Classic shard.

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

Re: Q

Well, that's interesting.

... Add social constructions like player built and run cities, or even small villages or even roadside rests. Add intrigue and mystery that takes the lore and builds stories and histories. Add trade and caravans and shipping. Add needs to defend. And give the players what they need, the tools, to do all this, and succeed if they do it right, and do it themselves.

UO had the beginnings of this. Barely scratching the surface. And even so, people to this day still talk about it. Like the lost legends of times past. The treasure that most think if just a story, just fiction, just a dream of dreamers.

Player driven stories and establishments are some of my most fond memories of playing UO. I remember one time I was visiting Kazola's Treetop Tavern outside of Yew and realizing that the red in the tavern wasn't going to kill me because he respected the rules of the establishment, and the guy that highlighted green was actually a Seer and was running an event involving a hermit and two trolls....events leading up to the Followers of Armageddon if I remember correctly.

While I won't comment on weather or not a classic shard needs a trammel facet, I have always thought that OSI/EA did a bad job implementing Trammel. The new facet introduced with Ren should never have been the PvP free land, by making the new facet the "carebear" facet they destroyed so many great player run establishments, and they never recovered from that.

 

[popeto]

EA's only hope to keep the game alive:

THE TRUTH:

Slam a bunch of low population servers together into one including peoples characters and items.. this will eliminate 2 or 3 lowly populated shards.

Create a t2a server, a AoS server, and possibly another server offering whatever the noobs want past AoS


But EA doesn't care, its been them milking a dead cow for years now.
I feel sorry for the developers... so much could be done to make UO STILL the best MMO of all time!!!

Unfortunately, EA is only concerned with what they consider their target audience - Cheap people with crap computers that can't play flashier games.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

THE TRUTH:

Slam a bunch of low population servers together into one including peoples characters and items.. this will eliminate 2 or 3 lowly populated shards.

Create a t2a server, a AoS server, and possibly another server offering whatever the noobs want past AoS

Agreed

I feel sorry for the developers... so much could be done to make UO STILL the best MMO of all time!!!

Lets not get to crazy, a classic shard may stave off the inevitable for a while longer, but the game will eventually die one way or another, at some point you simply find yourself to far behind the times to continue competing against other more advanced games, even niche markets will dry up eventually.

Doesn't stop them from taking the same basic idea behind UO and bringing it into the future as a completely new game. I actually hope this is in the works or at least on the table.

One thing that has hurt the developers is the need to support two clients, as long as they have to rely on the dinosaurs who refuse to move forward a little in terms of their computers they cannot make much progress.

I hate to speak for the devs but I would feel safe wagering most of them want to throw the old client in a trash bin, douse it with gas and light it on fire before stomping the ashes into the dirt.

They can't though because people who are still using the same computers now as they were in 97 will cry and quit, a sequel to UO which would force people to either upgrade or find a new hobby is needed.

Anyways sorry for sidetracking the discussion.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

They can't though because people who are still using the same computers now as they were in 97 will cry and quit, a sequel to UO which would force people to either upgrade or find a new hobby is needed.

Actually, most everyone I know that still plays the Classic Client do so because they prefer it to the atrocity they call the 'enhanced' client...and it has little or nothing to do with their PCs. (I'd bet my Crysis-killer I recently built would be more than sufficient to run the EC...I just won't because it looks like ass.)

 

[Guido_LS]

Actually, most everyone I know that still plays the Classic Client do so because they prefer it to the atrocity they call the 'enhanced' client...and it has little or nothing to do with their PCs. (I'd bet my Crysis-killer I recently built would be more than sufficient to run the EC...I just won't because it looks like ass.)

QFT -

While I openly admit I would play, or attempt to play, a decent looking, upgraded client, the EC isn't it. The added new functionality in no way comes close to making up for the pixelation, horrid skating type movement, and overall horrid artwork. See my post re: dragons in the enhanced 2d thread for a fine example... my beetle is supposed to be blue, dammit.. not some blue-black abomination with the jaws of life forced on to its body.

And while I'm not quite cutting edge, there's still not a thing on the market that puts a drag on my system - C2Q 9550 running stock, nVidia 9800GX2 with a 9800GT running for physix... 8gb system ram... so yeah, I can handle just slightly higher than the EC can call for... the shame is the EC can't handle something simple, like UO...

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

Guys I'm not really talking about what they call the "enhanced client" I was more or less pointing out that they needed to build a new fully 3D client where everything doesn't look awful.

And yes some of us do have monster gaming rigs but we are the exception when it comes to this game not the rule, if you have noticed one thing in a lot of the old "keep the 2d client or I quit" threads it's that a lot of people outright say I refuse to upgrade my pc to play the game.

 

[Babble]

Out of curiosity - would your 3d client handle things putting on the ground? And why the hell does almost no game these days allow players put things on the ground?

And if EA really needs to reverse engineer the T2a code then it probably is not worth the effort.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

if you have noticed one thing in a lot of the old "keep the 2d client or I quit" threads it's that a lot of people outright say I refuse to upgrade my pc to play the game.

Maybe so, but I say the same thing, I run an i7 rig with dual 5870s. I just want them to keep the Classic Client for the same reason I want a Classic Shard...

...the new stuff they have done is crap.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Re: Q

Well, that's interesting.

