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*IF* UO went F2P, what would you want to see?

Derium of ls

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'm not trying to start a "should we go free to play" thread. Just wondering what items you would think was 'fair' to see in the item shop. Or what you would want to see.

A few things off the top of my head would be extra house slots (here's looking at you Siege). So you can own multi homes, maybe put a 5 cap limit on it like the old days.

of course house/bank storage increase.

Deco items, never a bad thing in this game.

7 day/30 day ethereal mounts (new players soon right? ;) )

eh, that's all for now. I don't think those would be game breaking, just useful.
 
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olduofan

Guest
Didn't they clearly state they ARE NOT going to go FTP.

I think it would help bring people in tho
 

Derium of ls

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think it would help bring in people as well. But I'm just wondering what people would want to see for sale, or what they would not tolerate being for sale even.
 

Vlaude

Lore Keeper
Alumni
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UNLEASHED
I hate to sound like a broken record on here but a new faction system would be great especially with all the new players. Let me at it devs, I'll make the whole Fel experience something incredible.
 

Warpig Inc

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Stratics Legend
If they ever do multi house per account. It should not be number houses but number spaces. 48 x 48 would be a good total house cap. Don't need to reward those hacks or player that play for all the wrong reasons with 5 castles.

Multi houses makes more locks mute. Stop hoarding. There would not be locks issue if they just had a streamline Spring Cleanup everey year. Make the lock bonus based on the time an account is actively played/logged. Then they would have a leg to stand on for banning bank sitters.

Like deco also. Just needs to be more deed like multi choice items. Like the hanging shield and corpses. More so if going to be paying for it.

The Charger recycled in new form of sold eth. Better yet would be an eth that can only be ridden by 3 year and younger account. At about 5 years there would be a competitive market of theese eths for sale to future new players for gold.
 
J

jaashua

Guest
Insurance. Charge $1 per insured item per month. Or sell permanent item bless tokens for like $10.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
I'm not trying to start a "should we go free to play" thread. Just wondering what items you would think was 'fair' to see in the item shop. Or what you would want to see.
It's EA, what wouldn't they put in the item shop if they dropped subscriptions and went f2p? If you put yourselves in the shoes of EA, there is a lot of really basic things that would be very tempting to charge players for, and the players wouldn't have a choice.

I thought about starting a thread like this a few days ago, only I was going to take the angle that EA should upgrade what is offered through UOGameCodes, but there was an older thread that I came across that was about what I expected.

If they would streamline the process by which things are added to the UOGameCodes store, EA could be raking in money from extra purchases above and beyond the subscriptions. I wondered why, rather than generating codes up front for individual items and tokens and then sending them off to the uogamecodes.com people, why they don't just come up with a points system.

Spend $10, get X amount of points applied to your account. Make it some kind of new monetary system if you want to try and maintain some kind of in-character aspect.

Use those points or new money in-game for things like:
- Lord British's throne and other similar items from the Vesper Collection
- Britannian Ship and other certain items from the Brit Museum Collection
- Display Cases and pretty much anything from any of the anniversary items
- Certain items from the Moonglow Royal Zoo collection
- A lot more deco items. A lot more. It's been how many years since AOS?

Some of those museum items may have quests associated with them and shouldn't be touched, but take Lord British's throne. I didn't do anything special to get it - I went out and bought a bunch of crap and hauled it to Vesper and did the little donation box thing and made up the difference with a gold donation. There was nothing special about it.

The biggest accomplishment I had with getting the throne and a few other things was finding vendors that had the things I could donate to the museum and rifling through my bank boxes on my extra chars to get the extra gold I needed.

Just do away with the game codes, have a points system, and have an NPC within UO that sells these items for X amount of points or special money that you purchase with cash on an EA website.

If you do that, then you could add things in-game so much faster and EA could have a nice little boost revenue stream. It would allow EA to sell more items and they wouldn't have to deal with a ton of items and codes in the UOGameCodes store nor would they have to worry about bundling a bunch of smaller items so they could charge a higher price. Just sell X amount of points for $10 or $20, and assign those points to specific items that a special NPC sells in-game.

If UO were in serious trouble, I actually think we would have seen a really concentrated push to streamline the UO Game Codes stuff and I think we'd see a lot more stuff being sold for real money.

