Unhappy 1 Year Anniversary!

[JC the Builder]

Can you believe it went by so quickly? One year ago us players were once again teased with a major overhaul of the much loved Faction system. On this day, April 14 of 2010, UO developer Phoenix posted the testing commencement announcement.

In the days that followed there were hundreds of posts of heated debate on all the changes. No other change/addition in years had stirred so much interest. People not even currently subscribed were expressing interest in the update.

Then nothing. Within a couple weeks the developers completely stopped communicating about their faction ideas. It wasn't until months later that we recieved confirmation that Faction development was completely halted. I see another post by Nexus that Mesanna stated Factions is still not being worked on.

I just don't understand why the thing that has generated the most interest by players, besides a Classic shard, has been picked up only to be put down time and time again. I counted 500 posts within 2 days of the announcement. The topic on an obscure test forum has almost 17,000 views, more than any almost any UHall topic which is newer.

It sounds like boosters are not happening anymore, which is a shame. Factions would have been 10x more successful a booster than High Seas. Unless you were a fisherman, High Seas had nothing to offer in terms of lasting content.

If Factions was done right, it would definitely draw people back to UO.

If Faction updates would make you play UO more, you should reply to this topic.

 

[Fat Midnight]

Can you believe it went by so quickly? One year ago us players were once again teased with a major overhaul of the much loved Faction system. On this day, April 14 of 2010, UO developer Phoenix posted the testing commencement announcement.

In the days that followed there were hundreds of posts of heated debate on all the changes. No other change/addition in years had stirred so much interest. People not even currently subscribed were expressing interest in the update.

Then nothing. Within a couple weeks the developers completely stopped communicating about their faction ideas. It wasn't until months later that we recieved confirmation that Faction development was completely halted. I see another post by Nexus that Mesanna stated Factions is still not being worked on.

I just don't understand why the thing that has generated the most interest by players, besides a Classic shard, has been picked up only to be put down time and time again. I counted 500 posts within 2 days of the announcement. The topic on an obscure test forum has almost 17,000 views, more than any almost any UHall topic which is newer.

It sounds like boosters are not happening anymore, which is a shame. Factions would have been 10x more successful a booster than High Seas. Unless you were a fisherman, High Seas had nothing to offer in terms of lasting content.

If Factions was done right, it would definitely draw people back to UO.

If Faction updates would make you play UO more, you should reply to this topic.

I think they jumped the gun, and somebody in management said" How are we supposed to make money off this?". Then the issue died, and people tried to figure out what was going to save there jobs... Then High Seas was born.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

I am rather disappointed with the lack of emphasis being put into this broken area of the game. I know the team is busy, but there are still a large amount of people who still play for the bloody endgame. Factions initially provided a large majority an opportunity to try out fel, unfortunately now things have degraded into who can gank who the fastest. I agree with JC that it is time for an overhaul, perhaps now that Magincia is back on track this area of pvp will get some well needed and deserved attention.

 

[Petra Fyde]

They tried to re-vamp it. Their ideas went down like a lead balloon. A lot of man-hours wasted creating new bases for 3 factions instead of 4.

I guess they want a clearer idea of where they need to go before they commit any more time to it. Could you maybe get together and create a design document for how you believe they should do it? I obviously don't actually know, but it might help?

 

[popps]

They tried to re-vamp it. Their ideas went down like a lead balloon. A lot of man-hours wasted creating new bases for 3 factions instead of 4.

I guess they want a clearer idea of where they need to go before they commit any more time to it. Could you maybe get together and create a design document for how you believe they should do it? I obviously don't actually know, but it might help?

My view ?

Either the Developers approach the game way more as PLAYERS, and then do their work of Developers but having the experience of Ultima Online players, OR, they come to the Forums BEFORE they put so much work into something that might then turn out to be wasted work and discuss with players their design plans so as to focus on working on the right things, rather than not usefull ones or, worse, bad additions to the game.

Like the Bazaar vendors thing, just as an example.

Rather than spend time, work and resources on it and then hear what players think about it after the efforts and the work has already been done, I think it would be way, but WAY better to discuss it with players BEFORE they actually got to spend work on it to avoid, as you said, "A lot of man-hours wasted ........."

We all know that the resources that can be used to improve Ultima Online are today way much more limited in the past, the little resources that are still left, IMHO, should be best spent succesfully, and not get wasted due to lack fo communication between developers and players.

That's at least my point of view.

 

[BahamaMama]

I am interested in factions. I have never played in factions but I'd like too. Obviously, based on player feedback, the system needs some serious changes.

Devs, give the faction system some more love, pls.

 

[G.v.P]

The only way I see a Factions revamp going down is to add PvM elements--at least at first, if nothing more. But there are so many PvPers that are anti-PvM, it'll probably be hard to push my idea.

I'm not talking PvM like Greater Dragons, talking about AI controlled creatures/NPCs that are somewhat of a challenge because of their AI, like Paladin NPCs used to be for their time and Changelings are, to an extent, now. And by now, well, it's hard to think of a low-level, tougher AI creature than a changeling since ML, which is a six year span, I think. So there would have to be some serious work.

The reason why PvM is needed is two-fold. There aren't enough actual players to keep Faction base fights worthwhile, and PvM elements may attract a broader range of players--and purpose--to fight at Faction bases. As it is currently, there is no reason to go to an enemy base except to steal sigils, and if no one else is on but you, it's fairly lame to just waltz into an enemy base with no opposition and nothing significant to accomplish. If there are PvM elements, and perhaps incentives (silver, at the very least), then Faction bases will once again become a point of interest, and Factions will then have a purpose other than Yew Gate, sigils, and the like.

Next move is even more radical--remove sigils and town corruption. Instead of temporarily owning towns, which is rather pointless, just allow Faction vendors to be placed inside your base. In order to build them, perhaps you'd have to "siege" an enemy base and/or kill enough members of opposing factions in order for your faction to earn enough points to place vendors. As for thieves, perhaps every base could have a single sigil, which, when stolen, would give that faction more points towards building up their base minions and/or placing vendors, or some sort of incentive to keep thieves happy.

So in summary, every base would have a stealable sigil, three open slots (or two) for the other sigils, and instead of just sigils, now people would have three reasons to go to Faction bases: PvM incentives, vendors, and sigils.