... Add social constructions like player built and run cities, or even small villages or even roadside rests. Add intrigue and mystery that takes the lore and builds stories and histories. Add trade and caravans and shipping. Add needs to defend. And give the players what they need, the tools, to do all this, and succeed if they do it right, and do it themselves.

UO had the beginnings of this. Barely scratching the surface. And even so, people to this day still talk about it. Like the lost legends of times past. The treasure that most think if just a story, just fiction, just a dream of dreamers.

Player driven stories and establishments are some of my most fond memories of playing UO. I remember one time I was visiting Kazola's Treetop Tavern outside of Yew and realizing that the red in the tavern wasn't going to kill me because he respected the rules of the establishment, and the guy that highlighted green was actually a Seer and was running an event involving a hermit and two trolls....events leading up to the Followers of Armageddon if I remember correctly.

While I won't comment on weather or not a classic shard needs a trammel facet, I have always thought that OSI/EA did a bad job implementing Trammel. The new facet introduced with Ren should never have been the PvP free land, by making the new facet the "carebear" facet they destroyed so many great player run establishments, and they never recovered from that.

Those are my fondest memories of any gaming.
While the game lacked quite enough for the good guys, the game left the players to make with it what they wanted. There were great guilds and player run efforts. Hell, Yew even had addresses and a player run mail system.
Player events were common, of all types:
Trade fairs, archery matches, PvP contests, searches of all kinds, chess matches, campfire story telling, not to mention Kazolas was a completely player run tavern. So much. Lost because UO decided to "be like other games".

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Out of curiosity - would your 3d client handle things putting on the ground? And why the hell does almost no game these days allow players put things on the ground?

And if EA really needs to reverse engineer the T2a code then it probably is not worth the effort.

I think most games these days don't allow you to put things on the ground for a few of reasons...

1 - It reduces server clutter. Having items that are always contained (either on a player character, in a container, in a bank, etc) prevents 'orphaned' items and the need for decay mechanisms. This has to increase server performance.

2 - Many games handle items as a part of something else...not as an individual item per se.

3 - It helps to cut down on duping methods.

4 - Another big one is that in some games certain "classes" are not allowed to use certain items. They prevent this by making it so that you cannot give certain items to certain types of characters...so dropping them on the ground would be a method of making it so that characters could possibly pick up things they were not supposed to use.

I think that numbers 1, 2 and 3 are the main reasons though.

 

[Draken-Korin]

This post is for the thread as a whole. I have played UO for more than 11 years and yes I recall the early days as being wonderful times, great adventures with lasting friendships born out of the strangest of situations. Ya I blame AOS we lost so much of what we once had (my guild of 50 real people was torn to shreds due to it), also powerscrolls wasnt the greatest of moves in retrospect, removing statloss for reds HUGE MISTAKE, oh and trammel isnt going to be a mirror image *rolls eyes*. That being said I still enjoy this world and hopefully will continue to for many more years. Where else can you find a hobby so cheap and so much fun?

I went thru alot of the same feelings many here have with what the game could be, what I thought it should be, etc. I finally accepted the fact if I wanted it a certain way I had to create it on my own. Make your own community and design it as you see fit, find like minded individuals and create a strong foundation of which to build upon it. Doesnt sound hard does it? Well it is, but what worthwhile isnt a challenge?

Let me break this down into simplier terms, Im going to die. Thats right I am going to die someday, might be 50 years from now, maybe i dont know 25 years away, christ it could be a month, OR a week from Friday for all I know. Should I bring up the fact Im going cease to exist every waking moment of my life? Nah Im going to live and enjoy doing so.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

This post is for the thread as a whole. I have played UO for more than 11 years and yes I recall the early days as being wonderful times, great adventures with lasting friendships born out of the strangest of situations. Ya I blame AOS we lost so much of what we once had (my guild of 50 real people was torn to shreds due to it), also powerscrolls wasnt the greatest of moves in retrospect, removing statloss for reds HUGE MISTAKE, oh and trammel isnt going to be a mirror image *rolls eyes*. That being said I still enjoy this world and hopefully will continue to for many more years. Where else can you find a hobby so cheap and so much fun?

I went thru alot of the same feelings many here have with what the game could be, what I thought it should be, etc. I finally accepted the fact if I wanted it a certain way I had to create it on my own. Make your own community and design it as you see fit, find like minded individuals and create a strong foundation of which to build upon it. Doesnt sound hard does it? Well it is, but what worthwhile isnt a challenge?

Let me break this down into simplier terms, Im going to die. Thats right I am going to die someday, might be 50 years from now, maybe i dont know 25 years away, christ it could be a month, OR a week from Friday for all I know. Should I bring up the fact Im going cease to exist every waking moment of my life? Nah Im going to live and enjoy doing so.

Hi stranger!

I think for some of us, me at least, it's less about wanting to go back, and more about not enjoying the current gameplay. I love all of you TWT guys, and at some point I hope to find the motivation to get back in game and hang out with you all, but every time I log into the game, and go and so some champ spawn, or go to the new areas...I keep asking myself the same question:

Why am I here? I don't like doing this.

