If you could make one, huge, epic change to UO

[BloodstoneGL]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

I would rather not see customized housing on a classic shard just because of the feel of it being "old school" with nothing but stock houses. But......if you insist then I will bend a little. You have my permission to go ahead with it.

 

[Phaheela]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

Pre - Ren with stability/security/speed ! can we have one now please !

Customized housing has only served to spoil many areas as more than half the houses built dont fit in context with the area & surroundings.

 

[Draconi]

I would rather not see customized housing on a classic shard just because of the feel of it being "old school" with nothing but stock houses. But......if you insist then I will bend a little. You have my permission to go ahead with it.

Well the real question to me is not necessarily *what* you can build, as much as where. I really think it'd be in the best benefit of such a theoretical shard if housing zones were more defined.

You could still have a house out in the middle of the forest, but such spots would be incredibly rare. You could still build player towns, but you'd have more cohesive layouts.

I just... can't see how turning the world into another housing metropolis would be a good thing. I'm willing to bend on the customized housing, or at least restricting the tilesets somehow by area... ah, such pleasant wishes

 

[Duskofdead]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

I would be pretty much willing to do anything if it meant getting away from this Diablo 2 gear system. I came back to UO from a long hiatus to ESCAPE all the games that make you farm l33t gear all day! And if it meant dodging PK's I'd do it.

And yes, I miss having rudimentary conversation ability with the NPC's, and asking directions and what not. When I came back one of my very first questions was if the NPC's received a lobotomy since I left.

Regarding housing, would love it if on a classic/retro shard, the largest house was the one-room, two story small sandstone. With keeps and castles all people ever did was block off whole swamps and byroads.

 

[Draconi]

And yes, I miss having rudimentary conversation ability with the NPC's, and asking directions and what not. When I came back one of my very first questions was if the NPC's received a lobotomy since I left.

Sadly they did - long before this team existed, but when I joined one of the first things I did was look into why it happened. (It amounts to they kept meaning to re-implement it after the big localization changes, but it never happened)

 

[Sip-n-Shine]

I would take all the weapons an armor an return them back to ruin to vanquishing an accurate to supremely accurate than you also have durable to indestructable on the weapons.

an armor well it was defence to invulnerability durable to indestructible..


We had weapons with burning, wounding, ghoul,s touch, daemon,s breath, evil an thunder, just to name a few you might have forgot.

An a few spells brought back to the way they worked like Reactive Armor, Protection,Magic Reflection.


Than i would make a death mean something other than just a rez an running back to your body for intant equip of all things in your bag..

I guess i like the old system we had.

 

[Phaheela]

You could still build player towns, but you'd have more cohesive layouts.



This is whats missing these days, the most of the old player towns have vanished, myself, i will always mourn the loss of Spritwood on Europa & think i may be the only old member of CF left on the shard. There is nothing to encourage the re-make of player towns or to get folks involved in starting a community & keeping it going. Only a few such places remain on any shard and they struggle to hold on. Bring back the times when Uo staff took an active role in these towns & dropped the odd mega spawn or story line on them, those who still run them & are involved in keeping them going are long since overdue a little mythic thankee for the time & effort they put into keeping community spirit & in many cases, long term friendships alive for all these years.

 

[BloodstoneGL]

Well the real question to me is not necessarily *what* you can build, as much as where. I really think it'd be in the best benefit of such a theoretical shard if housing zones were more defined.

You could still have a house out in the middle of the forest, but such spots would be incredibly rare. You could still build player towns, but you'd have more cohesive layouts.

I just... can't see how turning the world into another housing metropolis would be a good thing. I'm willing to bend on the customized housing, or at least restricting the tilesets somehow by area... ah, such pleasant wishes

I can completely agree with that, but do we really need customizable housing? Or how about customized housing but only with classic UO art, not anything from any other expansion or update.

Honestly though, in your professional opinion do you think we have a decent chance of this ever coming true?

 

[Duskofdead]

Sadly they did - long before this team existed, but when I joined one of the first things I did was look into why it happened. (It amounts to they kept meaning to re-implement it after the big localization changes, but it never happened)

Here I had heard some yarn in-game from a player about how freeing up the memory was "necessary for server stability", or something to that effect.

If it's a simple matter of just... I dunno... popping it back in, is there any reason it hasn't been done?

 

[Lynk]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

Can you please do this? Please? Pretty please?

Seriously though, please?

 

[Gheed]

Round things! Ever work with the castle builder in stronghold? OK so maybe that isn't epic. I would make SA with all of the features and subtleties from years of development in the 2D client. Unfortunately this is a tall order.