Then the hardest thing left to do would be to convince Trammies to join factions. Short of making silver the main currency and halting the production of gold in Trammel, I'm not sure how to do that. You'd have some RP and PvM, which could supply a bridge or two, but at the end of the day everyone needs a reason to enter the fray.

Anyway, that's my long take. Flame away. I just don't see how this game could survive without champ spawns to initiate fights. If these changes were made, Faction bases could become important again, and with the vendors all located in a central place, maybe the community of Factions would begin to make sense again.

 

[Vlaude]

I sent this poll to Cal a couple weeks ago and he seemed pleasantly surprised by the indications of it. He said he will soon be making an external poll similar to it but including a return to the order v chaos system if people want to vote for that. However, he said nothing will be done this year regarding factions

 

[grig_since98]

I've always wanted to do factions but have been turned off because it always seemed incomplete and suffering from a lack of interest.

 

[JC the Builder]

A good idea is to invest development time into areas which will affect the greatest number of players and bring new players to the game, right?

This is a report I made on April 5, 2009 showing the before and after character numbers of Faction participation. The changes consisted of faction artifacts being added.

A new audit is impossible because of the point situation being out of control and left unfixed for 2 years now.

 

[Tina Small]

At this point, I think if the UO team wants to begin overhauling the faction system, their best bet would be to create a series of polls that are plopped in front of ALL players when they log in to allow voting on just two or three major changes to factions and also to indicate whether they would ever even consider participating in factions or any type of PvP. The polls would have a link to a web document with more details on the changes and the designers'/developers' thoughts on where they want to take factions and an e-mail address or link to a web-based form for players to submit their ideas/feedback. If the option to do a poll at log-in is no longer available, perhaps the team could use the same polling system Sakkarah used back in August 2009 or so to get feedback from players on the issue of pet dyes.

Newly created accounts, trial accounts, and accounts that haven't been turned on since the beginning of 2005 (just after the Order/Chaos system was closed down) wouldn't be able to vote in the poll.

Many of us are fond of saying that Stratics doesn't represent all users. There are also players who've managed to have their Stratics account(s) banned. A "focus group" for UO also seems to be just a place for the developers to round up a group of users to give feedback on stuff they've already programmed and/or temporarily quiet the howling masses screaming for change and/or provide a group of players for the UO team to point to later as the responsible parties when folks complain about changes.

A focus group might be useful at some point in the process of overhauling factions. However, after participating in the last focus group that addressed faction changes and seeing how poorly the team listened to feedback from people already in factions and who had years of current experience in factions and knowing that they lack today good, solid support from the "community" folks to manage the focus group, I have little faith that jumping right into a focus group at this point in time would be a good idea. I've also seen the community rep or whoever was running the focus group get flustered over leaks and unjustly kick all but a favored few out of the focus group in a knee-jerk reaction to the leaks.

In my opinion, I think a good way for the team to start the process of overhauling factions would be to provide a well-controlled opportunity for feedback from all players that doesn't also involve forum creation/moderation duties. A poll open to all and an online form or dedicated e-mail address for feedback (i.e., not Mesanna's e-mail address that is probably already buried in e-mails about other issues) would be a good way to start and would perhaps dispel some of that "darkness" around the faction system that they alluded to in the last video conference.

If the team even went so far as to send out an e-mail publicizing the poll and other feedback options to accounts that have been closed for some time, all the better. It might get at least a couple of them to sign up for just one month to take the poll. Or do another Return to Britannia campaign so people can re-open old accounts for free and run the poll then, but again limit voting in the poll to just accounts that have have been open at some point in the last couple of years. People who haven't played since the end of 2004 who want to give feedback can still send in their ideas to an e-mail address, but wouldn't be able to vote in the poll.

 

[Tina Small]

The changes consisted of faction artifacts being added.

That wasn't the only change, JC. They also got rid of the balancing system and let you put multiple characters from the same account into factions on the same shard. Some of that increase undoubtedly came from folks already in factions just dumping more characters or, in fact, entire guilds into factions. It didn't necessarily come from additional people jumping into factions. And many of the people who joined because their guild leader put the whole guild into factions probably spent little time actually participating in faction activities beyond getting points and silver from other characters and running to the stronghold to buy their artifacts.

I would like to see the artifacts just go away to weed out the players who only got into factions to acquire artifacts to use in Trammel. (In my opinion, allowing faction fighting outside Fel as a curb to that practice is too drastic and won't encourage the wide participation that the system needs and obviously dilutes the number of players that "reds" can find to fight, except of course, on Siege and Mugen.) I'd also like to see the points wiped if the artifacts are discontinued. I would also want whoever works on a faction overhaul to actually spend some time talking to players on Siege and Mugen to get their feedback and ideas regarding factions. The faction artifacts weren't necessarily a great change for either of those shards and they may also have some Evil/Hero aspects to factions no one else has that need to be reviewed to see if they still make sense there or anywhere else, for that matter.

 

[Tazar]

While I'll be the first to admit that I do not play factions, I honestly think that polls and asking the players what they want is about the worst thing that they could do. Just like the classic shard threads, I don't think that you can ever get the players to agree on things. Too many will be guided by self-interest for their favorite-template or play-style rather than going for a "best for all - balanced" system. A small focus group might do, but even there, the self-interest tends to bring in so many conflicts that things get so confusing that the system changes will probably never happen.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The Faction overhaul proposal burned them badly.

It was partly our fault, as we're UO players and we over-react to everything and Mark bizarrely wasn't prepared for the personal attacks and insults. (Which to me suggests he should've read Stratics more.)

However, it was mostly their own fault.

What they did was to design a system that would have been beautiful in another game for another fictional backdrop.

Further, they pitched their changes not to hard-core Factioners, but to hard-core PvPers (who happen to be in Factions). That audience is hard to satisfy, not the least because they don't agree on much internally, and then further the changes made, though pitched to them, included a lot of things that don't interest them.

So they addressed the wrong audience, then they addressed that audience badly.

Further, the fiction they appear to have been using as the basis for the changes was to my mind at least a tad odd. The notion of "rolling blackouts" in the magical sigil protection system, for example.

