A plea to fellow players- calling to arms those who love UO!

[Picus of Napa]

I'm not sure. You have to pretend you are a person here on day one and then what do you do? I think it is safe to assume that they have played a game similar to UO in the past(MMORPG) so they know that knowledge is key. All I'm thinking is what do you do in the first week to actually get a char going and not fail at it.

I will start a thread over there today that does not provide anything save for the title. I've forgot how long one can edit a post for but I am hoping that whom ever can go back to one post over time, edit it wtih other thoughts and provide a lengthy intro. I ask that everyone who plays and likes UO add one post with thier idea of what to do for the first week in order to provide a positive bias that a person could make it in the game.

Stuff like make a garg and attend EM events is for other threads, keep it simple and straight forward.

 

[Picus of Napa]

http://stratics.com/community/threa...this-for-player-insight-on-what-to-do.293391/

Ok there it is, this is the chance guys and girls.

 

[Mr. Plod]

Gre

I'm not sure. You have to pretend you are a person here on day one and then what do you do? I think it is safe to assume that they have played a game similar to UO in the past(MMORPG) so they know that knowledge is key. All I'm thinking is what do you do in the first week to actually get a char going and not fail at it.

I will start a thread over there today that does not provide anything save for the title. I've forgot how long one can edit a post for but I am hoping that whom ever can go back to one post over time, edit it wtih other thoughts and provide a lengthy intro. I ask that everyone who plays and likes UO add one post with thier idea of what to do for the first week in order to provide a positive bias that a person could make it in the game.

Stuff like make a garg and attend EM events is for other threads, keep it simple and straight forward.

Great idea! A useful thread with valuable insight of what a new player can expect when creating a toon!

Many great ideas on this thread! Positive thinking and a sense of community and family will ultimately decide our games fate! Lets see some more good suggestions

 

[cdavbar]

Have you tried turning off desolation?

There is no such setting in EC. Face it the dev's turned Fel into a wasteland. GIVE US OUR FOLIAGE BACK!!!

 

[Dixie of Chesapeake]

As you all know, recent events have pushed many players to quit, which is a serious threat to our world!

Posts on this thread should should be positive, encouraging words for our wounded Ultima family.

Also, I'd like to address an issue that has long been ignored. How can we bring new players to our game? I understand there is an argument that younger players like fast gameplay and realistic graphics, but this is a stereotype that I do not fall under (age 20, started sept 2011) Don't tell me I am the only one. I commend our community in its intelligence, and would love to see any ideas regarding this issue posted on this thread!

Thanks- Mr. Plod

everything now is 3d....thats all todays generation knows.....if UO was marketed as vintage it might just look different enough to grab the attention of the younger generation.

 

[Flagg]

Mesanna has stated quite clearly that UO will never be a free-to-play. As she put it at the 15th anniversary party: "not gonna happen". So let that one go.

" Star Wars: The Old Republic Will not be F2P because it is a product of very high quality and standards. People will always pay for a quality product" -Lead Dev behind SWTOR on an interview around autumn of 2011
SWTOR went FreetoPlay 15 months later.
The quote has been translated from English to Finnish to English so it is not word-to-word accurate but I bet you get the idea. Gaming industry makes a place where about turns are far from unheard of..or slow if EA wants to see things in motion badly enough.
Even so, ofc F2P is mostly something I hope to have in UO, not something I believe will be in UO. It is literally only thing I can think of that would give tha game a fresh, potentially significant stream of new players.So yeah, I'm not eager to " let that one go" even though it is highly unlikely to happen. Ultima Online already has a significant, fairly vibrant FreetoPlay Community. They just don't play on OSI shards. Ultima Online already has a cash shop quite similar to those most succesful and profitable FtP games print money out of. When we consider purely features and functions a game needs in order to offer appealing and profitable F2P, Ultima Online has been half way there for several years now. There are plenty of obstackles on the way I'm sure. Some of them might well be impossible to pass, we don't know. I'd be suprised if UO's production team wouldn't have a serious desire to make it happen if they could. I'm willing to bet my account details, credit card included, that for Mesanna and co it is a case of "Don't think we can" rather than " Clearly, Ultima Online would not benefit from this"

Much more realistic possibility is a situation where EA decides to unite all of their MMOs under one sub fee so people who pay for TOR, Warhammer, UO, etc could freely move from one game to another as long as they pay EA one static sub fee. Not sure if that would do anything too significiant to size of playerbase though, good or bad. I think SOE did something similar some years back, no clue how that worked out for them and the individual games.

I wonder if bringing servers to Cloud is a prelude for them to investigate ways to pack us more tightly. Maybe one day switching between shards is so fast and easy that a typical player can do his shopping on Europa, PvP on Atlantic and housing on Catskills. It'd ensure we'd see crowds again. Getting various group oritented stuff done would be easier again. (assuming we'd all wanna play on ATL..) but I can't even begin to imagine the damage this would cause to individual sub communities within the game.