 

[Draconi]

Here I had heard some yarn in-game from a player about how freeing up the memory was "necessary for server stability", or something to that effect.

If it's a simple matter of just... I dunno... popping it back in, is there any reason it hasn't been done?

A couple:

There are over 13,000 unique lines of text. These would have to be translated (the original reason they were pulled out was because they were hard-coded into English, not like the current localization system we use).

The system for the speech is actually non-existent, code-wise. It was at one point deleted (with the goal of being rewritten), and this was before our current code source control, so there are no old copies.

Also, it uses keywords extensively, and the current system had no easy way of dealing with that kind of localization (but we have a very efficient one for all the other text that's *displayed*).

So, in order for this to come back, we'd have to dedicate resources to translation, engineering for the server, updating the client's keyword list (adding several thousand keywords, where only a scant hundred exist right now), and rebuilding that cool auto-quest generator it had.

In short, there's been way too many things we consider critical (especially the expansion), versus something that adds to the roleplaying depth. Please don't take that as we don't think roleplaying is important - it's Ultima, it's about the world, we just have to allocate our resources as efficiently as possible.

 

[Duskofdead]

For whatever small bit of forum two-bits it's worth, I think a lot of us don't want/need regular expansions. As an ex-WOW'er expansion always just means *sigh.... all my gears and skills are going to be oudated, again. Back to farming*. Some people need that constant new shiny elite epic superior weapon to keep them interested in the game, but frequently those are the people who are going to have said weapon 5 days into the expansion anyway, and promptly be bored again.

Would love to see more resources at "things we always meant to get around to", or "things we always meant to put back in"-- I have to believe at least some of those things are cheaper than frequent all new content expansions.

 

[Draconi]

For whatever small bit of forum two-bits it's worth, I think a lot of us don't want/need regular expansions. As an ex-WOW'er expansion always just means *sigh.... all my gears and skills are going to be oudated, again. Back to farming*. Some people need that constant new shiny elite epic superior weapon to keep them interested in the game, but frequently those are the people who are going to have said weapon 5 days into the expansion anyway, and promptly be bored again.

Would love to see more resources at "things we always meant to get around to", or "things we always meant to put back in"-- I have to believe at least some of those things are cheaper than frequent all new content expansions.

I think the way the entire team feels about SA is that we're trying to do something different, and do something right, to live up to Ultima. You should be able to explore strange new places, you should be able to customize your experience - the Abyss and Imbueing are extensions of that goal.

 

[ColterDC]

Rigorous but consistent enforcement of existing rules. Aka start banning the speeders, cheaters, and l33ters:

My thought exactly.

Make it so anyone who loads up any illegal 3rd party programs gets perma banned from UO.

 

[Phaheela]

Stop giving us more of the same old same old but this time its got bells on, concentrate on making UO the game it used to be. It used to be a game where you had to pull together within a commuinity & outwith a community to achieve goals, now all you need are legendarys and a tamer friend.

 

[Ender]

Remove Fel (ZOMG)

joke. But seriously? Un**** PvP.

 

[Cetric]

I think the way the entire team feels about SA is that we're trying to do something different, and do something right, to live up to Ultima. You should be able to explore strange new places, you should be able to customize your experience - the Abyss and Imbueing are extensions of that goal.

maybe implement punkbuster with it!?! pweettyy pwweeeze?!

 

[Maplestone]

I think the way the entire team feels about SA is that we're trying to do something different, and do something right, to live up to Ultima. You should be able to explore strange new places, you should be able to customize your experience - the Abyss and Imbueing are extensions of that goal.

It's appreciated to hear. I don't envy your task of finding a path through the myriad of mutually incompatible playstyles that exist out here. I'm looking forward to finding out more about what you've all been laboring away on in the dungeons - I've been very impressed with the effects the last two publishes have had on the feel of the game.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

Turn a test shard into that idea and see how it flies.

 

[Kahlan_FHP]

Turn a test shard into that idea and see how it flies.

Post of the year...awesome idea Hunter. Devs, you can get the code for pre-ren. Find all these guys who host the free shards...the code is there. Go get it.

 

[Viper09]

Turn a test shard into that idea and see how it flies.

Haha, yeah. If it's possible to do that by all means let 'er rip!

 

[In Flames]

It's evil. I approve.

You're more then welcome to take that idea and twist it even more ;D

 

[MoonglowMerchant]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

Maybe you should contact the people over at (insert blank here) since they have that now.

It is amazing what you can do if you focus on improving things but keeping them simple rather than trying to improve things by constant addition.

