A very interesting comment from the "Video" posted by Cal (worth a read)

[Sandwich]

This was posted in the actual Video thread but due to the sheer number of posts and different conversations taking place, I decided to start a thread because this comment rang true on many levels.

It's a pretty good read. No outright negativity but some very good points are made from someone who claims to have been apart of the UO team in the earlier years.

The following is a comment that was posted in response to the long awaited "State of the Game" video that was posted on Thursday:

I worked for Origin back on '00 on the Renaissance Edition, and have worked on other games with "legacy" issues, thus I can appreciate the challenges here. You have, in essence, a Massively Single Player game with too many long time players who resist change with a religious passion while too many others become more obsessed with the buying and selling of UDIs than with game play. All quests are single player and most are Fed-Ex quests. Plus, culturally, it's actually considered an achievement to solo bosses, which is understandable but a sad commentary on the state of the game. Thus even people of good will, intelligence, and fine intent will need to take significant risks to make this game enticing to new players.

In the eight months I've been back, after ten years away, I've seen one major expansion and at least six major patches - or "publishes" as they like to call them. I've seen Thanksgiving gifts, Holiday gifts, Anniversary gifts and even Valentine's day teddy bears given out. Yet there has not been a single upgrade to the new player experience or to the woefully out of date gear new player quests deliver.

In UO - and I don't mean this as sarcastically as it sounds - it's a "You have to have been there to be here" game.

Twenty fewer skill points

Shy five stat

You can't use this

And you can't use that

This is the new player experience. It sounds harsh but I know the team is small and the demands placed upon them are enormous. Thus I do not mean for this to - in any way - imply that the current development team is inept or stupid. They're not.

The UO free trial page give you two choices: a Classic client that would look dated to the grandparents of most new prospects or an Enhanced Client that you're told remains in beta. Sadly, quaint doesn't play in contemporary computer gaming and the word, beta, is an off-putting prospect for anyone starting out.

You get 1000 gold in a game where anything useful costs millions and the street price of UO gold is fifty cents a million. Oh, and you get a candle, a fireworks wand and a blank book.

There is no checklist provided, based on the character type you've created, for the character advancement quests that are available to you. Instead there is a bot outside the bank that repeats "Click on me for help" ad nauseum but provides little when you do.

Oddly, the first step in most of these is to pay 400 of that 1000 gold to get the first 40 points of skill, with the next 10 coming from a quest. Why in blazes those first points are not part of the initial character creation process defies understanding as does the price point. At the end you get an item may have been useful prior to the most recent major expansion.

Clearly you need more information. If you go to the official site you get a message that its content is being "updated soon." Stratics, the site most new players are told to try next, has information that, in some cases, has been out of date for up to a decade. Go to the forums and you're told to read a readme before posting, basically saying that you have to earn the right to ask questions and nobody wants to hear a question that's been asked before.

Many players in-game try to be helpful but most are so steeped in the lexicon of the game that they do not know that their answers make no sense. How do I train archery? "100% poison wep on a Gollum, Enemy of One." Yes, that was an actual answer. I asked the player who posed the question if he understood a single word of that. Of course his answer was no.

Scroll over a weapon and you'll get an incomprehensible list of attributes, such as Hit Lower Defense, Hit Poison Area, Use Best Weapon Skill, Repond Slayer....sorry but it simply makes no sense at all.

You're trying to hook up with another player who tells you to go north. Good luck with that. The UO compass is canted 45 degrees to the east. You have a positive experience with a player and want to see that player again. Good luck with that too. There are no friends or buddy lists in UO. There are Guilds and your Client has Guild invitations set to Ignore by default. There is not dating in UO, only marriage.

My apologies. This is getting too long and a bit tedious. Allow me to summarize what I believe the new player experience needs to be:

One client and not the Classic one on the free trial page. This means getting the EC out of beta which should happen before any more updates, expansions, or even gifts are delivered in the game.

More points given during character creation

More information, if the player wants it, on the character creation screens

Dump the part about customizing the template disqualifying you from new player quests. It's not true.

Provide players with a checklist of quests based on the character they've created along with a "Take me there" button next to each, and save this to the player journal which is highlighted until either the player's young status is aged off or the player declines the quests.

Spot new players at least 1 million gold. Yes, players will create new characters just to get the gold and a veteran player could start on any shard with 6. So what? 6 million UO gold is worth 3 dollars. The million gold is worth fifty cents. The games costs 13 dollars a month for the subscription.

All players begin with the 720 skill point cap. The 5 extra stat points can remain a six month veteran reward. Other veteran rewards should be cosmetic, not tactical. It's okay that a 13 year veteran player can ride around on an ethereal armored Boura (a cross between a water buffalo and a Ice Age ox) or wear dazzling clothing, but it's not okay to put new players at a fundamental disadvantage from the start. Lots of these folks will want an actual game, after all, and all games since the beginning of time are based on human competition. Even Solitaire is PvP.

Players leaving the new player island of New Haven should depart with at least a 100LRC/70s suit (no ingredients needed to cast spells, maximum armor protection is 70 percent). Nobody is going to farm this stuff because, as players advance, they will get equipment with more tactical attributes. Mages should have full spellbooks. Warriors should have at least one weapon with the fundamental capability bonuses. UO relies heavily on tactical bonuses added to jewelry - up to five for each piece (ring and bracelet). New players should leave New Haven with a ring and braclet with at least 3 bonuses of medium intensity each. And they should leave with the skill level currently provided by the Advanced Character Token - not enough to be deadly but enough to make the journey to become deadly more interesting and congruent with the game activity they desire.

There should be a matchmaking service if guilds want to register for it. Siege Perilous (the forbidding sounding server where the old, Hobbs State of Nature rules apply) has a guild called NEW that players can join for up to 30 days. It has players who have volunteered to help new players with basic gear and game help. Yes, some will make up griefer guilds and can do so in minutes, but that can be remedied with a few checks for guild age and history of harassment complaints of guild members.

I'd like to suggest a one year feature freeze with bug fixes only but that's likely outside the realm of what the team can decide on their own to do.

Oh, and lastly for now, stop telling new players, every time they log in, that they are too young to receive a gift. Just stop it. Rather, give them a gift if it's a genuine new account, and the player has completed the quests he agreed to take.

The rest falls into realms of SEO and guerilla marketing. I doubt there is much of a budget for much else, but that's another matter entirely.

If you've made it this far, thank you.

Jonathan

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I could not have said it better and more accurately than Jonathan has in his posting.

I've always said that one of UO's biggest problems is that it is developed into a direction to only favor veteran players. Who the hell needs teddy-bears, deco items and more boss monsters with zillion hit points, when this game fails in the most important discipline: GETTING NEW CUSTOMERS.

I am tired of repeating this over and over again. When I read the postings on this board I even feel less and less drawn to this game. When I see what people demand and complain about, it makes me want to quit UO today (which, of course, I am not doing cause I still have hope).

Cal's video message makes me a tiny bit more optimistic, as it seems that they too are aware of the lack of new players. I cannot help but wonder: Will they have the strength to take the right steps? Because new player interests and veteran interests are often conflicting.

 

[jaashua]

New players get 1,000,000? LOL. How about new ACCOUNTS get a veterans reward gump that can be used to claim 1 million gold once on one character? What I like better are guild rewards for including new players.

Personally, I don't think they need more than they have. Actual genuine new players are so rare they are treated like rock stars. People give them stuff and guide them through things.

Ya, EC needs to be out of beta. But as it is, it's a monstrosity. Removing the term beta is NOT going to cut it. neither is making the textures higher res.

 

[Freelsy]

New player token which you can redeem and pick from 1mill, all resist 100 lrc suit, 10k each resource, etc... Something along those lines would be nice.

 

[Nexus]

I could not have said it better and more accurately than Jonathan has in his posting.

I've always said that one of UO's biggest problems is that it is developed into a direction to only favor veteran players. Who the hell needs teddy-bears, deco items and more boss monsters with zillion hit points, when this game fails in the most important discipline: GETTING NEW CUSTOMERS.

