A tidbit of history for those interested in how Trammel was started

[Dregg]

A friend shared this with my wife the other day and she in turn shared it with me. Upon reading it, I shared it with some friends from UO and with the positive feedback I'm gonna post the link for everyone.

Hope you all enjoy:


http://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/2udqfz/gordon_walton_former_executive_producer_of_uo/

 

[Scribbles]

LoL, My time in UO = 97-02 09-now. In 02 I left because of trammel, I had given it a chance and couldnt stand that there was no more fel, everyone had up and moved. Suddenly the disarm thief i spent years perfecting was useless.

Great find @Dregg i enjoyed that.

 

[MalagAste]

You know at the bottom there is an edit saying "I'm not him"...

At any rate .... don't know what the answer would have been but he's right. Many folk like my Brother tried UO back in the day but because of the rampant PK's.... he quit and didn't just quit... Upon mentioning that I was playing UO sometime after UO:R came out my brother had such HATE for the game that he said "That piece of ****! WTF would you play that for? I'll never play that again. Pile of ****!" VERY emotional about his HATE for UO. He's always surprised I'm still playing... I think he played EQ and some other things after UO but now he's hooked on WoW.... to which I say..."That piece of ****!?! I'll never put that smeg back on my computer ever again! That's a game for freaking kids. I play a grown ups game." Though he always tells me that kids do play UO too.... which yes they do. But not as much I don't think. Though it has it's share of adults acting like children.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

While it was the right move to make, I'll always believe that it was done in a BACKWARDS fashion.

UO at the time needed two distinct things:

1. An area/portion of the game that PvM players could play the style they wanted and expected to be able to play. Being effectively cut off from PvM content due to other players was a huge problem for a significant portion of the player base.

2. Housing. Prior to Trammel, T2A was announced and originally planned as a Seer-controlled housing/town supported expansion. This of course did not happen due to how the T2A lands were developed (though you can see certain areas around the edge of the map that look as though they were originally planned for housing). Even with the slowing of actual game subscription growth (while many people were picking up the game, as many or slightly fewer were leaving) and the release of EverQuest (which quickly eclipsed UO with horrible early polygon graphics, tortuous gameplay, and the PvP "switch"), UO was STILL in dire need of more real estate for player housing.

So why was it backwards? Quite easily because most player run establishments and towns tended to be run by non-PvP players or those who wished PvP were limited to consensual functions to remove problem players from invading the town. Secondly, these original establishments were (of course) in what became Felucca, were unable to port over their establishments to the same location in Trammel prior to the Trammel housing rush which led to months' worth of work to be abandoned in hopes of rebuilding in Trammel.

While specifically designed new areas for PvP and housing would have been more ideal, the "easy and quick" answer was the (not)mirror, however, setting the rulesets the way they did pushed the greater majority of players away from their established homes/businesses and told them to "start over". Had the original lands become Trammel, I firmly believe that more of those establishments would have lasted much longer and possibly been around even through now.

I'll give him credit for preventing UO from being shut down in favor of McFarlane's Borgthorn and Co. as well as for producing the two things UO needed at the time. However, that doesn't mean the answer decided upon was ever perfect in that regard...

... which seems to be a consistent issue in UO's history of development (See: new clients, all).

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

As an aside (and as a fairly staunch non-PvP player in UO (note: "non" /= "anti")), I did spend a couple hours this past weekend helping test out Shards Online in a very fun PvP competition with Supreem, Dusty and several others. I believe for me the big portion of that enjoyment was that we were all there for the same reason and while you risked what you were carrying in your backpack, you did NOT risk your equipped items.

 

[MalagAste]

...

As an aside (and as a fairly staunch non-PvP player in UO (note: "non" /= "anti")), I did spend a couple hours this past weekend helping test out Shards Online in a very fun PvP competition with Supreem, Dusty and several others. I believe for me the big portion of that enjoyment was that we were all there for the same reason and while you risked what you were carrying in your backpack, you did NOT risk your equipped items.

I think much of the "fail" with PvP for a bunch of folk wasn't about losing so much what you had in your pack beyond your equipment..... it was losing your home and everything in it as well as not being able to "have a home". The ONE and only reason I picked up UO:R in the store and gave it a try was that I could "own" my own home in the game and decorate it as I saw fit. Shortly after I started it was apparent that I wasn't going to "own" my own home. There was NO WHERE to place a home. NO houses decayed for fell and there wasn't a single spot to drop even a 7x7... After realizing that I almost quit. It took almost a year or so before I was able to "get" a tiny little house. Took only a day to "fill" it.

I know a lot of folk who had lost houses and such back in the day... some who carried on.... some who got angry and left never to return. One thing I can say for certain is that there is nothing like the "passion" of the UO players for our game. I'm fairly confident that the DEV's no matter how small the team is ..... hold that same passion.

 

[Poo]

You know at the bottom there is an edit saying "I'm not him"...