 

[Flagg]

There is no such setting in EC. Face it the dev's turned Fel into a wasteland. GIVE US OUR FOLIAGE BACK!!!

I hate this so much. I get it how it seemed like a wise thing to do when Trammel was introduced. I've atleast assumed it is there to give (mostly the new players) a " remember where you are! Be careful!!" type of a reminder. It isn't almost completely unnecessary now. At the very least, visual harm it does to everyone by far outweights whatever benfits it has.

 

[T-Hunt]

Seriously UO goes F2P! people will stop playing.
Theres enough ass holes ingame as is. dont need any more the F2P brings.
And as for Swtor , please. its cookie cutter game, i tryed to play it and lasted 5 hours over 3 weeks.
UO is different and always will be, it has the i will do what i want game style, not what someone tells me.

Yes there are set styles for people, but its not set in stone.
I am sorry but what the DEVs are trying to do is to like trying to make Edsel the new car to have today, wont happen.Google it you young whipper snappers.

 

[Sauteed Onion]

Much more realistic possibility is a situation where EA decides to unite all of their MMOs under one sub fee so people who pay for TOR, Warhammer, UO, etc could freely move from one game to another as long as they pay EA one static sub fee. Not sure if that would do anything too significiant to size of playerbase though, good or bad. I think SOE did something similar some years back, no clue how that worked out for them and the individual games.

SOE offered a station pass, I can't remember the price of it, but basically getting that allowed you to play all of SOE's MMORPG offerings. I want to say it was somewhere around 24 or 25 dollars a month. One could say "Well all of SOE's mmorpg's are F2P now". I played Star Wars Galaxies pre NGE for a long time, I had 4 of my own accounts and paid for a 5th from time to time and it was a beggy sloppy mess, but I loved it. I bought Vanguard Saga of Heroes when it launched, and wanted to kill people. I disowned SOE; cast many a curse word in it's direction violently pushing notebooks off my desktop each time I heard mention of it (Vanguard). Oh how I had hopes for you. Meow.

I knew people that played Matrix Online and swore it was the Mecca of online gaming, that I should try it out yada yada.. I hated the Matrix.. and I can't believe Matrix 2 or 3 exist @ _@. That scene when they are at the dance club or rave or whatever and the guys with rubber latex suits are crawling across the ceiling towards them (can't remember which matrix that was).. oh my gawd. For shame. It actually was cancelled the same week I thought about "trying" it out. The games they were pushing were all buggy glitchy messes and had no redeeming features when paired against their competitors; aside from maybe original Everquest. Ultima Online kept a constant sub from me during these traitorous outings into other MMORPG's I was an addict sure; but Ultima had me hooked like a worm on a uhm.. fish hook. I was hopeless to deny it a place in my gaming time. I can go get some articles on a few things that were "hot" topics in the gaming communities back then; but I'm sure anyone that played anything other than Ultima Online knew how shiesty some of the operations were in those times. Star Wars Galaxies got the New Game Enhancements, and I think that very day subscriptions dipped to an all time low, and she never recovered. They tried by closing down servers and such; my server Valcyn was one that got canned originally before they closed the whole game down.

I played a lot of MMORPG's over the years, and I got to say, the way most are run they deserve to be F2P with no cash shop and made to be examples of what not to be when going into a game and developing them. But like many things, people just seem to be blind to the signs. Firstly, one thing I hate to the absolutely highest capacity is making a new character and you get your Class selection screen. Blewp; you can be a mage or a fighter. How about a priest or a rogue! And that's it. When you roll that character, that's all it's ever going to be. A mage, a fighter, a priest or a rogue. If you wanted to be a rogue that decided to use a bo staff; good luck not only can you NOT equip the damn thing, you're going to get laughed off the server for even thinking about it. Maybe Ultima Online spoiled the genre and what it can feezibly do for me by allowing me to be a fisherman that can throw down energy vortexes when a sea serpent rolls and tries to LOLNEWB on me. I dunno, but I highly doubt it. It may not be much for going and doing champion spawns but at least I got to choose what I want to do. Perhaps it's easier to "balance" classes or whatever to strictly make things Priests Mages Fighters and rogues, but holy crap.. where did the term "balance" come from and why is it burning the MMORPG market a place in hell? Sheesh, even in single player role playing games like Dragon Warrior the fighter guy is a well rounded G Unit, able to heal himself and cast powerful spells and chop bad guys up with swords! Dungeons and Dragons, ye olde table top wildness that robbed many a child of sanity and scruples you could start off as a fighter and wind up being a cleric in the service of Silvanas or something crazy.

I don't know what I'm trying to say really, but no other MMORPG did for me what Ultima did.
Additionally any word on Cinnamon rolls being added to the game would be most delightful. Meow.