I am tired of repeating this over and over again. When I read the postings on this board I even feel less and less drawn to this game. When I see what people demand and complain about, it makes me want to quit UO today (which, of course, I am not doing cause I still have hope).

Cal's video message makes me a tiny bit more optimistic, as it seems that they too are aware of the lack of new players. I cannot help but wonder: Will they have the strength to take the right steps? Because new player interests and veteran interests are often conflicting.

Those are some good points, especially on the New vs Old player interests... The biggest hurdle is regaining UO's creditability, for those of us who've been around a while and even some veteran game reviewers out there on various sites, UO is remembered with fond memories. On the other hand when you look at the MMORPG player base as a whole, UO is often mocked, ridiculed, and demeaned. Bugs, Cheats, and Technology have all played a part in this scorn it receives by many outside it's present community and those and other reasons have to be fixed before UO can become an attractive game for a new generation of players.

If I had the power and the options here's what I'd do.....

1. Turn the EM's Loose! - Give them 1 year of play time with their respecitve shards no Live events in that time.
2. Split the Dev Team - One portion focuses 100% on Bug and Cheat Eradication the other portion on refining the EC
3. Smuggle UO Disks in every SW:TOR and WH:O box possible, Heck send it out with PGA Tour 2011 and the New Madden Titles!

Now, let me expand on those a bit...

Turn the EM's Loose!
By giving them more play time with their servers, paid of course, they can create enough chaos to offset the lack of Live Event Arcs.

Split the Dev Team
Outside of stuff like Holiday Gifts, and New Vet Rewards, splitting the Dev Team as mentioned above makes sense. The EC uses the Gamebryo engine, it's extremely powerful, let a portion of the team be dedicated to doing nothing but fleshing this out and making full use of it's capability in creating a modern client for UO, not the 2.5d mess the EC is now, call it EC Beta 2, make an EC Beta 3 as you phase things in til it's right.

Imagine if Housing in UO was interacted with like this yet retained it's current functionality?

[YOUTUBE]lJ2A1xU39pQ[/YOUTUBE]


Eradicating Bugs and Cheats would go along way towards making UO a game that's friendlier to new players, and it needs to be it's getting so new folks take up cheating to just "Catch Up" we're a mature group of players for the most part, most of us aren't just getting into UO, we've been here for years. We have a distinct advantage in not only knowledge but resources over any new player, and it's hurting the New Player Experience horribly. 1000 gold a dagger and some junk armor just doesn't cut it anymore.


Smuggle Disks....
Do you realize how many MMO gamers have never even heard of UO? You can't draw new players with anonymity. It's not been seen on store shelves since what? 9th anniversary was released? UO is slowly fading into oblivion as it's visibility declines. Heck the last time I bought a box I paid $2.50 each for 6 copies at Circuit City, these were new copies not repacks or used. Getting it in the hands of some people is better than relying strictly on word of mouth, heck give them a 30 day trial instead of the 14 day if they get the disk as part of another purchase.

 

[Lady Michelle]

1 mil per character one time only once you have created the first 7 characters on that shard. After that you delete a character you only get 1,000 on any characters you create on that shard.
or maybe make it where you have to have a new account and the character has to have young status to be reward the 1 mil in the bank once the young status is gone it goes back to 1,000 per character.
take the old anti virtue dungeons like shame,despice etc and turn the first 2 levels into places where the new player can train their characters, and make some gold. first 2 levels they tone down on what damage each monster puts out physical or casting. 3rd level and up the monsters damage is what it always has been in the game.

 

[Zoeydamnies]

Am I the only one who finds this post ridiculous?

ZO

 

[Vyal]

It actually makes a lot of sense. You know how rare it is for even 1 person who has never played Ultima before to start. It is always people returning & then leaving.

 

[Lady Michelle]

Am I the only one who finds this post ridiculous?

ZO

Whats so ridiculous, about posting suggestions to bring new players to UO? If mine are so ridiculous, lets see what you can come up with.
The old dungeons are hardly ever used and would be a good place for the new players to start building characters.

 

[Apetul]

Interesting post.

And ill add, please think on the new players when implementing a new Spring Cleaning this year. I started on Jun/08, in the middle of spring cleanin 2008, and I was farming gold on despise/shame for hours just to be able to buy a 110 powerscroll because all PS were turnable for points. Minor arties & Doom arties were turnable too, that wasnt good for a new char.
A good idea for new chars would be to use any kind of deco items in the turn in because that will not affect them at all.

 

[MalagAste]

I think that the 1,000,000 should only be available to new accounts not just a new character.

God someone like me could make billions in no time at all. Having 8 accounts can you imagine how much I could generate? NO giving 1mill to any new character isn't a good idea. Nice thought to help newbs but not a good plan.

I like the idea of a new player ticket that offers things that would be more beneficial. A million gold, a 100% LRC suit(something cool and unique that perhaps later could be Imbued to be all 70's would be nice), or a choice to give them 1k(not 10) in a choice of resources regs, woods, ingots, leathers. Not a bad idea. Good way to help them out for their further game play give them a base.

A new player experience like they discuss is good. This should also be offered to vet returning players. And please don't forget to include Gargoyles. As it is now Gargoyle start in Ter Mur with ZERO assistance. They don't even have an NPC barking about click me for help. What happens when someone new buys SA and decides to create a Gargoyle????

I'd like to see the new player experience teach players things like how to use the user settings as well. You know it was 6 months before I learned that the "Circle of Transparency" wasn't a spell that I could get and that it was a feature in the User Settings? Teach them how to make useful Macro's... both in the EC and in 2d depending on what they decide to play.

A huge problem anymore is that there isn't a game play guide. Perhaps you need to work on making some sort of PDF downloadable playguide. Something that describes how to use the user settings, how to move, interact with objects, and things like house building and ownership, character creation. Something they can download BEFORE they download the game and read while it's downloading. This way perhaps you'll have less silly named characters running about. Doubtful but perhaps. I remember when I first started I had the UO:R guide to help me. And I used it quite frequently.

Another thing that might help is to offer a link page to places like Stratics, UOGuide and the MOD page and stuff for the EC so they can find stuff easier. I still use my old Prima's Strategy Guide to find things. The AoS guidebook was a good source of information. New players NEED something like that. It had a great town guide that helped with locating who sells or buys what... as well as a guide on what the different weapon types were and special moves of the various weapons.

Some sort of guide before they create a character might help new players get a better sense of what they might like better.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

1m would be pushing it.

10k wouldn't be, nor would 100k. (In the bank box of course.)

Nothing would quite make a noob laugh as quickly or as hard as being a millionaire right out of the start gate.

Skill cap of 720 for noobs is also pushing it; they have every reason to expect to have to more advantages as their accounts age.

There is definitely a need for a better new player experience. The idea they had in the video is intriguing, a very small download, followed by a noob quest while the entire game is downloading in the background, but does anyone really think that our obstacle to getting new players is the download size of the game? The content of the noob quest/tutorial/whatever you want to call it will matter a lot more, I think, than whether or not the entire game downloads before, after, or during it.

The "take me here" button might be pushing it. But a limited-use runebook, with locations to the noob quest areas, wouldn't be. Nor would, and I have long-advocated for this, a dungeon-to-dungeon teleporter system for some of the older dungeons in Trammel modeled after the one in Felucca. Currently, dying in a Felucca legacy dungeon is actually less inconvenient than is dying in a Trammel legacy dungeon. It takes a lot less time to go from, say, Despise to Terathan Keep to Ilshenar to rez than it does from Despise to overland (in black and white no less) to maybe find a healer, maybe not.

That there should be more information available on a noob quest is just a flat-out given.

That noob artifacts should be of more use is a flat-out given.

That there should be some way of getting to all-60 resists in short order is also a given.

That there should be more gold-farming areas for noobs is a flat-out given. (Of course, a teleporter to Shame level 1 might cover it.)