It's not the company, that's for sure, it's the setting. It's the motivations for what we are doing. I have just gotten so burnt out on the item-based thing that I really just don't even want to play the game anymore. I know there is still a certain degree of RP left in the game...and that's fun, but its just not the way it should be if that makes any sense.

We used to play this game because we were citizens of a virtual world...now it seems everyone plays this game just to get more and more stuff. I have enough stuff. I have too much stuff in fact

What I want is to really help people again. To protect people that actually need protection. NPCs don't need protection...because they aren't real! People in Fel don't need protecting, they are all there to fight. There is nothing left for someone like me. I really enjoyed in the fact that there was a functioning community...in which all of us had a purpose.

Now we all have a purpose...collecting stuff. rolleyes:

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

Well Morgana you might want to look into designing your own free shard and instead of the same old same old you could actually keep the classic feel of the game while doing some of the updates that have been talked about to it

Then again it does seem like a lot of work to do something like that.

 

[Draken-Korin]

Morgana no doubt those questions come up when you log into a world that is multi player and your in essence playing a single player game. Rebuild POV as we spoke of so long ago, there still is a vibrant world here to interact with.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Well Morgana you might want to look into designing your own free shard and instead of the same old same old you could actually keep the classic feel of the game while doing some of the updates that have been talked about to it

Then again it does seem like a lot of work to do something like that.

Yeah, I have considered it. I ran a freeshard for my guild a long time ago, just to give us a place to sort of train and stuff without interruptions.

The problem is, there are so many free shards out there now that it would be hard to make one in particular stand out. That's one of the reasons I am so vocal about EA creating a Classic Shard. It would give all of us disenfranchised UO vets an official home...one where the plug won't be pulled because the owner of the shard got grounded or something like that

 

[SoulStealer A.O]

Someone is already working on that very idea and has been for serveral months. Keeping the classic feel while fixing the problems with the game that would get eaten alive in todays enviornment while adding things to keep the interest there but never losing the classic feel of the game

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

Any information on when it will be out soul? if so can you shoot me a pm about where I can get updates or is it just between a few people at the moment?

 

[Kaleb]

Actually, most everyone I know that still plays the Classic Client do so because they prefer it to the atrocity they call the 'enhanced' client...and it has little or nothing to do with their PCs. (I'd bet my Crysis-killer I recently built would be more than sufficient to run the EC...I just won't because it looks like ass.)

I have a pretty badarse CPU under a year old and I still play the Classic client, not that I dont like the enhanced client but its still in "beta" and not quite finished so its a bit too buggy for me to rely on for what I do in game.

 

[Ray_]

We never had people demanding a Classic shard till after AOS.

This is so wrong it's unbelievable. I've been campaigning for a pre-UO:R shard since 2000. Are you kidding me? Seriously?

There was a quote by Amy "Cynthe" Sage posted on the old UO boards saying that there would never be a pre-UO:R shard back in 2001/2002 that a bunch of mean-spirited people took a screenshot of and would trot out every time it was brought up.

Look through here: http://www.uopowergamers.com/a-sep02.shtml

Archives from 2002. Do a ctrl-f for "pre-" and you'll see a quote from Cynthe about it. That wasn't the original one, but still from 2002. Well before AOS.

I really wish a lot of you people would stop spreading wrong information and passing it off as fact.

For the record, I *do* remember most of this stuff. Witness:
http://i44.***********/33c11j4.jpg

 

[Ray_]

they were bleeding subs

No they weren't. Look at the quarterlies put out by EA. Steady rise in subscriptions right through UO:R.

Stop saying things that are patently false, please!

You are never going to convince me that a 7 x gm naked hally mage with ten-twenty of each reg is risking anything when he kills ten other players and hauls away a ton of loot possibly even getting a house or boat in the process as well.

If someone kills 10 guys in a row without dying, he deserves his loot. It's REALLY easy not to die in UO. Recall, reflect, trapped pouches = never die.

Besides, there were hardly any 7x PKs. At least 7x in the skills that mattered, like resist. It was too much time and money investment for a character that would effectively be deleted one day no matter what.

These guys don't want stat loss on death because then they do risk something, if you have that kind of stat loss system in place you can't just run around with the bare minimum if you hope to survive very long and you have to be much more selective about your targets.

Statloss on death is the same thing as statloss on rez for dedicated PKs. All statloss on death would do is punish people that sometimes PK, and sometimes do so for good reasons.

Just the way I see it, these guys want a return to the "way things were" when other people payed their monthly fee to be sport for a select group of other players, now honestly how much fun do you think that is? To me it was great fun because I was on the wolf side of the fence, but if I were a non-pvp type I probably would have hated it "the way it was"

I really don't believe you at all. Your opinions and your name point to you hardly ever PvPing, much less PKing. There weren't any RPing PKs that were any good.

 

[Ray_]

It's obvious what many of you want: pre-AOS with no Trammel and harsh penalties for PKing - or just pre-AOS, in some cases.

That won't bring me back. It won't bring back a lot of people. In fact, it'd probably just shuffle people from current shards to the new one. People like you, that continue to pay EA money. That would not be the kind of success EA wants out of a Classic Shard.

They don't care what current players want for such a shard, and they shouldn't care. You already pay them money. You've done it this long, you'll probably continue for a while. Me, though? I haven't paid them for 6 years. *I'm* who they want to play on it. Me and people like me.

