In this thread we offer constructive criticism, alternatives, and solutions.

[Woodsman]

Let's have a thread that follows the guidelines of this post.

There is a big difference to the DEV's who do read these forums between reading something that is a complaint (genuine) and weeding thru the negative criticism. When all you read is negativity it makes you not want to read it anymore.

So that said if you want to criticize something I suppose you should do so on your own in chat somewhere.... but if you want to help improve the game I guess we will need to learn to offer up a bit of constructive criticism and offer alternatives as well as telling them this is exactly WHY I am not happy about ABC and I feel it could have been better if..... xyz... were done.

Rather than to point blame and jump to conclusions and then cross the line into assumptions... and start just throwing negatives at everything.

If there is something you feel needs fixing and needs to be addressed then certainly ask about it.... but remember and keep in mind that the higher and higher the negativity and stronger complaints you put into your request the less and less likely your going to get it read.

Please don't **** on this thread and just bash the devs. If you can't articulate why you are not happy with something, or if you can't do it without insulting anybody, and if you can't offer an alternative, then please find another thread.

Rather than debate in this thread (And risk derailing it), it might be far more interesting if everybody offered up their own constructive criticism and solutions, and it might get some devs posting.

I'll start things off.

Criticism: Lack of communication.
Why am I unhappy with it? Having experienced UO in the early years, and having played many other MMORPGs, I feel that the community, and community relations are very important to MMORPGs. They are, after all, community-driven games. I also feel that it sends a very bad sign to would-be players and former players if the UO team is not talking to players. It creates a void that players fill in with speculation and assumptions.
Solution: Start posting. Even if it's just a few hundred words every week on the Herald.

Criticism: 15th anniversary promotion.
Why am I unhappy with it? Because it's 6 weeks away and you would never know it. This ties into my first criticism, lack of communication. We have not seen anybody from the UO team promoting it, and have only seen a few wallpapers which have dropped off the front page of the Herald. There is a banner on the UO Herald, but it's quickly ignored as it's rotating in and out with advertisements for older expansions/boosters.
Solution: Start talking about it. Email the game sites. While we know there is some kind of gathering or town hall, we are still not seeing much promotion of the anniversary.

Criticism: UO website
Why am I unhappy with it? It doesn't help sell UO at all, and could easily turn off would-be or former players to UO, who either get the impression that UO is stagnant, or that it's not being actively developed. It will be the first thing would-be or former players see.
Solution: A new website at UO.com obviously, which we have been told is coming, however in the meantime, something needs to be added to the sidebars of the site to at least point people to some of the big stories. Once things drop off the front page, they can easily be missed.

Criticism: Status of the high resolution graphics
Why am I unhappy with it? Because we are not sure if it's happening or not and because of past issues with clients and UO giving us major reasons for concern. Jeff Skalski was asked this week if it was canceled, and gave a weird answer. Rather than saying that it wasn't canceled, he said "I wouldnt say cancelled. Just not hitting our quality bar and we have more work to do to knock it out right." which is similar to the answer he gave back in January. I am unhappy because I believe UO has a lot to offer people who have never tried it, and I believe it's necessary in helping rope those people in and increase the player population. The current situation and graphics are not bringing in scores of people, and just because it is not talked about any more by the dev team, doesn't mean we will forget about it.
Solution: Tell us where you're at with it. If it's not going to happen next month or before the end of the year, then tell us.

 

[weins201]

HUmm ask the dev forum??????? that what its there for???

1 - Speculation leads to you playing
2 - be happy when you unwrap your present, stopp shaking the gifts under the tree
3 - pleanty of otherinformation site out there why waste time
4 - who cares

 

[Viper09]

Good thread. Constructive criticism is useful. I miss the devs posting frequently on the forums, especially when we had the wonderful reps whose job it was to talk to us. That's what I wish we could get again. Twitter is a nice addition but I like to come to the forums to see their communication.

 

[Tanivar]

Criticism: Feedback in the Forums that expresses Customer disatisfaction with additions to the game and game events is not having any noticable influence on following additions to the game and following events.
Why am I unhappy with it?: It shows the UO Dev Team is not paying attention to Customer feedback which results in Customer dis-satisfaction with the product they are paying a monthly fee for, which is resulting in Customers not actively useing the product, or taking their business elsewhere. This has a negative influence on the profitability of the product and threatens it's survival. This, when seen by Customers who still currently pay for the product, makes them inclined to look elsewhere for another such product to satisfy their needs and which looks to likely continue to be available for years to come and provide for their need longterm.
Solution: The decision makers who decide what is added to the game and what future in-game events are planned need to begin immediately listening to their Customers reactions to additions to the Product and adjust planning for future changes to try for positive reactions from their customers instead of continueing to do what draws bad reactions from their customers. The goal is to draw in more Paying Customers instead of encouraging them to go elsewhere for the product they want.