 

[Flagg]

Seriously UO goes F2P! people will stop playing.
Theres enough ass holes ingame as is. dont need any more the F2P brings.

I'd like to hear little more about these mythical ass holes F2P would apparently inevitably bring to Ultima Online. Where do they come from? I have given four or five FtP MMos a try over the years. By that I mean I play them anything between 20 minutes to 2 months, then lose interest and move on. Then I may or may not return after 2 months or 2 years or anything. Communities in literally all MMORPG F2Ps I've played any significant amout of, (Lotro, DDO) have seemed perfectly fine. I imagine this Apehouse of trolls, griefers and ass holes neither of us wants to see is a phenomena reserved for " flavor of the month" games that are exiting, appealing and popular among people around 15-20 years of age. Ultima Online will never be one of these games. Average age of an average MMORPG player in general has been rather high for several years now. I would assume it is games like DOTA or modern multiplayer FPS that have completely unbearable communities from POV of you, me or anyone else over 20 years of age or so. Ultimately I think this has everything to do with genre and image of the game, rather than wether or not it is an F2P. What sort of a person would want to try Ultima Online for free on an official shard? Why is he such a terrible *******?

 

[Sauteed Onion]

I'd like to hear little more about these mythical ass holes F2P would apparently inevitably bring to Ultima Online. Where do they come from? I have given four or five FtP MMos a try over the years. By that I mean I play them anything between 20 minutes to 2 months, then lose interest and move on. Then I may or may not return after 2 months or 2 years or anything. Communities in literally all MMORPG F2Ps I've played any significant amout of, (Lotro, DDO) have seemed perfectly fine. I imagine this Apehouse of trolls, griefers and ass holes neither of us wants to see is a phenomena reserved for " flavor of the month" games that are exiting, appealing and popular among people around 15-20 years of age. I can imagine games like DOTA or modern multiplayer FPS have completely unbearable communities from POV of you, me or anyone else over 20 years of age or so. Ultimately I think this has everything to do with genre and image of the game, rather wether or not it is an F2P.

Go play lineage 2, read the boards, let me point you in the direction of Aion and again the boards. Lineage 2 has a special place in hell for it when she finally dunks under.

http://boards.lineage2.com/showthread.php?t=252504 is a "STATE OF THE GAME" basically the most well concocted lie imaginable; but you will see I'm not just making it up.. read the thread.

holy omg wow.. They blocked all of China's IP addresses too.

http://boards.lineage2.com/showthread.php?t=252519

 

[T-Hunt]

They are the people who wanted to try the game out but did not want to spend real money.
I have played many a F2P games over the years, they seem to bring the worse of worse in greifing at start until they get borred.
At that point most vet players get fed up, and leave.

Then you have the gold sellers who will jump unto this F2P, because it never realy is F2P in the long run.
I can not see how they could turn UO into F2P anyways , without having most players say screw it.

 

[Flagg]

Go play lineage 2, read the boards, let me point you in the direction of Aion and again the boards. Lineage 2 has a special place in hell for it when she finally dunks under.

http://boards.lineage2.com/showthread.php?t=252504 is a "STATE OF THE GAME" basically the most well concocted lie imaginable; but you will see I'm not just making it up.. read the thread.

holy omg wow.. They blocked all of China's IP addresses too.

http://boards.lineage2.com/showthread.php?t=252519

Yeah bots and scripters and such are a massive problem that comes with F2P. As I've said, holes in UO's code that makes duping, scripting etc so..doable should have to get patched up before F2P is a real possibility.

Then you have the gold sellers who will jump unto this F2P, because it never realy is F2P in the long run.

When it comes to gold sellers..heh. Well, no other MMO I've ever seen or heard of, F2P or otherwise, has ever had an unofficial 3rd party gold seller in anywhere nearly as prominent and visible position as one or two of them are in UO. They run sites good portion of people reading this thread visit on weekly, if not daily or even hourly basis for crying out loud. Gold sellers of UO currenttly have a position and level of visibility every single other gold seller in every single other game can't even dream of. Have they somehow ruined the game already then?

They are the people who wanted to try the game out but did not want to spend real money.
I have played many a F2P games over the years, they seem to bring the worse of worse in greifing at start until they get borred.
At that point most vet players get fed up, and leave.

I've played many F2P MMORPGs over the years as well. Consencus among people in LOTRO's RP server was that F2P did great things for them and their community. I never was quite as involved with DDO but have nothing bad to say about their community either. Which games have you played? Where did this worse of worse griefing that forces most veterans out of the game take place?

