My wish list of changes for UO.

[THyRoID99]

Thinking about the issues UO faces with cheating/farming/duping/gameplay led to these suggestions. I don't really expect Mythic to address any of these issues but I'd still like to discuss them with the community. Also, I understand that some of these ideas would take massive amounts of time, money and effort to implement so I'm pretending that Mythic has a big red button that creates/fixes anything they want with each push.

To increase Mythic/EA's revenue and control the game economy:
Micro transactions. Make available for sale most items in game through an online store. Rare tools, resources, some collectors items such as the dyes, vet rewards, etc... You could possibly scale item prices based on rarity but in general keep them low (ie:$2.50 for a val runic hammer). The key is volume sales as people will more readily purchase multiple perishable items FROM EA/MYTHIC at a lower price than one perishable item at a high price. You would put the brokers/farmers out of business, generate a higher income for your product and also have control over the in-game economy. Win, win, win.

To help prevent duping:
On the backend, have a program which cross references the itemID of items manipulated/used in game against a pre generated or dynamic table of itemIDs. Since banning accounts would hurt profits, how about just automatically delete the duped items if it fails the check? This system should theoretically be cost effective. This would also help prevent brokers from inflating the economy and encourage micro transactions for the studio.

Condense servers to increase the populations of others:
Make the game feel full again. Fields of empty houses is not the answer to making a server feel full. Give the moving players an unlimited, weightless, account bound storage container to move every single item they own between servers. This would help limit account cancellations since now their only real potential loss is their house location and size (keep/castle). And there's no worry about suspended accounts. If they reactivate have them choose a new server.

Develop a 3D client;
I'm not talking about a client like SA (and im not knocking SA either)... I'm talking about a full 3D client to compete with modern mmo titles. In fact there is a full 3D client being developed for freeshard servers called Iris 2.0. It's actually quite remarkable that a small group of people in their free time created this amazing client. It might not have the polish of a professional studio but it does illustrate a demand for such a client and that it can be done. Its also worth mentioning that another MMO game is almost at release which is pretty much a clone of UO, just in 3D. Again, this illustrates a demand for a full 3D and true triple-A client for UO. Benefits include a large increase in micro transactions with an influx of new and returning players. Also, since no game can compete with the depth of UO, why bother developing a new title when you can build on top of this one?

Have crafters play a greater role in the economy:
I really loved the fact that everyone used to go to crafters for their items. Maybe with the micro transaction system we would see that again. To that end maybe let all items decay but give the crafters the ability to "reverse engineer" and duplicate items or transfer item stats from one weapon to another, using a new rare tool or something to that effect. I thought the mechanical pets were a great idea although I find they're kind of useless and more of a novelty.

Improve Tinkering and do away with Bods:
The bod system is old, antiquated, developed for a much larger player base and just encourages farming (90% of my buyers were runic farmers). Why not give tinkers the ability to create the runics and other rewards from the bod system? This helps eliminate ore/resource farmers. Raise the cap to 120 and give them varying degrees of success on items. A 120 tinkering skill would give you a %15 chance to make a val runic using val ore and a number of blackrocks. A PoF would have a success of 50% and be created using ten white pearls. An enhanced shovel/pick axe is made by infusing it with blackrock, which increases the chances of digging up more blackrock. You get the idea.

Imbuing should actually be Arms lore:
Really, it should have been.

New Herding skill benefits:
Make herding a beneficial skill for tamers and boost their abilities. Possible benefits at GM include a five slot increase in stable storage, a damage bonus similar to pack instincts for all animals currently under your control (stackable with current pack instincts?), and even 1 or 2 more control points for tamers.

So those are my suggestions for improving the game. Hopefully someone starts pushing the big red "make good" button.

 

[Silverbird]

1. No. Not a single item, that can be received by any ingame action/mechanism should be sold for RL money.

2. IDs for items are already ingame. But you can generate new Ids with some actions like:
- check in bank --->gold in bank ---> check with new id
- shard transfer
- craft items from runics
- turn in duped bods

3. Ppl would abuse that system too much by simply opening new accounts. Paying for 30 days on a new account costs way less than a shard transfair token. Not to mention that ppl would transfair with 1000's of items. (There are shards soooo empty, that you can actually farm fel champion spawns without any fear.

4. Going from 2D to a true 3D is always a problem. From all current items/homes you can only see two sides. So all items would need an overhaul. Many decorations are using 'graphical twists' to simultae height. Converting them into 3D would need way more as simply giving every item/tile 2 new backsides.