At any rate .... don't know what the answer would have been but he's right. Many folk like my Brother tried UO back in the day but because of the rampant PK's.... he quit and didn't just quit... Upon mentioning that I was playing UO sometime after UO:R came out my brother had such HATE for the game that he said "That piece of ****! WTF would you play that for? I'll never play that again. Pile of ****!" VERY emotional about his HATE for UO. He's always surprised I'm still playing... I think he played EQ and some other things after UO but now he's hooked on WoW.... to which I say..."That piece of ****!?! I'll never put that smeg back on my computer ever again! That's a game for freaking kids. I play a grown ups game." Though he always tells me that kids do play UO too.... which yes they do. But not as much I don't think. Though it has it's share of adults acting like children.

i believe he was just saying that he was reposting this from the Crowfall forum.
and that he specifically wasnt 'him' but the write up itself is.

 

[Poo]

for years i never knew how to express what went wrong with UO, but in the write up it hit it right on the head.

Without the "sheep to shear" the hard core PvP'ers were disenfranchised. They didn't like preying on each other (hard targets versus soft targets), and they became a smaller minority in the overall game. The real bad though was that the intensity and "realness" of the game for all players was diminished.

i really like that saying; Lions like to eat sheep - lions don't like to eat other lions.

 

[Flutter]

This was a good read.

 

[Flutter]

i believe he was just saying that he was reposting this from the Crowfall forum.
and that he specifically wasnt 'him' but the write up itself is.

Correct. Reading comprehension ftw.
Guy who posted was just saying he copy and pasted the words from the source and that he was not the source.

 

[FrejaSP]

If I had the chance to do it again, (and we had different fiscal and time constraints), we would have done something more like keeping the current current worlds with the original ruleset (like we later did with the Seige Perilous shard, which was too late in my view), and make new shards with a more PvE ruleset.

I wish they had done it this way. Yes the non PvP players would had been forced to make a new char on a new Trammel shard, but the old shards and the communities there had survived.
When Trammel was added to Atlantic and Trammel, it total killed this 2 shards for me. The add of stat loss for reds on res was hurting the shards a lot too as it killed any attempt to RP and the made reds run in ganks to be safe in numbers and not leave their victims a chance.
I do not agree, that Siege was to late but the nerf of the shard after the wipe killed it. I believe we would had done a lot better with 5 char slots, normal skill gains, a delay to recall instead of no recall, or with other words, like the shards was before stat loss was added.
If we had keeped the old shards, with non con rules and added new Trammel shards, I do believe UO had survived much better. I loved the game before they tried nerf non con PvP, it was not just a game, it was a second world and I was feeling so much alive in it, even when I was blue and only had killed players in defense.

 

[Whitewolf of *VK*]

Trammel came out because of all the people whining about PK's,and theives but back then PK's werent that bad, not nearly as bad as they are now, back then there was things in place to keep them in check, like not entering towns and stat loss, now anyone can go on a murdering rampage and face no consequences, and thieves werent that bad if you knew how to protect yourself.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I wish they had done it this way. Yes the non PvP players would had been forced to make a new char on a new Trammel shard, but the old shards and the communities there had survived.
When Trammel was added to Atlantic and Trammel, it total killed this 2 shards for me. The add of stat loss for reds on res was hurting the shards a lot too as it killed any attempt to RP and the made reds run in ganks to be safe in numbers and not leave their victims a chance.
I do not agree, that Siege was to late but the nerf of the shard after the wipe killed it. I believe we would had done a lot better with 5 char slots, normal skill gains, a delay to recall instead of no recall, or with other words, like the shards was before stat loss was added.
If we had keeped the old shards, with non con rules and added new Trammel shards, I do believe UO had survived much better. I loved the game before they tried nerf non con PvP, it was not just a game, it was a second world and I was feeling so much alive in it, even when I was blue and only had killed players in defense.

I agree and disagree.

I agree with the statements made about Siege and also remember Siege Test that was wiped and hobbled with RoT.

I agree with the idea of shard-based rulesets instead of facet-based, but I disagree with which player base should have been forced to move as stated in my original reply. However that's just differences in an opinion between us Freja.

I've also wondered what the game might have been like with a well-developed Arena-style system using T2A from tiem to time, but that leads up to the statement you make about what you love about pre-UO:R as well as an observation I've made about other areas of the game. It seems that when players come up with an idea that they put into practice in game, it gains a good bit of popularity. Then when that mini-game is effectively sanctioned and made into an Official™ part of ingame content, it becomes abandoned and/or is ignored. The non-PvP aspect of this of course is BagBall. I guess you could also bring up the basicness and enjoyment people had with Order/Chaos compared to Factions.

It's easy to say "they should have done it like this", but 15 years down the road, all it is now is a mental exercise along with the rest of the "not quite worked out as planned" aspects of the game.

 

[FrejaSP]

Trammel came out because of all the people whining about PK's,and theives but back then PK's werent that bad, not nearly as bad as they are now, back then there was things in place to keep them in check, like not entering towns and stat loss, now anyone can go on a murdering rampage and face no consequences, and thieves werent that bad if you knew how to protect yourself.

I do not agree
Back, before stat loss and later Trammel, we was all living in same world and had to get along. Sure there was bad reds but there was also anti PK's, who would try to take care of them.
I learned to know so many reds on Atlantic, they was not just kids trying to grief everyone, some of them did have a lot of class and would give you a fair chance to fight back. Stat loss made everything worse as it builded a mega hate between red and blue. The reds blamed the blue for ruin their char and game and forced them to run in ganks. the RP reds gave up, they had zero chance to share the fun with their victims as dying would kill their char and force them to make a new char.