 

[Lady Storm]

Petra Your observation is correct on the Griefing of Young/Newer players to the point they call EA and get their coin back on the game! This came from a reliable source.
It has to stop.......NOW. You hear it or see it put your foot down, say something, do something. You are UO's best reps.....
The rest of you...............
I go off to move in RL and come back to the hounds baying at the moon and things falling apart in a hand basket!~
KNOCK IT OFF
For one the OP asked for whats good in us here to help keep what showing up, new players and vets returning by enforcing what good in UO. F2P will not happen... So grow up and get with the program. Yes the game has its faults... dont they all. Our need for new blood in the game to bring us back to a more workable system needs us on the ball and working to make the game more friendly to new people. Look they saw something in an ad or word of mouth.... heaven sake you dumb twits. They have never seen UO. Your imposing your views on new players who for the grace of the gods of the gaming world picked UO to try. Dont put words in their mouths, thoughts in their heads, or actions that will harm our game world.
15 years I have played this game and seen sooo many of you cut and snip at the heals of new or returning players.... down grading the game cause your standards were not met by a dev team ...... Grow the hell up.

Tell me this ......
If the scientists told the world our sun was going NOVA in 2 years and we needed to move off and find a new home... that is was doable... how many of you would sit on your duffus and complain your gunna die?? The right answer would be to drop the woah as me attitude and start to pitch in to build the bloody way off the planet... who cares what it cost, money is not the answer to all ills and power is not in the $ ether... the whole power in the universe sits in your hands.

UO needs every player to build our game .................EA could care less.. Are you willing to let if go? 15 + years of blood , sweat and tears????

Sorry Petra for the harsh language ... and I ask all to forgeve me for being blunt. I love UO. Good gravy people I pay for 47 to 53 accounts whats 1 or 2 for you?? cut out a pizza on friday night! geesh.

 

[Picus of Napa]

UO goes F2P and I think that I am out of here. I don't think that a established game should go that route. Star Wars is a great example of a fail that needed F2P to survive but UO is a winner that has issues. Can these issues be solved and provide a reason for fresh people to pay vs free shards, I don't know but we all had the chance to move off EA and decided not to.

 

[Sauteed Onion]

Maybe Ultima Online spoiled the genre and what it can feezibly do for me by allowing me to be a fisherman that can throw down energy vortexes when a sea serpent rolls and tries to LOLNEWB on me. I dunno, but I highly doubt it. It may not be much for going and doing champion spawns but at least I got to choose what I want to do. Perhaps it's easier to "balance" classes or whatever to strictly make things Priests Mages Fighters and rogues, but holy crap.. where did the term "balance" come from and why is it burning the MMORPG market a place in hell? Sheesh, even in single player role playing games like Dragon Warrior the fighter guy is a well rounded G Unit, able to heal himself and cast powerful spells and chop bad guys up with swords! Dungeons and Dragons, ye olde table top wildness that robbed many a child of sanity and scruples you could start off as a fighter and wind up being a cleric in the service of Silvanas or something crazy.

I don't know what I'm trying to say really, but no other MMORPG did for me what Ultima did.
Additionally any word on Cinnamon rolls being added to the game would be most delightful. Meow.

I think I'm being fairly nice when I say these things meow. Uo going F2P is bad juju. INB4 any of you know what HUEHUE means.

 

[Flagg]

I've never seen a community as welcoming to new or returning players as one we have At least on Europa, they consistently get loads of guidance and help.New Player house of Foxglove family is our finest and most obvious example. But it goes beyond that.. New player almost always seems to have ton of guidance, help and attention. UO has it's problems. Way community treats new players most assuredly is not one of them

One small idea or suggestion I'd like to make tho; find ways to have fun with them newbies, if you actually come across a genuine new player! It's very kind and generous to give him 1 mil check, pat on the pack and walk off smiling. Changes are it is a bigger deal for him if you find a way to do something entertaining together. Go sailing and kill em pirates or something!

 

[Gameboy]

I've never seen a community as welcoming to new or returning players as one we have At least on Europa, they consistently get loads of guidance and help.New Player house of Foxglove family is our finest and most obvious example. But it goes beyond that.. New player almost always seems to have ton of guidance, help and attention. UO has it's problems. Way community treats new players most assuredly is not one of them

One small idea or suggestion I'd like to make tho; find ways to have fun with them newbies, if you actually come across a genuine new player! It's very kind and generous to give him 1 mil check, pat on the pack and walk off smiling. Changes are it is a bigger deal for him if you find a way to do something entertaining together. Go sailing and kill em pirates or something!

No matter how many times I left UO just to come back it's always been with open arms. I've been playing online for about 10 years and no community has been more helpful. The only one that would have come close for me is DAoC.

