Devs, let's have a frank discussion about new content

[The Zog historian]

Mesanna, Dropixel was sadly let go merely 10 days after your last Producer's Letter. I don't recall seeing anything official about what that does to your plans, but surely every player understands that some things will be delayed, other things canceled. It's unfortunate but a fact of business.

In constructive criticism, I tip my hat to GalenKnighthawke for what he said in the Publish 82 thread:

The problem with several recent changes, rather, is that there's no reason to make them, that resources spent on changing systems could more-productively be spent on actual content rather than systems, and that some of these ideas seem appropriate to games other than UO. (No I don't think they literally "borrowed code," as some poster in this thread nonsensically asserted.)

The taming change, then change back, is first and foremost. If you folks had kept up with UHall, you'd have seen there were never a lot of complaints about looting rights for healers. There was no reason to "fix" something that few, if any, were calling broken. But you threw the change on Test Center, then a couple of shards, with not a lot of testing time.

Then there's Publish 81. Elections have proven a huge disappointment because smaller shards have more difficulty with the unexpected weekly tribute. OK, big changes to armor, maybe not what we expected, but it's not what will keep players interested. As much as I like refinements for certain advantages, as much as others like the LMC bonuses of non-med armor, most of us could have done without these changes. We'd rather have seen something fun to play.

I'd have liked a Deceit or Hythloth revamp, but those are improbable with your reduced manpower. How about just a redo of Covetous rewards? How many people kept going after the first month? It's too much grind to get points for things that expire in one day. Cut the points in half. You wouldn't need to change anything else.

Treasures of Tokuno: how hard would this be to turn back on? Keep the last range of minor colors, and let 10 be turned in to get one of the Cleanup Britannia and Compassion Dye colors.

Someone had suggested a Malas event of two sides fighting, much like the Bane-Ophidian war. How hard would it be to turn it back on, presumably restoring the code? Relic fragments aren't as precious now, so to replace them as rewards, how about a piece of crystalline blackrock? Personally I'd have them spawning as loot on the corpses, but you apparently thought that made them too common.

In the last Producer's Letter, it was mentioned fey slayers will be added to dungeon loot: surely this isn't hard to add to the code that determines which slayer. For a little more work, what should be just an extra line or two of code, let the property generate only in Shame and Covetous. This would encourage people to visit their areas of lesser spawn, looking for clean fey slayers to imbue.

Someone recently expressed to me that UO might be nearing the end, and I hope that's not true. You've been looking for new EMs, which is great. The regular meetings with city governors can get a lot more player involvement. But what can you do to keep the game fresh and interesting? "Maintenance mode," meaning no further changes, might as well mean pulling the plug.

 

[Tazar]

Actually - I disagree about the looting rights issue. Something was changed back when the healers were first allowed to have looting rights and since then - I usually don't get looting rights on Peerless with my mage even though I am usually top damager. Something's been buggy with it ever since. There have been many posts here in UHall and the Bug Reporting Forum about it. It seems this was a side effect of the Healer-Changes so the Dev's felt that this was the best way to fix it. I didn't get a chance to test the change and how it impacts me - but I am looking forward to it.

 

[Kyronix]

The taming change, then change back, is first and foremost. If you folks had kept up with UHall, you'd have seen there were never a lot of complaints about looting rights for healers. There was no reason to "fix" something that few, if any, were calling broken. But you threw the change on Test Center, then a couple of shards, with not a lot of testing time.

I spend a fair amount of time reading UHall (probably too much), as does the rest of the team. We get a lot of reports from a variety of sources - in game, emails, the forums...we recieved a great volume of reports regarding healing looting rights, hence the changes.

Then there's Publish 81. Elections have proven a huge disappointment because smaller shards have more difficulty with the unexpected weekly tribute. OK, big changes to armor, maybe not what we expected, but it's not what will keep players interested. As much as I like refinements for certain advantages, as much as others like the LMC bonuses of non-med armor, most of us could have done without these changes. We'd rather have seen something fun to play.

I'm going to have to disagree with your characterization of elections being a huge disappointment. The response to the elections on many shards has been hugely positive. Our Event Moderators continue to knock it out of the park. People are role playing their positions in hugely creative ways. People who have never role played before, are getting involved. In the future we'll be making changes to the way the tributes are handled to more positively influence the purchase the trade deals. The city stones were just a first step and we have no plans to abandon them anytime soon.