The game was a success, but new games came out and with a choice between PvP or not. New non PvP shards would had done the trick. I for sure, would had stayed on Atlantic, I had no other choice than move to Siege, others tried to find player runned shards, with a ruleset close to before Trammel. Yes UO got more players with Trammel but how many did they lose. I lost so many friends with the add of stat loss and the born of Trammel, they just gave up, someone destroyed the game they loved.

I do not think it is to late to split up the shards, make some to Trammel only and some to non con PvP like in old days and don't even think about adding stat loss back, other than in a temp version like in VvV if it have to be there.
And let Siege have as many char slots as other shards and allow recall with 20 sec delay and interrupt if you take damage

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

for years i never knew how to express what went wrong with UO, but in the write up it hit it right on the head.



i really like that saying; Lions like to eat sheep - lions don't like to eat other lions.

One very common misconception about pvpers is that they like to lead sheep or lambs to the slaughter.
That is false and in fact fundamentally incorrect as far as UO and gaming in general is concerned.
A lamb is a lamb is a lamb. Which is to say that it is inherently unable to defend itself for a multitude of reasons.
A fellow gamer is not a lamb and is quite capable of defending his/her self. Complete with a keyboard, a brain (hopefully) and opposable thumbs.
The sad part of this true story is that the only people calling non pvpers sheep or lamb are the non pvpers themselves.
The even sadder part of this true story is that the lamb most likely has the guts needed to defend itself. It just lacks all the other tools. While the non pvper has all the tools but simply lacks the guts and masks it in naivete and ping and bizarre cheating paranoia

 

[cazador]

One very common misconception about pvpers is that they like to lead sheep or lambs to the slaughter.
That is false and in fact fundamentally incorrect as far as UO and gaming in general is concerned.
A lamb is a lamb is a lamb. Which is to say that it is inherently unable to defend itself for a multitude of reasons.
A fellow gamer is not a lamb and is quite capable of defending his/her self. Complete with a keyboard, a brain (hopefully) and opposable thumbs.
The sad part of this true story is that the only people calling non pvpers sheep or lamb are the non pvpers themselves.
The even sadder part of this true story is that the lamb most likely has the guts needed to defend itself. It just lacks all the other tools. While the non pvper has all the tools but simply lacks the guts and masks it in naivete and ping and bizarre cheating paranoia

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[FrejaSP]

agree with the idea of shard-based rulesets instead of facet-based, but I disagree with which player base should have been forced to move as stated in my original reply. However that's just differences in an opinion between us Freja.

I understand that but the community was based on non con ruleset and the "whiners" did want a different game than the one they got. It was the "whiners" who was unhappy, so it had to be them who was forced to move if they wanted a Happy Shard as Designer Dragon called it, the old shards was dark and meant to have player justice instead of a lot rules to control the evil players.
Most who was "whining", was to scared to leave town, and did not play the game I was playing outside town, where the way to survive, was to get along with the evil community.

I was 44 year and I'm female, I had no problems with playing the game and surviving. It was the reds, who learned me how to PvP, told me how to use potions and other stuff. I did not run crying to town, when I died, I got a res and went back slowly and with a Hi to stop them for reskilling me. It was very few reds, I died to more than one time. Most of them ended up as friends and turned out to be cool.

I know we all loved the game and I respect the whiners wanted to play this wonderful game too, but they did not want the whole packed, so it had to be them who was forced to move.

But there was an other way to choose ruleset for an old shard. If they had let all 30 days old chars vote at login to the shard, for Happy or Dark ruleset, it would had been fair for all. I do believe most shard was ended up as Dark anyway

 

[Whitewolf of *VK*]

well first they need to fix pvp, i grew up in fel,i been playing UO since beta, i lived in pvp central, my tower was located in bucs den, i was never really a pvper, i didnt go looking for fights, but i could hold my own when attacked, ya i died lots of times to pks, but at the same time alot of pkers died to me when they attacked. then when WoW came out i quit UO, i came back about 2 years ago, well in that time pvp has changed alot, i dunno if its third party programs they are using or what, but most of the time now as soon as a red pops up on my screen, im dead, before i can even get 1 spell off im dead. its like being guard whacked literly. they are so fast now i have to look at my journal to see what even happened, sorry but to me thats not pvp.

 

[The Zog historian]

Back, before stat loss and later Trammel, we was all living in same world and had to get along. Sure there was bad reds but there was also anti PK's, who would try to take care of them.

Do you realize that "had to get along" can't happen if one side doesn't want it? Predators don't want to cooperate, only plunder and move on. Most players didn't and still don't want to have to fight another player as "fun." UO may have had a big population, but it also had a lot of turnover from people who gave up after a month or two, especially those who lost a house and didn't care to go through the whole thing again. Is it any surprise that when EQ debuted, and players flocked to it for consensual PvP, that UO had to follow suit the next year?

We're once again rehashing old threads. "PKs could be fought" is just an excuse, mainly because reds wouldn't stay long enough to be attacked. There was no aggressor flag, so it was easy to kill someone, loot, and recall out at the first sign of a blue name. It was just as easy to recall out after initiating combat and finding oneself outmatched. I tried chasing down many a PK who, even without using UOE's ghostwalk, could easily get away if not were long gone.