 

[Lady Storm]

Bonnie/Mesanna I need your input hewre kiddo...
When we played Napa my guild had that first few years house placers for new players... now this was possible because we didnt have the housing restrictions of todays game. I worked around Reds killing and other guilds pking to get those houseing sites... Catskills ... Europa, heck every shard I played I had guilds doing the very same thing for our new people.... we worked to keep them in game... Would it hurt to go back to that era and give it a shot .... 1 house per shard .. its not a complete backup to 97 but its a step in the right direction.
For you who pout that it would harm the game ... look around shards .... so much of them are so devoid of homes and players its so sad to think of all my friends who left because of limits ...... We might get people back... or at the very least have some fill the banks of less populated shards at times and give atlantic a bit of room to breath....

 

[Tanivar]

Petra, can you delete the F2P trolling? It's off topic and has pretty much taken over the thread.

 

[Flagg]

Petra, can you delete the F2P trolling? It's off topic and has pretty much taken over the thread.

Calling posts you disagree with ' trolling ' and pulling I am The Debuty Moderator - routine on top of it? Classy. I''m sure Petra and other mods appreciate your instructions and guidance.

Mr. Plod asked for our views and suggestions on how to bring more people to UO. Expressing what I believe could well be the best and most efficient way to bring some new people in hardly counts as off topic.

 

[DerekL]

Could you use this forum? http://stratics.com/community/forums/uo-players-corner.36/

The problem (with the stratics forums) isn't that we need a forum for new players, or for people make long and confusing lists of the things new players "need to know"... We need to fix the existing forums. In too many of them, the FAQs are years out of date, and you have to work your way through several pages of changes to find "how it works today". (For that matter, the main UO Stratics side is badly in need of a massive overhaul.)

 

[DerekL]

Are you sure you're using the most current Stratics site for UO? It's at uo2.stratics.com. (Note the "2" in the URL.)

Why would there be versions of websites with different URLs? (If there seriously is, that just reinforces my point.) That being said, there doesn't appear to be any difference between that 'version' and the uo.stratics.com 'version'.

 

[kelmo]

The problem (with the stratics forums) isn't that we need a forum for new players, or for people make long and confusing lists of the things new players "need to know"... We need to fix the existing forums. In too many of them, the FAQs are years out of date, and you have to work your way through several pages of changes to find "how it works today". (For that matter, the main UO Stratics side is badly in need of a massive overhaul.)

Which parts of UO Stratics do you consider out of date or in need of overhaul? Links to the out of date material would be appreciated... I will wait for it.

 

[DerekL]

Which parts of UO Stratics do you consider out of date or in need of overhaul? Links to the out of date material would be appreciated... I will wait for it.

Well, let's see - lets start with the main page and it's opaque listing of categories in the upper left corner. (And the odd and unpredictable ways the left and right menus morph as you traverse the site.)

Then lets go to the opaque "maps and locations" page (http://uo2.stratics.com/maps-and-locations) which still shows both Ver-Lor-Reg *and* lists the shop data for Old Magnicia... but with a map image of New Magnicia. (And which doesn't list Haven (New or old) at all.) Let's drill from there to the dungeons page (http://uo2.stratics.com/maps-and-locations/dungeons), which not only doesn't have the New Haven mines on it - the data on the linked pages for Despise (http://uo.stratics.com/content/atlas/despise.php) and Covetous (http://uo.stratics.com/content/atlas/covetous.php) is for the old versions of these dungeons. (Or you could say links to the Felluca versions and doesn't list the Trammel versions at all.)

Then there is the "Essays and Guides" page (http://uo2.stratics.com/essays-and-guides), which still has a new players guide for the KR client... (and why are new player guides not on the top left menu of the main site?)

As far as the forums... let's look at the Botany and Nutrition forum: the Cooking FAQ (http://stratics.com/community/threads/cooking-taste-id-faq.10103/) has evil problems with the markup, links to dead hosts, and no information from Samurai Empire (2004!) onwards. The "Gardening FAQ" and "FAQ Update" threads are also outdated. (No mention of Raised Gardening Beds, Seed Boxes, or Peculiar and Fragrant seed systems for example.) The Taming forum has two FAQ'ish' threads, and the second (http://stratics.com/community/threa...ead-before-posting-updated-04-04-2012.205950/) has (now dead) links to an older version of the forum software. (Links to old forums and dead pages on the main site are a recurring problem on the forums and the main site itself, several FAQs also have markup problems that are probably due to changes in the forum software.)

That's just the stuff I remember off the top of my head and/or can find in just a few minutes of casual poking about... Sitting here slept out while fighting the flu, my brain is kinda foggy. (Did you think I was just blowing smoke?)

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

As you all know, recent events have pushed many players to quit, which is a serious threat to our world!

Posts on this thread should should be positive, encouraging words for our wounded Ultima family.

Also, I'd like to address an issue that has long been ignored. How can we bring new players to our game? I understand there is an argument that younger players like fast gameplay and realistic graphics, but this is a stereotype that I do not fall under (age 20, started sept 2011) Don't tell me I am the only one. I commend our community in its intelligence, and would love to see any ideas regarding this issue posted on this thread!