As far as the armor revamp, it again, was something that was hugely asked for from a variety of sources. Something as fundamental as armor was bound to be a delicate topic to tackle and in the end we think it addressed some of the concerns people had regarding armor and weapons, but admittedly it wasn't perfect. Again, we continue to monitor feedback and will be addressing some of the concerns regarding refinements in the future.

I'd have liked a Deceit or Hythloth revamp, but those are improbable with your reduced manpower. How about just a redo of Covetous rewards? How many people kept going after the first month? It's too much grind to get points for things that expire in one day. Cut the points in half. You wouldn't need to change anything else.

Treasures of Tokuno: how hard would this be to turn back on? Keep the last range of minor colors, and let 10 be turned in to get one of the Cleanup Britannia and Compassion Dye colors.

Someone had suggested a Malas event of two sides fighting, much like the Bane-Ophidian war. How hard would it be to turn it back on, presumably restoring the code? Relic fragments aren't as precious now, so to replace them as rewards, how about a piece of crystalline blackrock? Personally I'd have them spawning as loot on the corpses, but you apparently thought that made them too common.

In the last Producer's Letter, it was mentioned fey slayers will be added to dungeon loot: surely this isn't hard to add to the code that determines which slayer. For a little more work, what should be just an extra line or two of code, let the property generate only in Shame and Covetous. This would encourage people to visit their areas of lesser spawn, looking for clean fey slayers to imbue.

Someone recently expressed to me that UO might be nearing the end, and I hope that's not true. You've been looking for new EMs, which is great. The regular meetings with city governors can get a lot more player involvement. But what can you do to keep the game fresh and interesting? "Maintenance mode," meaning no further changes, might as well mean pulling the plug.

We (the entire team) are incredibly dedicated to Ultima Online. We live and breathe UO. We aren't in maintenance mode, the furthest thing from it. We've got some really exciting stuff in the works right now that falls in line with exactly what you (and others) are asking for - new content....some of it modeled after past events like Treasures of Tokuno with a fresh twist, along with visiting some classic Ultima that has never been seen in our version of Britannia before. Are we nearing the end? Heck no...we are just getting this party started. We've got some exciting new stuff in the planning and early development stages right now (Hop on over to Mesanna's Virtue vs. Vice thread) and continue to look forward to reading your feedback.

Hope everyone who is celebrating this weekend has a safe and enjoyable holiday

 

[Lady Storm]

Thank You Kyronix for your frank and earnest reply to the vocal members of the clan here. We wish you and the Dev team a safe and happy forth of July.

 

[Uvtha]

We (the entire team) are incredibly dedicated to Ultima Online. We live and breathe UO. We aren't in maintenance mode, the furthest thing from it. We've got some really exciting stuff in the works right now that falls in line with exactly what you (and others) are asking for - new content....some of it modeled after past events like Treasures of Tokuno with a fresh twist, along with visiting some classic Ultima that has never been seen in our version of Britannia before.

Spaceships?

No offense, and I hope you are indeed foretelling future events but if I had a hundred gold for every time we heard something new and exciting was "in the works" only to have nothing appear... I'd own lord british's castle by now.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I would like to see the drops looked at for ilshenar spawns. When two people can take the rat spawn from beginning all the way thru to the end, and NOT get a drop, and between the two of them only get 2 scrolls, something has to be out of whack...

Fixing and adjusting what we already have would be real nice

 

[The Zog historian]

I spend a fair amount of time reading UHall (probably too much), as does the rest of the team. We get a lot of reports from a variety of sources - in game, emails, the forums...we recieved a great volume of reports regarding healing looting rights, hence the changes.

There can't be too much UHall here. This is your main contact with the general playerbase.

I'm going to have to disagree with your characterization of elections being a huge disappointment. The response to the elections on many shards has been hugely positive. Our Event Moderators continue to knock it out of the park. People are role playing their positions in hugely creative ways. People who have never role played before, are getting involved. In the future we'll be making changes to the way the tributes are handled to more positively influence the purchase the trade deals. The city stones were just a first step and we have no plans to abandon them anytime soon.