Maybe they should deploy a pre-AOS shard with Trammel for people like you. It would probably be a good idea, just to stop the bleeding. However, that's not what they seem to be looking at here.

There's a HUGE difference between pre-UO:R and pre-AOS without Trammel. Gigantic. Most of you don't seem to be aware of it. If you were a PvPer back then, you would NOT settle for UO:R combat. It's pretty obvious that most of you weren't PvPers. Maybe you dabbled in it. Maybe you had a war stone, or did RP wars, or ran a PK once who racked up maybe 10 kills before dying, but you weren't a dedicated PvPer. That's not a bad thing, it takes all types, but if EA wants ANY of the old PvP community to come back they will be very very careful to stay faithful to pre-UO:R combat.

And yes, pre-UO:R PvP was objectively better than UO:R. That's why EA spent 3 years trying to fix it, culminating in publish 15.

 

[SoulStealer A.O]

After the Dread days a bunch of petitions went around asking for the Dread days back. Once uo:R launched it happened again. I think the voice is a lot stronger this time though, since It's been so long

 

[JoeBlow88]

After the Dread days a bunch of petitions went around asking for the Dread days back. Once uo:R launched it happened again. I think the voice is a lot stronger this time though, since It's been so long

I myself Dreadlord Qbert
of the Infamous Banana Boyz
aka Keepers of Chaos of chesapeake am looking closely to that server.

i was 17 y old loaded with adrenaline and stupidity playing that game probably 10 hours a day and having about minimum 90 kills a day , me and a pal told gm to screw off when he msged us about stopping what we were doing because we could cast and insta-kill people with meteor strike casting from the covetous mine on people moving from covetous 2nd to covetous 3rd-4rth , wasent our problem if the game was messed up. Also there was bodies everywhere an intelligent human beign would get tipped off not to go there when you see a trail of bodies, i was a psychotik murderer in a GAME collected skulls ( diablo 1 ears anyone?? ) but in everyday life im just a normal clear headed guy.

The other side of the medal is we created back then what was ANTI-PKS
and their ass wooping back then was done right we feared their assault, when you got about 5% of the server running after you and 20 of your buddies in a dungeon now thats FUN .


but people back then were not used to die in an game , most of the time they just loaded a save and continued on , while in uo they had to go bank and re-equip now thats where alot of people bragged i still dont get it because in games that came after UO ( carebear types ) i once saw my friend in EQ sit in front of his computer for 24 hours doing absolutely nothing at all on his keyboard waiting for a monster to spawn so he could get a piece for an Epic item.

Mmo's nowadays are boring like hell , and nothing compare to old time UO
Old UO was roleplay meet call of duty times 20.

I still remember someone from EA telling they were creating communities by implementing Trammel , the opposite was done , it became a single player boring game.

If EA makes a classic server im sure to subscribe , nothing on the market fills that gap and you can find a player nostalgic about good old uo days in any modern day , just try it.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Right on Joe !

And rofl... the trolls stand out so much due to the magnitude of this thread.

It's getting laughable a situation.

Are they trying to look like they're known and honored ? let me laugh !

 

[Petra Fyde]

Tempers are getting a little frayed, can we cool it please? Or has this thread run its course and needs locking now?

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Well we got some more points to discuss... especially that stuff about precasting and insta-hit...

we're showing some progress its just that people tend to chime in after 1000 replies and "act cool"... dosen't even feel they took the time to walk their way up the thread...

I think pre:UOR is a good time... meditation is ok...

but pre cast and insta hit ?

I think precast is a bit too powerful since 3 mages can precast FS and run in, drop and run away ?

Maybe it should make it so precast would make spells do less damage ?

About insta hit... well maybe there would be a chance of insta-hit instead ?

I did lots and lots of pvp... somewhere around that time it was very fluid. It's nice to have control, but when it harms imagination and realism I think it hurts UO.

Oh btw... I would too reactivate my accounts in a heartbeat if anything even close to classic came out. I'd even pay that one time fee, yes even for an oldie, yes even for 2d...

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I dont think pre uor would be fun, i also think uo has some pretty good things in the last few years,

I would like a pub 15 because that is when you really started to see a sort of different temps

 

[Longest Journey]

Well we got some more points to discuss... especially that stuff about precasting and insta-hit...

we're showing some progress its just that people tend to chime in after 1000 replies and "act cool"... dosen't even feel they took the time to walk their way up the thread...

I think pre:UOR is a good time... meditation is ok...

but pre cast and insta hit ?

I think precast is a bit too powerful since 3 mages can precast FS and run in, drop and run away ?

Maybe it should make it so precast would make spells do less damage ?

About insta hit... well maybe there would be a chance of insta-hit instead ?

I did lots and lots of pvp... somewhere around that time it was very fluid. It's nice to have control, but when it harms imagination and realism I think it hurts UO.

Oh btw... I would too reactivate my accounts in a heartbeat if anything even close to classic came out. I'd even pay that one time fee, yes even for an oldie, yes even for 2d...

Sure, those 3 mages could come in and cast flamestrike right away, but more often than not, the first mage's strike would get reflected back at them. The other 2 would go through, but people could survive that and drink a heal before the mages could fire another volley.....at least I could survive 2 flame strikes. I always made sure my characters had magic resists. I dont know what everyone else did, nor did I much care.