Particularly during the Notoriety system, "antis" were as likely to have their own reds for PKing. Oftentimes any Great Lords showing up to "save" blues would leave, then come back on their own reds. The Dread Lord/Great Lord fights at the Chaos Shrine weren't about good versus evil, but rather what character someone brought based on which colors were already camping the shrine.

 

[FrejaSP]

Zog, I'm not getting into that debat with you, do not have time, sorry

 

[Uvtha]

A friend shared this with my wife the other day and she in turn shared it with me. Upon reading it, I shared it with some friends from UO and with the positive feedback I'm gonna post the link for everyone.

Hope you all enjoy:


http://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/2udqfz/gordon_walton_former_executive_producer_of_uo/

"The real bad though was that the intensity and "realness" of the game for all players was diminished. This was the major unintended consequence."

What kind of idiot would fail to see that coming?

 

[Aurelius]

"The real bad though was that the intensity and "realness" of the game for all players was diminished. This was the major unintended consequence."

What kind of idiot would fail to see that coming?

Pretty much every 'manager' UO has had from that time onwards has failed to see it happening, or thought it did not matter....... and that's not only in the context of PvP.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

well first they need to fix pvp, i grew up in fel,i been playing UO since beta, i lived in pvp central, my tower was located in bucs den, i was never really a pvper, i didnt go looking for fights, but i could hold my own when attacked, ya i died lots of times to pks, but at the same time alot of pkers died to me when they attacked. then when WoW came out i quit UO, i came back about 2 years ago, well in that time pvp has changed alot, i dunno if its third party programs they are using or what, but most of the time now as soon as a red pops up on my screen, im dead, before i can even get 1 spell off im dead. its like being guard whacked literly. they are so fast now i have to look at my journal to see what even happened, sorry but to me thats not pvp.

No offense but it is just progress. Everything is or seems faster.

 

[FrejaSP]

well first they need to fix pvp, i grew up in fel,i been playing UO since beta, i lived in pvp central, my tower was located in bucs den, i was never really a pvper, i didnt go looking for fights, but i could hold my own when attacked, ya i died lots of times to pks, but at the same time alot of pkers died to me when they attacked. then when WoW came out i quit UO, i came back about 2 years ago, well in that time pvp has changed alot, i dunno if its third party programs they are using or what, but most of the time now as soon as a red pops up on my screen, im dead, before i can even get 1 spell off im dead. its like being guard whacked literly. they are so fast now i have to look at my journal to see what even happened, sorry but to me thats not pvp.

Now Siege may be different, but this 60 year old lady do not insta die everytime she get attacked. Sure some players are more deadly than others.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Now Siege may be different, but this 60 year old lady do not insta die everytime she get attacked. Sure some players are more deadly than others.

Siege is much different than the normal production shard pvp'ers. I was with a group of Atlantic pvp'ers dueling each other yesterday, they all had pvp suits worth close to 600 million gold. When they attacked each other, someone would be dead within 3 seconds every single time.

If skilled pvp'ers wearing the most expensive pvp suits it's possible to get die in less than three seconds, how can a normal player possibly hope to compete with them when they are not active in pvp, and do not have a super elite and expensive pvp suit.

 

[Merus]

Personally I wish the would have just implemented guard zone in all overland areas not on the dungeon server... Effectively putting all housing areas under the Kings protection. Miners and lumberjacks would have been safe. Recalling home would have been safe... You get the idea. All dungeons would have remained as they were... Dangerous and outside the protection of the realm.

I think we would have ended up with a much less fractured community.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Siege is much different than the normal production shard pvp'ers. I was with a group of Atlantic pvp'ers dueling each other yesterday, they all had pvp suits worth close to 600 million gold. When they attacked each other, someone would be dead within 3 seconds every single time.

If skilled pvp'ers wearing the most expensive pvp suits it's possible to get die in less than three seconds, how can a normal player possibly hope to compete with them when they are not active in pvp, and do not have a super elite and expensive pvp suit.

Terrible, terrible argument to try and make.

1) Skilled pvpers says who? You do not pvp or know how to pvp so you wouldn't know who is skilled. Did they tell you they were skilled?...
2) Owning a 600 million gold pvp suit does not make you skilled. A 600 million gold suit will not help you live one second longer if you did not build it correctly and/or you do not know how to use it.
3) What templates were they running? Makes all the difference in the world.
4) I see you around Atlantic all the time on Norrington but have never once seen you in Felucca. Where were these supposed skilled pvpers dueling that you were around to watch? Hrmmm
5) Some fights will last only seconds while others between two skilled mages can last 30 minutes. And these fights can last these same durations if both skilled mages are in custom built elite suits or basic sorc suits with orny and imbued ring.
The gear is not the only determining factor.
A humorous rl analogy would be all the buffoons you see on ski mountains in thousands of dollars of gear trying to navigate the kiddie slope

 

[FrejaSP]

Personally I wish the would have just implemented guard zone in all overland areas not on the dungeon server... Effectively putting all housing areas under the Kings protection. Miners and lumberjacks would have been safe. Recalling home would have been safe... You get the idea. All dungeons would have remained as they were... Dangerous and outside the protection of the realm.