 

[Tanivar]

Criticism: There is a severe lack of entertainment for those into PvP and into PKing.
Why am I unhappy with it?: It results in complaints over that lack of entertainment and results in skill & item changes to benefit PvP but that harms PvM.
Solution: Provide a shard that duplicates the standard current design production shards with the only difference being that the Felucca Ruleset is on all it's facets. There are no variations to the Felucca Ruleset as Siege has. The ruleset is left the same as normal production shards Felucca facets have. It can be moved to, and away from, as can be done with normal production shards using Transfer Tokens from the UO Store.

This would provide a shard for PvPers to go to find other talented PvPers to do combat with.

With it's not having the Siege shard rule variations limiting their ability to sell to and buy from NPCs, it could well draw PvMers who, since they can hunt, forage and Recall as easily as they can on a normal production shard, may be willing to risk being PKed.

The Pkers would also have more fun as they will have the prey they enjoy more available than on normal production shards that have a Trammel Ruleset facet. PvMers would have Tram, Fel, Ilsh, Malas, the Islands, and Ter Mer to try and avoid being PKed.

 

[O'Brien]

I think the "Dev bashing" would be much less if there wasn't the "Devs can do no wrong" croud who always side with the Devs vs. the playerbase.

I think a "constructive criticism" thread is pointless when the weaknesses of UO and its development are glaringly obvious to anyone who care about this game.

So where does that leave us? Well, to be more productive, I'd instead consider starting a thread with the question, "UO Development is what it is and no sign of changing, the problem is identified, so instead of mulling over it over and over, how are we going to proceed individually and as a community?

 

[MalagAste]

The Pkers would also have more fun as they will have the prey they enjoy more available than on normal production shards that have a Trammel Ruleset facet. PvMers would have Tram, Fel, Ilsh, Malas, the Islands, and Ter Mer to try and avoid being PKed.

Since you can't PK other PKers the PK's would quickly become bored with new shard as everyone is only there to PK and there is no easy prey... end of story.

 

[Tanivar]

Since you can't PK other PKers the PK's would quickly become bored with new shard as everyone is only there to PK and there is no easy prey... end of story.

.

With it's not having the Siege shard rule variations limiting their ability to sell to and buy from NPCs, it could well draw PvMers who, since they can hunt, forage and Recall as easily as they can on a normal production shard, may be willing to risk being PKed.

The Pkers would also have more fun as they will have the prey they enjoy more available than on normal production shards that have a Trammel Ruleset facet. PvMers would have Tram, Fel, Ilsh, Malas, the Islands, and Ter Mer to try and avoid being PKed.

Could be prey for the PKers available. Players who started UO in the last ten years might be game to try it as a change. I'd build a pair of crafters on the shard since it would be a normal current type shard, other than Tram also having the Fel Ruleset.

 

[Amber Witch]

I just want to say 'Thank You' for starting this thread.

 

[Tina Small]

Criticism: Anything related to the "live arc" that isn't a quest seems to be orchestrated these days by the EMs and only happens once per shard at a time selected by the EMs and only provides a small chance at receiving some kind of a reward for participating to a handful of players.

Why am I unhappy about it: Obviously not everyone can log into UO and play on the EM's schedule or play on multiple shards to improve their chances at making it to an EM-run event. Therefore, many people miss these one-time events. And not everyone has the ability to play during whatever is considered a shard's "prime time." Some people, because of their RL commitments, can only squeeze in playing time during very late evening or early morning hours or during the daytime in the middle of the week. And some players have, over the years, become disenchanted with attending EM-run events for a variety of reasons: Lack of crowd control; the "win-at-all-costs" attitude/actions exhibited by some collectors who frequent such events; the almost instantaneous spamming at the end of the event of items from the event for sale at obscene prices; the quick appearance of event items on illegal search sites for sale for RL cash; the cold shoulder non-regular participants receive or the rude/suspicious/deliberately misleading comments/directions made to them when they do try to show up and participate, etc.

Suggestions: In future event arcs, include more "large scale" activities that aren't tedious, grinding quests with high hit-point monsters with low drop rates of required quest items or that are magnets for scripting players and whose duration spans a sufficient length of time (e.g., two to three months) to allow more players to participate at times that are convenient to their schedule. And don't be so damn stingy with reward items. Who honestly cares if everyone who puts in a modicum of effort (one to three hours of playing time) gets a little momento of the event, whether it's a somewhat useful spellbook, talisman, weapon, or even a deco item? Why does everything have to be "rare"?