I know I'm not the only one that goes around and sees stuff in the towns and thinks I'd like to see available in some form.

Charge $10 for 10,000 points, and have Lord British's throne available from an NPC for 3,000 points. Basically $3. I would have done it in a heartbeat rather than spend 45 minutes buying up crap or going through bankboxes for the extra gold I needed to make up the difference. Rather than me giving a bunch of gold to other players or spending other gold, EA would get $3 from me, and I would save some time.
 

G.v.P

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I've been playing League of Legends and while it's a RTS/RPG rather than a MMORPG it's pretty damn fun, and a nice F2P model. You can buy anything you want with RL cash or you can just play normally and get points towards buying stuff from their version of UOGameCodes.com.

If UO went F2P play, I'd expect 24/7 harrys :) and a way to earn UOGameCodes items by playing the game.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
and a way to earn UOGameCodes items by playing the game.
It couldn't be through gold of any sorts or anything that can be traded for gold - way too much gold floating around and way too easy to generate a lot of gold.
 
M

MrAlien

Guest
I hate F2P games...but I'll humor you.

These are the items I'd like to see...

An item that lets you take the properties off one item and add it to another item of the same type. For example, taking off The Hat of the Magi's properties and putting it on a flower garland.

Or alternatively, an item that would let me change the graphic of an item. So for example, I would click the item, target my Armor of Fortune, and a menu would pop up allowing me to select any chest armor graphic I wanted. The choices would include leather tunic, leather do, leather ninja jacket, leaf tunic, studded tunic, studded do, hide tunic, leather bustier, female leather armor, bone armor, etc. So it would keep the properties and hue of the Armor of Fortune but just look like a different tunic piece. This would help create individuality.

A magical bag that auto loots whatever stackable items you have in it. It could be capped at 3. So for example, if I put faery dust, fey wings, and fairy dragon wings in it, every time I click a fairy dragon corpse those items would automatically be put inside the bag without me having to to click and drag them. This would make gathering resources easier on my wrist and I wouldn't miss out if say the dust was hiding behind a piece of armor.

A one time use kettle that lets you brew 10,000 potions of one type at once.

A dress form that actually displays the armor you have on it. It would also be nice if you could double click it to automatically swap between whats on the dress form and whats on your paperdoll.

A magical compass that helps you locate frostwood trees.

A mining helmet that lights up the floor or mountain with the color of ore contained within. So as you walk around you'll know what you'll get before you even dig.

Fertilizer that would instantly take my plant from the bowl stage to a fully grown plant. It could even damage the plant and prevent it from growing seeds and resources to prevent mass farming of resources I don't care I just hate waiting so long to grow a plant for my house or a black or white seed so I can make some dye.

Temporary pet dye that allows you to hue your pet but only for a limited amount of time. So I can pretend like I am riding an old school unicorn (luna white horse) for a day!

A moonstone type item that lets me create a gate from anywhere I want that takes me to some special land or instanced dungeon.

Sheet Music that lets make change the little ditty my instruments play when I use them.

A special 1 use only orb you double click to max out a property for 1 hour without needing it on your suit. So for example I could wear whatever suit I wanted and use a 100% LRC orb that would grant me the ability to cast spells without reagents for 1 hour. Or I could wear a full platemail suit and use a Mage Armor orb to make me able to meditate with it on without having the Mage Armor property on each piece. Imagine a totally naked PK killing everyone because he consumed 10 of these orbs. It would be funny!

I guess that's all I can think of right now.

But I'd rather they just give us all of this stuff without having to buy it from a F2P store. :)
 

HD2300

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Not going to happen.

In the HOC video, one dev was having a big whine that it was really hard to make some pixel crack and sell it on uogamecodes. I think they will just stick to doing what they do now, whatever that is.

Anyway where is the State of the Game video. You know the one that was promised in the 2nd week of Jan, which as of 3 weeks ago PR said that they need to add more game footage. This should clarify what the plan is.
 

Aran

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If UO was going free to play, I'd want to see everyone involved's head on a pike.
 

G.v.P

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It couldn't be through gold of any sorts or anything that can be traded for gold - way too much gold floating around and way too easy to generate a lot of gold.
Well, as it is now, people end up selling items from UOGameCodes.com for gold. But yeah, I mean experience/reward points binded to the account and achieved through gameplay.
 