But, if people are worried about precasting, then freeze mages in place until they cast the spell. It solves the problem of bombing runs.

As for insta-hit, I dont see too many problems with that. If someone gets close enough to engage you and score the first hit, then they deserve it.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I'd play a classic shard with or without precast and insta hit. It's not a deal breaker for me.

I think people have started to get mired down in details again here.

Remember, at one time in this thread, we were all compromising and coming up with a clear list of "must-haves". If you support insta hit and precasting, great! If not, also great! I don't think the back and forth name calling and insults and telling people, "you don't agree with me so you must be a Trammy that never PvP'ed" is going to get us very far folks.

When the devs read these types of ... disagreements ... it is only going to reinforce the idea that a shard of this nature is not worhtwhile.

Is that what we want?

Everyone take it easy and try to understand that a shard cannot run with a population of nothing but a hand full of old PKs. The PKs themselves will get bored when they have no one to hunt but each other...and then they will quit.

I hope that the devs are paying attention to this thread, but I hope they understand that not everyone that is calling for a Classic Shard is an unreasonable hothead that wants to kill everything in sight.

Despite what some people will tell you, that is not what Classic UO was all about.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Morgana, yeah, but the conversation might help them decide what exactly to make. So discussion is good. Agree that arguments aren't going to help if they just go on and on.

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

Sure, those 3 mages could come in and cast flamestrike right away, but more often than not, the first mage's strike would get reflected back at them. The other 2 would go through, but people could survive that and drink a heal before the mages could fire another volley.....at least I could survive 2 flame strikes. I always made sure my characters had magic resists. I dont know what everyone else did, nor did I much care.

But, if people are worried about precasting, then freeze mages in place until they cast the spell. It solves the problem of bombing runs.

As for insta-hit, I dont see too many problems with that. If someone gets close enough to engage you and score the first hit, then they deserve it.

Very sensible ideas to deal with those two particular mechanics...and if I remember correctly wasn't that the way the devs dealt with pre-casting anyways? Personally I don't see the big deal with pre-casting and insta-hit.

But since I have yet to throw in what I think would be a perfect "classic" server it would have to be Publish 1, the publish that introduced perma-red, house and skill management, potion kegs etc... Even though my main character was perma-red because I always killed people who exploited the rep system to avoid murder counts (people who would cause you to flag criminal then kill you for no rep penalty.) God I miss playing Thal.

Also your comment on spell reflection made me smile. I remember rolling into the mine north of Britain on my blacksmith with a Ring of Spell Reflection with about 10 charges. A few minutes later a PK rolls in and tries to corp por me to death and couldn't figure out why his spell kept reflecting back at him. Easy loot for a miner, that was.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Discussion - Yes.

Silly name calling - No.

People need to be able to make their points, and back them up with something other than 'you must have never played before Tram' or 'why don't you just play in Trammel'.

I have only seen evidence of a couple of posters here wanting Trammel for a Classic Shard.

Everyone needs to just cut back on the hyperbole and strawman arguments. There is going to have to be some compromises, and we can't reach those if everyone is going to insult one another.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Also your comment on spell reflection made me smile. I remember rolling into the mine north of Britain on my blacksmith with a Ring of Spell Reflection with about 10 charges. A few minutes later a PK rolls in and tries to corp por me to death and couldn't figure out why his spell kept reflecting back at him. Easy loot for a miner, that was.

I had some thigh boots like that! Those were the best if you got ganked!

 

[Trebr Drab]

Sure, those 3 mages could come in and cast flamestrike right away, but more often than not, the first mage's strike would get reflected back at them. The other 2 would go through, but people could survive that and drink a heal before the mages could fire another volley.....at least I could survive 2 flame strikes. I always made sure my characters had magic resists. I dont know what everyone else did, nor did I much care.

But, if people are worried about precasting, then freeze mages in place until they cast the spell. It solves the problem of bombing runs.

As for insta-hit, I dont see too many problems with that. If someone gets close enough to engage you and score the first hit, then they deserve it.

Agree on insta-hit. To me, that's a surprise tactic, and I always expected it in a sort of "realism" way. Usually, you have both guys ready anyways, except for the surprise situations.

Precasting is a bit of a problem. I like the idea of reduced damage, it could be a distance traveled thing too. Other spells, like para, can be countered, or should be, so no need to affect them. Adds some tactics and seems reasonable.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Well Morgana... I think you're being a bit negative here.

All the stuff about having too much pks is pure speculation. If there is, I'll fight them myself. Too much PVP ? or too much discussion about balancing factors ?

I don't think it's possible... and I don't think we influence that much the devs on anything ; if they think it's a good idea, they might take some here but I honestly don't think they would go "hey these hotheads are all stupid people, all people wanting the shard are stupid people, and stupid people deserve no classic"

This ends up to you being name calling in a subtle way ; which I don't think is right. I am a beta tester for UO and I spent a whole summer correcting bugs... especially pvp bugs, because it ruins the rest. This is one of the major points for a classic shard, because lots of the potential playerbase are pvpers that were disgruntled by the new combat changes... that dosen't mean they'll end up pking tho... order chaos ? warring guilds ?

Common now, lets all look ahead.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Okay, maybe you are right.

