Making money to support UO ideas.

[mihali]

Just some ideas at the risk of being at least a little bit off target:
Yes : ** Things that are done already are what is in the in-game uo store, like deco items, pet costumes, soul stones, some luck potions and items not affecting power creep much and overall game balance - agreed, and nice for profit somewhat.
No: ** Power scrolls or PS, in-game legendaries, and Cameos etc. - agreed.
Consider: ** Several new items to add, by looking at the present-day game and interests of players, and assuming the programming power is still there:
==> Looking at the pets in the ATL stable Luna, at the ruined pets and rare pets that are ruined by poor training, also new interest in taming and the sizeable taming community:
>> Pet Respec Scroll / Potion worth 1000-2000 SOV : To allow the tamer to respec certain things only such as STR / Some stats and some resists as long as correct points are allocated. This may be a clear winner, judging from the amount of ruined pets, and ruined legacy pets. Will not affect power creep and will not affect inflation, imo.
>> Pet alacrity Potions/Scrolls : Will help speed up the training process, make it specific for only healing and Chiv or other magics, cost 200-400 SOV.
>> This maybe a real winner also : Consider making available for sale the pet "perfume" clicky to change color of SOME pets for a price also. Have you ever seen a red colored Triton? or Bright green? Again for certain pets maybe. Purely a vanity item and gold sink. $400-600 SOV.
>> This may be a no-no and change some game dynamics but : Yes Pet Saddle for a price to apply to non-rideable pets some at least, like Triton, Ram, non-rideable beetles, and not for any rideable pets including Cus. $1000-$2000 SOV. Would not change power creep or inflation much imo.

I hope I'm not opening a Pandora's Box, and I could be wrong, but any other ideas replies/thoughts appreciated, also any additional new money making ideas to keep UO alive and the game with more shine at the same time.
For those that have log-in to the main UO forum, feel free to copy and paste it there if you wish also.

Ty in advance for looking at the post.

 

[Anon McDougle]

Any and everything that RMT sell should be sold cheaper in the uo store

 

[Wilma]

I like the idea of scrolls of transcendence for pets.

 

[Pawain]

They intended to have saddles and saddle bags for pets for the pet revamp, but time slipped away and they did not have the artist. So those should be obtainable in game.

I do not think they want a pet coloring method.

They said they will not let us re roll pets many times.

Some of those messed up pets you refer to are at caps in a category. So adding str is not an option without other modifications.

They really could re roll a pet and give us scrolls back. Most pets could be medium intensity and be fine to start again. But they would have too many complaints if the pet rerolled lower. So they are not going to do it.

Any new pet modifications would be appreciated by me.

 

[Ungoliant]

As someone who has the time and patience to grind out a 120 healing or 120 chivalry on a pet, I would not be keen on seeing anything that would speed up the process for those who do not have the time nor the patience to achieve this goal. It is a small market already for completely finished pets. .. Just my 2 cents.

Perhaps a mechanism could be put in place to safely and securely have another player train pets for the owner. Possibly similar in some form to the vendor contracts.

 

[Merlin]

As someone who has the time and patience to grind out a 120 healing or 120 chivalry on a pet, I would not be keen on seeing anything that would speed up the process for those who do not have the time nor the patience to achieve this goal. It is a small market already for completely finished pets. .. Just my 2 cents.

Perhaps a mechanism could be put in place to safely and securely have another player train pets for the owner. Possibly similar in some form to the vendor contracts.

I love this idea. I would very gladly pay for a safe way for other pet trainers to help me finish skill some pets.

 

[gwen]

Any and everything that RMT sell should be sold cheaper in the uo store

Most of stuff RMT are selling is widely available in game. Or on vendors , or on AUC safes.

 

[gwen]

>> Pet alacrity Potions/Scrolls : Will help speed up the training process, make it specific for only healing and Chiv or other magics, cost 200-400 SOV.
>>

Taming mastery works like unlimited alacrity scrolls, just with cooldown . So already exist in game. If pink scrolls can be used - it will be awesome.

I'd like to have consumables to wipe pet skills : bleed , disarm, dismount, paralyze . It will increase pet diversity greatly.
Different damage Triton will be great too.

And allow gargoyles to put skree in their pockets or on shoulder .

 

[mihali]

Or a consumable as @Pawain hinted that would allow you to retrieve all scrolls from a ruined pet with the understanding that the pet that remains may be less intensity, and possibly ruined. This could be useful for all the Cus and other non-rare pets that can be replaced. Not sure if this could lead to cheating or exploiting though, if they mess up the code/process.