Remo_Williams

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I would rather see an option rather than free to play. I would rather see a premium account vs. free account. This would allow new players the chance to play the game at a free cost. The free account could be restricted from owning houses or co-own etc. The amount of money they could hold could also be restricted. This should cut down on the farming that could be done. Other restrictions could be put in place as well but these are the first that come to mind. A few more perks could be thrown in for the pay accounts as well. Vet rewards etc should only be obtained through the paid accounts etc.

My only concern in all of this is getting new players to the game. If you make it free to a certain point and people get a real taste of the game, then many will upgrade to the full service once they are "hooked". Allowing those of us who have been playing to continue to support the game while changes are made would be smarted. I dont see UO going free play at all. I honestly dont see anything like this being put in place. I just think this option would be better for the game.
 

Amber Moon

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wow, there is a lot of F2P hate. I am not sure why. In my experience with LotRO as a life time subscriber, it had zero effect on my gameplay. Just more players running around the shard, which was good.

What I would like to see is access limited to old world, no housing, no class features like elf and garg, for F2P players. For those, a sub would be required. Other then that, the store could offer non-combat enhancements to everyone.

That is it. You can all continue your hate now for an idea that could give UO many more years of life.
 

Merion

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just take a look at lord of the rings online - they did a great job!
 
S

Sevin0oo0

Guest
Didn't they clearly state they ARE NOT going to go FTP.
postcount +1 in the fantasy thread of the day
next it'll be that classic thing. That's what happens w/ a game that has ghosts, things just can't die.

 
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Woodsman

Guest
Just take a look at lord of the rings online - they did a great job!
Except for the whole housing thing, which is incredibly dumb given that players are chomping at the bit to throw money at Turbine for all kinds of upgrades if Turbine would just do something. There were a couple of things I would have paid quite a bit for, and they even got our hopes up when they said it was back on the table last October, but it's like 5 months of silence about it, and that was preceded by years of them not seeming to really care about it.

I swear some EA executives snuck into Turbine and started managing them.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
Not going to happen.

In the HOC video, one dev was having a big whine that it was really hard to make some pixel crack and sell it on uogamecodes. I think they will just stick to doing what they do now, whatever that is.
It really surprised me that here we are in 2011 and they have huge complex way of getting stuff onto UOgamecodes. Apparently creating the items is not the hard part, it's getting them on UOgamecodes :thumbup:

They've got over 30 different items based on tokens in the game store which means they have to track all of these stupid codes for 30 different things and it's made it such a pain for them that they don't like to add more stuff to the gamecode store.

As incompetently run as EA is at times, EA has a large web operation involving all kinds of cards

Just look at this, they have this whole game card thing going on that spans a lot of games, and you can get it at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.:

EA Store (US) Online Store

They don't need to generate 10s of thousands of codes each for 30+ different tokens and have it all wrapped up in this complex process that makes it hard to add stuff. Just generate a $10 code and a $20 code. Just make it $20 if it needs to be simple. That $20 game card/code can be redeemed for X amount of special points within the game that allows us to buy all the items that are currently in UOgamcodes

They could make it easy for players. I've got a gump that pops up when I login that says I have over 20 veteran rewards that I still need to collect. Model it after that. Give us a gump for those game codes with a menu of all of the stuff that's in UOGameCodes and what it would cost us and how many points we have.

They could still leave the items in token form when we receive them, and we could sell the tokens in-game for gold if we wanted, but rather than that complex process that involves tracking thousands of codes for each of 30+ items, they would just have a single batch of codes to track.

They have this huge web operation for all these games that use these game cards, and we have UOGameCodes.com that is a pain for them to work with, and not much more fun for us to use.

It's hilarious that I can go into Wal-Mart and buy a game card and use it for Lord of Ultima.

It's even more hilarious that two of the games they feature with these game cards are BioWare titles.
 

Attachments

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Has anyone considered the tremendous power of the word if?

A mere two letters, but it can make any statement true.

-Galen's player
 
D

Dicimiie

Guest
*If* UO were to go free to play, here's what I think they could sell:

A second house on a different server than your first. Limit one additional house per account. Perhaps even limit the size of the second, although I don't really think it's necessary.