-Galen's player

 

[Tina Small]

The new player experience will probably be constructed by UO team members in Japan. I doubt they'll ever see any of this feedback.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

This was posted in the actual Video thread but due to the sheer number of posts and different conversations taking place, I decided to start a thread because this comment rang true on many levels.

It's a pretty good read. No outright negativity but some very good points are made from someone who claims to have been apart of the UO team in the earlier years.

The following is a comment that was posted in response to the long awaited "State of the Game" video that was posted on Thursday:

Brilliant and accurate.
Just simplify the game.

You forgot with powerscrolls, soulstones, SOTs and all that... becoming a characture is silly and easy.

Let the newbs by a skill potion that instantly boosts their skills to 85 in a specific area. It would be fun. Immerse the new player quickly.

Simplify.
Arrive. Fight. Explore.

Keep the experience SIMPLE. Go back to the roots of the game.

 

[LoL/Sonoma]

Funny that i stumbled across this post today. I recently came back to UO from hiatus (been back about 4 mo now) and last night i created a new character for the first time in a decade.

As someone who at least knows a bit of what they are doing it was even hard for ME to get going with a new character. I got frusterated in Haven trying to find some trainers for about 30 minutes (the mage trainers are hidden somewhere i never found) before deciding to spend another 30 minutes on UO guide trying to learn how to be a new charater (lol). EVentually i even gave up on that when i realized i wasnt going to get anything worth keeping from the quests and easiest thing to do would be to walk to Luna and train there before switching chars to drop off a bank check.

Imagine if i didnt know about UOguide or that Luna was where i could find other players (and a city where trying to find a vendor didnt require luck).

Some additional things i think need to be added to the new player experience (NPE):
1) A mount. Seriously... any new player should leave the NPE with a horse. Even if they dont know how important mobility is yet.

2) Chiv or Magery trained up high enough for the recall ability. This is something else that is never communicated to new players. Want to get anywhere? You have to have Chiv or Magery (only more experienced players know enough to know how to function outside of Haven without it, imo). I wont get into the fact that all of the casting skills should at least have a recall type ability.

3) A spellbook and some regs (and the LRC suit as stated above once they leave)at the start. Even if they didnt choose magery (becuase you only get two skills and a new player wont know which are important) every character should have a spell book with at least cure, heal, recall, and a few damage spells.

4) A quest to go to Luna (and how to get there). If you are on one of the lower population shards (like me) you probably wont see another player while in Haven. Stepping through the portal to Haven will be the first time a lot of new players actually see other people playing UO.

People have been giving great feedback in this thread. Would be awesome if it were noticed.

 

[Heimi]

The following is a comment that was posted in response to the long awaited "State of the Game" video that was posted on Thursday:

The long awaited video is coming out on March 1st, that was just a snippet.

 

[hen]

With the current clients on offer, re-jigging the new player experience is a waste of time. There will be very few.
The way for UO to survive is to get old players to return.
The current dev team have got NOTHING in their tank that would facilitate this.
The whole "video" wait became embarrasing. Cal and Mesanna should fall upon their swords and take their lackeys with them.
I'm almost glad they didn't commit to a classic shard as they would have been unable to deliver it satisfactorily.
The High Seas booster was a benchmark for this game. From pre-Alpha to release in less than two months with players' concerns ignored and bug reports not acted upon. Walk the plank Cal.

 

[Dicimiie]

There is so much to learn with this game, I don't think having a new player starting area is enough, unless it is a very comprehensive quest system, with several quest givers helping out in almost every aspect.

I think it would be very cool if there was a quest giver for each skill, with the major skill quest givers telling the player about other skills that can enhance the major skill. Just as an example, Magister Marcus, the mage trainer, says this upon completion of the magery quest (giving the player a 60.0 magery skill and 20,000 gold upon completion):

"Now that you have completed all of the training I can provide, let me tell you about some of the other trainers you may want to consider conversing with. They will train you in skills that can greatly enhance your magery skill.

Magister Bob is a master at discerning the intelligence of other creatures. With his skills, his offensive spellcasting is far more damaging than the layman. His spells are more true, and deal much more damage. He would definitely be worth visiting.

Magister Doug can teach you how to meditate. With proper meditative techniques, your magical energies can be replenished more quickly. Again, I highly recommend you seek him out.

Other option you might consider would be training in inscription, poisoning, necromancy or spellweaving. The trainer names are [insert names here]. While not necessarily a must, these skills can further enhance your magical abilities in various ways.

Be well, and I hope you find your newfound magicks beneficial in your journeys."

This system would steer the players to those sideline skills that greatly help set up templates. It highlights the ones most necessary for the main skill, while eluding to other options to specialize in some way.

Instead of handing out 1 million gold upon starting a new character, perhaps you could give out a fair amount of money for each completed quest. I've not done any of the quests, but I think giving out 20k per quest in the new area would be a better way of handing out necessary money for the new player.

I'd also recommend quests for going out and buying a full spellbook, runebook, mount, etc. Tell them how to get to Luna and buy what they need. Explain the vendor system to them at that time. Upon completion of buying whatever they were supposed to buy, they get enough money to cover what they spent, plus 20k extra. This not only helps the new player, but it helps those scribes that sell full spellbooks, runebooks, etc. It could be done for other items as well. I'm just using the mage as an example.

I'll stop there, since my post is getting long. I think I've explained enough of my idea for most to get the idea.

 

[LoL/Sonoma]

I'm almost glad they didn't commit to a classic shard as they would have been unable to deliver it satisfactorily.
The High Seas booster was a benchmark for this game. From pre-Alpha to release in less than two months with players' concerns ignored and bug reports not acted upon. Walk the plank Cal.

I still can't place a ship with my pirate char. I get the bugged "You already have a ship" ... so I'm with you there.

As for the classic shard, I agree. While i was as intrigued as a lot of players at the idea of a return to "the good old days" i was a bit worried at the thought of adding yet another ruleset/shard for the devs to work on developing. It would jsut be one more thing for them to try to work on, when it is fairly obvious that the team is understaffed for the job. I don't see more resources (human) being allocated to UO, so, personally, i believe we as a playerbase are better off getting smaller, high-quality things than large expansions. There is just too much "stuff" in a large expansion for a small team to ensure everything was done properly on release.... And after release it is pretty clear the pressure is on them to move to the next revenue generating project, not clean up bugs in the previous one. While it is a shame, from a business standpoint, i understand. It just says to me that we would be better served if the focus was on quality, not quantity.

 

[Trebr Drab]

This was posted in the actual Video thread but due to the sheer number of posts and different conversations taking place, I decided to start a thread because this comment rang true on many levels.

It's a pretty good read. No outright negativity but some very good points are made from someone who claims to have been apart of the UO team in the earlier years.

The following is a comment that was posted in response to the long awaited "State of the Game" video that was posted on Thursday:

I worked for Origin back on '00 on the Renaissance Edition, and have worked on other games with "legacy" issues, thus I can appreciate the challenges here. You have, in essence, a Massively Single Player game with too many long time players who resist change with a religious passion while too many others become more obsessed with the buying and selling of UDIs than with game play. All quests are single player and most are Fed-Ex quests. Plus, culturally, it's actually considered an achievement to solo bosses, which is understandable but a sad commentary on the state of the game. Thus even people of good will, intelligence, and fine intent will need to take significant risks to make this game enticing to new players.

In the eight months I've been back, after ten years away, I've seen one major expansion and at least six major patches - or "publishes" as they like to call them. I've seen Thanksgiving gifts, Holiday gifts, Anniversary gifts and even Valentine's day teddy bears given out. Yet there has not been a single upgrade to the new player experience or to the woefully out of date gear new player quests deliver.

In UO - and I don't mean this as sarcastically as it sounds - it's a "You have to have been there to be here" game.

Twenty fewer skill points

Shy five stat

You can't use this

And you can't use that

This is the new player experience. It sounds harsh but I know the team is small and the demands placed upon them are enormous. Thus I do not mean for this to - in any way - imply that the current development team is inept or stupid. They're not.