The bases they designed I hope will be used in another context. 'Cos those were nice-looking as I recall.

My own proposal for a Faction revival, which I posted a little on here,

http://vboards.stratics.com/uo-test-center/195267-faction-artifacts-point-exploits-point-system.html

involves the following:

1-Finally shutting off the extra points for war zone Faction kills that was a legacy of the Warriors of Destiny storyline. As far as I know it was never shut off and it's led to ridiculous point totals.

2-Keep points for sigil stealing.

3-Keep point honoring.

4-Restore the baseline point system of 1 kill = 1 point.

5-Make all Faction Artifacts wearable to all ranks. [EDIT: And increase the silver cost, markedly, of the higher-end Artifacts.]

6-Tone down the Faction Artifacts (I know they can do this to the ones already in the game because they did it for the noob artifact nerf some years back; and let's face it, many of the Faction Artifacts will still own hard core even toned down....The Faction Orni will still own with a mere MR1 as opposed to MR3).

7-Create a "Deserter" rank which makes Faction Artifacts non-wearable entirely. (Not just un-wearable in Trammel but unwearable period.) The Deserter rank will be keyed to not performing certain activities, in a range from merely being in Felucca to being in a Faction town to being in a Faction base to damaging/being damaged by a Faction Monster or Faction Player, etc. (This was taken directly from their proposal of last year.)

8-Make the Faction Artifacts only repairable in a Faction City that your town owns, and make them non-PoF-able at all....That means removing the limited PoF they have that's Faction-specific.

9-Similarly, Make Faction Warhorses only rezzable by a placeable Vet NPC in a Faction City that your town owns. (Of all my proposed changes, I would hate this one the most, because I adore my Faction Warhorse. But I feel strongly that the change would help overall Faction play.)

10-If you must cut down the number of Factions, merge the 2 evil Factions into Minax; the Dark Mistress is still around whereas the Shadowlords are long gone. Perfectly legitimate, though, to keep the SL Faction alive and thus keep the 4-Faction system. Fictionally this would mean they are keeping their former masters' spirit alive.

11-Every once in a great while have a storyline where events in Factions and events in Trammel have a minor but noticeable impact on one another.

• Example One:unless a certain monster is defeated in Trammel, evil Factioners will be able to meditate [not the game mechanic meditation, but saying one of the Virtue Mantras or some such] inside their strongholds and get 1 extra of every regen for an hour. If that monster is defeated, good Factioners will be able to meditate inside their strongholds and get a similar bonus.

• Example Two: If the Evil Factions can hold the City of Skara Brae for a certain amount of time during the space of a month, beefed up, Minax-affiliated Orc Brutes will spawn around the Shrine of Spirituality in Trammel for a month.

Not the best ideas but you get the picture, I think. Have events where the facets impact one another but not in catastrophic or unbalancing ways.

-----------------------
Anyway I'll just stop now. The pattern is small changes/modifications, not the big-scale changes they proposed last year.

Some of my favorite players in this game are in Factions, as am I, and normally I run my Faction proposals by them first to see what holes they see but today....Today I think I will just toss this out there and see what everyone thinks, those who still read my posts.

-Galen's player

 

[Kayne.]

Yeah, "hey guys, lets rework factions"

"how should we do that?"

"Uhm. welll IDK. But if we give l33t **** to the players that are in factions....then it looks like we fixed it"

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

Does anyone else remember when factions worked? There were two factions Order vs Chaos and they worked just fine. No overly complicated town systems, no sigils to steal, just good old fashion combat.

 

[Tina Small]

9-Similarly, Make Faction Warhorses only rezzable by a placeable Vet NPC in a Faction City that your town owns. (Of all my proposed changes, I would hate this one the most, because I adore my Faction Warhorse. But I feel strongly that the change would help overall Faction play.)

How would this help faction play, Galen? Very few would use a war horse any more if they can only be rezzed by a vet NPC in a town your faction controls. It might encourage some fighting in faction towns, but people who are in factions need to be able to go out and fight elsewhere between guarding sessions. You can't have guarding sessions 7 days a week/24 hours a day because people get burned out on doing just that for hours on end. If you can't rez your war horse yourself while you're off in T2A doing a champ spawn, why bother having one? And to prevent a tamer with at least 80 vet and 80 lore skill that is in factions from rezzing war horses doesn't make any sense at all.

Also, I would disagree with retaining the ability to transfer points between characters. It's a sham and makes the whole system meaningless for people who really want to use it as a means to evaluate who actually has some skill and not just access to a bunch of extra characters.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Does anyone else remember when factions worked? There were two factions Order vs Chaos and they worked just fine. No overly complicated town systems, no sigils to steal, just good old fashion combat.

It's been really odd to me to see the Order/Chaos system (which by the way was not Factions, but a separate system) remembered so well by so many, because at the time, at least on LS where I played, no one was really happy with it.

People accused each other of only joining for the Artifacts (back then they weren't called Artifacts, but I mean to refer to the Chaos Shields and Order Shields which were at the time only wearable by folks in Order/Chaos), and of avoiding PvP. I also read a lot about how there was no "real" reason to join Order/Chaos. (The shields weren't considered "real" by everyone.)

Sound familiar?

When Factions originally came out, within weeks the rap on Order/Chaos became that it was full of inferior PvPers, relative to Factions. When I pointed out that in Order/Chaos you couldn't escape the fighting, whereas in Factions you could tun to any map besides Felucca and not have to fight at all, I was called a noob, a Trammie, etc. I didn't get it, you see. I just didn't get it.

*shrugs*

When Order/Chaos was eliminated I don't remember a single post decrying said elimination.

I suppose there probably were some that I didn't notice. That happens from time to time.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

How would this help faction play, Galen? Very few would use a war horse any more if they can only be rezzed by a vet NPC in a town your faction controls. And to prevent a tamer with at least 80 vet and 80 lore skill that is in factions from rezzing war horses doesn't make any sense at all.

Also, I would disagree with retaining the ability to transfer points between characters. It's a sham and makes the whole system meaningless for people who really want to use it as a means to evaluate who actually has some skill and not just access to a bunch of extra characters.