By "disappointment" I was referring to the weekly tribute, after we were misinformed "persist indefinitely." I hope you can figure out something, if anything just removing the daily taxation. There's so much you could do that's a matter of removing lines of code.

There's an RP aspect to the elections, sure, but how engaged will the playerbase be? What of players who eschew that in favor of PvM?

As far as the armor revamp, it again, was something that was hugely asked for from a variety of sources. Something as fundamental as armor was bound to be a delicate topic to tackle and in the end we think it addressed some of the concerns people had regarding armor and weapons, but admittedly it wasn't perfect. Again, we continue to monitor feedback and will be addressing some of the concerns regarding refinements in the future.

As you may recall, I've given you recommendations on what needs to be done with refinements. Seriously, talk to me. I doubt that anyone else playing is as gung-ho as I am about refinements, and I can't imagine anyone else sat down like I did to crunch numbers to see exactly what they do. Just removing the roll for a bonus mod, making Invulnerability a guaranteed five properties, etc., would go a long way.

People wanted benefits to plate armor, but not refinements, and overall I think it's ok. But players would have been much happier with new content to play, not new suits to make.

We (the entire team) are incredibly dedicated to Ultima Online. We live and breathe UO. We aren't in maintenance mode, the furthest thing from it. We've got some really exciting stuff in the works right now that falls in line with exactly what you (and others) are asking for - new content....some of it modeled after past events like Treasures of Tokuno with a fresh twist, along with visiting some classic Ultima that has never been seen in our version of Britannia before. Are we nearing the end? Heck no...we are just getting this party started. We've got some exciting new stuff in the planning and early development stages right now (Hop on over to Mesanna's Virtue vs. Vice thread) and continue to look forward to reading your feedback.

Hope everyone who is celebrating this weekend has a safe and enjoyable holiday

I hope we can rely on you.

And let me point out that not everything has to be completely new, or something old with freshening up. Players still do champ spawns, because they give consumable things of enough value.

 

[legendsguy]

I may not agree with what Mister Kryonix says all the time, but at least someone is ACTUALLY SPEAKING TO US! Of course you know what this means, right? He will be fired next.

 

[MalagAste]

I may not agree with what Mister Kryonix says all the time, but at least someone is ACTUALLY SPEAKING TO US! Of course you know what this means, right? He will be fired next.

That is typically the case. But I'm seriously hoping NOT...... can't afford anymore losses on the DEV team... Infact I wish we could get more gains in that department.

 

[BeaIank]

Please let it be the hoe of destruction and the U7 muskets.

 

[Sauteed Onion]

Dropixel was sadly let go

From Michael "Phoenix" Moore's Facebook page:

"Today was my last day at Mythic. For the past three and a half years or so, I've had the great fortune to come to a job with a team of wonderful people, always working to improve on what is still one of the best damn MMOs ever built. We truly are a different breed, always having to deal with flak coming from all directions, but always loving our jobs even though the job is like a bucking bronco and we're just along for the crazy, crazy ride.​

​

Unfortunately, harsh economic realities and the nature of the video games business mean layoffs happen.​

​

My immediate plans are to get soused (probably for much of the weekend), then after that it's time to see what new adventures might lie in my future!"​

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

My preference for content has always been a few mid-scale scenarios per year. Anywhere from 2 to 4 depending on time. Scenarios where the fate of the world is not at stake, basically excuses for temporary content.

Taking the long view there can be a big-scale, epic "Warriors of Destiny" type scenario every 3 years or so, taking the place of mid-scale scenarios.

EM events and regularly-tweaked normal content can fill the gaps between the mid-scale scenarios. (Example of tweaked content between the gaps: Permanent Treasures of Tokuno with rotating artifacts; reassessment of the current dungeon upgrades; deliberately slow progress on other dungeon upgrades; slow addition of overland spawns in the main map; etc.)

Of course I also still am very much attracted to my big Fel/Tram proposal where anything can spawn anyplace and the difference between the facets is just a matter of what spawns where more often, and incorporating a "world boss."

I'm very much a content-based person. Indeed I remember when Ultima 5 first came out, and the box boasted of how much bigger it was than Ultima 4.