 

[petemage]

to keep UO alive and the game with more shine at the same time.

Look no further than freeshards. You can brainstorm ideas 24/7 and still Mesanna could not care less.

 

[firstlast]

I love this idea. I would very gladly pay for a safe way for other pet trainers to help me finish skill some pets.

RMT is not allowed. You have been warned.

 

[gwen]

Or a consumable as @Pawain hinted that would allow you to retrieve all scrolls from a ruined pet with the understanding that the pet that remains may be less intensity, and possibly ruined. This could be useful for all the Cus and other non-rare pets that can be replaced. Not sure if this could lead to cheating or exploiting though, if they mess up the code/process.

I don't have prepatch pets ruined. Not an expert on this .
But I am against letting us retrieve scrolls of current pets we don't need anymore. Skill Scrolls are easy enough to obtain .

 

[GarthGrey]

I don't have prepatch pets ruined. Not an expert on this .
But I am against letting us retrieve scrolls of current pets we don't need anymore. Skill Scrolls are easy enough for me to obtain .

fixed it for ya

 

[mihali]

RMT is not allowed. You have been warned.

I am positive he meant not RMT $ usd, but meant Uo gold pay.

 

[Anon McDougle]

Look no further than freeshards. You can brainstorm ideas 24/7 and still Mesanna could not care less.

Didn't you explain why free shards can fix stuff but uo can't something about they use emulators?

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

How about letting players buy back lost game time?

Example: A person started an account in 01/2000 but over the years - for whatever reason - the account lapsed a few times so instead of being 23 years and 2 months old, it's 16 years and 7 months. The account owner really wants their account to reflect the full 23 years and 2 months, so they hop into the UO store and buy up the 89 months they're missing. EA/Broadsword could sell that for the same $12.99/$39.99/$54.99 increments as regular game time, or they could sell it at a discounted rate - either way, the game developer gets a lot more money for absolutely no work.

 

[egglett]

How about letting players buy back lost game time?

Example: A person started an account in 01/2000 but over the years - for whatever reason - the account lapsed a few times so instead of being 23 years and 2 months old, it's 16 years and 7 months. The account owner really wants their account to reflect the full 23 years and 2 months, so they hop into the UO store and buy up the 89 months they're missing. EA/Broadsword could sell that for the same $12.99/$39.99/$54.99 increments as regular game time, or they could sell it at a discounted rate - either way, the game developer gets a lot more money for absolutely no work.

I may well have done this if it was in place when waiting to get shard shields

 

[Anon McDougle]

How about letting players buy back lost game time?

Example: A person started an account in 01/2000 but over the years - for whatever reason - the account lapsed a few times so instead of being 23 years and 2 months old, it's 16 years and 7 months. The account owner really wants their account to reflect the full 23 years and 2 months, so they hop into the UO store and buy up the 89 months they're missing. EA/Broadsword could sell that for the same $12.99/$39.99/$54.99 increments as regular game time, or they could sell it at a discounted rate - either way, the game developer gets a lot more money for absolutely no work.

The monopoly holders hate this

 

[Pawain]

The monopoly holders hate this

Who charges for helping others with transfers? The more players that have them, the more chances you don't have to be the one using a token to bring something from here to there.

This idea has been brought up many times. The players did not take a vote, the development team does not want this. Their game their rules.

Someday they could make this possible. When they do, there will be players that do not like it. What if they let you buy years that just affected account age and not get the vet rewards for those bought years? Or the tokens only had spell channeling...

 

[Anon McDougle]

As long as i can equip the spell channeling token it's fine

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

The thing is, a lot of people would jump at the chance to buy back lost game time and the people in charge are too short-sighted to realize how much money they’re losing out on by refusing to consider it.

My example of 89 months of lost game time would equal $1,156.11 at a rate of $12.99 per month.

 

[Pawain]

The thing is, a lot of people would jump at the chance to buy back lost game time and the people in charge are too short-sighted to realize how much money they’re losing out on by refusing to consider it.

My example of 89 months of lost game time would equal $1,156.11 at a rate of $12.99 per month.

I agree this would be very popular. Would have been popular 5 years ago.

 

[Keven2002]

The thing is, a lot of people would jump at the chance to buy back lost game time and the people in charge are too short-sighted to realize how much money they’re losing out on by refusing to consider it.

My example of 89 months of lost game time would equal $1,156.11 at a rate of $12.99 per month.