*shakes head*

This is much out-of-date. The "sham" (your word) these days has nothing to do with point transfers; it involves killing a friend in an opposing Faction, or someone you hired in an opposing Faction, usually in a war zone.

I forget what the going rate for a Faction Point dummy is but it's a pretty good price just to get killed once and undergo 20 minutes of skill loss.

The purpose of point sharing in this context is to reward people who perform such tasks as fielding and healing. These characters rarely get points, because they rarely land a kill ****, but play a critically important role.

Keeping point sharing is, I argue, a superior alternative to what they had in the overhaul system, where you got points for almost every action you did in a Faction Base. Including casting spells.

This was how you used to reward thieves too, but personally I like the idea of thievery itself having points. But maybe that's just me.

So, no Tina, it is not a sham because it assumes, correctly, that more goes on in Factions than landing kill shots, then leaves it to the players to determine how to reward these critical tasks.

Rather than a sham it is cooperation.

I use sham by the way because it's the word you used in your original post; a word with what I have to presume are intentionally negative connotations given that you're using the word in the context of a criticism.

-Galen's player

 

[Tina Small]

When Order/Chaos was eliminated I don't remember a single post decrying said elimination.

When I was looking at historical guild figures a while back, I also counted the Order/Chaos guilds per shard until the system was shut down. It showed a steady drop off after 2000. Here's what happened on Atlantic, using the archived figures on the Wayback Machine site (click the tab labeled "1994-2004 Order & Chaos Guilds"):

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aj2lpjetLFwwdFhWOVhQX0kxSjBEUlZyeERHVE9RT0E&hl=en#gid=8

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Yeah, "hey guys, lets rework factions"

"how should we do that?"

"Uhm. welll IDK. But if we give l33t **** to the players that are in factions....then it looks like we fixed it"

At the time the Faction Artifacts were introduced, the rap on Factions was that there was no "real reason" to do it.

The phrase "real reason" is subjective to a bizarre degree and lacks any kind of operationalized definition. And yet it comes up time and time again in UO, as in "there's no real reason to do this or that." "Real reason" usually means "something that will make me personally want to do it."

In the context of Factions, think they took "no real reason" to mean "no reason that's external to Factions." Factions was one of the few playstyles where accomplishing stuff in it didn't get you a reward that was transferable to doing something else.

Champ Spawning get you scrolls that can be sold or used. Regular PvM gets you gold and items, doing Doom gets you Artifacts, Crafting gets you stuff you can sell or use, etc., etc.

Factions lacked a reward that was external to it. And hence, the argument went, a purpose that was external to it.

Hence its participation was limited to those who really cared about it for its own sake. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does limit the popularity of a system that had, and has, a lot of awesome potential.

Hence, the Faction Artifacts, which was actually an idea that I had pitched a very long time ago, My proposal, however, was a tad....milder. And, further, was introduced in a context where Factioners were still limited in non-Felucca play (couldn't be healed and the like).

-Galen's player

 

[Tina Small]

*shakes head*

This is much out-of-date. The "sham" (your word) these days has nothing to do with point transfers; it involves killing a friend in an opposing Faction, or someone you hired in an opposing Faction, usually in a war zone.

I forget what the going rate for a Faction Point dummy is but it's a pretty good price just to get killed once and undergo 20 minutes of skill loss.

The purpose of point sharing in this context is to reward people who perform such tasks as fielding and healing. These characters rarely get points, because they rarely land a kill ****, but play a critically important role.

Keeping point sharing is, I argue, a superior alternative to what they had in the overhaul system, where you got points for almost every action you did in a Faction Base. Including casting spells.

This was how you used to reward thieves too, but personally I like the idea of thievery itself having points. But maybe that's just me.

So, no Tina, it is not a sham because it assumes, correctly, that more goes on in Factions than landing kill shots, then leaves it to the players to determine how to reward these critical tasks.

Rather than a sham it is cooperation.

I use sham by the way because it's the word you used in your original post; a word with what I have to presume are intentionally negative connotations given that you're using the word in the context of a criticism.

-Galen's player

Before they made faction points have any purpose other than needing a few of them to be able to actually RIDE a war horse or to become the Commanding Lord, I think most people in factions were content with the points system showing who was making the most kills. People who were actually active in factions knew who contributed and who didn't and who had actually earned the right to run for the office of Commanding Lord. Thieves didn't and still don't need war horses and if they wanted to be the CL, then they got creative with their template and figured out how to actually become something of a killing machine.

If people want to get recognition of some sort for healing, rezzing, stealing sigils, etc., then there should be a separate way to keep track of that. Why borrow points/recognition from someone else? Your points for doing anything in factions should be yours alone.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Before they made faction points have any purpose other than needing a few of them to be able to actually RIDE a war horse or to become the Commanding Lord, I think most people in factions were content with the points system showing who was making the most kills. People who were actually active in factions knew who contributed and who didn't and who had actually earned the right to run for the office of Commanding Lord. Thieves didn't and still don't need war horses and if they wanted to be the CL, then they got creative with their template and figured out how to actually become something of a killing machine.

If people want to get recognition of some sort for healing, rezzing, stealing sigils, etc., then there should be a separate way to keep track of that. Why borrow points/recognition from someone else? Your points for doing anything in factions should be yours alone.

*shakes head*

Factions, in the classical sense (sorry, "classical" is a stupid word for this but I can't think of another, better word, sadly), is about cooperative behavior to achieve a common goal: Getting the towns.

What made it more of an individual achievement thing, ironically, were the introduction of Faction Artifacts and the War Zone town points.

Individual achievement is something the hard-core, direct confrontation PvPers who are in Factions are interested in. What the hard-core Factioners are interested in, typically, is the achievement of the shard goal. I, personally, feel that the system should be designed to greater favor hard-core Factioners.

Having said that I don't know how many of them would support leaving the point sharing in, I have not polled them.

But I do know that point sharing was in the game for a long time and I remember few complaints. And I remember it being used in largely the way I described.

On a semi-related note, few people realize this but at its heart, Factions is an RP system, in that the primary goal, obtaining and controlling territory, is something that primarily has an RP meaning. And not the kind of RP that's assisted by game mechanics, but "pure" RP. I, personally, think the game mechanics should kind of assist RP in some occasions and nudge it along, hence my proposing to attach meanings in game mechanics to controlling the towns.