"Big ****ing deal," I thought to myself. "Who cares how big it is. Tell me about the story. Tell me about the monsters, about my allies, about the characters I'll be interacting with."

Fortunately, Ultima 5 had what probably was the best storyline in the single-player Ultima games.

I have the impression, though, that there's more content-based types in UO than commonly is thought.

And that brings me to the UHall issue and whether you look at it "too much" or not. Problem one is that Stratics is not, by any means, representative of UO players. Fel is over-represented. Siege is over-represented. Negativity and bullying are over-represented and praised. RP is under-represented.

Problem two is, what the **** else do you really have.

At present, regrettably, I have no solution to the issue.

-Galen's player

 

[hen]

Mesanna, Dropixel was sadly let go merely 10 days after your last Producer's Letter. I don't recall seeing anything official about what that does to your plans, but surely every player understands that some things will be delayed, other things canceled. It's unfortunate but a fact of business.

In constructive criticism, I tip my hat to GalenKnighthawke for what he said in the Publish 82 thread:



The taming change, then change back, is first and foremost. If you folks had kept up with UHall, you'd have seen there were never a lot of complaints about looting rights for healers. There was no reason to "fix" something that few, if any, were calling broken. But you threw the change on Test Center, then a couple of shards, with not a lot of testing time.

Then there's Publish 81. Elections have proven a huge disappointment because smaller shards have more difficulty with the unexpected weekly tribute. OK, big changes to armor, maybe not what we expected, but it's not what will keep players interested. As much as I like refinements for certain advantages, as much as others like the LMC bonuses of non-med armor, most of us could have done without these changes. We'd rather have seen something fun to play.

I'd have liked a Deceit or Hythloth revamp, but those are improbable with your reduced manpower. How about just a redo of Covetous rewards? How many people kept going after the first month? It's too much grind to get points for things that expire in one day. Cut the points in half. You wouldn't need to change anything else.

Treasures of Tokuno: how hard would this be to turn back on? Keep the last range of minor colors, and let 10 be turned in to get one of the Cleanup Britannia and Compassion Dye colors.

Someone had suggested a Malas event of two sides fighting, much like the Bane-Ophidian war. How hard would it be to turn it back on, presumably restoring the code? Relic fragments aren't as precious now, so to replace them as rewards, how about a piece of crystalline blackrock? Personally I'd have them spawning as loot on the corpses, but you apparently thought that made them too common.

In the last Producer's Letter, it was mentioned fey slayers will be added to dungeon loot: surely this isn't hard to add to the code that determines which slayer. For a little more work, what should be just an extra line or two of code, let the property generate only in Shame and Covetous. This would encourage people to visit their areas of lesser spawn, looking for clean fey slayers to imbue.

Someone recently expressed to me that UO might be nearing the end, and I hope that's not true. You've been looking for new EMs, which is great. The regular meetings with city governors can get a lot more player involvement. But what can you do to keep the game fresh and interesting? "Maintenance mode," meaning no further changes, might as well mean pulling the plug.

I agree that Covetous needs to be looked at. I just checked the Void Pool scores for my shard on both Fel and Tram. It looks like TWO people are bothering to use the Void Pool. As a resource gatherer I don't find any of the talismans etc useful enough to spend my time killing monsters who have empted their pockets before they turned up for a fight.

 

[Warpig Inc]

I would like to see the drops looked at for ilshenar spawns. When two people can take the rat spawn from beginning all the way thru to the end, and NOT get a drop, and between the two of them only get 2 scrolls, something has to be out of whack...

Fixing and adjusting what we already have would be real nice

Again my reply not transfered so let me edit in my reply. AGAIN. .................... What is sad. A player works an Ilsh champ spawn for the rare chance at a .1 pink. "Sweet Camping" Instead we get a painting that spits them out like a broken vending machine. Gothic, Rustic and now King's. Money better spent on beer and pizza. Keep players enthralled in playing the game if they actually play the game. Making a date ten days out to log in and clear an item of charges is not playing the game.

 

[claudia-fjp]

I was fishing up mibs the other day and taking out the refinements, nets, special items, and just tossing all the loot in the trash. Same for T-Maps. Did an EM event and didn't even open a single corpse. It got me thinking.