I don't care much about pre-cast and insta-hit one way or another. Like I said, I wouldn't refuse to play a shard that had or didn't have them.

The combat system definitely needs to be such that people will enjoy the shard.

The only thing is, most of the people I hear asking for these two things want them because they making PKing someone much easier because you and 2-4 friends can get the drop on them.

I have no problems with tactics being used...

...what I do have a problem with is following the same path that UO followed in the past. That led us to Trammel.

But, Ahu has made this point in the past...things have changed now, the maturity level of the players might have increased since then. Only time will tell. I would just hate to finally get a Classic Shard, and then have it turn out to be nothing but the same thing Fel is now but with no AoS. Where is the fun in that?

 

[Trebr Drab]

Also your comment on spell reflection made me smile. I remember rolling into the mine north of Britain on my blacksmith with a Ring of Spell Reflection with about 10 charges. A few minutes later a PK rolls in and tries to corp por me to death and couldn't figure out why his spell kept reflecting back at him. Easy loot for a miner, that was.

I had some thigh boots like that! Those were the best if you got ganked!

I used to use those as well as a set of bless items (+10 to each stat) that boosted my stats. In the early days, most players didn't realize what this could do for you. But I was never a powergamer, so for me it evened out the odds against spec'ed out players. Then one time I was talking to a very successful bounty hunter (see Devs, you don't need to code these things in, players will just play them and make a name for themselves). This bounty hunter almost always won his battles. As we talked I worked that into the conversation, and sure enough, he was using them too.

One on One mage battles were great with para, reflect, explosion, etc., along with potions. The timing and recognition was everything. Fun stuff, when combat depends on your own smarts and tactics.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I hate to sidetrack the discussion with talking about old tactics, but I am bored at work

My favorite solo tactic back in the old days was to bring my spell reflect boots (or whatever item I had), and my WW and my Dragon. I would have the WW and Dragon stay, invis them, then run up to a pair of reds or 3 of them. I would cast FS, but not throw it, and then run away. They would always chase me. I would stop where the pets were, and throw the FS, then throw the boots on. They saw me precast FS, so they would assume I didn't have spell reflect on. This would almost always reflect the paras they would cast on at least two of them, who would then become lunch for the dragon and WW they didn't know were there. Usually, if there were 3, the 3rd would turn tail and run.

Ah...memories

 

[Renyard Foxenwyle]

Okay, maybe you are right.



But, Ahu has made this point in the past...things have changed now, the maturity level of the players might have increased since then. Only time will tell. I would just hate to finally get a Classic Shard, and then have it turn out to be nothing but the same thing Fel is now but with no AoS. Where is the fun in that?

I hate to be negative about the player population, but if the populations of Darkfall and Mortal Online are any indication then any classic shard is going to be plagued from the get go by the roaming bands of predators we fought back in the day. While the PK's of pre-ren times have matured and even done things like help build a guild specifically tailored to helping out players new to darkfall, there are still going to be the ones who look for the easy prey.

Without some form of disincentive for murdering blues this will do one of two things, force a pvp switch on any classic shard (weather it be trammel or something else) or foster a small community of anti-pk's who try as they might will never be able to protect those who need it, thus resulting in hemorrhaging of the population and a closure of the shard.

I hate what Tram did to the communities that were built on the shards. I hate the fact that the game lost so much of it's magic by that change, but no matter what any PK says, trammel wasn't an escape for the "carebears" it was solid, concrete proof that the out of control PKing of players was not acceptable, and the players voted with their feet, they moved to trammel. This is not something I'd like to see happen to a classic server.

What would I think would be reasonable disincentives for murders? Well it's pretty much been posted throughout this thread by others. Statloss and Perma-Red are my personal favorites simply because I remember having to convince my neighbors that I wasn't a ganker, but an anti-pk who racked up counts by killing those who deserved it. I do like the idea of some form of jail time, like if a murderer has been killed his ghost is teleported to a cell and it stays there for x amount of time, though this really isn't any different then going afk after you die for however many hours you have to wait your count off to keep from rezzing without statloss.

I ran across a good quote by Voltaire: No problem can resist the continuous application of Thought. Keep this thread going and we will probably not only solve the problems of how to balance the mix of PvP and PvE in a classic shard, but also the problems of how to make toast.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I'd personally like to see some checks put in place to keep PKs from just overrunning the shard...but I think it would be better to start off only with things that were in the game at one point or another...then see where it went. If it looked like it was going to be problematic, then add more penalties.

So in the beginning...just use the Classic anti-PK mechanisms:

- Long and short term murder counts
- Reds can't use towns besides Buc's Den
- Reds are guard-whacked on sight
- Stat loss on rez
- NPCs won't deal with reds
- Reds can only rez at the Chaos shrine or by players
- Bounty system (fixed to prevent exploits)

If that wasn't enough, then tweak it to those, plus:

- Perma red for over a certain number of murders
- Stat loss on death

If that still wasn't enough:

- Add roving bands of tough casting NPCs that attack reds on sight.
- Jail time

I can't imagine it would need to go any further than that. Most players that wanted to PK others would be a lot more careful about who they killed as oppossed to killing every blue player they came across.