Might as well just switch to a full scale pay-to-play game model if they do that because that's essentially equivalent to buying vet rewards for $$. They can copy the prices of the RMTs and players can buy whatever they want without actually having to play the game.

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

People let their accounts go inactive for a million different reasons. I’m not suggesting letting a person open a brand new account today and buy up 20 years of game time - I’m suggesting people be able to buy back the time they lost when RL got in the way of a video game.

It would be a win-win for players and the game itself. How would it harm you?

 

[Anon McDougle]

Might as well just switch to a full scale pay-to-play game model if they do that because that's essentially equivalent to buying vet rewards for $$. They can copy the prices of the RMTs and players can buy whatever they want without actually having to play the game.

We are already pay to play/win

 

[Keven2002]

People let their accounts go inactive for a million different reasons. I’m not suggesting letting a person open a brand new account today and buy up 20 years of game time - I’m suggesting people be able to buy back the time they lost when RL got in the way of a video game.

It would be a win-win for players and the game itself. How would it harm you?

Well technically it could hurt the market value of Vet rewards; I don't sell them but a case could be made for those that do. On that note, just playing devil's advocate here, I could ask you the same question about how it would harm you just letting me buy up a new account to be 25 years... aside from the vet rewards (which would be impacted with your suggestion anyway)? Again if we did that then why not just let me pay $$ for whatever it is I want, period... How does it hurt you if I have a fully scrolled dreadmare I bought from the store for $200?

Personally for me it's more about principle and entitlement for those that have been loyal because I think it does kind of cheapen the exclusivity of those that are actually a life long max age account. I've been around since 97 and my account has lapsed several times for various reason so I'm around the 23yr and change mark (so it's not like I'm trying to preserve my status) but I'd disagree with being able to buy my account up to 25 years. It's the same thought some people have about the older event items; why not just have them available every event (or all year around) for those that lost out ""when RL got in the way". I do not have a dreadmare or some of the other older event drops because I wasn't playing at the time but I do not think these things should be made an option either. Mainly because at the end of the day there has to be some reason to keep players hooked into subscribing.

Again playing devil's advocate, can you confidently say that pay to play would actually be a win-win for the players (sure) and the game (quesionable)? You are assuming that extra $$ is going to actually go towards improving/expanding the game when it's very likely we would just get the same exact product we have now with the same exact team....BS/EA would just be making a little more money off it. The only difference would be more people would quickly "come up" and likely lose interest and quit. So BS/EA gets a quick injection of cash simply to lose it long term...because the player knows they can just come back in 2 years if they feel like it and throw around some cash to make up for lost time.

 

[Anon McDougle]

@Keven2002 it doesn't hurt me at all that you'd buy a dread good on you I'd buy loaded soulstones cuz I've done it multiple times and i don't want to wack a creature 10000 times to train swords rather than it training properly through the game mechanics you keep insisting we should be enjoying

 

[Pawain]

You are assuming that extra $$ is going to actually go towards improving/expanding the game when it's very likely we would just get the same exact product we have now with the same exact team....BS/EA would just be making a little more money off it.

That could be why Mesanna does not add things like this to the store. We do not know the money trail.

 

[Keven2002]

@Keven2002 it doesn't hurt me at all that you'd buy a dread good on you I'd buy loaded soulstones cuz I've done it multiple times and i don't want to wack a creature 10000 times to train swords rather than it training properly through the game mechanics you keep insisting we should be enjoying

Not sure I see your point and based on your response I have a feeling you are missing mine.

 

[Pawain]

Not sure I see your point and based on your response I have a feeling you are missing mine.

Yup you played devils advocate very well in that post.

 

[Veldrane]

I'm not against RMT as a general rule, but I think buying "account age" would go against rewarding ongoing retention. Let's be honest, though; the only reason that the majority of people would want to add account age to their account is for shard shields. So buying account age is a loosely related solution to a different issue.

That could be why Mesanna does not add things like this to the store. We do not know the money trail.

You're going to summon someone else to this thread with their conspiracy theories regarding RMT with talk like that

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

I'm not entirely sure why anyone needs to "play Devil's Advocate" in conversations about how to keep UO viable. I think the Dev Team does that enough for everyone with their lack of communication or effort towards the game.

This coming August will mark 26 years for UO, and the current state of the game is barely beyond what one would have expected to find 15 years ago. Go to the official game site and look through the news history on the main page and see just how absent the Dev Team has been for the past two years - especially when compared to their communication and effort in 2018 and 2019. Even in 2020, when the world was essentially shut down due to COVID, they were more communicative and showed more effort than they have since.