Why not do live events again for the casual players who only get to play a few hours per week to get them excited about logging in because they have a realistic chance to get something that's new and useful but not over-the-top with properties? That's why people liked Treasures of Tokuno and the invasions...you could drop in any time, spend even just an hour on it at a time and walk away with something you could use or, as in the case of ToT, that you could combine with something else to get something better. It's very discouraging to see so much emphasis on events that drop "rare" items for just a handful of players, while the other "live event" activities that are actually put into the game to run on auto-pilot are boring as hell and take far too long to complete for all but a few people to bother with. The game's population dwindles by the day because it feels as if almost all new content is directed at people who've turned playing UO into their business or who have nothing else going on in their lives. Everyone else is left to feel that their only connection to "live events" in UO is as a source of funding for the EM's pay and/or that in order to have any access to "live event" content they have to attend events overrun with rabid "rares collectors" and run by EMs who sometimes act like all they care about is throwing more crazy items into the game that can be sold for insane amounts of gold or for cash.

And to top it off, for the vast majority of shards these days, you can't even find news reports by either the EMs or players regarding the EM-run events. You see the posts on the EM websites and in the EM forums announcing the dates for the events. But on many, many shards there is seldom any kind of follow-up by anyone who was at the event to keep other people informed. Is that because the people who DO participate want the participation in future events to remain low so they have a better chance to get the rare drops, or is it simply a function of the game's dwindling population?

UO no longer feels like a game for the masses when it comes to "live event" content. Long gone, I guess, are the "live event" activities spread out over relatively large areas and that lasted for weeks or months that I remember from when I was first playing UO in late 2004-2007. Gone too or logging in with a much lower frequency are the many players like me who much preferred that type of content to EM-driven content.

Oh well. I know it's pretty pointless to keep bringing up this issue, time and time again. But I'll give it another try. Maybe one of these days someone who has the power to make a change will actually read these comments with an open mind and realize I'm not trying to destroy the EM program or to take it away from the people who enjoy it. What I'm trying to do is ask for a more "live event" content that isn't all about "rares" and "rares collecting" or that is a pointless grind for EVERYONE ELSE who plays or used to play UO and would love to come back and enjoy those large scale "live events," no matter how much time they have in their weekly schedule to play or when that play time might actually occur.

 

[Tanivar]

Criticism: There is no in-game vendor search system to enable Players to find items they want quickly in their limited playtime.
Why am I unhappy with it?: When a player wants to buy an item he has to spend a huge portion of his available playtime manually searching through vendor after vendor after vendor in Luna where vendors are easily found, or at houses scattered all over the game world that he knows of. Those vendors at other houses he doesn't know of may have what he wants but he could literally spend days finding them and searching through the stocks. Searching through vendors he knows of can take hours because vendor name length has to be kept within reason and can't detail the 125 possible items in each vendors backpack. The Player has to look through container after container, after container to see what each vendor has for sale.
Solution: Create a vendor search system that can be accessed from town banks that a Player can enter an item name into and get a list of what is available sorted by it's price, the quantity available on each vendor, and a button to click to be teleported to that vendor. This would save hours of a Players playtime from whatever playtime that he manages to find between, work, school, family, and other real life circumstances that require his time.

Having an item sold from a vendor be unable to be sold for a higher price by adding the origonal price it was sold for to the items game system data would prevent Players who like to buy cheap and sell high from cleaning out low cost vendors and adding more zeroes to the price when sold on their vendors. This could help improve the economy by lowering the normal prices items cost and reduce the sticker-shock new or average Players see when they browse vendors.

 

[Woodsman]

Criticism: Status of the high resolution graphics
Why am I unhappy with it? Because we are not sure if it's happening or not and because of past issues with clients and UO giving us major reasons for concern. Jeff Skalski was asked this week if it was canceled, and gave a weird answer. Rather than saying that it wasn't canceled, he said "I wouldnt say cancelled. Just not hitting our quality bar and we have more work to do to knock it out right." which is similar to the answer he gave back in January. I am unhappy because I believe UO has a lot to offer people who have never tried it, and I believe it's necessary in helping rope those people in and increase the player population. The current situation and graphics are not bringing in scores of people, and just because it is not talked about any more by the dev team, doesn't mean we will forget about it.
Solution: Tell us where you're at with it. If it's not going to happen next month or before the end of the year, then tell us.

Jeff just answered this question indirectly (on Twitter): "Planned. Our new artist needs to get upto speed first on other art pipelines in the game."

 

[Eärendil]

Having an item sold from a vendor be unable to be sold for a higher price by adding the origonal price it was sold for to the items game system data would prevent Players who like to buy cheap and sell high from cleaning out low cost vendors and adding more zeroes to the price when sold on their vendors.