I think we would have ended up with a much less fractured community.

Auch, this vampire loved to hunt the forest fo human blood and loved to fight on the road so I don't like that idea.
Also the ones not minded for PvP would hate to be forced to PvP in the dungeons. You may be able to kill the hårdest monsters but will die in sec to a PK because you do not know how to PvP and your suit/template are builded for monsters.

Only one way will work, PvP shards and non PvP shards.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Terrible, terrible argument to try and make.

1) Skilled pvpers says who? You do not pvp or know how to pvp so you wouldn't know who is skilled. Did they tell you they were skilled?...
2) Owning a 600 million gold pvp suit does not make you skilled. A 600 million gold suit will not help you live one second longer if you did not build it correctly and/or you do not know how to use it.
3) What templates were they running? Makes all the difference in the world.
4) I see you around Atlantic all the time on Norrington but have never once seen you in Felucca. Where were these supposed skilled pvpers dueling that you were around to watch? Hrmmm
5) Some fights will last only seconds while others between two skilled mages can last 30 minutes. And these fights can last these same durations if both skilled mages are in custom built elite suits or basic sorc suits with orny and imbued ring.
The gear is not the only determining factor

To clarify, I was with those pvper's because they asked me to broker their duel for slithers. The duel happened, the winner got both slithers like everyone agreed on with no problems.

Your correct, I am not a pvp'er however I broker their duels for them pretty often and have seen enough of their duels, and the fights that always come after the duels to understand who is good, and who isn't as good.

The duel was at Ocllo arena, and there were about 10 witnesses if you would like to ask them to verify that I was there. You don't see me in Felucca often because duels requiring brokering do not happen at yew gate very often, they are usually either at the arena or in a secluded area where no one can interfere. Since the area is secluded, there also are not many witnesses.

I do have a pvper, and have been in pvp guilds in the past as well, including a pvp section of my own guild we had for a month or two. I know I'm not very good at pvp personally, but I was still able to help the guilds I was in since an archer with armor ignore is almost always useful in a group setting regardless of skill level.

Most of them had dexxer or archer templates, although a few had pure mage and mystic mage templates.

My pvp'ers name is Bullseye in case you ever see me around Felucca one day, there are a couple people with the same name though. Mines an elf wearing all glossy blue platemail armor crafted by Captn Norrington. Yes platemail is a weird choice for an archer, but I hate how studded looks lol.

 

[Merus]

Auch, this vampire loved to hunt the forest fo human blood and loved to fight on the road so I don't like that idea.
Also the ones not minded for PvP would hate to be forced to PvP in the dungeons. You may be able to kill the hårdest monsters but will die in sec to a PK because you do not know how to PvP and your suit/template are builded for monsters.

Only one way will work, PvP shards and non PvP shards.

Where it's seperate facets or seperate shards, you still end up with a fractured community. I too remember the days of PvP at the crossroads, etc... And they were a blast! But UO needed a safe space for non-combat oriented character (craftsman, etc). IMO, we needed a solution that offered that safe space but retained the risk/reward model that I believe was at the heart of UO. Yes, it would mean that PvPers would have to give a little for those safe zones to exist and folks who were just interested in fighting that dragon would have had to risk a little inside the dungeon... But it would have kept the community together. Just my opinion of course.

 

[FrejaSP]

Where it's seperate facets or seperate shards, you still end up with a fractured community. I too remember the days of PvP at the crossroads, etc... And they were a blast! But UO needed a safe space for non-combat oriented character (craftsman, etc). IMO, we needed a solution that offered that safe space but retained the risk/reward model that I believe was at the heart of UO. Yes, it would mean that PvPers would have to give a little for those safe zones to exist and folks who were just interested in fighting that dragon would have had to risk a little inside the dungeon... But it would have kept the community together. Just my opinion of course.

The problem with zones, is it split the community. On Siege we do not have safe zones, other than towns, we learn to get along with our neightbors. I believe the game would be much nicer on normal shards, if they changed it so reds could go to Trammel zone and if VvV too, they should be able to fight other VvV on all facets. Players not in VvV would be safe on most facets, just not Fel. This way, the players would learn to know each others and less would fear Felucca.

 

[Merus]

The problem with zones, is it split the community. On Siege we do not have safe zones, other than towns, we learn to get along with our neightbors. I believe the game would be much nicer on normal shards, if they changed it so reds could go to Trammel zone and if VvV too, they should be able to fight other VvV on all facets. Players not in VvV would be safe on most facets, just not Fel. This way, the players would learn to know each others and less would fear Felucca.

I certainly think there is a place for hardcore shards in UO for those that desire them. For production shards I think the overland/dungeon split would have been better at keeping the community engaged as one. If everyone shards the same dungeon to hunt in under the same rules, you learn to adapt. Those who just liked PvM would make friends with folks who liked to PvP. Instead, we ended up seperating that group by giving them seperate places to hunt.
Even today if you opened up tram to all characters and allowed VVV on all facets, there would still be virtually no non-consensual pvp on production shards.

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

Why are people taking this article as gospel? It is written by a player and therefore contains the player's perspective which may not be the true facts. I stand corrected.