Deco items: Anything you could think of really. Floor carpeting, fountains, trees, curtains, hanging fishing nets, anchors, etc. Pretty much anything you could add to a house would sell I'd bet.

A limited use tool that would allow you to take a piece of armor or clothing and alter its appearance, purely for aesthetic purposes. Turn a leather helm into a closed helm. Turn your leather tunic into platemail. I personally find it sad to see paladins running around in leather. They should be in plate! Perhaps even make certain items invisible, so even though you're wearing the half apron, it doesn't show up.

A hatchet or mining pick with 500 uses that allow you to chop or mine whatever ore/stone you're looking for. No more searching for the ever-elusive frostwood.

I'd also like to see the vet rewards become buyable items. I never did like the idea of being new and not having access to a leather dye tub or a special dye tub. Most of the vet rewards are nice to have, but having to wait and wait for them is kind of a kick in the teeth.

Now I know I'm going to get blasted for this next one: gold. EA should be making money from their gold... not players. It's already being bought now, so why not make the money from it directly?

I think I've said enough for now. Flame away!
 

Nexus

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My list of things....

System Releated.

1) A Hybrid F2P system sort of like LOTRO, with classification differences. Subbies are still subbies with no account restrictions, Premium means you have subscribed to the service for at least 3 consecutive months, F2P is Free to Play.

2) Store Items are either Account Bound or Character bound depending on type of item and function.

3) F2P has no ability to gain scrolls from Spawns/T-maps. Nor can they use Non-Store purchased Scrolls. All scrolls can be purchased via store and will be character bound, if they are lost in combat they must be recovered by the buyer others cannot use them.

4) F2P Cannot place a house without purchasing the ability from the game store. This can be tiered. Minimal storage house is fairly cheap. Keeps and Castles not so much. Note this is just the ability to place these types of houses, not houses themselves.

5) Subbies/Premium get the ability to purchase the above in order to place 1 additional house and only if it's on a separate server. You could do Atlantic/Siege or Atlantic/Chessy your choice just not Atlantic/Atlantic for example.

6) F2P Can not get artifact drops at Peerless, Champ Spawns, or in Doom Nor can they use Faction Arties. This still leaves them ToT items like the RBC, Stromgrip, and paragon artifacts along with ML Minors and SA "Mini Spawn". All artifacts including Faction arties can be purchased via the game store. Game store Faction Arties will not be restricted to Faction players though. They will all be Character bound, if lost in combat they are worthless to anyone else.

7) F2P accounts are all inflicted with Siege NPC rules. Items cost 5x and NPC's will not buy from F2P players. Subbies/Premium players are not subject to this.

8) F2P/Premium players do not get Vet Rewards nor can they use them.

9) Subbies/Premium get +5 stat bonus and 720 skill points out the gate, F2P must purchase this. If you start a sub and stop payment before making the "Premium" time requirement you must choose which skill to loose 20 points in on next login if you would exceed the 720 skill point cap.

10) F2P doe not receive holiday gifts though they can buy them from other players.

11) Subbies can purchase Vet rewards from the store without account age restrictions. This turns Vet rewards from being a Status symbol in many cases into an actual gift for maintaining an account. It's a free store item :p

12) F2P/Premium can not access the Character Transfer System.

13) F2P has a 2mil gold cap Premium has a 10 mil gold cap per character. This will be enforced by making Gold a Virtual instead of a Physical item. Gold Coins used as Deco will stay in the game redeemable by handing to a banker to add to one's account, The same holds true for bank checks, in addition to this all monsters will continue to drop gold coins but just as a rarity similar to the Stout Whip on Orc Captains, Not uncommon but not common either. Checks can be draw for passing currency between characters. Characters going above their gold cap has this money put in a "Escrow" meaning the cap is in reality a spending limit more than a currency limit.

14) F2P can not Gain high Tier BoD rewards. For tailoring this means nothing above Spined Runics, for Smithing nothing above Bronze Ruics in rarity. The excluded items can be purchased via the game store.

Those are what I can think of off the top of my head... There are other things I'd like to see if I sat down and though about it

*** OK thought a bit ***

15) As Woodsman said, High Seas Boats can be added to the item store.