The UO free trial page give you two choices: a Classic client that would look dated to the grandparents of most new prospects or an Enhanced Client that you're told remains in beta. Sadly, quaint doesn't play in contemporary computer gaming and the word, beta, is an off-putting prospect for anyone starting out.

You get 1000 gold in a game where anything useful costs millions and the street price of UO gold is fifty cents a million. Oh, and you get a candle, a fireworks wand and a blank book.

There is no checklist provided, based on the character type you've created, for the character advancement quests that are available to you. Instead there is a bot outside the bank that repeats "Click on me for help" ad nauseum but provides little when you do.

Oddly, the first step in most of these is to pay 400 of that 1000 gold to get the first 40 points of skill, with the next 10 coming from a quest. Why in blazes those first points are not part of the initial character creation process defies understanding as does the price point. At the end you get an item may have been useful prior to the most recent major expansion.

Clearly you need more information. If you go to the official site you get a message that its content is being "updated soon." Stratics, the site most new players are told to try next, has information that, in some cases, has been out of date for up to a decade. Go to the forums and you're told to read a readme before posting, basically saying that you have to earn the right to ask questions and nobody wants to hear a question that's been asked before.

Many players in-game try to be helpful but most are so steeped in the lexicon of the game that they do not know that their answers make no sense. How do I train archery? "100% poison wep on a Gollum, Enemy of One." Yes, that was an actual answer. I asked the player who posed the question if he understood a single word of that. Of course his answer was no.

Scroll over a weapon and you'll get an incomprehensible list of attributes, such as Hit Lower Defense, Hit Poison Area, Use Best Weapon Skill, Repond Slayer....sorry but it simply makes no sense at all.

You're trying to hook up with another player who tells you to go north. Good luck with that. The UO compass is canted 45 degrees to the east. You have a positive experience with a player and want to see that player again. Good luck with that too. There are no friends or buddy lists in UO. There are Guilds and your Client has Guild invitations set to Ignore by default. There is not dating in UO, only marriage.

My apologies. This is getting too long and a bit tedious. Allow me to summarize what I believe the new player experience needs to be:

One client and not the Classic one on the free trial page. This means getting the EC out of beta which should happen before any more updates, expansions, or even gifts are delivered in the game.

More points given during character creation

More information, if the player wants it, on the character creation screens

Dump the part about customizing the template disqualifying you from new player quests. It's not true.

Provide players with a checklist of quests based on the character they've created along with a "Take me there" button next to each, and save this to the player journal which is highlighted until either the player's young status is aged off or the player declines the quests.

Spot new players at least 1 million gold. Yes, players will create new characters just to get the gold and a veteran player could start on any shard with 6. So what? 6 million UO gold is worth 3 dollars. The million gold is worth fifty cents. The games costs 13 dollars a month for the subscription.

All players begin with the 720 skill point cap. The 5 extra stat points can remain a six month veteran reward. Other veteran rewards should be cosmetic, not tactical. It's okay that a 13 year veteran player can ride around on an ethereal armored Boura (a cross between a water buffalo and a Ice Age ox) or wear dazzling clothing, but it's not okay to put new players at a fundamental disadvantage from the start. Lots of these folks will want an actual game, after all, and all games since the beginning of time are based on human competition. Even Solitaire is PvP.

Players leaving the new player island of New Haven should depart with at least a 100LRC/70s suit (no ingredients needed to cast spells, maximum armor protection is 70 percent). Nobody is going to farm this stuff because, as players advance, they will get equipment with more tactical attributes. Mages should have full spellbooks. Warriors should have at least one weapon with the fundamental capability bonuses. UO relies heavily on tactical bonuses added to jewelry - up to five for each piece (ring and bracelet). New players should leave New Haven with a ring and braclet with at least 3 bonuses of medium intensity each. And they should leave with the skill level currently provided by the Advanced Character Token - not enough to be deadly but enough to make the journey to become deadly more interesting and congruent with the game activity they desire.

There should be a matchmaking service if guilds want to register for it. Siege Perilous (the forbidding sounding server where the old, Hobbs State of Nature rules apply) has a guild called NEW that players can join for up to 30 days. It has players who have volunteered to help new players with basic gear and game help. Yes, some will make up griefer guilds and can do so in minutes, but that can be remedied with a few checks for guild age and history of harassment complaints of guild members.

I'd like to suggest a one year feature freeze with bug fixes only but that's likely outside the realm of what the team can decide on their own to do.

Oh, and lastly for now, stop telling new players, every time they log in, that they are too young to receive a gift. Just stop it. Rather, give them a gift if it's a genuine new account, and the player has completed the quests he agreed to take.

The rest falls into realms of SEO and guerilla marketing. I doubt there is much of a budget for much else, but that's another matter entirely.

If you've made it this far, thank you.

Jonathan

AoS plus other additions has created a nightmare of complication.
Inflation has added to the problems.
But the existing players won't let the fixes happen, and whoever is responsible (over top of the Devs) won't let it happen either.

So here we are. They're going to separate the new players even more. By the way, that's not what UO was about. But it seems to be the way of all things MMORPG anymore. No fixes, nothing changes, the problems will persist.

 

[NuSair]

I pretty much agreed with everything up to the part of giving characters 1mil gold...and then from that point on.... no.

For me, UO should list out each skill and effect with exactly what it does, and when a new ability/trait/whatever comes out, they should spell that out as well.

 

[Spiritless]

The points he (verbosely) makes are good ones. However they address problems more in the realm of new player retention rather than the underlying issue of not having any new players to retain in the first place. There are more fundamental reasons why UO struggles to attract new players:

• All current UO clients look crap, and will always look crap in comparison with current MMOs unless they make a sequel game from scratch. The fanboys can argue about whether the classic or enhanced client is better all they want. To an outsider, all they see is an argument over two pieces of turd.
• Due to the above, the subscription price of UO is vastly above what most would be willing to pay at first glance. The price is on par with games like WoW, etc. and in some cases more expensive. This is ridiculous.
• If new players do make it into Britannia despite the above, they're greeted with largely empty lands due to the above with no peers to interact with and begin meeting the issues outlined in the OP. They soon get bored, quit and, of course, don't recommend UO to their friends. Word of mouth is a very powerful recruitment tool and UO lacks it other than from veteran players entrenched within the game for years a lot of whom seem completely blinded to UO's shortcomings. There are some who'll defend the game and not speak a word against it. These "yes men" are a detriment to the community and progress.

Beyond these fundamental points, the OP raises some serious issues with regards to retention. Personally I think the skill gain system is total garbage as highlighted in the OP whereby to train effectively you're almost forced to have to do weird stuff we all take for granted, like training from golems or running scripts to click a button 1,000,000 times.

To solve this, more focus should be added to quests which reward you with skill. Cut down the grind and give people varied activities and quests that would encourage them to visit obscure dungeons or places they're never likely to otherwise and make this route desirable by making it easier to train this way through a bit of effort rather than script train or hitting a golem for a few days straight.

Other games have, successfully in my opinion, implemented "achievements" which also encourage people to actually play and do things they otherwise may not have tried in order to receive recognition for it. Worth considering in UO imo.

With regards to subscription fee, I seriously think UO should look hard at the free-to-play model after resolving some retention issues in the OP and the ones I mention. This would arrest the declination of the player base and actually make UO a talking point among people again. Just be sure to give them a strong reason to either subscribe, or pay, once they're in.

Not gonna go on and on becuz we could spend all night listing issues, but things that should be addressed imo are the basics such as: monster AI and PvE difficulty (its still tuned for people on dialup, time to move on), friends lists, private messaging, crafting and its usefulness, proper PvP systems (arenas? guild vs. guild? ctf? specific duel mechanisms?), trading (auction house?). etc. etc. Many ideas that could be tried. Just need developers and management to have some balls and try new things out. We have a test shard for a reason after all.