If someone knew their battered Faction Orni wouldn't be repaired without controlling a city or two....Then they would surely, I think anyway, want to control a city at least for awhile.

-Galen's player

 

[Tina Small]

At the time the Faction Artifacts were introduced, the rap on Factions was that there was no "real reason" to do it.

The phrase "real reason" is subjective to a bizarre degree and lacks any kind of operationalized definition. And yet it comes up time and time again in UO, as in "there's no real reason to do this or that." "Real reason" usually means "something that will make me personally want to do it."

In the context of Factions, think they took "no real reason" to mean "no reason that's external to Factions." Factions was one of the few playstyles where accomplishing stuff in it didn't get you a reward that was transferable to doing something else.

Champ Spawning get you scrolls that can be sold or used. Regular PvM gets you gold and items, doing Doom gets you Artifacts, Crafting gets you stuff you can sell or use, etc., etc.

Factions lacked a reward that was external to it. And hence, the argument went, a purpose that was external to it.

Hence its participation was limited to those who really cared about it for its own sake. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does limit the popularity of a system that had, and has, a lot of awesome potential.

Hence, the Faction Artifacts, which was actually an idea that I had pitched a very long time ago, My proposal, however, was a tad....milder. And, further, was introduced in a context where Factioners were still limited in non-Felucca play (couldn't be healed and the like).

-Galen's player

At this point in the game, I doubt that factions will ever succeed as something you just do for the fun/challenge of it. The game is too polluted any more with "must have" items whose acquisition seems to overshadow almost everything else there is to do in the game.

If the faction artificats have to stay because imbuing just isn't good enough and the EMs can't create enough modded and blessed spell books to keep everyone happy, maybe the artifacts could just be cursed.



(Sorry, Galen, I'm just fed up with the overwhelming focus on items in UO. If I'd played back before AoS, I'd probably be one of those people who begged for a classic shard. Since I didn't play then, I can't do that. All I can do at this point is try Siege and hope it's a better fit for me. I'm really loving it so far after almost two months of playing there daily.)

 

[Amber Moon]

Well, I'm a trammie carebear so maybe I have no place in this discussion but, I will shoot my mouth off anyways.

You have another PvP system in the game with huge rewards... champs. Do you think there is the population on most shards to support a second system with lesser rewards?

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

At this point in the game, I doubt that factions will ever succeed as something you just do for the fun/challenge of it. The game is too polluted any more with "must have" items whose acquisition seems to overshadow almost everything else there is to do in the game.

If the faction artificats have to stay because imbuing just isn't good enough and the EMs can't create enough modded and blessed spell books to keep everyone happy, maybe the artifacts could just be cursed.

I am unaware of any EM-related modded blessed spellbooks, at least not in the current generation of EM events. (I'm not counting the one I saw with negative mods, in order to insure, presumably, that it would never be used in combat and would remain a deco item.) Perhaps you refer to the War of Shadows spellbooks?

As to this statement

At this point in the game, I doubt that factions will ever succeed as something you just do for the fun/challenge of it.

you are probably right with the important qualifier: Given how long ago the complaints started that there was no "real" reason to do Factions, or Oder/Chaos for that matter, was there ever an era where we would do something purely for the fun/challenge for very long. Obviously the fun/challenge plays a role and it should.

And, really, there's a certain amount of realism there. You would be surprised, or at least I was!, by how many samurai expected rewards for fighting off the Mongols despite the fact that, had they lost or not fought, they would have been a Mongolian colony at best.

And, as I've stated in other contexts, it's not necessarily pure greed for the characters to expect certain things they do to be rewarded. For us this is a game but for the characters it's how they make their livings.

Accepting your basic premise, at any rate, is the rationale behind many of my proposals: Providing rewards that are external to Factions but that require Faction play to get and/or to be terribly useful.

-Galen's player

 

[Nexus]

\ I see another post by Nexus that Mesanna stated Factions is still not being worked on.

I just don't understand why the thing that has generated the most interest by players, besides a Classic shard, has been picked up only to be put down time and time again.

Because only a portion of the feedback on subjects winds up posted here. She mentioned them getting tons of negative feedback via E-mail from current faction players who didn't want the system changed.

 

[Tina Small]

At this point in the game, I doubt that factions will ever succeed as something you just do for the fun/challenge of it. The game is too polluted any more with "must have" items whose acquisition seems to overshadow almost everything else there is to do in the game.

If the faction artificats have to stay because imbuing just isn't good enough and the EMs can't create enough modded and blessed spell books to keep everyone happy, maybe the artifacts could just be cursed.

I am unaware of any EM-related modded blessed spellbooks, at least not in the current generation of EM events. (I'm not counting the one I saw with negative mods, in order to insure, presumably, that it would never be used in combat and would remain a deco item.) Perhaps you refer to the War of Shadows spellbooks?

I think the War of Shadows spellbooks are, unfortunately, still blessed on Siege but was under the impression that there may also be a few other blessed/modded ones floating around there that came from one of the rare EM events on Siege.

In any event, the mods aren't the problem. The blessed status is the problem.

 

[Tina Small]

And, really, there's a certain amount of realism there. You would be surprised, or at least I was!, by how many samurai expected rewards for fighting off the Mongols despite the fact that, had they lost or not fought, they would have been a Mongolian colony at best.

And, as I've stated in other contexts, it's not necessarily pure greed for the characters to expect certain things they do to be rewarded. For us this is a game but for the characters it's how they make their livings.

Good points, Galen, that I tend to overlook/forget because I rarely roleplay in UO.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I think the War of Shadows spellbooks are, unfortunately, still blessed on Siege but was under the impression that there may also be a few other blessed/modded ones floating around there that came from one of the rare EM events on Siege.

In any event, the mods aren't the problem. The blessed status is the problem.

I apologize; I noticed no obvious indication from the posts I replied to that you were talking about Siege, so I did not realize.

Siege has a different rules set than the other shards (even differing slightly, I am informed, from its Asian counterpart, Mugen) and, as such, issues on Siege are not typically applicable to the bulk of the game. To avoid confusion, it would perhaps be prudent to mention in future posts when you are talking specifically about Siege. Siege issues and production shard issues often don't even so much as correlate.