16) Expansions like SA and the High Seas booster can be made available via the Game store

17) Modified existing items.... Alcrity scrolls for example could be made in a tiered purchase system... 15 min. 30 min, 45 min, 1 hour, 1 day etc.

18) Exclusive Artifacts these can't be PoFed maybe say a 3rd Half apron that gives Stamina bonus similar to how the Crimmy effects HP and Tangle effect Mana. Or a Variation on the RBC that gives HP regen 3 HP Inc 10 and different resists totaling the same ammount. Higher in Physical and Energy for example..

19) One Shot Recipe Scrolls... meaning you learn it until you successfully make exactly 1 of the item. These scrolls could be used to make existing artifacts like the Spirit of the Totem or Armor of Fortune. The difference? If you use a special material you get it's bonus' added to the item, along with your Maker's mark for an exception item. For example a Barbed Leather Armor of Fortune would have 4/5/5/6/8 base resists along with the exceptional crafting/Armslore bonus' to resist if applicable. Spined would gain the 40 Luck for a total of 240 along with resist bonus'. Valorite Rune Beetle Carapace.... well you get the idea. Runic tools would have no effect on these items.

20) Gargoyle versions of current artifacts like the Spirit of the Totem, AoF etc. These are account bound. Add them as Drops at their respective peers location, Doom, Champs, Peerless etc for the Subbies without the account binding.

21) Make all of the Past Clean Up Britannia items available via the item store. Yes this would hurt the Rares market, maybe for some add a [replica] tag so originals keep a premium or some other identifier. Item Bless Deeds would carry a hefty cost like $20 - $25 each. These items are all Account bound, with the Item Bless Deed the item it's used on becomes Character Bound.

22) Crafting Tali's. A lot of folks want those max bonus tali's sell them..... Character Bound.

23) Library/Museum/Zoo rewards. Sell them, just make them all have a Durability and no ability to PoF and account bind them.

24) Add the Ability for Subscribers to sell gold to a Broker NPC in exchange for store credit. This would be the ultimate Gold Sink in a Hybrid F2P system. You are already collecting between $10 and $13.99 a month from subscribers, they are the only one's without a Gold Cap, they are the only one's able to acquire enough usable gold to purchase higher end Store items.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
I think I've said enough for now. Flame away!
No flames from me, just that other than the gold, everything you've just mentioned could be added to the existing UOGamecodes store. The store already sells deco items, mounts, housing upgrades (storage), tools, past gifts, etc.

I'm surprised nobody has brought up basement, but I'm not sure if that falls under the f2p wishes or just in general. It gets tossed about as a gold sink, but might as well toss it into UOGamecodes and make a few bucks off of it (as long as the money went back into UO and we know how that goes :lol:).

I have a hard time coming up with F2P ideas, because UO is $10 a month and so a lot of what I would suggest for F2P would fall into the realm of stuff that could be added right now to UOGameCodes if they'd just make it easier for them to add stuff. The Britannian Ship would be a prime candidate for an F2P model. Actually a full house boat would be a good candidate for F2P.

Nexus has the right idea, really lock the F2P accounts down so they aren't abused or used in place of subscriptions. People will get a taste of UO and can be casual players, but will be clearly encouraged to drop $10 a month on a subscription. Win-win situation.

Okay, so the Britannian ship or house boat plus the basement aren't really a good fit for the F2P model since they could just be sold through UOGameCodes and you wouldn't want an F2P account to have access to large ships, and the basement would be better used in encouraging them to move to a subscription account.
 

Nexus

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Nexus has the right idea, really lock the F2P accounts down so they aren't abused or used in place of subscriptions. People will get a taste of UO and can be casual players, but will be clearly encouraged to drop $10 a month on a subscription. Win-win situation.
Yea the idea with F2P is to offer up enough that they really get into the game, while at the same time keeping them just out of reach of being truly competitive....
 
O

Old Man of UO

Guest
The ONLY good thing about UO going Free-to-Play would be NOT seeing any more posts on UHall about it.
 
C

canary

Guest
Others may disagree, and that's fine, but after playing a number of F2P games I totally would support a move to such a system.