 

[[JD]]

New player token which you can redeem and pick from 1mill, all resist 100 lrc suit, 10k each resource, etc... Something along those lines would be nice.

I like the token idea, but giving a mil, or an entire LRC suit can dilute the new player experience.

Maybe a little better idea would be a token for 100k, ONE piece of an LRC suit, but allow one token per character, if that character slot has not previously been deleted.

That way if someone does log in and create 7 characters all with a token, they can only do it one time per shard. They can get 700k to start out with, or an entire LRC suit, but they can't exploit it to become a multi millionaire.

 

[Aran]

Some rambling.

tl;dr

 

[soze]

I pretty much agreed with everything up to the part of giving characters 1mil gold...and then from that point on.... no.

For me, UO should list out each skill and effect with exactly what it does, and when a new ability/trait/whatever comes out, they should spell that out as well.

Maybe...

we start a new account (not character) out with 250k-300k (maybe up to 500k).

A player then has a certain character created. Once a player reaches a certain level (say they GM 3 skills that are related to that character's type...archer for example... that are not focus or med) they get a 1mil check in their bank.

A new account can have this done for 3 new characters. This would cause a player to be vested in the game before they get the gold.

But, the gold influx helps them to develop and complete the characters.

 

[Uvtha]

Some of it is spot on, some not so much. Absolutely agree on the buddy/friend option. Ive though that UO has been missing this since forever.

I think that the tome of knowledge needs to be actually fiilled out with things like descriptions of weapon mods, and weapon special moves, and all of the spells as well, with a search field.

 

[Gorbs]

How about working on a system where existing players / veterans can be rewarded for helping new players instead of creating an uber-handout?

My initial thought is a new community collections style system where existing players can donate gold, resources, or item(s) which would then be available only to players who are in their first 30 days of their account. Add in some sort of mentoring system where a player could accrue some sort of points while partied with a new player (and within one screen or some such limit) which could then be redeemed at a later time for some reward.

Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll make millions himself off MIB and nets. Or at least I think that's how the saying goes.

 

[Amber Moon]

Well, if nothing else, this has created one of the best game improvement discussions on these forums in my memories. Many good ideas and opinions, even those that don't find value in certain things proposed.

For my part I think a lot of the initial ideas are good. Some, not so much.

We do need to keep this in the realm of reality in my view. Fix the EC client as best you can and as quickly as you can with the assets you can get your hands on and then make that the client of choice on sign up.

But most of all, I like the include a Dvd idea with other EA/Mythic products. If nobody is looking, nobody is coming on board. Longer term fixes to NPE can come as time and resources allow. But do the easier stuff starting today.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

There is so much to learn with this game, I don't think having a new player starting area is enough, unless it is a very comprehensive quest system, with several quest givers helping out in almost every aspect.


I'd also recommend quests for going out and buying a full spellbook, runebook, mount, etc. Tell them how to get to Luna and buy what they need. Explain the vendor system to them at that time. Upon completion of buying whatever they were supposed to buy, they get enough money to cover what they spent, plus 20k extra. This not only helps the new player, but it helps those scribes that sell full spellbooks, runebooks, etc. It could be done for other items as well. I'm just using the mage as an example.

I'll stop there, since my post is getting long. I think I've explained enough of my idea for most to get the idea.

pfffft!

handing the noob player MORE than 1k, teaches them what?
*looks around*

Is the answer Role Playing?
*shrugs*

Noob area's are familiarizing a noob with the action control's
Left, right, up, down, pickup, place, drop, talk, reply, walk, run, local customs & boundries
phisixz
Ya can die ...
but ya can't swim or drown ...
ya can fly ...
but not to the roof tops or over head high fences
Ya can dig ...
but you won't make a hole, or burn through a hundred pickaxes and scratch a single brick or cobble or bush. you can't mine there ...
you can't walk on the grass there ... the magic won't allow it ...
Ya can be an elf ...
But noone can climb a tree or a mountain or atop two boxes stacked one on the other ...(three boxes tall ... could you touch the sky?)
Two moons ...
and no tides.
Okay ... *jumps on mattress one last time* ... got it ... now what ... ???

Is the answer Role Playing?
*shrugs*

The question remains the same as when ya walked in:

whatcha gonna do noob?

And depending on the number of times the noob finds out that the answer is:
No, can't do that
determines how long the noob hangs about ...

The game mechanics can only supply so much ...
The MMO part is where the rest is >supposed to be< created
More so now with the new "vision"
Fewer "grand story arcs"
more "bumpersticker" in and outs
More "individual satisfactions"
Fewer "natural story tellers" ... which is another word for Leader.

*shrugs*
Lord of the Flies had a plot at least ...

UO has sadly devolved to this

 

[Yalp]

The dev's could spend their entire lives making a new player experience more friendly and easy... but until EA decides to put some money into marketing and creating a demand for this "new player experience" service, it's the cart before the horse and wasted energy.

 

[Woodsman]

The dev's could spend their entire lives making a new player experience more friendly and easy... but until EA decides to put some money into marketing and creating a demand for this "new player experience" service, it's the cart before the horse and wasted energy.

Agreed.

It would not surprise me if this new player experience is the result of a directive from BioWare and not EA proper. There was an interview posted this week where BioWare said that a lot of people quit Dragon Age within an hour or two of staring to play it, and so they are putting a greater emphasis on the first couple of hours of play with their games. Chances are this trickled down to UO, because what little was mentioned in the video sounds an awful lot like what BioWare was talking about.

 

[Tinsil]

New player token which you can redeem and pick from 1mill, all resist 100 lrc suit, 10k each resource, etc... Something along those lines would be nice.

This sounds better.. maybe not 70 and 100 lrc, but various mini suits, or your choice of a few hundred k would go a long ways itself in helping the new player.

Also, it should be noted which shards are high population.. A completely new player logging in and clicking Origin will be devastated, while one who picks Atlantic would probably have a pretty good view of the game from the start.. as there are plenty of players who sit in Haven and are completely willing to help new players.

 

[Tinsil]

The dev's could spend their entire lives making a new player experience more friendly and easy... but until EA decides to put some money into marketing and creating a demand for this "new player experience" service, it's the cart before the horse and wasted energy.

This is a major issue as well. Cutting the download time and all that is great, and there should be small steps taken to helping the new player such as more items, gold, etc.. but let's not put too many resources into this.

As I said in the other thread, you can do all this, but face the facts.. UO is not driving in completely new players anymore really. The game is wicked old and it's not marketed at all. Let's take small steps to help these new players, but at this point in the game, deciding to create another new area, and do all these extra things only takes away from the resources put into developing content for CURRENT, PAYING players.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I am kinda laughing at you all (and myself)... many of you are missing the forest.


You talk about newbs as if they are idiots. You view the game as vets and newbs. The game should be viewed as an experience. The player enters and the experience begins.

Very few know more about being a merchant and turning gold then me. I learned it over 10 years. Should a newb get a full quest and tutorial to teach them everything I know. Noo. If a new players asks me, In 5 minutes I can show them how to set a vendor up.

I know little about PVP compared to the rest. Does that mean a newb should be given everything they need in 30 days to gain what your learned over the years. Noo.

I think everyone is making this more complicated then needed.

When I started. I was shown how to build skills on a dummy. I was given some mid level armour. I went out and fought. I died. Wandered around 1 hour before I turned my ghost visible.

I learned the controls of olds. Talked to players, played, and learned as I went.


You all seem like Newbs need something special to play. Give them this that, and a bunch of those... I even said give them a potion to bump skills...

I was missing the point too...

I think your trying to take a new player and get them to a vet player in 5 easy steps. Everyone is convinced to GET UP TO SPEED, you need all this crap. You don't. I think thats the wrong path.

Enter the game and play. Seriously. Look at New Haven. You add quests to help them but then you need help to understand the quests.

Whats wrong with learning in the dungeons that exist. Whats wrong with using what is there. To much time is spent on redifining what exists to only run into the same problems.

Simplify this game. Stop adding complexities to it to make it appear interesting. We dont need 100 different skills combos that once understood.... everyone uses the 5 best. It is silly.