Yes, on Siege, there are several "bless-ability" issues, but these are not generally applicable, and your post gave the impression that you were talking about issues of general applicability. Indeed, on the production shards bless-ability is nary an issue at all, due to the use of the item insurance mechanic.

Though I now realize you were not talking about the War of Shadows spellbooks, I find it prudent to point something out, lest others be suffering from the confusion I erroneously thought you were: The EMs had little to do with the War of Shadows, which was related to the Warriors of Destiny storyline. Indeed, so far as I can tell the only connection was that EMs ran events that were also related to this storyline.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Good points, Galen, that I tend to overlook/forget because I rarely roleplay in UO.

I tend to prefer a balance of content....Some stuff done with rewards for all, some with no rewards, some with very rare rewards, some with more-common rewards, with guaranteed rewards, etc., on down the line.

That way those of us who wish to play characters who focus only on their daily lives can focus on content with more-guaranteed rewards. Those of us who wish to play super-hero-esque characters can focus on content that provides few tangible rewards but "fights evil" and the like.

And, if you play a character like mine, you will use the content with assured rewards to finance content with no rewards at all.

Thus managing to be cynical and idealistic, at the same time....And keep people guessing as to which is the "real you." The noble, faithful, warrior of virtue, or the lecherous, greedy antiques dealer.

-Galen's player

 

[Poo]

Can you believe it went by so quickly? One year ago us players were once again teased with a major overhaul of the much loved Faction system. On this day, April 14 of 2010, UO developer Phoenix posted the testing commencement announcement.

In the days that followed there were hundreds of posts of heated debate on all the changes. No other change/addition in years had stirred so much interest. People not even currently subscribed were expressing interest in the update.

Then nothing. Within a couple weeks the developers completely stopped communicating about their faction ideas. It wasn't until months later that we recieved confirmation that Faction development was completely halted. I see another post by Nexus that Mesanna stated Factions is still not being worked on.

I just don't understand why the thing that has generated the most interest by players, besides a Classic shard, has been picked up only to be put down time and time again. I counted 500 posts within 2 days of the announcement. The topic on an obscure test forum has almost 17,000 views, more than any almost any UHall topic which is newer.

It sounds like boosters are not happening anymore, which is a shame. Factions would have been 10x more successful a booster than High Seas. Unless you were a fisherman, High Seas had nothing to offer in terms of lasting content.

If Factions was done right, it would definitely draw people back to UO.

If Faction updates would make you play UO more, you should reply to this topic.

Everyone in the faction community went and tested out the changes then came back and blasted the dev's for it.

no one could decide what they wanted for changes but where more then willing to unleash on the dev's about how stupid their idea's where.

so no suprise that they cancelled it in the end.

and no supirse at all that they dont want to go back to it, cause its a no win for them.

there is no way they are ever gonna get everyone happy with faction changes, we all know that factions is pvp and pvp people are the loudest and constantlly compain about EVERYTHING.

so where is the win for the dev's?

they allready invested time and storyline into trying to change it and we killed it for them.

no, id be suprised if they ever came back to it after how bad of a bashing you all handed them last year on it. And i take their refusal to even comment on factions as confirmation that it is and will reamin a dead topic to them after we handed them their hats last year over the changes.

make your bed = lay in it

 

[Shakkar]

I would vote aye on order chaos guard again. Some of the best times were back then. Shuting down city sigils and making base more usabale sounds like a pretty good idea. Set up those flea markets in the bases and have oposite faction raid markets killing npc's and people alike. definatly would bring some spunk to the bases and a reason to be there. with proceeds going to base to make it better like the old zoo system of giving more to area the more you do. and in fact this would bring in my opionion more people to said bases and the pvp community may even have more highlighted battles instead of the running gank you see now. defendable ramparts and breechable gates a must.

 

[JC the Builder]

Because only a portion of the feedback on subjects winds up posted here. She mentioned them getting tons of negative feedback via E-mail from current faction players who didn't want the system changed.

Everyone in the faction community went and tested out the changes then came back and blasted the dev's for it.

So instead of coming up with new ideas or implementing player ideas, they just stop development? That does not sound like a good strategy to me. Maybe if they got feedback in the design phase, instead of spending X hours coding it all, they could have saved a lot of time.

You don't design and build a house expecting the homeowner to love it. You design it, get feedback, redesign, get feedback, touch up and then build it.

Also, people sent in feedback because they were passionate enough about Factions to do so. If they really got a lot of negative feedback, it only shows how much Factions means to players and want them to do it right.

 

[Nexus]

So instead of coming up with new ideas or implementing player ideas, they just stop development? That does not sound like a good strategy to me. Maybe if they got feedback in the design phase, instead of spending X hours coding it all, they could have saved a lot of time.

You don't design and build a house expecting the homeowner to love it. You design it, get feedback, redesign, get feedback, touch up and then build it.

Also, people sent in feedback because they were passionate enough about Factions to do so. If they really got a lot of negative feedback, it only shows how much Factions means to players and want them to do it right.

What if the majority of that feed back was "Leave factions alone!".


Seriously.. A lot of the Faction people are happy they can farm points for their vending machine arties and don't want the system changed....

Personally I'd rather see Factions scrapped for Order Chaos myself...

**** More thoughts ****

Factions simply never made sense to me.... there is more wrong with the system than right these days.

If They were to insist on keeping something similar to the current faction system there are a few changes I'd love to see...

• Can't be in a Guild and Factions - Character Allegiance should be to the faction and faction only. Guild Chat becomes "Faction Chat" for that character.
• Factions Can Not Preform Hostile actions to Non-Factions - Factions are fighting for control of the land not to decimate it's population.
• One Character per account in Factions. - No more hot swap because of Stat loss.

I've got reasons for all of those, and my reasoning at least to me is sound.

Guilds and Factions just don't mix, On LS for example there was a [TB] guild who simply rolled anyone that showed up. [TB] [SL] [Min] [CoM] Non-faction it didn't matter who they ran across...Your Faction should be your Guild, it's the group you signed up to support.

No Hostile to Non-Factions... Ok yea the Factions are fighting for control of facet of Felucca... What good is any piece of land if no one wants to live there? You'd still have Non-Faction PvP to deal with, but..... That's become minimal on most shards due to faction's having a vending machine for arties...