Although I don´t believe that anything like this will be implemented some day, I think it is a good idea. I am following the policy that most of the items in my vendors should be the cheapest on the shard - especially compared to those insane, greedy people offering in some of those luna vendors. And I noticed that some of these people buy my stuff (thank you) and put it in their vendor for much higher prices. However, my intention was to offer the normal (poor) player stuff for fair prices. I know, I am naive...

 

[swroberts]

I have my pitchfork and I am ready to join the Mob.... DOWN WITH THE FRANKENDEVS...

Now where did I put that damm torch....

 

[Joey Porter]

Criticism
Lack of in game communication/friends list

Why it bothers me
As stated this is a community game. With the dwindling populace it is getting harder and harder to find people to hunt with. Even being in a large active guild at times there are not enough people wanting to hunt. Besides there are plenty of players not in my guild that I enjoy playing with and have lost contact with because there is no way for me to see if they are on.

Solution
Implement the ability to add friends to a list similair to the guild list. Add a function to both that allows for offline msging.

 

[LetheGL]

Since you can't PK other PKers the PK's would quickly become bored with new shard as everyone is only there to PK and there is no easy prey... end of story.

Agreed, the people who play in tram do so for a reason. If they want the 'thrill' of PVP they simply need to use a moon gate, which most of them don't. They aren't going to start over on a Fel rule set server.

 

[Arcus]

Criticism
Scripting is still as wide spread as ever.

Why it bothers me
Economy: Inflated prices for new players partially caused by scripting resources. New players cannot hope to keep up with the amount of ore that even a bad script can produce per hour.
Fairness: PvP scripts destroy fair competition.
Image: A new player or old player will see the lack of action and view this as a general disregard for the health of the game. Why pay when so many are allowed to cheat

Solution:
"That scripting program" and others like it rely on certain information in the data stream being constant. "That scripting program" is broken often by a change in this information. It takes days for the {insert explative here} maintainer of the program to fix this and for everyone to update the cheat client. Since there is maintenance every day, a small patch that changes this every day would make it unlikely that the use of this program would continue.

 

[Tanivar]

Solution:
"That scripting program" and others like it rely on certain information in the data stream being constant. "That scripting program" is broken often by a change in this information. It takes days for the {insert explative here} maintainer of the program to fix this and for everyone to update the cheat client. Since there is maintenance every day, a small patch that changes this every day would make it unlikely that the use of this program would continue.

A simple solution.

Just so there is no pattern to it that script site can pick up on and add to their program. Give the guy who runs that system equipment a d100 die to roll every morning when he gets in and enter that number?

 

[Reth]

Criticism: Some skills (Begging, Camping, Item and Taste Identification) are next to useless.
Why am I unhappy with it?: Wasted potential.
Solution: Give the skills above some use besides for RP. I'm hoping they'll slowly work there way over the remaining few, as they gave Forensic Identification a use with the Honesty virtue.

 

[Driven Insane]

If they want the 'thrill' of PVP they simply need to use a moon gate. They aren't going to start over on a Fel rule set server.

Yep, there's ZERO reason to create any more shards when the ones we currently have aren't exactly full.

 

[swroberts]

Criticism: Some skills (Begging, Camping, Item and Taste Identification) are next to useless.
Why am I unhappy with it?: Wasted potential.
Solution: Give the skills above some use besides for RP. I'm hoping they'll slowly work there way over the remaining few, as they gave Forensic Identification a use with the Honesty virtue.

These skillpoints should not count towards the 720 cap, since they provide no advantage/advance to a char.

 

[HD2300]

Criticism: Art sucks
Why: Obvious. Even the Franchise Producer says it does
Solution: Let p(l)ayers contribute art to UO

 

[Shakkara]

Criticism: Resource and Armor Imbalances

Details: Platemail and Dragonscale armor being amongst the most difficult to craft, but leather (mage armor) wood (higher resistances, extra properties) and stone (higher restances) having much better stats. Most of the metals being close to useless and are harder to acquire than the other resources.

Solution: Rebalance all the resources. Add resource-based weapon properties to metal weapons. Make the top 4 resources (gold, agapite, verite, valorite) more or less equal in power to prevent three of them being obsolete with the other 4 colors being slightly less powerful. Add damage absorption property to ringmail, chainmail, platemail and dragon armor that absorbs a flat amount of damage points (low for ringmail, highest for platemail) but give it penalties as follows:
Leather - Stay as is
Ringmail/Bone Armor - Low damage absorption, high mana regeneration cap, no longer prevents meditation
Chainmail - Medium damage absorption, medium mana regeneration cap, prevents meditation
Platemail - High damage absorption, low mana regeneration cap, prevents meditation
Dragon Armor, Medium-high damage absorption, increases resistance cap to scale color by 1 per part, reduces resistance cap to opposite color by 2 per part, prevents meditation