Simplify.
Learn how to navigate. Learn how to set macros. Aside from that... go explore, learn, and talk.

In the old days you would have an extensive manual. That is how we each learned. Instead of a manual you use websites today. Its really no different. The websites replace manuals. One thing that works is talking to players.

 

[virtualhabitat]

Hi guys,

I have been playing UO for one month on Feb. 24. This thread intrigued me because it is pretty much about me -or rather people like me.

Let me preface what I want to say by telling you that some years ago I worked with a woman at the Dallas Opera who played this game and she spoke about it often. Being a long time D&D player (25 years or so) it is no wonder that I was a little more than curious about UO. As circumstances had it then, I was never able to start playing UO back then when I was acquainted with that woman. Now, circumstances are that I can. I ran across a reference to UO in an article and decided to have a look.

Most of what I knew about UO was from my long ago coworker and what I read on Stratics for two or three hours on stratics before starting my trial account. When I found myself of my first character, I wandered around New Haven trying to figure out what to do. I figured out the 1k gold wasn't going to last long so I started making magery scrolls and selling them for more supplies and a tiny profit at the mage shop.

I figured out that New Haven was and Island and spent a couple of days convinced that I had to buy a boat to leave the island. Boats are around 10 or 11k so I made more scrolls. I found the moongate and the urgency to buy a boat went away for a couple of hours until someone told me to buy one for training.

Here's where it gets interesting. By the time I found the moongate I had about 14 or 15k in the bank. The day I found the moongate, someone gated me to despise dungeon were I died. I was still young so it teleported me to Britain (a place I had never been) with all my stuff so I didn't lose anything except the knowledge of how to find that dungeon again. Later, I decided I must buy some better armor. I couldn't afford what people were selling. I ask around if people sold regular armor for non-millionaires and a really nice player gave me a 70 resist 100%LRC suit (she explained what the resists and LRC was). At the exact same time she was doing this another player gave me one of those fallen charger statue-horse-thing. It so beats buying horses every time you die. The one that gave me the suit also gave me 60k in gold.. making my net worth around 75k. A few days later I made 100 inscription and I had about 120k in the bank and I was reading about housing...

I am/was grateful for the generosity of these other player that gave me these things and since then I have been given a 110 magery scroll and a compendium spellbook (those are cool), but each time someone ends up giving me something it is a response to my question. What I mean is this. Where can I get armor for non millionaires? here have a suit. Where do I go to get power scrolls? Here have one. I noticed this compendium book in my scribe tool where do I get the recipe / how do I make this? Here have one. I want these things, but I want to get them. I still don't know anyone who will go with me to kill a champion spawn for power scrolls. everyone just says buy one or don't go there they will kill you.
I want to make an archer but I still don't know where to get what-I-can-afford armor.

So I started a crafter tailor and fletcher/lumberjack I'll just make it myself. Right? By the way, speaking of lumberjacks, Boards are freaking expensive. Seriously. It takes like 7 boards to make a bow and they cost like 24 gold each and then you sell the bow for like 14 gold? I can sell each board for 18 gold making the raw material 8 times the value of the manufactured product. That is bizarre.

Sorry I digressed, I guess what I want to say really is I appreciate the kindnesses others have shown me and some of what I have been given was essential. The suit, for example. One month into the game I now have a small house, 8x10 or something near that size and between three characters I probably have 350k.
The 60k seed money and the LRC suit really helped move that along I believe. But I don't like charity, I want to go kill the dragon, as it were, for myself.

P.S.
Speaking of dragons, is there a place where I can fight a Dragon with out a Greater Dragon ruining the party?

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Hi guys,

I have been playing UO for one month on Feb. 24. This thread intrigued me because it is pretty much about me -or rather people like me.

Let me preface what I want to say by telling you that some years ago I worked with a woman at the Dallas Opera who played this game and she spoke about it often. Being a long time D&D player (25 years or so) it is no wonder that I was a little more than curious about UO. As circumstances had it then, I was never able to start playing UO back then when I was acquainted with that woman. Now, circumstances are that I can. I ran across a reference to UO in an article and decided to have a look.

Most of what I knew about UO was from my long ago coworker and what I read on Stratics for two or three hours on stratics before starting my trial account. When I found myself of my first character, I wandered around New Haven trying to figure out what to do. I figured out the 1k gold wasn't going to last long so I started making magery scrolls and selling them for more supplies and a tiny profit at the mage shop.

I figured out that New Haven was and Island and spent a couple of days convinced that I had to buy a boat to leave the island. Boats are around 10 or 11k so I made more scrolls. I found the moongate and the urgency to buy a boat went away for a couple of hours until someone told me to buy one for training.

Here's where it gets interesting. By the time I found the moongate I had about 14 or 15k in the bank. The day I found the moongate, someone gated me to despise dungeon were I died. I was still young so it teleported me to Britain (a place I had never been) with all my stuff so I didn't lose anything except the knowledge of how to find that dungeon again. Later, I decided I must buy some better armor. I couldn't afford what people were selling. I ask around if people sold regular armor for non-millionaires and a really nice player gave me a 70 resist 100%LRC suit (she explained what the resists and LRC was). At the exact same time she was doing this another player gave me one of those fallen charger statue-horse-thing. It so beats buying horses every time you die. The one that gave me the suit also gave me 60k in gold.. making my net worth around 75k. A few days later I made 100 inscription and I had about 120k in the bank and I was reading about housing...

I am/was grateful for the generosity of these other player that gave me these things and since then I have been given a 110 magery scroll and a compendium spellbook (those are cool), but each time someone ends up giving me something it is a response to my question. What I mean is this. Where can I get armor for non millionaires? here have a suit. Where do I go to get power scrolls? Here have one. I noticed this compendium book in my scribe tool where do I get the recipe / how do I make this? Here have one. I want these things, but I want to get them. I still don't know anyone who will go with me to kill a champion spawn for power scrolls. everyone just says buy one or don't go there they will kill you.
I want to make an archer but I still don't know where to get what-I-can-afford armor.

So I started a crafter tailor and fletcher/lumberjack I'll just make it myself. Right? By the way, speaking of lumberjacks, Boards are freaking expensive. Seriously. It takes like 7 boards to make a bow and they cost like 24 gold each and then you sell the bow for like 14 gold? I can sell each board for 18 gold making the raw material 8 times the value of the manufactured product. That is bizarre.

Sorry I digressed, I guess what I want to say really is I appreciate the kindnesses others have shown me and some of what I have been given was essential. The suit, for example. One month into the game I now have a small house, 8x10 or something near that size and between three characters I probably have 350k.
The 60k seed money and the LRC suit really helped move that along I believe. But I don't like charity, I want to go kill the dragon, as it were, for myself.

P.S.
Speaking of dragons, is there a place where I can fight a Dragon with out a Greater Dragon ruining the party?

Well there you go. You had adventure. Fun I take it. You learned game pieces. Got help from players. Ready to get a home. Gold. And all in less the 30 days. Im happy for you. If you are on Atlantic, I will help you out more. LMK.

 

[virtualhabitat]

Oh yes Raven, Much fun indeed. And still figuring out all sorts of stuff too. Lots to do....

I appreciate your offer of help, but I didn't start on Atlantic. Most of the help I really need at this point in in the form of information. Like last night I needed help finding out about this library quest. Where to go etc...

As far as money goes, I am not terribly worried now. This lumberjack skill could prove lucrative for the present. Yesterday I trained lumberjacking. I cut 35,000 logs in about 3 or 4 hours. 15000 from one tree! At the prices people pay for boards I will have some money in a relatively short time, even if I have to sell them to an NPC @ 18 gold each that's 500k. I used them up training fletching though. 35,000 boards = 87.8 fletching skill btw.

 

[Tanivar]

Speaking of dragons, is there a place where I can fight a Dragon with out a Greater Dragon ruining the party?