 

[Black Sun]

Consolidate and shutdown shards. I miss the days of there being enough people on a shard so that you actually see people in towns other than Luna.

 

[Bara]

Focus on making SA solid as hell. All the improvements of the KR client with none of the glitches...

...then completly axe the 2d client.

Running two completely different clients at the same time is ridiculously inefficient and undeard of in the mmo industry. The time for coddling is over. I would stick to my guns, playtest it more than the developers are going to playtest it, and make the best damn product that I could, then commit to it 100%.

Sure, UO players are a nostalgic lot, and they are used to the 2d client, but many of us have forgotten just how amazingly unintuitive the old client is. It worked fine for the minimal aspects of the original client, but the game has grown well beyond it's archaic origins...

So should the client.

 

[Saunders]

Quite a simple change: all magic, runic, artifact etc items in Fel revert to their base properties, so that you might as well be wearing GM gear.
It removes the item need from pvp, levels the playing field, and might even revive crafting.

 

[Harb]

1) Replace the "facet divide" with a simple 24 hour "PvP toggle." Not available on Seige/ Mugen.
2) Make Fel a "living" history/ memorial, i.e. permanently incorporate all previous events/ occurences onto the facet.

 

[Duskofdead]

Disagree about closing 2d. People act like this is a throwback bunch demanding that a sequel use the same graphics or engine as the first. That's hardly the case. Not wanting someone to take a game you've been playing 11 years and, essentially, do all but delete it and replace it with a sequel, is not unreasonable.

 

[Bara]

Disagree about closing 2d. People act like this is a throwback bunch demanding that a sequel use the same graphics or engine as the first. That's hardly the case. Not wanting someone to take a game you've been playing 11 years and, essentially, do all but delete it and replace it with a sequel, is not unreasonable.

Well, it's the one thing I would change if I could.

Though, to be honest with myself... If I could do anything, it would be to invest in a true sequal to ultima. I believe in my heart that axeing that was the worst choice EA made. Though, I'm uncertain if this is a proper answer to your question. Thats why I defaulted to how I would change actual UO, as it is.

I really feel the time is ripe for the powerful game that a lovingly crafted uo 2 could be. So, I suppose that a sequal would be my answer, if it's acceptable.

 

[Sephy]

Allow red players to go to TRAM!!! don't even have to let us kill people, just be there bank sitting at luna on your awesome red char and having trammies scream in fear and run away!

coolioewhip

 

[Duskofdead]

Allow red players to go to TRAM!!! don't even have to let us kill people, just be there bank sitting at luna on your awesome red char and having trammies scream in fear and run away!

coolioewhip

Careful, everyone. The reds have been so long disconnected from the company of civil society that they actually have dangerous delusions that we worship and fear them.

 

[Kratos Aurion]

Rebalance skills and item properties as well as add new skills/spells to the game to create a more diverse playing field.

Since that isn't exactly an epic change... I'd further like to revamp the current peerless/champion system and make them all apart of the same system. Make each boss unique in its own way with unique loot to it with felucca and trammel differentials.

 

[Uvtha]

1) Gold wipe. Old gold will buy rares before its deleted. Along with wipe drastically reduce gold on monsters across the board.

2) Remove insurance.

3) Increase items drop intensity, lower rate of drop. Same goes with chests.

4) Revamp crafting so that players can craft magic items they want (within ranges allowed by skill) with ingrediants dropped on mid to low monsters, and grown, and collected with lj and mining.

5) change all of tram (cept housings areas) with different spawns, and land.

6) redo rule sets all across the world. Add safe zones, and danger zones on EVERY facet, so that every facet will have both open pvp and non pvp areas.

7) Readjust spawns and resources and aligned with the valuable things 80% on pvp areas, 20% non pvp areas, so that people who absolutely refuse to risk themselves can still have valuable areas to access, but the majority of the loots, risks will have to be taken.

8) New faction. A police force type of faction. Give them tools to actually deal with pks. Allow the higher ups the ability to "jail" reds, so rather than dying the red is teleported to a special area. Fill it with npc guards that can be killed by the captured red, but it takes time. Once the npcs are killed the reds can escape.
That was the WHOLE problem in the past, there was no way to keep the pks at bay even for 15 minutes.
This way a dedicated squad of anit-pk's could keep an area free of reds, so that non pvp players could hunt/work a spawn or whatever in peace.
This would offer fun, and pride for the anti's, as well as profit, as a dedicated protection squad could sell their services to larger non pvp guilds for either gold or a cut of the pvm spoils.
Risk vs reward: check. Good fights with meaning for pvpers with out stupid item hand out gimick: check. Pvmers having fun, and not feeling dominated: check.