Thanks- Mr. Plod

Another 'everyone is quitting because they dont like change' thread?
Its not like you dont see a few of them EVERYTIME the Devs do anything lol.
What are the mysterious new "events" that are causing everyone to quit?

If all the people quit that posters here have said quit over the years there would not be ONE person left on any shard. By my math I think there would actually be a negative number of players lol.

Newsflash:
One good way to start trying to attract new players is to NOT talk negative nonsense about the game on a forum where new players may be checking the game out. Email the Devs any brilliant new ideas maybe?
PM the so-called intelligent community you speak of maybe?

*shakes head*

 

[Mr. Plod]

Thanks

Another 'everyone is quitting because they dont like change' thread?
Its not like you dont see a few of them EVERYTIME the Devs do anything lol.
What are the mysterious new "events" that are causing everyone to quit?

If all the people quit that posters here have said quit over the years there would not be ONE person left on any shard. By my math I think there would actually be a negative number of players lol.

Newsflash:
One good way to start trying to attract new players is to NOT talk negative nonsense about the game on a forum where new players may be checking the game out. Email the Devs any brilliant new ideas maybe?
PM the so-called intelligent community you speak of maybe?

*shakes head*

Thanks for your input! Everyone's opinion counts. I started this thread in an effort to meet people who share a passion for our game's community, and I think it has gone very well! I hadn't seen a thread about new players, or lack of, so I decided it needed to be posted. I expect everyone to have disagreements, but realize that compromise is what we need for progression.

So far, this thread has sparked effort in several players both in game and on stratics that I know of. They are building a better UO, and hopefully soon more will follow this trend!

 

[T-Hunt]

Yes the quitting thing gets old.
But also trying to make everyone ware rose colored glasses gets older.
And im sorry but the bad crap has outweighed the new for years.
Will i keep playing and hope for beter, yes.
Thats because i like UO and hope is all i have left.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

I am still curious though.
What are the "recent events have pushed many players to quit" ??

What are these events that are causing so many players to quit that people feel the need to start committees?

And who hasnt seen a "we need new players" thread recently? Seriously?

 

[SixUnder]

new players are not the answer.
the learning curve may be too much, think about it.
the amount of time it takes poor people to acquire and do anything worth while is outweighed by better games, easier to set themselves up in.

 

[Petra Fyde]

The only thing I don't like about Felucca is all the dead trees. I would not even mind having a home there if it was not for that.

For those playing in CC there's a setting in uo.cfg (a file that it's legal to edit) where you can set 'desolation=off' More information on that file here: http://uo2.stratics.com/technical-information/uo-cfg

I'm not sure if the same thing is possible in EC. I've not looked for it

 

[Gameboy]

For those playing in CC there's a setting in uo.cfg (a file that it's legal to edit) where you can set 'desolation=off' More information on that file here: http://uo2.stratics.com/technical-information/uo-cfg

I'm not sure if the same thing is possible in EC. I've not looked for it

That worked! I was doing it in main uo directory. When I changed uo.cfg under the player I was using it worked Thank you!

 

[Mr. Plod]

new players are not the answer.
the learning curve may be too much, think about it.
the amount of time it takes poor people to acquire and do anything worth while is outweighed by better games, easier to set themselves up in.

There are kids who would enjoy Ultima, and would put in the required effort to get established, and would run around for hours seeking idocs or a nice plot, but they've never heard of us! This is FACT!

 

[Gameboy]

There are kids who would enjoy Ultima, and would put in the required effort to get established, and would run around for hours seeking idocs or a nice plot, but they've never heard of us! This is FACT!

I believe that there are kids as well as adults that would play UO that do not.

 

[Mr. Plod]

I just met a new player! Paying to play and eager to learn this is very good!

 

[Viper09]

new players are not the answer.
the learning curve may be too much, think about it.
the amount of time it takes poor people to acquire and do anything worth while is outweighed by better games, easier to set themselves up in.

I disagree, new players should be one of the most important goals for UO. Being that this game is around 15 years old the dev team should not be putting all its eggs in the "existing veteran player basket" if they wish for this game to continue to survive. If we completely ignore trying to attract new players this game will last only as long as the current player-base has the desire to keep playing (after all, people get bored of games, move on, don't have the time etc). Just because there is a learning curve does not mean anyone else can get learn this game.

 

[Zosimus]

Look at DaoC and Warhammer Online. They complain about the same issues. I played both. Enjoyed the games but Daoc >War imo. People move on to newer and fresh games. You always have your loyal hardcore base players that wont ever leave. Wars numbers can be fudged because of the free endless trial. WoW will be in the same boat one day as many other current MMO's are in now. I have played GW1 for 7 years. I now Play GW2 and hardly log in unless for hall of monuments points for this and that which relates for GW2.