5. One of those problems with crafters is, that probably most players have their own ones. Many ppl buy runic tools for using them with there crafters.

6. I like bods as they are. The problems with them are those, who script them for whole days and those to script resources for filling and working on bods.

7. Imbuing is new and arms lore is old. With the latelys changes to armslore (bonus for exceptional crafted items) it is mighty enough. You can live without but you are having advantages, if you have it. That are basics that should match every skill ingame.

8. Herding is ,like it is today, more a barding support skill. It shouldn't become a 'must-have' for tamers. Half-hearted tamers (those that jewel up to control for mightiest pets without planning to actually spend real skillpoints to it) would profit too much from your suggestions.

That is, how I would see those suggestions.

 

[Zayin666]

To increase Mythic/EA's revenue and control the game economy:
Micro transactions.

Uhm no... what they do with decorative items is fine... but they should not start selling ressources abd cambat items.

To help prevent duping:

Fine... I still think they should close dupers accounts thou.

Condense servers to increase the populations of others:

If they make a client that will attract more ppl then there will be no use for this.

Develop a 3D client;

YES! I have been wanting the same thing for years.. BUT I see some major problems.. for instance housing.. all the decorating people have done will be more or less useless... think about a fishtank in 3d.. will look rather funny with all the things floating in free air.... the illusion will be hard to create in a real 3d client

Improve Tinkering and do away with Bods:

Sure improve tinkering But dont do away with bods... but I think you are right that the current system is more suited for more players. So I think they should raise the quality of the bods you get, so it is possible over some months to collect bods to at least get a golden or agapite hammer.

Imbuing should actually be Arms lore:

Uhm no... I dont see how imbuing is the same as armslore. I see it more or less like Enchanting in WoW... has nothing with lore to do

New Herding skill benefits:

Sure make more skills usefull and add more variation to the templates used

 

[Uvtha]

To increase Mythic/EA's revenue and control the game economy:
Micro transactions.

This would instantly remove any sense of personal acomplishment, and thus half...no...9/10th of the point of playing a game at all. The solution for the problem of duping, and cheating... is to catch the cheaters, and implement means to prevent the cheating.

I'm all for item store goodies, but not of things otherwise attainable in game, and NOT functional items. House and character appearance altering items only.

To help prevent duping:

I don't know the logistics and feasibility for creating a system for item tracking system like this, but I have to assume that if it were that easy, it would be done already. As for banning cheaters hurting subscriptions... if cheaters are such a huge portion of the subs then the game is doomed already. Cheaters should be banned. Period.

Condense servers to increase the populations of others:

Heh, I think its funny you don't want cheaters accounts deleted, because it would hurt subscription rates, but you want a change that would (and rightly so) create a mass exodus. The ONLY reason this should EVER happen, is that the game is dying, and has been given up on.

Develop a 3D client;

I agree to a point, in that I think they should make UO2, and do it right, with a real UO feel, and systems not yet another WOW clone. But honestly I have zero...less than zero hope that this could be accomplished.

Have crafters play a greater role in the economy:

Just tank insurance, make Imbuing less cost restrictive, and there you go. The crafter community on siege is fully operable (in fact well understaffed) proof that the economy can work that way, and everyone can enjoy and benefit.

Improve Tinkering and do away with Bods:

Again I agree with you in a way. I do think tinkering is in need of an overhaul to bring it up to par with the other crafting skills, but with imbuing as cost inhibitive as it is, I think you have to leave bods as they are, because the idea of just giving runics to tinkers would force players to either take up tinkering or deal with the exorbitant costs that tinkers could command, because without runics crafting would be more or less costly imbuing only. I would be for other ways to get runics. Other ways that could be accomplished by crafters that is, not fighters.

Imbuing should actually be Arms lore:

Why? What difference would it makes? And thematically it wouldn't even make sense. Why would knowing about arms and armor let you make magic gear? It makes perfect sense that it would let you craft better quality base items, as it does.

New Herding skill benefits:

I would be all for the stable slots suggestion, but offering more follower slots, and or more damage are wholly unnecessary, and seriously imbalanced.

If it was converted into a system where along with taming and lore you could customize pets (Pet crafting/breeding) within some sort range or something so you could choose what your pets do, are, and look like, (all within well balanced ranges) that would be great though.