I bought the UO:R and it came with a fair sized guide book of sorts. Not some tiny little 4 or 6 page little guide that pretty much just says how to walk and talk.... NO it had a REAL guide.... talked about all sorts of things. Also Prima used to put out a big fat book that you could get that had LOADS of useful information... from what vendors sold what to maps of EACH and EVERY town... that would say this is a butcher a baker or a mage shop.... here is where a stable is.... This Vendor buys these things and sells that.... Age of Shadows and LBR both had such guides published... I think what SA needs is EXACTLY that sort of guidebook... With Maps and a hands on book that can guide a new player much better than any one website... would be nice if it also helped direct players to useful forums such as this one and UOForums as well as the UO players guide at UOdotCom and another helpful website like UOGuide. All these things would help to bring in new players.... I think a lot of people are overwhelmed at the shear scope of the game...

Another thing that wouldn't hurt marketing wise would be to stress the difference between UO and so many of the other games... UO allows FAR more player customization and encourages players to use their imaginations FAR more than any other game.... the creativity that UO allows you to express is so very vast that no other MMO even compares. The only limits to the game are the players own imagination and perceived ideas. Many folk "think" they have done it all... when infact they have barely scratched the surface... There are tons of things in this game that in the eight years I have played I have yet to experiance... Skills I have yet to grandmaster, areas yet untraveled or left underexplored... I know there are times when I am traveling about that I stop and go..."Hum????? That's odd... Has that always been there???? I've never noticed that was here."...