The best spot to duke it out with dragons is at the Fire Temple on Avatar Island. If you have a rune to Hythloth dungeon it's in the middle of the same island.

The area to the left of the building within the outer wall has dragons, drakes, daemons, and greater dragons. If there is a greater dragon there, get it targeted on you, lead it outside the wall and off to the west (upper left of the screen) and far out into the boondocks away from the temple, then Recall away from it.

With the GD out of your hair, go back inside the walls and get a dragon to target you and lead it outside the wall to the clear area outside the gate, You may have to deal with a couple drakes and daemons who decide to join in on the way out, but once outside the wall, it's you, the dragon, and a few minor critters who wander in.

I hunt here with a Crafter who has only 60 points of Magery boosted to GM with jewelry and a book using EVs and Mind Blasts, every other skill is crafting. He's up to Illustrious on his paperdoll title, so it's not a real bad place to hunt.

Send me your recipe for filet of dragon.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Oh yes Raven, Much fun indeed. And still figuring out all sorts of stuff too. Lots to do....

I appreciate your offer of help, but I didn't start on Atlantic. Most of the help I really need at this point in in the form of information. Like last night I needed help finding out about this library quest. Where to go etc...

As far as money goes, I am not terribly worried now. This lumberjack skill could prove lucrative for the present. Yesterday I trained lumberjacking. I cut 35,000 logs in about 3 or 4 hours. 15000 from one tree! At the prices people pay for boards I will have some money in a relatively short time, even if I have to sell them to an NPC @ 18 gold each that's 500k. I used them up training fletching though. 35,000 boards = 87.8 fletching skill btw.

You found a special tree. For real. You might be a reverse troll... One that shows the game works and is enjoyable. I wish you luck. You should start your own thread about how the game is fun for someone new. There are a dozen threads with people saying no one new comes to UO.

Good luck.

 

[Tanivar]

I cut 35,000 logs in about 3 or 4 hours. 15000 from one tree!

I haven't seen a supertree in years. They are nice.

Another way to make good gold is by buying from NPC vendors who get little business, and selling to ones that get a lot of business. NPC vendor items that are stocked in quanitities of 500, when bought, raises the price 1 gp for every 1000 they sell, and drops it 1 gp for every 1000 they buy. You can often find that the Luna NPC alchemist's bottle price has been driven up high and that you can buy pack animal loads of bottles cheap at other towns and sell them there for a good profit. Buying 1600 bottles at 5 - 10 gp each and selling them for 20 - 30 gp each adds up after a while. My best run at it was when I saw a vendor was selling bottles for 84 gold each. The price they pay is 75% of their selling price so the first load of 2000 bottles I paid 11,000 gold for in Papua I sold for 125,000 gold to that Luna vendor. I kept at it for a couple of play sessions and cleared 2,000,000 gold before I gave up on it. You can also use wood you get lumberjacking to craft items to sell to NPC vendors in batches of 500 or less. Compare the value of the boards needed to make something with the price the NPC will pay for the crafted item. You can make a surprising amount of gold at it.

 

[G.v.P]

I honestly stopped reading after "Jonathan" started to talk about why you have to spend 400 gold for 40 skill, then do a quest to get the last 10 points. Obviously you save the 1k, buy a horse, then do the quests to 50. Once you have the quest weapon, assuming, like most, you start with a dexxer, you can totally wreck things in Old Haven and make your first couple of K at your own pace. From there, you can buy crappy armor from off-Luna vendors, or you can buy some skills. And in a game in which you can only get to 120 in any given skill, being able to buy up to 40 with only 400 gold is fairly remarkable.

Jonathan sounds like a total noob. If he logged in a second time he'd get a +5 stat, for example. Not that interesting a response, for me. Sounds like a guy who came back for one day then thought he was an expert of current affairs.

 

[Jonathan Baron]

Well, I must admit that much of it was meant to provoke thought and discussion. The 1 mil gold I just tossed out there because I figured it might be a suitable trigger. This is what multiplayer game design is, after all.....seeding an environment for stimulating but ultimately productive conflict....not this mind numbing thief of time that most MMOs have become. UO is the richest of the lot IMO, and has the most potential to become what many of us, decades ago, thought online gaming would be: a vivid, captivating experience that brings together the most diverse collection of people imaginable - a shared, bond building experience for some; an absorbing individual meditation, away from the maddening limits of the physical world, for others.

As for being a "noob" that's part of the problem really. What does it say about a gaming culture when the greatest transgression is being new?

I've been back for ten months, twelve to eighteen hours a day. Actually thought it was 8 months until I checked today by pulling up my first account. Had to get my teddy bear after all.

In that time I've made eleven maxed out characters, all with very different templates, with four more coming along very nicely. Have a straight Paladin swordsman and, by that, I don't mean he hates musical theater. A Bushido/swordsman, an ABC archer, a stealth archer, a stealth/archer/tamer, two mage/tamers, a mage/peacing/tamer, a "mule" with imbuing, a sampire (though he remains a work in progress), a mystic mage (omg, the sheer firepower of that is breathtaking), a pure mage (magery, inscription, wrestling), and a Fel thief. I've filled BoDs, mined ore, fished, GMed Lumberjacking, fought, and tamed everything from a Skree to a Reptilon and maxed out the skills of dozens of pets, including 100 magery on two Banes, a Nightmare, and a couple of Dreads I got in odd ways.

Not bragging....just saying I became driven to learn the game and became obsessed with the nuances of its multifaceted culture.

Anyone who writes a lengthy comment full of sweeping suggestions who has done less deserves the comments of the previous poster. Though I must correct him: you get that extra 5 points after six months, not the second time you log on, if your account is brand new.

Forgive the reference to an old Neil Young (the singer/composer - not the former EA executive with the same name) song, but I only proposed what I thought folks should have when they leave Sugar Mountain. I'm not smart enough to come up with how, exactly, they get it all. That takes the sort of collaboration I see in evidence here.

And my claim to have been part of the Renaissance dev team is only partly true. Yes, I was on the team. Yes, I am listed in its credits. But, back then at Origin, being on the UO team was New Haven for fresh Origin developers. Difference was that you were working alongside veteran, dedicated developers - most cherry picked from the UO community in those days - as you learned. The only solo new employee quest was playing UO....A LOT. You might think it funny that getting paid to play UO is work but it wasn't game play in the normal sense. Rather it was a sleepless, tireless tour through all the game systems, all the professions, and all the possible activities the game afforded just before the world was split in two.

The argument that the future of the game lay in its past - that the game will survive on returning players alone - has an unavoidable appeal. It would be ideal in so many ways if it worked. Sadly it does not. Yes, people will return, and in formidable numbers. Most of those will leave again though. Some will leave for same reason they left to begin with, having forgotten why they left the first time around. Some will leave because they will find a game that has changed in ways that have annihilated what was most compelling to them long ago. Some will go because the character of the player base has changed so much that they no longer feel they belong. Some, of course, will stay, having seen what else there is out there, returning with fresh appreciation. There is value in their return but there's no long term future in it. I've seen it all before in other games that have lasted longer than UO, and I grieve their loss still.

There is NO SUBSTITUTE for fresh blood. Everyone reading this has keen memories of what the game felt like when it was new to them and I've yet to meet a soul who didn't long for that feeling of wonder and discovery they felt during those times, awkward as they were. Every player has an opportunity to feel a bit of that again when new players come into this world. It's in our DNA.

After less than a year back, I feel slightly choked up when I play Walking on my music box, because the first player who offered me a place to stay had his house on Ice Island. I greet with overblown enthusiasm the person who gave me my first suit every time I encounter her, poor gal. All my memories of "firsts" are so keen and the only way to touch that feeling again is by providing the same to other "noobs." This is the selfish part about wanting more new players perhaps, but mostly it's concern for the game.

UO defies anything approaching an ideal new user experience like no other MMO still in existence. Its sheer depth and wealth ironically is also its greatest peril. It stands defiant against a world that sees the leveling and limited character class mechanic as the only way. That method works. It's proven it works. But I think all of us despise the very idea of it on a very deep level.