To poo-poo ideas by active, "loyal" players in the name of protecting loyal players has entirely missed the forest for the trees.

 

[Keven2002]

I'm not entirely sure why someone can't further the discussion with dialogue by addressing what I said (outside of being passive aggressive why your idea). It seems more like someone wants their ideas to be treated as "THE ideas to save UO" without anyone questioning them (almost Mesanna like which is ironoic) given that my questions were side stepped about "why not make UO completely play to win" (among my other points) if we want to open up that can of worms.

There are several assumptions being made which I think might be incorrect. First assumption is that UO is actually underfunded... I'm really surprised by how many accounts people actually have subbed and what they spend on sovereigns. I know several players that have 10-20 accounts active with some people saying they have 20+. On top of that several people love decoractions and other stuff from the UO store and drop $100's at a whim (recent example was Tyrath's screenshot of easily 400$ in just a couple days on Sovereigns).

The other big one is to assume that any additional money would go towards UO and wouldn't just be taken in by BS/EA as additional revenue (also was side stepped earlier). Just because UO brought the money in, doesn't mean that UO gets to keep it and it's soley allocated for the game. Let's go down the rabbit hole though. Let's just say it actually does go back to UO. That would undoubtedly mean that Mesanna gets to decide where the funds go as the producer right? You are assuming she's going to hire extra developers to improve the game but she could also decide to use the money to give herself or Misk a raise for doing fantastic jobs. Given that Misk still is on the payroll as QA at this point, I have a pretty good idea how that extra money would be spent... but let's keep going. Let's say it actually does go towards "furthering UO". At this point it's pretty clear that everything is being diverted to NL, so does anyone think Mesanna would decide to put the money towards something else or dump it all into her own brainchild? Highly doubtful given the last 3 years have been NL NL NL NL. At this point we are 4 levels down on actually getting whatever extra funds UO gets divvied out to actually giving Prod servers content/bug fixes.

To sum it up for you, what is boils down to is that Mesanna has proven time and time again over the last several years that she is not a very capable producer/project manager with the best decision making. She has consistently missed deadlines and under delivered (or just plain gave up on pieces of work) on several things. For her to receive some additional sum of cash (from whatever) and suddenly allocate/manage it appropriately is pretty far fetched. Although I'm sure you could probably play devil's advocate here yourself and say that maybe she didn't have enough funding to figure it out yet.

 

[Fortis]

I love this idea. I would very gladly pay for a safe way for other pet trainers to help me finish skill some pets.

there is already people offering pet trainning in this forum

 

[Fortis]

How about letting players buy back lost game time?

Example: A person started an account in 01/2000 but over the years - for whatever reason - the account lapsed a few times so instead of being 23 years and 2 months old, it's 16 years and 7 months. The account owner really wants their account to reflect the full 23 years and 2 months, so they hop into the UO store and buy up the 89 months they're missing. EA/Broadsword could sell that for the same $12.99/$39.99/$54.99 increments as regular game time, or they could sell it at a discounted rate - either way, the game developer gets a lot more money for absolutely no work.

they are making way more money selling transfer tokens thats why they will never give ability to buy time to get shard shield....

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

To sum it up for you, what is boils down to is that Mesanna has proven time and time again over the last several years that she is not a very capable producer/project manager with the best decision making.

You will get absolutely no argument from me here.

Honestly, I’m just tired of players rehashing the same arguments over and over again when the people whose actual jobs it is to keep this game viable, thriving, and evolving seem to have zero interest in any of it. And those who employ the people whose jobs it is to actually give a damn don’t care enough to make them do their jobs properly, efficiently, and appropriately.

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

they are making way more money selling transfer tokens thats why they will never give ability to buy time to get shard shield....

If this were even remotely true, Shard Shields would never have been implemented in the first place.

 

[petemage]

Let's just say it actually does go back to UO. That would undoubtedly mean that Mesanna gets to decide where the funds go as the producer right? You are assuming she's going to hire extra developers to improve the game but she could also decide to use the money to give herself or Misk a raise for doing fantastic jobs.

In a company the size of Broadsword she can probably make suggestions and drafts but budgets, hiring, salaries etc. will ultimatively involve the CEO (i.e. Denton) as well. Besides being the CEO, wasn't Denton the sole owner of Broadsword? It's literally his money. He looked way too smart to not have that level of oversight.

 

[Keven2002]

You will get absolutely no argument from me here.