I've noticed it basically forces the dev team to push out more ongoing new content as well as items to purchase in order to keep the players interested in the game.

As for what I'd like in a f2p game?

* Item change tokens to turn an item of one slot visually into another (say a HoM into a circlet).

* Selection of steeds to ride from the mundane to the interesting.

* More dye selections.

* House deco items

* Mini quests or new Peerless

* Clothing sets

* Housing boost/ upgrade

I wouldn't want anything that would provide an unfair advantage in PvP, that would be my only thing.
 

Lord Frodo

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Stratics Veteran
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UNLEASHED
F2P Account Restrictions: No more 14 Day Trial Accounts

•Players are not allowed to place a house while on a trial account
•Players are not allowed to co-own or be traded a house while on a trial account
•F2P have travel restrictions –
•Cannot visit Felucca dungeons or Felucca T2A
•F2P have the following resource restrictions -
•Will only receive basic ores and logs (iron, plain logs) even if they'd otherwise qualify for better types
•Will not receive sand or stone when mining
•F2P Misc. restrictions -
•Will not receive ML rewards for resource gathering (jewels, ingredients, and white pearls while fishing)
•Will not receive rewards, monster kill points, or virtue points from champ spawns
•Will not get scrolls while doing champ spawns
•Will not gain Justice virtue points for killing murderers
•Cannot use Valor or Justice virtues
•Cannot Protect or be Protected by another player
•Can not join factions or faction aligned guilds
•If in a guild they will be removed from the guild, if their guild joins a faction
•Cannot use Scrolls of Alacrity, Power Scrolls, Stat Scrolls, or Scrolls of Transcendence
•Cannot use Commodity Deeds
•Cannot do Community Collections
•Cannot use Soulstones or fragment soulstones
•Cannot use Pet summoning balls
•Cannot use Bracelets of Binding
•Cannot use the Bag of Sending
•Cannot do any repeatable quests – even if they are normally repeatable
•Cannot acquire BOD’s


Play as long as you want for free and when you are ready then just apply game time to your F2P account and enjoy all UO has to offer.
 
C

canary

Guest
F2P Account Restrictions:

•Players are not allowed to place a house while on a trial account
•Players are not allowed to co-own or be traded a house while on a trial account
•Trial accounts have travel restrictions –
•Cannot visit Felucca dungeons or Felucca T2A
•Trial Accounts have the following resource restrictions -
•Will only receive basic ores and logs (iron, plain logs) even if they'd otherwise qualify for better types
•Will not receive sand or stone when mining
•Trial Account Misc. restrictions -
•Will not receive ML rewards for resource gathering (jewels, ingredients, and white pearls while fishing)
•Will not receive rewards, monster kill points, or virtue points from champ spawns
•Will not get scrolls while doing champ spawns
•Will not gain Justice virtue points for killing murderers
•Cannot use Valor or Justice virtues
•Cannot Protect or be Protected by another player
•Can not join factions or faction aligned guilds
•If in a guild they will be removed from the guild, if their guild joins a faction
•Cannot use Scrolls of Alacrity, Power Scrolls, Stat Scrolls, or Scrolls of Transcendence
•Cannot use Commodity Deeds
•Cannot do Community Collections
•Cannot use Soulstones or fragment soulstones
•Cannot use Pet summoning balls
•Cannot use Bracelets of Binding
•Cannot use the Bag of Sending
•Cannot do any repeatable quests – even if they are normally repeatable
•Cannot acquire BOD’s


Play as long as you want for free and when you are ready then just apply game time to your F2P account and enjoy all UO has to offer.
I like it, though I'd add that they are stick in Trammel exclusively, not even allowing them Malas, Ilsh, etc.
 
L

Longforge

Guest
Business education is apparently lacking in this thread...

The answer to bringing people into UO is by damn far not making it "Free to play"... that is an economically abhorent consideration.

UO does not advertise - UO is not on the shelf of any popular stores. The simple answer is advertising and game presence in the stores. Good old, "If u build it they will come..." is not a good business strategy. Build it and entice them to get into UO is.

Why there is even a thread talking about F2P for UO is an absurdity in its own right. This game has stood on its own two feet for well over a decade now. It is not the easiest beast to tackle in terms of "making everyone happy", "fully re-making the graphics"... "do this, do that"... the game is as absolutely great today as it was 10 years ago.
 