Finally - yes I will finally finish this post - as overblown as this sounds, reading this thread has given me faith. Contrary to that tired old fall back phrase, these are not "just games."

-

 

[Shelra]

After less than a year back, I feel slightly choked up when I play Walking on my music box, .........-

Welcome back to UO Jonathan!

 

[G.v.P]

As for being a "noob" that's part of the problem really. What does it say about a gaming culture when the greatest transgression is being new?

To me, there's a difference between being a noob and being new (or a newbie). I use the word noob for people who don't seem to pick up concepts, and not because they are new to a game. For example, I've had conversations with some of my PvP type friends about why we can't help non-PvP types into becoming PvPers. The conclusion we came to is some people just don't pick-up game mechanics as well as others. Some new players will become millionaires in a week, others will struggle to stay alive against rat mages after four-five years of constant play. However, your most recent response colors you in a different, more experienced (and driven) fashion than the OP does.

Anyone who writes a lengthy comment full of sweeping suggestions who has done less deserves the comments of the previous poster. Though I must correct him: you get that extra 5 points after six months, not the second time you log on, if your account is brand new.

Perhaps the most elegant correction I've read. Nothing more for me to say except you're right about the six months.

Whether anyone is really at a disadvantage during those first six months is a different story, and subject to debate. After all, it would be hard to complain about the +5 "free" stat when the most accomplished have +30. Still, depending on the character and the template, you should be able to reach hard caps even without that +30.

 

[Jonathan Baron]

Thank you, Shelra

G.v.P - you're quite right and I wasn't entirely playing fair in that case. Noob really means "thick" not new, much the way saying something is "gay" doesn't really have much of anything to do with homophobia....the person saying it isn't even thinking about such things. What they mean to say is that something is bad.

Never been a fan of political correctness. Was twisting a common phase to make a point is all.

I think you're right about those 5 points. Even if you advance quickly one minor buff to most any piece of gear will give you many times more than that.

As for the 20 skill points, I do feel strongly about that one. If you started with 700 and got, say, ten more after six months, and another ten after a year, that would be a wonderful reward for sticking with it and the timing feels right to me. Plus it follows the line of your reasoning with the 5 stat points. It shouldn't take years though. That feels almost punitive.

Veteran rewards are so critically important but UO has so much depth beyond the mere tactical. At 7AM this morning on Great Lakes a guy was selling "Old school blood," for 45mil. Nobody said the price was unfair. It goes for more on Atlantic. There were people who would dearly have loved to have it....just no one around with that kind of money at the moment for deco. Long way of saying there is value in things only veterans can appreciate, so why not make veteran rewards those sorts of things, putting tactical bonuses aside.

At 10AM a gal I know said she was about to cancel one of her accounts until she realized it was just a couple of months away from enabling her to "ride the Boura." So she held onto that account. I think that sums it up very well indeed

-

 

[jaashua]

ask around if people sold regular armor for non-millionaires and a really nice player gave me a 70 resist 100%LRC suit (she explained what the resists and LRC was). At the exact same time she was doing this another player gave me one of those fallen charger statue-horse-thing. It so beats buying horses every time you die. The one that gave me the suit also gave me 60k in gold.. making my net worth around 75k. A few days later I made 100 inscription and I had about 120k in the bank and I was reading about housing...

That is EXACTLY what I've said about the new player experience MULTIPLE times this past week.

We do NOT need a tutorial because no tutorial can cover what you need to know. And people love to help new players anyway.

Put the resources towards a new client.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

If you take perspective and realise there were many dev teams with many different ideas you can understand why the guardian wishes UO to remain in that state, he was given the key to the city long before our king departed.

He knew how to make it so, divide and conquer...

And seemingly, to this day since it's just "t'sin the game" it is not illegal to be a terrible villain and make money out of it.

One example I cannot hold high enough to be seen astonishially is that GM Datura (Gabrielle, whom I knew in game) was the only one ever caught selling duped gold ; she was accused of selling for over 100k worth USD cold hard cash...

She paid a fine of 3000 something to EA ? ; what example does that give, and even worse... if someone is about to accuse you of cheating and you risk loosing your golden egg goose... what prevents you from acquiring information on that someone "roleplaying" your way through people's hearts and really hurt someone ?

Is it so fantastic ?

In this game there isn't even a tax on people making money out of it !!!

I don't know what country you people live in, but in my country this money would go directly to game development, hacking prevention, ameliorating the new player experience...

Why nothing is done ? Because the guardian dosen't even care about that ! It's a smokescreen for his INSANE pleasure, which is much worse than you can all imagine.

Technically it's not terrible or ABOMINABLE... but it still risks being extremely destructive to some people's emotional health ; and possibly on a large scale.

 

[Woodsman]

New players need something better than what they have now. Those of you who think otherwise really need to go through the whole new player experience. You all just assume they are going to find their way to a bank that has people around to help.

When I tried it recently, I noticed there were a few people on my shard who do their banking, etc. when possible in New Haven just to be around for new players, but they can't be there 24/7.

As for client development, a lot of work will be done with the EC to handle the new player experience - they can't just add a few lines of code and voila, it's downloading the first 200MB and getting things ready for a new player. In the process, they'll have to address bugs some of us have experienced (I can still get it to consistently crash to desktop in certain areas).

We don't need a new client. Lord knows that's the last thing we need, otherwise we'll be forced to sit through the same thing that happened with previous new clients - very long development cycles. You don't just plop in a new client, the devs would have to get up to speed on adapting the client to UO, etc., etc. and that would take quite a while.

If they built a new client in-house, well I don't think they have the time or resources, and EA is not just going to throw away the Gamebryo license and buy a license for another client.

They just need to work on the EC and UO artwork, and for those of you who think otherwise, the game engine powering the Enhanced Client powers Morrowwind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Rift, etc., so it can work in UO, it's just a matter of working out bugs and bumping up the artwork.

 

[Manticore]

All these posts are great but as many have mentioned already that these changes requires time, resources, and the manpower that the Admins just won't spare. Here is my suggestion that would solve pretty much everything:

1. As soon as a new player opens up the game gump this site should be flashing in 40 font and bolded. There should also be a similar links for Asian players and German players. I didn't find out about this site until months after I started playing back then. Had I known this site existed from day 1, I would have came here and gotten pretty much all of my questions answered in a timely manner. There are enough veteran-knowledgeable players that are constantly active on these sites who are willing to help around the clock due to the various time-zones they play in. Think about this, not only do people answer just about any UO related questions on this site and if a new player really wanted the 1 on 1 experience, it can easily be arranged via this site. Forget about spending time to create new quests, or more gold, suits, etc... the developers just don't have the time for that. We can do that part for them and probably give it a better "personnal touch" and most of all FREE!!! Using the "chat" system, we can easily hook up with chars these days in any shard.

 

[virtualhabitat]

That is EXACTLY what I've said about the new player experience MULTIPLE times this past week.

We do NOT need a tutorial because no tutorial can cover what you need to know. And people love to help new players anyway.

Put the resources towards a new client.

You are correct, I think, about the tutorial. There are myriad aspects to learning this game I have discovered. Tonight I was moving logs and they dropped out of sight under a bush. I asked in chat how to pick something up you know is there but cannot see. A few seconds later I know about ctrl+shift. But as far as players helping, it should be the right kind of help. You know the old adage, give a man a fish/teach a man to fish. I want to learn how to make my way.

I have played D&D on occasion for twenty some-odd years. I suspect it's not terribly different in UO than when you buff out a character with wealth and magic items in D&D. It gets boring. No challenge. I've had a couple of characters I retired (one died of old age) because they were just too powerful to be any fun any longer. If someone makes new starts playing in my group, we give them a broad overview of the game but everything else is OJT (on the job training). The worst DM's (dungeon masters) are the ones that give away too much too fast.

p.s.
Oh, and my special tree, it only gave me 6,000 logs tonight. I might wait a few days to let it recharge.