I played during the pre-Trammel days. There were more reasons for the new land mass to open other than what is mentioned in the article. Does anyone remember not owning a house b/c there was nowhere to place a new house in Fel? Or the fact that 7x7 houses were being sold on ebay for $35?!?

I agree that no one liked being PK'ed but Fel added a certain thrill and excitement to the game that just isn't there today. Yeah, I got mad when I died and got looted but I got over it and kept playing. Afterall it is just a game.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Why are people taking this article as gospel? It is written by a player and therefore contains the player's perspective which may not be the true facts.

It was not written by a player, the poster specifically says that he copy/pasted it from something the real UO developer who created trammel wrote and then provides a link at the top of the article to the original place he found it on the Crowfall forums, which is the new game created by the UO developer who created Trammel.

 

[Merus]

Why are people taking this article as gospel? It is written by a player and therefore contains the player's perspective which may not be the true facts. I played during the pre-Trammel days. There were more reasons for the new land mass to open other than what is mentioned in the article. Does anyone remember not owning a house b/c there was nowhere to place a new house in Fel? Or the fact that 7x7 houses were being sold on ebay for $35?!?

I agree that no one liked being PK'ed but Fel added a certain thrill and excitement to the game that just isn't there today. Yeah, I got mad when I died and got looted but I got over it and kept playing. Afterall it is just a game.

This was written by a VP of Origin and Producer of UO at the time the change was made...

 

[Picus at the office]

It was a fun time back then but it wasn't for everyone and us old timers see it through the classic rose color.

 

[cazador]

The issue is the way it was implemented. Not that it was! They never should have mirrored the entire map..instead of being lazy they should have created a new world that wasn't so big. And kept certain areas fel based and dangerous. But I digress they weren't and didnt..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Lady CaT]

If skilled pvp'ers wearing the most expensive pvp suits it's possible to get die in less than three seconds, how can a normal player possibly hope to compete with them when they are not active in pvp, and do not have a super elite and expensive pvp suit.

Ooooh! Oooh! I know! *raises hand* By learning what damages people in 600 million gold expensive armor in less than 3 seconds!

I'd guess armor ignore special attack helps a lot. *laughs*

 

[Picus at the office]

If skilled pvp'ers wearing the most expensive pvp suits it's possible to get die in less than three seconds, how can a normal player possibly hope to compete with them when they are not active in pvp, and do not have a super elite and expensive pvp suit.

To be back in the days of macing wrecking everything....I really did enjoy the game that was UO but this current version does little for me.

 

[SlobberKnocker]

The bad: Without the "sheep to shear" the hard core PvP'ers were disenfranchised. They didn't like preying on each other (hard targets versus soft targets), and they became a smaller minority in the overall game. The real bad though was that the intensity and "realness" of the game for all players was diminished. This was the major unintended consequence.

Interesting that the Dev's had this opinion, yet the PVP crowd disagrees. I think the word PVP'r in this sentence should be changed to Griefer.

Although take a spin over on the hot boards and see how many of the self named "Elite" pvp'rs routinely dodge duels with each other, or when presented with video evidence of their demise resort to cries of cheats, ganks and such and maybe it's true that the more skilled PVP crowd are really not to interested in fighting an equal skilled player.

 

[FrejaSP]

Reds did fight each others and they did not mind a good fight with a blue PvP minded player. Sure there was a few kids or immature reds out there too but trust me, the blue did have some nasty players too, you would find out if you happen to go grey in front of them. They was called noto pk's and they had very little honor, they would kill everything, that would not give them a count.

 

[Stubentiger]

Also a very big mistake was to mirror the facet completely!

 

[Dot_Warner]

Trammel had to happen for UO to survive; however, the ham-fisted manner in which Trammel happened sucked completely.

 

[The Zog historian]

The problem with zones, is it split the community. On Siege we do not have safe zones, other than towns, we learn to get along with our neightbors. I believe the game would be much nicer on normal shards, if they changed it so reds could go to Trammel zone and if VvV too, they should be able to fight other VvV on all facets. Players not in VvV would be safe on most facets, just not Fel. This way, the players would learn to know each others and less would fear Felucca.

Siege's lack of recall makes it hard for reds to flee. The typical PK pattern, prior to the aggressor flag, was to attack and recall before there was any risk of dying. There's no way Sonoma's Dark Purust would have gotten to 365 (perhaps more) counts without dying if he couldn't recall at any time.

If no-recall-while-aggressor had been implemented from the start, would this have made it more "fair" to deal with PKs? No, not significantly if at all. It often took more than two minutes for friends to drop things and come to the rescue, and even if they could, PKs could go hide in a corner until their flag wore off.

Reds did fight each others and they did not mind a good fight with a blue PvP minded player. Sure there was a few kids or immature reds out there too but trust me, the blue did have some nasty players too, you would find out if you happen to go grey in front of them. They was called noto pk's and they had very little honor, they would kill everything, that would not give them a count.

Let's be careful to distinguish between "red" and "PK," which aren't synonymous. The typical PK pattern was as I've stated: attack, recall if found to be outmatched, or loot quickly and recall. There was nothing "fair" about the fights. Once the Reputation system was introduced, PKs often used the excuse, "But we'll be in stat loss, so we have to attack you when you're fighting a monster and low on health." Yet that's what they had already been doing under Notoriety (which did not have stat loss).