 

[Evlar]

Sometimes, I think we've as much chance of getting a classic shard, as we have of seeing Vladimir Putin making balloon animals...

Oh... wait!


Think posative and let's hope it comes once the "priority" stuff that was mentioned has been sorted out, right?

 

[Evlar]

Another thread about runics just made me think about how sad I am at the demise in importance of original crafting skills like tailoring or blacksmithy. Not that I was ever bothered about runics in the first place, another step along the road of item-based importance in the game.

What has finally killed my pleasure in crafting, has been imbuing. It's had such a big impact on other crafting skills, that it's become the dominant "crafting" skill.

I'm not knocking it as a skill itself, because I entirely understand how it is important in the item based game we have today. It's just removed what was left of the fun of having a smith or tailor for me.

Oh for the simple pleasures of having a GM smith, tailor, carpenter, tinker, actually meaning something within the game world we long for and miss.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

Oh for the simple pleasures of having a GM smith, tailor, carpenter, tinker, actually meaning something within the game world we long for and miss

Yes indeed, and I do remember how easy it was to outfit a dexxer for Order vs Chaos PvP, just needed chain legs/tunic with plate shoulders/gorget and ringmail gloves with a close/norse/etc helmet. Add a gm made kryss/katana/war fork etc.

Instant fun and could be bought for 1200-1500 gp, I remember how much fun I used to get out of hanging at the forge when I wanted a break from the usual, just crafting archer suits for people and doing repairs, along with the occasional full plate request.

Ah to have a community again.

 

[Kaleb]

Another thread about runics just made me think about how sad I am at the demise in importance of original crafting skills like tailoring or blacksmithy. Not that I was ever bothered about runics in the first place, another step along the road of item-based importance in the game.

What has finally killed my pleasure in crafting, has been imbuing. It's had such a big impact on other crafting skills, that it's become the dominant "crafting" skill.

I'm not knocking it as a skill itself, because I entirely understand how it is important in the item based game we have today. It's just removed what was left of the fun of having a smith or tailor for me.

Oh for the simple pleasures of having a GM smith, tailor, carpenter, tinker, actually meaning something within the game world we long for and miss.

Runics were not really that bad, In fact BOD's Were fun at first, the thing that did not go well was Item Bless deeds with the runics. at the time aggy and up were fairly hard to come by, so PvM remained viable. I feel that if there were no Item bless deeds then runics would be on the clean side of the stick under the pre aos system respectively.

 

[Guido_LS]

Another thread about runics just made me think about how sad I am at the demise in importance of original crafting skills like tailoring or blacksmithy. Not that I was ever bothered about runics in the first place, another step along the road of item-based importance in the game.

What has finally killed my pleasure in crafting, has been imbuing. It's had such a big impact on other crafting skills, that it's become the dominant "crafting" skill.

I'm not knocking it as a skill itself, because I entirely understand how it is important in the item based game we have today. It's just removed what was left of the fun of having a smith or tailor for me.

Oh for the simple pleasures of having a GM smith, tailor, carpenter, tinker, actually meaning something within the game world we long for and miss.

My view, *as it relates to the game as is*, is almost a complete 180 from yours. If anything, imbuing has made it worth having a crafter again. Especially legendary level. No, it's not the same as it was, but there are now benefits to being a legendary smith/tailor that didn't exist prior to imbuing, or at least not as importantly.

People complain that imbued items only have a finite lifespan - that in and of itself is a boon to any craftsperson. At least at legendary level, when doing repairs, the odds of losing durability on item is GREATLY reduced with each repair.

Smithing is an entirely different issue - blacksmithing for armor purposes is completely and totally broken, and was long before imbuing came along. It's just far more obvious how broken it is now as compared to before.

And until something is done about the billions of surplus *artifacts* from sources such as the illustrious paragon mongbat, up to those ultra-dangerous felucca based trolls, and beyond, crafting is still going to be, by and large, a poor cousin - at least imbuing moves the crafter out of the shack and into the trailer park...

 

[Ray_]

One on One mage battles were great with para, reflect, explosion, etc., along with potions. The timing and recognition was everything. Fun stuff, when combat depends on your own smarts and tactics.

Nobody used potions in duels, and using pots in the field in a 1v1 was dishonorable and very much looked down upon in the community. Enough so that bystanders would often jump in and kill the offender.


You guys are focusing on PKs and the theory they'd run everyone else off. Just isn't true. O/C and guild wars were always hoppin' and is the preferred method of PvP for a lot of PvPers since you don't have any of the restrictions a red character has. People that participate in O/C and guild wars won't be driven off by PKs, and there was a huge number of people that participated.

In fact, red often become the hunted. PvPers don't fear PKs. They're actually looked at like a walking bag of free loot. On LS, our guildhouse was a l-shape 2-story right above the Brit GY. The only reds in the area were either friends or alts because we killed anyone else that showed up.
Not to say I've ever been a dedicated anti, my chars were usually 1 o/c mage, 1 o/c dexer, 1 PK, 1 mule, and 1 misc (thief or tamer or whatever struck my fancy at the time)...and I hit over 200 short terms on one PK. But, I recognized and took advantage of opportunities on my O/C chars.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

..and I hit over 200 short terms on one PK.