Honestly, I’m just tired of players rehashing the same arguments over and over again when the people whose actual jobs it is to keep this game viable, thriving, and evolving seem to have zero interest in any of it. And those who employ the people whose jobs it is to actually give a damn don’t care enough to make them do their jobs properly, efficiently, and appropriately.

We are in agreement about that. It's pretty apparent that the team doesn't play UO anymore outside of M&G, cleaning up events, and perhaps Kyronix hopping on TC1 (have to give him credit for that) because something like reapers casting was broken for almost a decade before someone brought it up and then Mesanna's response was essentially "what?". I won't go into the QA testing because I think we all know that's a joke at best... I envision Misk with a rubber stamp just stamping "Pass" on everything that comes through without even logging into the game.

In a company the size of Broadsword she can probably make suggestions and drafts but budgets, hiring, salaries etc. will ultimatively involve the CEO (i.e. Denton) as well. Besides being the CEO, wasn't Denton the sole owner of Broadsword? It's literally his money. He looked way too smart to not have that level of oversight.

I think you are likely right and that's why I didn't think any extra revenue from UO would trickle back down to it but it's not impossible so I went down the "what if" rabbit hole. Typically in this scenario someone like Mesanna would need to make a business case on why they should get that funding. I'm not sure Mesanna would try to rock the boat because if she was given more resources maybe they would actually expect more? The size of her team now might be a good excuse for lack of fresh content / production / NL release so if she was given additional funding they might want to see what that money paid for.

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

Then perhaps someone should buy the rights from EA and handle the development instead of Broadsword ... *shrug*

 

[Corwyn]

How about letting players buy back lost game time?

Example: A person started an account in 01/2000 but over the years - for whatever reason - the account lapsed a few times so instead of being 23 years and 2 months old, it's 16 years and 7 months. The account owner really wants their account to reflect the full 23 years and 2 months, so they hop into the UO store and buy up the 89 months they're missing. EA/Broadsword could sell that for the same $12.99/$39.99/$54.99 increments as regular game time, or they could sell it at a discounted rate - either way, the game developer gets a lot more money for absolutely no work.

It's pretty funny this was brought up. I had a similar thought last year. I started my account in 2001, but I've taken three long hiatuses, leaving my main account at only nine years of activity. I thought it would be cool if they would allow me to pay for the missed time so I could get some of the veteran rewards that I would have if I'd been paying all of those months. The way I see it, the only difference between paying now for my absence and paying month to month while not playing to keep my account current is time (and inflation I suppose).

I don't subscribe to the notion that those having played steadily all of these years are negatively affected at all by doing something of this nature. Why should anyone care whether or not I all of a sudden have a few extra veteran rewards? My account itself is certainly old enough.

 

[mihali]

Here is another idea:
There are potions of fortune we can buy from the store, for the dynamic events, to improve chances of drops.
We have the Totem in the store, we can buy with SOV,s that increases the chance of rare color Cus spawning. Cus only.
They can also sell a totem "Totem of the Magus" that will increase the chance of pets gaining Chiv especially, Ninjitsu, maybe Healing, and other magics. The whispering does not work well with these, still take forever to skill including with using both whispering and discording the pet. This totem could be a winner, at least something for them to consider adding.

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

Healing in a pet will gain slower than anything if you have a magic skill on a pet that said pet can use to heal. The best way to gain Healing once a magic skill is put on them is to have them attack something and then immediately “All Stop/All Stay”. They won’t fight back or cast, just take damage and attempt to heal.

 

[mihali]

Healing in a pet will gain slower than anything if you have a magic skill on a pet that said pet can use to heal. The best way to gain Healing once a magic skill is put on them is to have them attack something and then immediately “All Stop/All Stay”. They won’t fight back or cast, just take damage and attempt to heal.

Yep, thats what I do "all stop" and it will stop casting and will just take poison damage and try to heal thus increasing healing skill of the pet. There are several things that make chic raise really slow, esp. after 110 or so, even with disco, whispering plus humility that I use at times to drop the poison resist to negatives.
Raise healing is a little easier since you can stop the magic casting this way.

 

[Jennifer-Marie]

With magic skill gains, I use the islands in shame by the blood elementals. The pet can only cast to attack, but the elementals can gang up quite easily so it takes a lot of focus to keep the pet healed.

 

[mihali]

That is nice as well, lots of folks like that spot. I use the Eodon isles, with 1-2 dimetrosaurus goes ok, but it takes many hours. They keep steady aggro on the pet and nearly constant lethat poison, so it casts chiv heals and also the other chiv spells. Not too horrible. Now Chiv is nearly 118 so it is moving, as long as disco in on.