And that is how I would change UO.

 

[kennykilleduo]

Add free to play BASIC accounts/ shards( no housing, only tramm and fel lands) and one of those old things ,(umm , hmm , classic? , umm , hmm , Shard)

 

[Kaleb]

This is just my opinion: I think that whether you divided Tram/Fel on the same shards, or split them by shard into all Tram or all Fel, you'd still see almost completely abandoned Fel shards.

I know it's a controversial topic already being argued in other threads. But I do really think this is true: the rulesets are not the problem. It was what a dedicated very active, very persistent portion of the PvP community did with an open ruleset that "ruined it." I think someone who played the game in the year or so just prior to Tram/Fel, and didn't believe there was any problem other than "overly sensitive whiners/crybabies", was probably a PvP/PK themselves or at the very least wasn't doing too much on a PvM character unless it was an occasional large guild hunt. What was going on in the name of "PvP" (killed 8 times by someone named gAnGsTa on my miner..) was really just griefing.

Unfortunately, enough people out there have had these horrible experiences in uncontrolled, open PvP environments at some time or another, that the vast majority (obviously) prefer controlled PvP rulesets. Not only here, but in virtually all of the major MMO's which dwarf UO as well. So even if you had all-Fel shards, I don't think they'd be any more highly populated than the Fel halves of today's shards are. And most of you seem to feel that's not good enough and the game is ruined. (Should be careful, that does open up the conclusion that what PvPers really want is to be able to kill people who do not wish to PvP.)

Really? This is brit bank on the Fel only rule server new years eve. So your tryin to tell me that people dont like playin Fel only rulesets? How was the bank on your shard that night? Delucia bank (not a faction town ) here was just as busy.

 

[Redxpanda]

And yes, I miss having rudimentary conversation ability with the NPC's, and asking directions and what not. When I came back one of my very first questions was if the NPC's received a lobotomy since I left.

Sadly they did - long before this team existed, but when I joined one of the first things I did was look into why it happened. (It amounts to they kept meaning to re-implement it after the big localization changes, but it never happened)

You know... I completely forgot that was missing until someone mentioned it. I remember they used to respond to keywords. Kinda added a bit of realism to the game.

 

[Duskofdead]

Really? This is brit bank on the Fel only rule server new years eve. So your tryin to tell me that people dont like playin Fel only rulesets? How was the bank on your shard that night? Delucia bank (not a faction town ) here was just as busy.

What does that prove, exactly? That 60 or so people turned out on a holiday in game? Holiday crowds happen in every game. WOW nearly crashes every Christmas.

A one-time snapshot of a crowd in Fel doesn't change the fact that the majority of players do not prefer the Fel ruleset. Do you seriously dispute that? You think a majority play in Fel?

 

[Kaleb]

Give me a few mins I will take a login shot where they show how many are online.

And its not even prime time yet.

 

[peanutbutter]

cross shard market. like in other games (city of heroes) where anything for sale by any player on any server can be bought by any player on any other server.

 

[Yazman]

Full 3D client, and I don't mean KR/UOTD type. I mean Warhammer etc style.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

If I can only have one, it'd be Pre-Ren. Just with all the security, stability and speed updates we've made since. Along with a few things that have actually improved the world of Britannia, like customized housing (while restoring access to tents), lock downs and secures, the old NPC AI... yeah.

I have nothing really to add...I just quoted this because I thought it needed repeating.

Someone involved in the development and planning of Ultima Online actually gets it!

Kudos to you!! And if we do see a retro-shard, I will be among the first to join it!

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I think the way the entire team feels about SA is that we're trying to do something different, and do something right, to live up to Ultima. You should be able to explore strange new places, you should be able to customize your experience - the Abyss and Imbueing are extensions of that goal.

I really am looking forward to this. I think the current team has improved UO a lot!

However, UO's main problem is (to my opinion) that it is suffering from mistakes of the past which are haunting us until today, and unfortunately seem to be irreversible. Or are they?

• Splitting the world into Trammel and Felucca. I am a Trammel player today (mostly because the inbalance in PvP, caused by uber items and hacks/cheats). However, taking the risk out of UO completely, destroyed a big part of its character. Looking back, the Early Days without Trammel were much more interesting.
• Making the game too item-based, including unlimited insurance. Unique items are ok, but they should be more limited and more specialized. I loved the days when everyone was running around with standard gear, best quality was GM-made stuff. But today, EACH item on a character has to be artifact or extremely valuable, if you want to compete. GM-made stuff is useless.