C

canary

Guest
Business education is apparently lacking in this thread...

The answer to bringing people into UO is by damn far not making it "Free to play"... that is an economically abhorent consideration.

UO does not advertise - UO is not on the shelf of any popular stores. The simple answer is advertising and game presence in the stores. Good old, "If u build it they will come..." is not a good business strategy. Build it and entice them to get into UO is.

Why there is even a thread talking about F2P for UO is an absurdity in its own right. This game has stood on its own two feet for well over a decade now. It is not the easiest beast to tackle in terms of "making everyone happy", "fully re-making the graphics"... "do this, do that"... the game is as absolutely great today as it was 10 years ago.
No, what is absurd is not attempting to think of new ways to introduce players and potentially increase revenue.
 

Nexus

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Business education is apparently lacking in this thread...

The answer to bringing people into UO is by damn far not making it "Free to play"... that is an economically abhorent consideration.

UO does not advertise - UO is not on the shelf of any popular stores. The simple answer is advertising and game presence in the stores. Good old, "If u build it they will come..." is not a good business strategy. Build it and entice them to get into UO is.

Why there is even a thread talking about F2P for UO is an absurdity in its own right. This game has stood on its own two feet for well over a decade now. It is not the easiest beast to tackle in terms of "making everyone happy", "fully re-making the graphics"... "do this, do that"... the game is as absolutely great today as it was 10 years ago.
Find me a F2P MMORPG with a shelf presence.


No one here is arguing against UO being a good game, they are fulfilling a hypothetical query made by another poster. If the devs think there is some merit in this avenue and direction for the game then good, if not it's still just a hypothetical question.
 
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Dicimiie

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Why there is even a thread talking about F2P for UO is an absurdity in its own right. This game has stood on its own two feet for well over a decade now. It is not the easiest beast to tackle in terms of "making everyone happy", "fully re-making the graphics"... "do this, do that"... the game is as absolutely great today as it was 10 years ago.
And with no significant new players to replace those that have left/are leaving/will leave, how long do you think this "absolutely great game" will continue? I certainly assume you'd like to see it continue on, since it's a great game. It simply cannot continue if there are people leaving at a faster rate than they are coming to the game. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm going to make this as simple as I can:

UO needs new blood. Period. End of story.
 

Lord Frodo

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Major draw back with F2P

Extra Account with a house used for storage. Lets say there is an 18x18 with no added storage, that = 1218 storage and a F2P with 5 chars (125) + bank(125) + blue beatle(125) = 1875 storage.

So by going F2P I can can have 1875 storage and close the account I have for extra storage. And I can have as many of these F2P account that I want. 3 F2P accounts 5625 storage and I have more storage than a basic castle(4688).

UO will lose money. UO loses to much money and UO will close down.
 
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Longforge

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And with no significant new players to replace those that have left/are leaving/will leave, how long do you think this "absolutely great game" will continue? I certainly assume you'd like to see it continue on, since it's a great game. It simply cannot continue if there are people leaving at a faster rate than they are coming to the game. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm going to make this as simple as I can:

UO needs new blood. Period. End of story.

So... you are saying that UO's subscriber base is falling off at an accelerated rate???
 
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Longforge

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Find me a F2P MMORPG with a shelf presence.


No one here is arguing against UO being a good game, they are fulfilling a hypothetical query made by another poster. If the devs think there is some merit in this avenue and direction for the game then good, if not it's still just a hypothetical question.
The dev's dont - and they never have.
 

Amber Moon

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So... you are saying that UO's subscriber base is falling off at an accelerated rate???
Doesn't matter. All games lose subs over time once they reach their peak and the affect of 'sparkly new game' wears off. Players move on. It happens to them all.

In order to counter that you need new players joining constantly. There are many methods to counter that: New content or features, typically in the form of expansions, and the associated advertising. And general advertising.

For an old game with a limited budget, free trials or F2P with a limited feature set is just another form of advertising. One that can gain a bit of free attention from the gaming press.

Admittedly the devil is in the details of how it is implemented, but that was the topic of this thread.
 