 

[The Zog historian]

Why are people taking this article as gospel? It is written by a player and therefore contains the player's perspective which may not be the true facts. I stand corrected.

I played during the pre-Trammel days. There were more reasons for the new land mass to open other than what is mentioned in the article. Does anyone remember not owning a house b/c there was nowhere to place a new house in Fel? Or the fact that 7x7 houses were being sold on ebay for $35?!?

I agree that no one liked being PK'ed but Fel added a certain thrill and excitement to the game that just isn't there today. Yeah, I got mad when I died and got looted but I got over it and kept playing. Afterall it is just a game.

Most players don't want the "thrill and excitement" of being PKd. They do want to play a game, but not one that wastes their time. Most players don't want to spend three hours with nothing to show for it, because after an hour of blood elementals and getting PKd, they have to spend two hours earning gold to buy new armor and weapons. They didn't want to spend hours and hours tailoring fancy shirts to buy a house, only to get PKd and have the key stolen.

 

[The Zog historian]

Here's an old post (not mine) from Spiels n' Rants that I saved as a perfect summary of the frustration then. The game may have been growing in subscribers, but there was a lot of churn. It was clearly not going to survive with EQ and future competitors eschewing the model of free-for-all outside limited protected zones.

Posted by Pantageas on May 23, 1999 at 9:02:58 AM CDT:

...since I keep typing the same stance over and over again, and it keeps getting ignored by all the pro-PK enthusiasts. The only reason I even post it is because all the pro-PK folks were posting en masse before the weekly wipe, and spouting the same old things. So, here we go again...

People who are rabidly pro-PK refuse to accept that a lot of people don't want to play the game the way they themselves seem to enjoy it. Why do I say this? Because their responses are always a variation of 1) Don't leave town then. 2) Getting killed by a PK is no different than being killed by a monster. 3) Pking is part of the game, deal with it. 4) Build a character that can survive. 5) Recall is a sure way to avoid being PKed. 6) Don't pancake to OSI, do something yourselves. Now, the short list of responses:

1) Don't leave town then - If this were a feasable idea, don't you think EVERYONE with PK concerns would take it? The fact is, there's only so much skill gain you can get in town, tehre's only so many creatures to fight in town, there's no way to buy 'nice things' in town (you must go to a public vendor outside of town), and there's a limit to how much you can 'earn' in town. Many poeple DO do nothing but hang around chatting in town all the time. But why must someone who wants to play this game and LEAVE town mandatorily be a PvP expert?

2) Getting killed by a PK is no different than geting killed by a monster - Well, it must be different for people, or people wouldn't complain about it right? Q.E.D. It must be different FOR THEM! To step in those people's shoes for a second, here's the difference: If I'm playing a character who has no business fighting lich lords. I don't go where lich lords are. You can't "not go" to where PKs are, because PKs get to go EVERYWHERE. Everywhere except town(see point 1).

3) Pking is part of the game - Yes it is. Now how big a part should it play? Last I checked there were 14 starting classes and 48 skills. Are these not part of the game? What if a player decides they would rather deal with these, than PKs? Does EVERTHING about this game have to involve PKing, fighting PKs, or avoiding PKs? Only if OSI lets it be that way.

4) Build a charcter that can survive - See point 3. I built a character that can survive PKs. It also is differnt than the character I would like to play. You see, the character I would like to play probably couldn't survive PKs. The point is, how long am I going to pay OSI to play a character that's not the one I'd like to play? And if players like me leave, would PKs miss us? You bet they would! Who would they hunt otherwise?

5) Recall is a sure way to avoid being PKed - If that were true, no one would ever be PKed! The fact is things like lag, gang-banging, the clumsy client interface, etc. keep players from recalling as surely as they might like to. The game mechanics itself make in very hard to recall once you're engaged in a fight. Not to mention the simple fact, that if you're sitting around waiting to recall, you're not having as much fun in the game. And that's the point of playing (PKing aside for you rabid PKers out there.

6) Don't pancake to OSI. Take matters into your own hands - See point 5 above. You can't have it both ways. Either the same recall that is so 'easy' to avoid PKs can be used by PKs to escape retribution, or the difficulty that PKs have in recalling away from trouble exists for other players to escape PKs. Choose a stance, and then realize that there are pros and cons to each. My stance is that with recall as easy as it is, bringing justice to PKs is nigh impossible unless the PK chooses to stay and fight, and then you must have built a character to fight PKs, specifically go to where the PK is, and decided that that's the way you want to play the game (notice how all those other points seem to keep getting n the way?). If I enjoy fighting monsters when I play this game, why must I now become an active 'anti' and play the game that way? That makes no more sense than to mandate that every murderer must have at least 75 points in tailoring, veterinary, spirit speak, or any other 'non-combat' skill. The other point is for an active 'anti'(I used to be one), there's no way of finding a PK. You must hope that one someone saw somewhere stays around waiting for you to get there, or you must sit around doing nothing, hoping that a murderer comes by. Then if one comes by, you can't take time to "roleplay" with him. You have to start a full assault before they decide to recall away. Guess what? I don't find that "fun". Now a PK might find that "fun". That's exactly how their business is run. So they get to have fun, I don't.