I'd love to see the originally planned Monster AI come true. The idea where moster behavior, movement and spawn was driven by its needs. Dynamic spawn. Monsters moving away if you destroy their means of existence. Which could even lead to monsters invading a city. This would make the world a lot more interesting and challenging. To my knowledge, these things already worked, but were canceled due to massive server performance issues, before UO went live.

 

[RichDC]

I agree with the previous post the main problems in uo today...imho anyway is that the old dev team pandered to everyone making the game a silver platter affair.

I think if i could change something it would be bring back the old virtue system!

Also think about bringing back the old chaos-order guilds making PvP in trammel possible (with some kind of draw back other than stat loss, something new).

Oh...and make insurance more expensive to help bring prices down (gold wouldnt be there) maybe helping to stabilise the economy, which due to above said Silver-Plattering, has been shattere (everyone gets what they want with no risk and no difficulty,as such.)

 

[Lord Patapon]

If I could make one huge change to UO ?
The way things are set up: EA-Mythic, give us a GOOD, SOLID new client, something NICE enough to attract the eyes of new players.

The game already has more depth than a lot of others MMOs out there; now, do everything to get new players in !

Even if there are a lot of interesting ideas in this thread, this should be the main objective, tbh.

Make something nice and as smooth to play as 2d can be in both PvP/PvM with a better UI than KR.

Oh. And ADVERTISE for heaven's sake !

edit: Oh, and another thing: every major PC RPG game that made the great jump to full 3d was a complete mess. So, please, avoid this.

 

[RichDC]

Oh. And ADVERTISE for heaven's sake !

Seconded!!!

Most important!!!

Im in UK and cant go 5mins without seeing an advert for WOW featuring some popular icon!!! Man of the moment ozzy osbourne!

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Originally Posted by Lord Patapon
Oh. And ADVERTISE for heaven's sake !

Seconded!!!
Most important!!!
Im in UK and cant go 5mins without seeing an advert for WOW featuring some popular icon!!! Man of the moment ozzy osbourne!

Advertising a game with a crappy, 10-year-old, laggy, ridiculous game client might be a plan that can easily backfire. Let's wait for the SA client. If that one's really a kick-ass client everyone's going to use, THEN the game should be advertised.

 

[The Home Guild]

REVERT BACK TO PUBLISH 15 AND KEEP IT THERE.

 

[Petrify]

What does that prove, exactly? That 60 or so people turned out on a holiday in game? Holiday crowds happen in every game. WOW nearly crashes every Christmas.

A one-time snapshot of a crowd in Fel doesn't change the fact that the majority of players do not prefer the Fel ruleset. Do you seriously dispute that? You think a majority play in Fel?

lol. This shard has 1k people on at peak times. And have far better customer support than EA do, believe it or not. They run events every week. I think if UO did make a pre-ren shard, they would nearly all come rushing. Although it's probably way to late for that now.

*edit* Oh. And rather than deleting trammel, I would just change every ruleset to fel, that way people don't lose there housing.

 

[o2bavr6]

I would like all the facets to follow the Fel ruleset but with some exceptions.

Resource Gatherers (RG) should have areas that they can work their skill up without fear of attack.

Once the RG reaches GM or higher in their skill, they can go to unguarded zones for materials but with risk of being attacked. Resources in unguarded areas ar 4x over guarded areas. Risk vs Reward.

Fact is that if your character cant protect himself/herself he/she shouldnt be in an area that may get him/her killed.

Dungeons:
1st levels for new players. Anyone with 75.0 skill or higher cant even enter the first level. No PvP allowed.

2nd level is for intermediate players. Anyone with 100.0 skill or higher cant even enter the second level. PvP allowed, but no reds allowed.

3rd/4th/5th levels are for advanced players. Anyone with 100.0 skill or higher may enter these levels. PvP allowed, Reds allowed.

Towns would have guard zones but moongates or any other portals (Like Marble Passage) would not have guards.

I would also add a moongate to every towns bank, this would hopefully liven up some of the unused towns.

I do not want to see people who are not interested in PvP suffer, but on the other hand UO lost it's excitment when they intoduced Tram.

It should be like looked at from a real life perpsective. As an example you don't see people walking the streets of certain sections of Detroit at 1AM other than crooks or cops. With this in mind why should a resource gatherer be able to walk freely all over UO without danger in certain areas.

I would like to see a change to weapons and armor. They should only be able to be obtained via crafters, or at least the "best armor and weapons" should be player crafted.