And someone said that my posts were one sided...

rolleyes:

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Pots looked down upon ? That was in the days where potions had extreemly short timers and you could pop them with weapons on, and purple pots did damage to adjacent squares... oh yes firefield kicked ass too. I remember purple pots always being on the lame side however... not the other ones.

But that always was because of scripting... people would hit a key and it would unequip, pop the pot, then reequip. Everyone knew there was no "game" if there was no margin for error in operations, no difference when a player was skilled with the mouse. That killed pvp before trammel even had a chance to in my opinion.

I remember hating scripters profoundly, I'd loot them bare and let the stuff decay elsewhere (I never was a hoarder, never tought about money) for the others that played fair, I'd loot a few things valuable to me and leave the rest there for them to be able to perhaps get it back. I'd often hide next to their bodies and if some hyena of an opportunist came to loot, they'd meet a quick death.

Remember the days when fireball was be stronger than FS ? haha

In T2A if I fought against a pvper (which is pretty much the only people I murdered, untalkative pvpers who would think they could get me) and there was no pots in that loot... I'd be baffled. In retrospect, I don't know how I managed over 3000 dungeon kills without ever dying. Sometimes I had Nick as a blue healer, but not most of the time ; and I often fought groups and guilds on my own.

I died only because my best friend besides Nick treasoned me for the money my head was worth (around 3-4k USD if I recall well) and setup an ambush of over 50 players at leihas (with lots of pets of course to lag me out). But the irony is that Nick managed to get the head and give it back to me. If that kind of trust could be established in a corruptible environement with a total stranger ; then there is hope for a classic shard.

 

[Longest Journey]

Runics were not really that bad, In fact BOD's Were fun at first, the thing that did not go well was Item Bless deeds with the runics. at the time aggy and up were fairly hard to come by, so PvM remained viable. I feel that if there were no Item bless deeds then runics would be on the clean side of the stick under the pre aos system respectively.

Then no one would use regular GM made weapons. You'd have people running around with nothing but magic everything. GM smiths without the runic hammers would be out of business because runic would become the industry standard.

Second, it would put treasure hunters and fishermen out of business too. Why risk your neck digging up a treasure thats going to spawn balrons and dread spiders or fight a deep sea serpent or a kraken for a sunken treasure, when you can just sit in a smith shop, bot macro out a bunch of BoDs, and be able to make a bunch of vanq hallys, katanas, and krysses and tons of invul suits of armor?

No, runics were a bad idea then, and they would be a bad idea for the classic servers. There was a reason magic weapons were not craftable, and it was for the sake of economic and gameplay balance.

 

[Longest Journey]

(Updated listing of classic server guidelines)

The Second Age era w/ necessary bug and glitch fixes
-Britannia and the Lost Lands
-**Stat loss and long term murder counts for reds (see below for details)
-T2A Item system (Vanq/Ruin magic weapons, Invul/defense magic armor, magic wands staves, jewelery, boots, capes, etc.)
-T2A skill and stat caps (700.0 skill point pool, 225 stat point pool)
-T2A magic system
-Stat and skill controls (IE ability to set skills/stats to raise, lower and lock)
-Chaos and Order Guilds with proper fixes (lord/lady requisites removed)
-Guild Stones
-more Stackable items (IE Potions)
-**Crafting Upgrades (See below)
-T2A housing and rule sets

**Crafting upgrades are as follows:

-Tailors will be able to make bone armor as well as repair it along with leather armor

-Bow crafters will be able to repair bows

-Carpenters will be able to craft all staff weapons as well as clubs and repair them along with wooden shields

-Allow for the crafting of option kegs

**Regulations for Murderers. This portion brought to you by Morgana LeFey (PoV)

So in the beginning...just use the Classic anti-PK mechanisms:

- Long and short term murder counts
- Reds can't use towns besides Buc's Den
- Reds are guard-whacked on sight
- Stat loss on rez
- NPCs won't deal with reds
- Reds can only rez at the Chaos shrine or by players
- Bounty system (fixed to prevent exploits)

If that wasn't enough, then tweak it to those, plus:

- Perma red for over a certain number of murders
- Stat loss on death

If that still wasn't enough:

- Add roving bands of tough casting NPCs that attack reds on sight.
- Jail time


-no runic tools
-no BoDs
-no character transfers, to or from classic server(s)
-no ethereal mounts
-no power scrolls
-no AOS content, period
-No Trammel
-No Malas
-No Tokuno
-No Samurai Empire Content
-No Mondain's Legacy Content
-No Stygian Abyss Content
-NO ELVES
-No Gargoyles
-no control slots for tamers or mages
-No Pet bonding
-no repair contracts
-no bless deeds or blessed items
-no factions
-no custom housing
-no neon colors


And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have the guidelines for some amazing classic servers.

[YOUTUBE]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7rzj3FEuZzg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7rzj3FEuZzg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

"Britannia, our home long lost but not forgotten,
we seek thy sweet embrace once more.

By the will of those who wield what be,
give unto us our beacon in the storm.

Guide home the children of Britannia,
for the way is now illuminated."


PS, if anyone wants to see, from an outside source, how many people miss old UO, take a look at the comments left on the youtube page for the stones song listed above. Just go to youtube, type in Ultima Online Stones, hit enter, and you'll see the picture for the video page listed above. Click that thumbnail and scroll down.