EA wont sink in any money onto War, DaoC or UO fo advertisement. Unless its on Orgin or their own site which doesn't cost them a cent and that is the best they will do for the games. So that leaves it up top the player base. We have had these discussions before and truthfully it never changes. It only seems it gets worse. CS and support issues are nothing new. If you are still playing to play then the same issues have been here for a long time but you play for the love of the game.

Best thing to do is just play the game. Hold in game events, announce things in general chat to spark activities on your shard. Hold your own events and don't wait for EM events. Play with others. Ally your guilds with other guilds so you and others have options to play with more players. Do crafting events and donate the armor and weps to a shard library that helps out new players. Frick and frack decides to do a Pirate war and donate ships to have an event. Shard Harry event where PvP guilds would allow them once a month. Do mongbat baseball ( Have no idea what that is I made it up). Just try to do your own thing. Naked luna fighting with newbie chars. Do the old Bob events and raid a shard. Go sight seeing on the asian shards and hold tours. As Nike says...Just do it!

Changes are coming into UO so there will be ways for others to play on mutiple shards so take advanatge of the opportunity before the ship passes you by and other shards have already done it. Freja has already been way ahead of the game while other shards sit idle. Look at what Frarc has done so far on Drachensfel.

MMO's are suppose to be social but it depends on the player how social they want to be. Because they play with a group tonight and tomorrow doesn't mean they want to do something like crafting and not be bothered a different night. Your shard leaders should be trying to make things happen on the shard. If you don't know who your shard leaders are then become one. Put all differences aside and play together. Make your shard stand out and you may see some more players become active again or new players xffering to play. Its up to you as the community to try to figure out what to do. This si your chance so take it and run with it.

Last advice. Post less and play more. Only way to figure out ideas if they work or not is to try them and put the time and energy into it.

 

[Theo_GL]

The game is too complex and too much dependent on items. Note that I say complex, not deep. The game is deep and complex, but the depth is nice and prevents us becoming bored, and the complexity is confusing.

Going to play anything that casts? You need a lower reagent cost suit. How does a new player find one (especially on low population shard), if he doesn't know the goldseller sites that have vendor searches on them? Lizardmen and harpies won't drop items with high enough intensities so they have no choice than to buy it from players! Even with a vendor search it is very complex to understand what exactly to search for. What mods are good, what ones are bad, which ones are essential to my character? (seen noobs training with +skill items equipped, how would they know that that is a BAD idea??)

Maybe the new player wants to PVP. Well sorry, you can't PVP unless you have a full suit of arties, a load of money to waste on insurance, 255/260 stats, 720 skillcap + several 120 scrolls, and understand every little mechanic in the game, or you'll be pwnt. Can a 3-day old player contribute in any way to group PVP? Would anyone take him in? Probably not.

I put some cheap 100% LRC sets and basic warrior suits with stamina on my vendors for 3000gp. Within an hour they were all gone. Probably someone bought them all and unravelled them. Last week, I bought 5 suits for new/young players. But since the economy is so borked and someone is buying up all cheap items for unravelling, I had to spend over 100k on each person just to get them pieces for a basic suit, some jewels and a weapon.

Two of these people had account issues. One was on a trial account and had bought a key for stygian abyss and couldn't apply the key to his account, he was paging GM for 2 days for help and got no reply. Second one couldn't get a creditcard linked to his account so couldn't pay subscription after 30 days of game time were up. He also paged GM for days, no avail. Told them both to mail Mesanna, not sure if it works. But it's shocking to see two people in a week that are willing to pay for this game, and EA won't let them.

Yup, classic. Yet rather than the dev team making this an easier game for new players to get into - they keep adding more and more complexity to keep it for the old guard only. Gee - no wonder there is no growth. The account issues are just laughable. I'm sure I'll run into this when my cc expires. I have no idea what my master account is since i never log into it.

 

[Blood Ghoul]

I still feel the vet reward system is an issue that keeps players away. I know it does reward those that stay and support UO (I only have 11 years on my account). In speaking from experience I have two close friends which both play other games due to the reward system. They started the same time I did in 1997 and we all took a break but when we returned neither were able to recover their old accounts. Since I had saved the account info my account was 8 years old and they had brand new ones. The lack of being able to ride an Ethy was enough to “snuff out the flame” on their UO experience.
Think of it this way..
I have earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, bought my third house, started a supplemental retirement account which currently has 370k in it (not a ton but it’s only a supplemental), I restored a 1971 Hemi Cuda, traveled to numerous locations around the world, got married to an awesome woman and have a wonderful daughter. Every single one of those things occurred within the last 11 years. Heck, only my career, my fichus tree (which is 23 years old now), and a few other keepsakes are older than my UO account.
If I was a brand new player and decided to play UO and then saw I needed to wait 14 years to shard hop honestly I’d invest my time into something else and try to get in on the ground level of the next game.
BG

 

[Gameboy]

I get discouraged by the vet rewards but it does make or break anything for me, my account is going on 5 years.