Bottom line: PKs won't reign themselves in to any "standard" in this game world. There aren't mechanics that allow "antis" to police the game. Characters that can't survive PvP are slowly being turned into mules, or are becoming PvP based (notice the disappearance of tradesmen lately?). If OSI doesn't do something, this game is going to consume itself. Of course, the rabid pro-PKs will blame that on "whiners" too...

Pantageas - (Pacific/Magincia)
*Hello, Forests 'R' Us? I was wondering if you have any trees I could see?*

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Siege's lack of recall makes it hard for reds to flee. The typical PK pattern, prior to the aggressor flag, was to attack and recall before there was any risk of dying. There's no way Sonoma's Dark Purust would have gotten to 365 (perhaps more) counts without dying if he couldn't recall at any time.

I remember at least one of the top murderers that were listed on the ingame bulletin boards at least on LS were crafters... Tinkers making Boom boxes that other characters would then drop in town for other players to open and die from the explosion.

The rest is spot on though, even if a PK sometimes ran out of reagents, they NEVER ran out of excuses.

 

[MalagAste]

It's true and that same arguement or list of arguments can be said about the excuses and crying given to many other things including getting EM drops. To get an EM drop I have to NOT play the character I want to play that makes RP sense for me to attend the events because that character isn't all beefed up to do "max" damage on every type of Mob there is and do MAX healing... since well he is what he is... But in order to enjoy the event and get the drop I am required to change what he fundamentally is... which isn't what I enjoy and wouldn't be "fun"... for me.

Same can be said about many other things... If I want to get Powerscrolls I have to risk going to Fel and I have to take a PvM character and risk having to PvP against people who are designed to PvP on a character NOT designed to PvP. This makes sense why?

Also if I would like to get the new deco items for VvV I also have to PvP?? How many PvPers do you know that like to deco???

All this crap is designed to either bring lambs to the slaughter.... or line the pockets of the PvPer.... so what is the point??? Is that what you think makes things "fun"? Well it's not exactly my idea of fun.

And then everyone cries and wonders why the lambs aren't coming to the slaughter..... newsflash we all know better. I don't care what you put in Fel..... it's not going to make me want to PvP... If I do PvP I prefer to do so on MY terms... for a strict RP reason.... not just because I can.

I used to enjoy RPPvP... however that seems to have died out... Again sometimes that's not fun either if the sides are not more equal. No one likes to always lose and to me being part of a gank squad isn't fun either... if the fight lasts only .2 seconds that's hardly enough time to even enjoy something and you spend more time getting ready for the fight than actually doing anything.

 

[NuSair]

Trammel came out because of all the people whining about PK's,and theives but back then PK's werent that bad, not nearly as bad as they are now, back then there was things in place to keep them in check, like not entering towns and stat loss, now anyone can go on a murdering rampage and face no consequences, and thieves werent that bad if you knew how to protect yourself.

It wasn't just because people were whining. They were losing subscriptions over it, and by the tens of thousands. Both RB and Kosner have both said the same thing. And the guy there gives out numbers. Trammel effectively doubled their subscription base. Who knows how large it would have been if Trammel (or something similar) had been done sooner.

 

[Aurelius]

Before the assorted acronyms and labels get even messier, I think the basic problem underlying all the stuff that has gone wrong, then and ever since, is fairly simple to define...

There is a tiny proportion of people who are out to impose what they want on other people, whether it be done through various forms of griefing, or the more underhanded and cheating methods used by the tiny minority of the playerbase. Some level of that must happen in any true sandbox game, but if it goes without any restrictions, then the 'victims' of that behaviour find this not to be any fun at all, and leave.

Trammel, at core, was an attempt to segregate people who were on different points of the 'what I am prepared to do in my game' scale, since most of the other options to allow the range of player styles would have been hugely costly in staff, time and effort. This gave a crude but mostly effective 'solution' to part of the problems that were causing them to lose customers.

The underlying issue is still there though, and has over time been slowly worsening - the 'problem' is not PvP, it's the way a very few people manipulate, bend rules and sometimes simply cheat to 'win' in their version of the game, whilst increasingly abusing and insulting everyone outside their little group. The problem is not the in-game economy (insane as it may be) it's the distortions caused by those who mass produce, dupe and other 'clever' little tricks so they can benefit (and in many cases make real life money) from it. The problems with the chat channels, event griefing, and all the other anti-social activities, is not that they exist - they always will in any big enough group of people - but how and if they are constrained. All these, and more, combine to the real fundamental issue - which was the same one then as it is now - for too many people the game is not fun any more, and they are going elsewhere.

What we have now is an evolved version of the same core problem Trammel was meant to help resolve, but actually only put a temporary bandage on - some people are playing a 'supremacy over others' game, and are finding that the rules that were meant to curb them are no longer there or no longer enforced - Pre-Trammel the dream was players would police things themselves, when that clearly did not work and they lost customers hand over fist, they went for Trammel as their solution - now, I feel we are actually at a similar point in the life of the game, but without the nerve, or maybe even inclination, to make any big change on that scale to try sort things out.

Maybe lack of money, or time, or ability, or inclination - hard to tell since everything related to UO is hidden by smoke and mirrors, but whatever the reason, the end result is there pretty clearly in the open spaces, smaller guilds, empty shards.....