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Woodsman

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UO needs new blood. Period. End of story.
I think everybody knows UO needs new players. I know I'm not the only one who is seeing IDOCs far too often. It's fun to speculate though. As Longforge said, UO has over a decade of standing on its own and being a fairly predictable revenue stream and EA wouldn't want to screw with that. Other games went F2P because they were in serious trouble or their parent companies thought they were headed that way. UO is not. I mentioned that Turbine has really botched housing with LOTRO and how odd it is that they are ignoring such a huge cash cow, but there is a lot going on with LOTRO - Turbine was bought partly to bolster Warner Brothers' social gaming stuff, but also to get the major LOTR games under one roof ahead of the Hobbit movies. Even if Warner Brothers isn't making those movies, they now own all of the major LOTR licenses when it comes to games. It's not inconceivable that WB is propping up LOTRO behind the scenes until the Hobbit movies, or that they want LOTRO to keep going while they are churning out console and mobile LOTR games.

If UO were in serious trouble, EA would fix up UOGameCodes and would be selling us a whole lot more pixel crack on top of our subscriptions. It's a whole lot easier and cheaper and safer to sell more UOGameCodes pixel crack on top of our monthly subscriptions than trying to work out an F2P model. However the F2P discussions are interesting because there's talk of stuff that could be added to the UOGameCodes site under the current subscription model.

I have to say, the F2P fans are some of the biggest critics of EA. It seems weird to see people say EA is incompetent or ignorant and then turn around and say that EA could make F2P and UO work. If you are loudly telling everybody that some auto mechanic is incompetent and keeps screwing up, it would seem very odd if you turned around and trusted that auto mechanic to work on your brakes.
 
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canary

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If UO were in serious trouble, EA would fix up UOGameCodes and would be selling us a whole lot more pixel crack on top of our subscriptions. It's a whole lot easier and cheaper and safer to sell more UOGameCodes pixel crack on top of our monthly subscriptions than trying to work out an F2P model. However the F2P discussions are interesting because there's talk of stuff that could be added to the UOGameCodes site under the current subscription model.

I have to say, the F2P fans are some of the biggest critics of EA. It seems weird to see people say EA is incompetent or ignorant and then turn around and say that EA could make F2P and UO work. If you are loudly telling everybody that some auto mechanic is incompetent and keeps screwing up, it would seem very odd if you turned around and trusted that auto mechanic to work on your brakes.

Two things:

Currently EA doesnt invest in fixing Game Codes because, as you no doubt have seen in another thread. EA big wigs hardly notice UO is part of their company and that it sucks next to WoW, in their opinion. I honestly don't think EA as a whole cares if UO lives or dies, and just is riding it out until subs drop under a certain number. At least historically that is what they have shown.

UO critics might be more supportive of a F2P system because it gives players more of a choice in whether or not to support UO decisions based on content. Often games with a F2P model are needing to provide continuous content in order to ensure possibly fickle players remain engaged.
 
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Woodsman

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UO critics might be more supportive of a F2P system because it gives players more of a choice in whether or not to support UO decisions based on content.
Or we could just not buy the booster packs.
 
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canary

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Or we could just not buy the booster packs.
Oh, you mean the 'we made one booster pack and are unable to do a second, but maybe a mini booster pack' they discussed? That one?

You know what a mini booster pack is called? A publish.

You feel free to not buy the boosters they are incapable of producing anyhow, I'll stick to my notion F2P would be an okay idea.
 
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Woodsman

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Under your model, what would you have priced High Seas at?
 

Dermott of LS

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...

How about this...

They make a "classic shard", free to play and only accessible by the 2d client. Once open, the shard would be attended to to keep stable and a Gm or two to keep things in line between players, however there would be no new content or features added to the shard or the client past the initial opening and stabilizing of the shard.

Then they shut down the 2d client on the pay side and devote time to revamping the game technologically to take advantage of newer client and server hardware and software allowing for a higher resolution isometric world not relegated by a tile system that allows the use of higher end graphical capabilities both for object and for effects and the environment.

Maybe also rebalance the economy to lessen the amount of ingame gold and keep it lower than it currently is, reset the for-pay servers when the newly-completed updated client and server worlds are complete and call them Classic (Free) UO and Ultima Online: The New Age.

Or I could just be full of it :p
 
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