One toon per account in Factions. This keeps you from hot swapping, Die pay the penalty instead of just switching toons.

 

[Aran]

Remove factions

 

[Acid Rain]

Order/Chaos was fun. I think alot of us enjoyed it because it wasnt so complicated.

I quit playing factions over 6months ago and not because I didnt like the storylines, RP, items, or any faction changes they made or didnt make. If you want more trammel players to try the Felucca factions or even draw more players back into the game to play factions its very simple.

ENABLE SOME KIND OF ANTI-CHEAT/SCRIPT SOFTWARE and START BANS. Use a 3-strikes your out method so atleast your certain warnings were issued before any bans. Historically this has never happened (except in small doses like with HAX guild) and probably wont because EA is too worried about the dollar. Their Epic FAIL is not realizing most players quit UO years ago for that other game mainly because it does use said software.

As it stands now (atleast on my shard of Atl), factions draws in the most competitive players. The VAST majority of these players use cheats. Even the ones who dont want to use an illegal program are forced into it if they want to play. Honest players have 3 options
1) quit playing entirely because they cant keep up in fights and the games not enjoyable
2) quit playing in factions/felucca and take to PvM (which some do such as myself)
3) or run the same cheats most do so they can keep up with everyone else.

Ive played factions on and off for as long as factions (even Order/Chaos) has existed.
IMHO factions brings out the worst elements in UO, pathetic loosers whos tiny fragile egos cant stand losing any fight in a videogame, nerd rage when they do, and will use any cheat available to insure their death doesnt happen. I refuse to sit down for a game of chess with someone whom I know will move multiple pieces at the same time the 1st chance they get. I refuse to play factions and entertain players like this. No I wont be going back to play factions anytime soon no matter what changes they do/dont make.

Start Policing your game EA/UO and players WILL return, accounts WILL reopen, and many account holders which have never been to Felucca WILL try to take part in something that can be much more fun then killing the same Peerless monsters endlessly.

Now let the posts start where I'm flamed for having never been any good at blah blah......
So thats why im making excuses for blah blah....
Most faction players on Atlantic know this is true or will lie abt it to cover themselves and im secure enough in my own abilities that I can handle the fire

 

[puni666]

They tried to re-vamp it. Their ideas went down like a lead balloon. A lot of man-hours wasted creating new bases for 3 factions instead of 4.

If they FORCED a faction rule set this might have a sliver of effect on pvp, but since it's just one more place to hold a choke point for a select few players it's is just a waste of man hours.

They need to work on making templates unique again instead of simplified. People love to do specialized things that they might be better at then there team mates. So making each template unique buy revamping everything would be a step in the right direction.

One thing I ALWAYS point out is the simplification of cross healing by curing everything with one spell. Cleansing winds. That's one of the things that takes out unique points in this game by oversimplifying things :/. It used to be a rule of thumb to get your own cures to receive a cross heal from guildys. Now that small 2 person reliant player skill is hardly even relevant.

 

[aarons6]

i dont see what can be done.. people dont fight for towns anymore.
my faction has held the stones for weeks and i havent seen anyone ever at any bases.

most of the fighting is at yew gate or in despise. this fighting isnt even related to factions and it also involves non faction players.

stat loss makes such fighting not even worth it. just fight with a pvp blue like everyone else.

maybe if they make it so faction members cant get murder counts more people will fight on their faction char.. cause said fighting sucks with non faction blues giving you counts and you dont stat them when they die. so basically you get a whole bunch of blues attacking you when you flag on them and then one orange pops out of hiding when your about to die.

fighting in fel shouldnt even be something you can get murder counts for but thats another topic.. as well as guard zones.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

They could always kick everyone out of factions and then to rejoin you would have to buy the booster pack. Since, it would be based in Fel, they could really just ignore the fact, that there is a Trammel and just concentrate on how to make Fel better.

Kind of look at Fel as being factions. They could even destroy cities and rebuild them as if some kind of Evil Plaque was pouring out of the ground. This way different spawns could be created, setting up a Good Vs. Evil. This would bring the PvM in to the PvP battle, maybe some type of evil mage towers, large fortresses, different paths of reconstruction turning cities into some type of power that affects their core.

So, you could create new faction suits, tameables and a type of lore that explains the duty and the legacy.

They could create other systems that could turn cities from Good to Evil, allowing for spawns to be summoned, spells to be chanted and magical weapons and gear to be created. Each town could have a special, Evil and Good Spawn weapon type and ability that would give holding a town some kind of tactical advantage. Allow for certain structures to be destroyed, such as Guard Towers, Walls, Bridges and Strongholds.

Incorporate Farming and Trade even if it's just an NPC Farm. For example: A magical gourd could be grown that is then fed to a spawn, allowing the spawn more ability so, that if the farm is destroyed, the spawn is left weak.

Other cities could have different types, allowing you to set up some type of trade route, even ship routes, where maybe, you could transport stone and if successful your walls would become 20% stronger.

Set it up similar to BattleField, where at any time you can capture the city or destroy it and then once you have it, you gain the advantages of that city. Kind of like, in BattleField, where you would have Tanks, Walkers, Airplanes. This is the kind of feel you should have in PvP, where the enemy and his colors are coming and you're trying to defend but not like Champs but where you have more tactical advantages, where you can set your enemies' army on fire or hold up in an archer tower.

 

[Tina Small]

I apologize; I noticed no obvious indication from the posts I replied to that you were talking about Siege, so I did not realize.

Siege has a different rules set than the other shards (even differing slightly, I am informed, from its Asian counterpart, Mugen) and, as such, issues on Siege are not typically applicable to the bulk of the game. To avoid confusion, it would perhaps be prudent to mention in future posts when you are talking specifically about Siege. Siege issues and production shard issues often don't even so much as correlate.

I wasn't specifically talking about Siege when I suggested that faction artifacts should be cursed. I was really thinking about other shards.