Kill any monster overland, ilshenar, any unrevamped dungeon and don't look at a single item of loot. Why? Because Imbuing and the new loot system made every old system generated item pretty much worthless.

Why have 2 different loot generating systems where 1 makes the other obsolete but the obsolete one is used in the vast majority of the game?

 

[The Zog historian]

I was fishing up mibs the other day and taking out the refinements, nets, special items, and just tossing all the loot in the trash. Same for T-Maps. Did an EM event and didn't even open a single corpse. It got me thinking.

Kill any monster overland, ilshenar, any unrevamped dungeon and don't look at a single item of loot. Why? Because Imbuing and the new loot system made every old system generated item pretty much worthless.

Why have 2 different loot generating systems where 1 makes the other obsolete but the obsolete one is used in the vast majority of the game?

It's true that old hunting spots have been left behind, though some are nice for training new characters. For me, their best use is getting magical residue or enchanted essence so I can imbue more things, and meanwhile I look for clean FC1 jewelry and any archery weapons with color to them.

 

[hen]

It's true that old hunting spots have been left behind, though some are nice for training new characters. For me, their best use is getting magical residue or enchanted essence so I can imbue more things, and meanwhile I look for clean FC1 jewelry and any archery weapons with color to them.

Doesn't monster loot have a lower imbuing cap than player crafted stuff though?

 

[The Zog historian]

Doesn't monster loot have a lower imbuing cap than player crafted stuff though?

That is true, but non-exceptional archery weapons now have 500 max intensity, and even before Publish 81, 450 could still be enough room to play with for a good PvM bow. If a monster is high in physical resist and particularly weak in a couple of magical resists, a non-exceptional bow can be worth the trade-off.

 

[Tina Small]

Doesn't monster loot have a lower imbuing cap than player crafted stuff though?

I think the list below shows the current imbuing caps after the Publish 81 changes a few months ago. If something's not right, hopefully someone will pipe up.

Exceptionally crafted 2-handed weapons: 600​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted 2-handed weapons: 550​

Exceptionally-crafted bows: 550

Exceptionally crafted 1-handed weapons: 500
Looted, purchased-from-NPC, or non-exceptionally crafted bows: 500
Looted, purchased-from-NPC, or crafted jewelry (may be exceptional or non-exceptional): 500
Exceptionally-crafted armor: 500

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted 1-handed weapons: 450
Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted armor: 450
Exceptionally-crafted shields: 450

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted shields: 400​

Like the Zog Historian, I also look through non-Shame type loot for things to imbue further, usually jewelry but sometimes some other stuff especially with the Publish 81 changes. I would really hate to see all loot go to the Shame system. Would rather see instead that it's tweaked so you can find a bit more stuff that can be imbued further or enhanced (especially with the bumps in resists that various materials got in Publish 81). Some of us are just cheapskates, not sitting on tons of resources or gold, or lack solid hunter characters to go after high-end imbuing ingredients, and/or like doing that sort of stuff. I don't save nearly the amount of loot I used to save, but I sure do get a kick out of being able to turn a piece of loot into something better with imbuing or enhancing and would hate to see that thrown out the window completely by changing everything to give Shame-type loot that rarely has the wiggle room to be imbued to make it better or change it around.

 

[Lady Michelle]

I may not agree with what Mister Kryonix says all the time, but at least someone is ACTUALLY SPEAKING TO US! Of course you know what this means, right? He will be fired next.

We could pretend not to like him that why he won't get fired.

I know his mama is a elder gazer, but took me sometime to figure out who is daddy is he is green and sticks his tongue out just as much as Kryonix does Behold Kryonix daddy.

 

[Lady Storm]

oi!

 

[CovenantX]

I think the list below shows the current imbuing caps after the Publish 81 changes a few months ago. If something's not right, hopefully someone will pipe up.