 

[Orgional Farimir]

Which parts of UO Stratics do you consider out of date or in need of overhaul? Links to the out of date material would be appreciated... I will wait for it.

I don't know if Stratics is out or date or not because I can never find what I am looking for. It is so non user friendly it isn't even worth taking the time to look at the web page.

With that being said I do appriciate all the hours that are giving to stratics to try and make it a useable web page, I just think there has to be a better layout for it.

And no I don't know what that would be since I have never started to think about possibly looking into what goes into starting and running a webpage.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm willing to listen to any constructive suggestions on how to make it more user friendly. I just put whatever I want to find in the search box at the top of the right hand sidebar.

 

[Picus at the office]

I've been writing what I think is a deeper essay for a new player but wow is there ever alot of stuff to cover. I'm not attempting to do it all but just stuff that other people have mentioned to me over the years. Linking a page here and there from stratics is helping alot but there is just so much "basic" stuff that I'm stunned.

Even though I knew the UO site was beyond useless and provided no information I find it depressing that this is such a huge project.

 

[Mr. Plod]

Persona

I still feel the vet reward system is an issue that keeps players away. I know it does reward those that stay and support UO (I only have 11 years on my account). In speaking from experience I have two close friends which both play other games due to the reward system. They started the same time I did in 1997 and we all took a break but when we returned neither were able to recover their old accounts. Since I had saved the account info my account was 8 years old and they had brand new ones. The lack of being able to ride an Ethy was enough to “snuff out the flame” on their UO experience.
Think of it this way..
I have earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, bought my third house, started a supplemental retirement account which currently has 370k in it (not a ton but it’s only a supplemental), I restored a 1971 Hemi Cuda, traveled to numerous locations around the world, got married to an awesome woman and have a wonderful daughter. Every single one of those things occurred within the last 11 years. Heck, only my career, my fichus tree (which is 23 years old now), and a few other keepsakes are older than my UO account.
If I was a brand new player and decided to play UO and then saw I needed to wait 14 years to shard hop honestly I’d invest my time into something else and try to get in on the ground level of the next game.
BG

Personally, the vet reward system is not an issue to me, because in my ideal life I plan on ultima lasting forever. If we can push for a totally new "balanced leveling system" so that pvp can be fun for players regardless of skill

 

[Mr. Plod]

Persona


Personally, the vet reward system is not an issue to me, because in my ideal life I plan on ultima lasting forever. If we can push for a totally new "balanced leveling system" so that pvp can be fun for players regardless of skill

And make this "balanced leveling system" absent from dungeons. There you go. More guilds would raid and war in dungeons, because noobier or maybe less well equipped players could spawn outside of dungeon without fear of being raided by seemingly invincable players, while fighting beside higher level characters that now have to DO the spawn to get scrolls

 

[Mr. Plod]

You could say it would kill the scroll market, but hasn't duping already done that? Also, this shouldn't be an issue if we can bring new players in! My friend owns several websites. I'm going to see if he will give me a little free advertisement for ultima. Would this be legal?

 

[Blood Ghoul]

Persona

Personally, the vet reward system is not an issue to me, because in my ideal life I plan on ultima lasting forever. If we can push for a totally new "balanced leveling system" so that pvp can be fun for players regardless of skill

Do not count on it. Before UO I played NWN on AOL. (still the most fun I ever had in a game). You invested so much time into charcter delevopment as everything was random (when you leveled you might get anywhere from 1-10 hitpoints). When I did not get 10 I deleted and remade. So after God knows how long I had a perfect CLAM (see if any of you out there played). One day I log on and there is tonf of loot laying everywhere and some GM's yelling in Chat that this was the game's last week. One week later they pulled the plug and all was gone. I hope UO hangs around as I have no desie to play anything else, but one day it will be over.

BG

 

[DerekL]

If I was a brand new player and decided to play UO and then saw I needed to wait 14 years to shard hop honestly I’d invest my time into something else and try to get in on the ground level of the next game.

If you're a new player, and you're dismayed because your new character can't do everything that a not-new character can do... you're probably out of here anyhow. The problem with your friends appears to have been not so much "we can't do what vets do" as "we can't do what we did before" - a very, very different issue.

 

[Mr. Plod]

Don't you people realize this?

 

[Mr. Plod]

My friend told me about a time he killed someone by throwing greater explosion pots onto the enemy ship, covering the deck in fire. He's a real pirate ;D what more does uo have to offer in diverse role playing? Soooo much more!! The more it grows, the faster it grows, the better it will become. As long as we don't lose our servers we will be fine.