Perhaps you could put your lecherous, greedy antiques dealer character to work thinking of the possibilities if faction artifacts were cursed, on top of also being character-bound. What might make things even more interesting would be if they could only be directly handled (e.g., picked up, purchased, smelted, cut up, pitched in a trash barrel, etc.) by characters already in factions. (They could be moved by non-faction characters only if already placed inside a transportable container, which I believe is the current rule for faction trap deeds and trap removal kits.)

 

[Woodsman]

Set it up similar to BattleField, where at any time you can capture the city or destroy it and then once you have it, you gain the advantages of that city. Kind of like, in BattleField, where you would have Tanks, Walkers, Airplanes. This is the kind of feel you should have in PvP, where the enemy and his colors are coming and you're trying to defend but not like Champs but where you have more tactical advantages, where you can set your enemies' army on fire or hold up in an archer tower.

I've thought of an EVE Online scenario where factions could truly control towns, but the problem is you really need a lot more people, otherwise you'd have one large group overrunning everything.

It would be interesting, since EVE borrowed from UO's early PvP days, to borrow from EVE, but you really have to have a lot more people and guilds to have constant opposition and clashes, given that there are so few towns/areas that could be controlled. EVE has the luxury of having one huge universe where underdogs could regroup and rebuild, but Felucca just isn't large enough - one large guild or alliance of guilds could probably control the majority of cities and hold onto them.

Of course I guess you could regroup in other facets.

 

[Eddie123]

sacrifice 20-50% of your faction points to remove stat loss that would be a good way to bring the point totals down..

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I wasn't specifically talking about Siege when I suggested that faction artifacts should be cursed. I was really thinking about other shards.

Perhaps you could put your lecherous, greedy antiques dealer character to work thinking of the possibilities if faction artifacts were cursed, on top of also being character-bound. What might make things even more interesting would be if they could only be directly handled (e.g., picked up, purchased, smelted, cut up, pitched in a trash barrel, etc.) by characters already in factions. (They could be moved by non-faction characters only if already placed inside a transportable container, which I believe is the current rule for faction trap deeds and trap removal kits.)

I am in general against forcing people to lose items; I tend to argue it would be tantamount to causing people to lose skills under the pre-AoS system.

What you in effect wish to do is to duplicate the situation I've read that exists on Siege, where some people in effect make a living by selling people their Faction Artifacts back to them.

Further, on the Factions board, some argue that they are important to helping PvPers move across shards; makes it easier to build a suit and experience life on another shard. They have also argued that it's important to helping the non-super rich build awesome suits.

However, personally, I am constrained to confess a certain indifference to the fate of Faction Artifacts.

Firstly, I don't quite have as much sympathy with the "cross-shard PvP" argument as I would like to.

Secondly, though some people indeed use Faction Artifacts to compensate for not being rich (indeed many very good Factioners do this very thing), I don't have the impression that most people use them that way. I tend to see Faction Artifacts on some very rich folks.

And thirdly and finally, though I am in Factions, and when Factions on GL is active I am at least semi-active within it, I have made a conscious decision to not use any Faction Artifacts. There's a lot of reasons for that.

-Galen's player

 

[G.v.P]

Today I think I will just toss this out there and see what everyone thinks, those who still read my posts.

At the end of the day, that's all you can do

People accused each other of only joining for the Artifacts (back then they weren't called Artifacts, but I mean to refer to the Chaos Shields and Order Shields which were at the time only wearable by folks in Order/Chaos), and of avoiding PvP. I also read a lot about how there was no "real" reason to join Order/Chaos. (The shields weren't considered "real" by everyone.)

I don't remember people being that critical of the items on Ches, but they were the best shields in game, free, and you couldn't use them unless you were in a Chaos or Order guild, which was awesome for identity. Factions identity, the robe, is buggy (last I remember they can't be worn after awhile) and they have no stats so they aren't used often, so there isn't much on-char identity now.

Originally, Chaos/Order was created for the elite, and you had to have Lady or Lord status to even obtain the shields (according to the T2A guide), so I imagine the system was toned down a little for the masses unless there was a misprint there.

When Factions originally came out, within weeks the rap on Order/Chaos became that it was full of inferior PvPers, relative to Factions.

The problem with Order/Chaos was that it ended up catering dexxers, many of whom were referenced as "townies," players without emphasis on resist and without concern of the more field-controlling spells mages couldn't use while in a guardzone. Of course, today, with Necros and Mystics included in the mix, it would be hard for townies to thrive as much. Still, I don't see why Factions would be that much different early on, except for the early purpose of defending a base. Of course, in the beginning, you could be both Order/Chaos and Factions, but it's been such a long time I'd probably need a refresher course or a timeline to go by.

 

[aBigHotStar]

Jupiter was here

 

[aBigHotStar]

do u mind loading the new minax base sometime without the bugs?

and making some funny stuff to hot town?

thanks

 

[Viquire]

I think they need to unbug arenas and go ahead and get them in the game before looking at any other pvp related systems.

I dont think one super-system is going to turn the trick. I think they are going to have to make choices available and let people find a player vs player focused activity or set of activities they are comfortable with and enjoying.

I thought about starting a thread focused on having multiple systems in place, but RL is a tad busy at the moment.

Let them finish what they have started, and then encourage them to do more.

 

[JC the Builder]

You have another PvP system in the game with huge rewards... champs. Do you think there is the population on most shards to support a second system with lesser rewards?

Champion spawns are a 9 year old system which have drastically depreciated rewards and are boring after doing them thousands of times. The fight times are completely unpredictable, so mostly one side ends up hugely outnumbering the other. You have to scout 20+ areas all over the world to even know if they are being done. And most of the time the people leave the moment they are scouted.

Also, champion spawns are not a PVP system. They are a PvM system placed in Felucca.

 

[Amber Moon]

Champion spawns are a 9 year old system which have drastically depreciated rewards and are boring after doing them thousands of times. The fight times are completely unpredictable, so mostly one side ends up hugely outnumbering the other. You have to scout 20+ areas all over the world to even know if they are being done. And most of the time the people leave the moment they are scouted.

Also, champion spawns are not a PVP system. They are a PvM system placed in Felucca.

That is nice and all. But correct me if I am wrong, most of the PvP that does occur happens at them or moongate duels. If not then where else? So, the question you didn't answer remains, are there enough people to support two systems? Or alternately, are you willing to give up or tone back the champ spawns for another system?