Exceptionally crafted 2-handed weapons: 600​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted 2-handed weapons: 550​

Exceptionally-crafted bows: 550​

Exceptionally crafted 1-handed weapons: 500​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC, or non-exceptionally crafted bows: 500​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC, or crafted jewelry (may be exceptional or non-exceptional): 500​

Exceptionally-crafted armor: 500​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted 1-handed weapons: 450​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted armor: 450​

Exceptionally-crafted shields: 450​

Looted, purchased-from-NPC or non-exceptionally crafted shields: 400​

Like the Zog Historian, I also look through non-Shame type loot for things to imbue further, usually jewelry but sometimes some other stuff especially with the Publish 81 changes. I would really hate to see all loot go to the Shame system. Would rather see instead that it's tweaked so you can find a bit more stuff that can be imbued further or enhanced (especially with the bumps in resists that various materials got in Publish 81). Some of us are just cheapskates, not sitting on tons of resources or gold, or lack solid hunter characters to go after high-end imbuing ingredients, and/or like doing that sort of stuff. I don't save nearly the amount of loot I used to save, but I sure do get a kick out of being able to turn a piece of loot into something better with imbuing or enhancing and would hate to see that thrown out the window completely by changing everything to give Shame-type loot that rarely has the wiggle room to be imbued to make it better or change it around.

all of that looks right.

One thing about Jewerly, even though non-exceptional jewely has the same item weight as exceptional jewelry pieces, you have a small "bonus" chance to add mods via imbuing without failing as often, it's gotta be around 5-8% or so better chance to successfully imbue than it is on non-exceptional jewelry pieces.

Example:

the first imbue would be FC 1, exceptional ring vs non-exceptional ring.

FC 1 = 140/500 weight with a 179.3% success chance to imbue it on the Exceptional Ring.

FC 1 = 140/500 weight with a 165.6% success chance to imbue it on the Non-Excptional-Ring.

Edit: Tested with 120 Imbuing.

 

[The Zog historian]

I never knew that and had to see for myself.

At the regular city soulfourge, 181.4% chance to imbue FC1 on an exceptional ring, 153.5% on an NPC-bought ring. At the Queen's soulforge, 185.8% and 157.3%.

 

[Hannes Erich]

I have the impression, though, that there's more content-based types in UO than commonly is thought.

And that brings me to the UHall issue and whether you look at it "too much" or not. Problem one is that Stratics is not, by any means, representative of UO players. Fel is over-represented. Siege is over-represented. Negativity and bullying are over-represented and praised. RP is under-represented.

Problem two is, what the **** else do you really have.

At present, regrettably, I have no solution to the issue.

This, this, this. This has been obvious to me for years. If someone hangs out with a bunch of bad apples, that's what they see every time they log in, that's what they know. But if you're an open-minded guy or gal, and just log in and meet different people here and there, you will find a lot of friendly players who are drawn back in for Ultima and Britannia and all of the content and stories; many of them are RPers but not all. Many of them played the earlier Ultima games before Ultima Online and are just sticking with a universe they've always known. I have mingled with many groups of players over the years, several of them are still around on these boards, but the majority of them never posted on the forums and rarely even read them.

These forums are not representative. Usually when I log into Ultima Online, I have fun and enjoy myself, whether I choose to play alone or with others. When I read these forums, especially UHall, it doesn't ever FEEL like I'm reading about the same game I play--it feels very disconnected, like most of you are posting from an alternate universe where UO is just this horrible anger-inducing experience for people. Look, I'm sure UO is dying, you've been telling us that since 1997.

The few of you who recognize me KNOW that I am not a sugar-coater, I'm not afraid to speak my mind, I'm not blind to the game's problems and the mods love to lock my threads. One thing that's never changed is that I love Ultima Online as much as I did all those years ago, during the fall of 1997, when me and some friends first stepped foot into the world of Ultima Online and were hooked.

I absolutely feel that you can read too much UHall. This place is warped. Half the moderators are as cynical and jaded as the worst, most bitter players. I try not to read too much here because when I do, it demoralizes me and turns me away from the game. If the devs are getting their feedback from multiple sources, that's great. Playing the game, getting to know the players, reading other UO fansites and forums and gaming sites. Massively at Joystiq still covers our beloved game pretty often for a major MMORPG news site. How many of you even know who they are? How many of you have taken the time to thank the writers for staying passionate about UO? If you think that Ultima Online's fan base exists in the shrunken, claustrophobic realm of UHall, you need to unwrap the towel from around your eyes.