I played when the game started, it was so new and exciting and fresh, I left for twelve years and come back and the game seems to have lost all it's flavor. It has become an unsurprising grinder with such a lack of any imagination or spontaneity that they will even announce the events ( which are all essentially the same ). I have been terribly disappointed in how this game has been driven into the ground.
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The game has changed tremendously in 12 years. It's less of a grind now than it was in 2003. With jewelry & scrolls of transcendence you can get to GM considerably faster than you ever could when you last played. Are you relearning solo? Because it would benefit you greatly if you had someone to help you get reacclimated.
Hey Rodge! Welcome back! I too just came back. I had tried RTB for the free period and then work got crazy and it took me months to actually come back... The game is great now. There's a lot more stuff to do than in the past. Sometimes nostalgia clouds our judgment. I remember spending hours mining and enjoying it back in the day, but these days it's just not the same. Now there are so many choices it's easy to just think it's worse these days. In many sandbox games it's what you want to make of them that will drive your enjoyment.
As Angel pointed out... making friends and getting at least a warrior template up to snuff will enhance your enjoyment. Starting off with a crafter/tamer is likely going to give you a burnout real quick, but warrior templates can get up to live-able status quickly and you can start doing stuff with guilds where you don't feel like you're constantly begging for help.
Hope you stay. Atlantic is great for meeting people! Siege is great if you liked the old ruleset.
As Angel pointed out... making friends and getting at least a warrior template up to snuff will enhance your enjoyment. Starting off with a crafter/tamer is likely going to give you a burnout real quick, but warrior templates can get up to live-able status quickly and you can start doing stuff with guilds where you don't feel like you're constantly begging for help.
Hope you stay. Atlantic is great for meeting people! Siege is great if you liked the old ruleset.
Archer. I always swore I'd never be anything but a mage, but I hvae fallen in love with my archer
When I returned almost all of my old guild had quit or almost so. It was a bit disheartening at first. But I got with a GREAT guild, and I am having a blast!
What can I say, sometimes it's really not just the game that changes, but the people playing it. Preferences and expectations evolve and in twelve years it's likely the case.
I like to believe there is enough content to find satisfaction in it. But you have to give it a chance and find it.
Reminds me of a great quote:
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to twenty one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years". - Mark Twain
Sorry, all sounds you are playing a different game. What do you do in game? I champ (grind), skill gain (grind), craft (grind), I am in three guilds one is a vendor guild that does nothing but buy and sell. A champ guild that is large but I have never seen more than three people on at a time. and a help guild that never reply to any questions.
I went to what was supposedly an event. It was just a lot of people hitting a mob, after half an hour I left because it was so boring.
Doesn't anyone remember real events like the spontaneous invasion of Britain by lizard men?
I went to what was supposedly an event. It was just a lot of people hitting a mob, after half an hour I left because it was so boring.
Doesn't anyone remember real events like the spontaneous invasion of Britain by lizard men?
Sure man I remember the spontaneous events. Dude would throw some spiders down at the brit cross roads, or pop a gate to the ancient wyrm which I remember being quite horrendous at the time. There were bodies everywhere...
A lot of people hinted at it who you play with. Me? I like to pvp and I'll throw some pvm in once in a while or go on a crafting bender.
The wife likes to do tmaps and Ill help her out when we do them.
I tried plants when they first came out and every single one of them died. But it was something to do.
I raised some fish once, but suffered the same fate as the plants.
There's a lot man, if none of that appeals to you, I think you'll find just about any game you play boring.
If you're ever on GL and want to give something a try give me a shout. I'm down for it.
I think you need more chaos!
Join in a shard hunt with old player who know what they have to do and a few noobs who run around like maniacs whilst the old ones try to explain what’s going on. It’s an ordinary hunt but with the new ones its chaos and you most likely die to a rat helping a noob *chuckles*
Are you into crafting? I am not but as far as I understand it seems to be a never ending story how to craft the perfect armor, weapon or whatever.
Are there no Player organized hunts on the shard you play? Organize one yourself, than take a chair, a table and some booth with you sit down in the middle of it and give out some ale!
You want a spontaneous invasion of Britain by lizard men, just contact the EM and organize one!
Bored at an event? Make a healer point like that:
How about a simple event like the Caravans on Europa?
I think UO is a place where you can do more things than in any other game. Just use your imagination!
Join in a shard hunt with old player who know what they have to do and a few noobs who run around like maniacs whilst the old ones try to explain what’s going on. It’s an ordinary hunt but with the new ones its chaos and you most likely die to a rat helping a noob *chuckles*
Are you into crafting? I am not but as far as I understand it seems to be a never ending story how to craft the perfect armor, weapon or whatever.
Are there no Player organized hunts on the shard you play? Organize one yourself, than take a chair, a table and some booth with you sit down in the middle of it and give out some ale!
You want a spontaneous invasion of Britain by lizard men, just contact the EM and organize one!
Bored at an event? Make a healer point like that:
How about a simple event like the Caravans on Europa?
I think UO is a place where you can do more things than in any other game. Just use your imagination!
Go to the New Magincia bazaar and see how much gold people are offering for various things, then go after those things doing whatever you need to do and fight your way past whatever gets in your way.
This sandbox has 18 years of content piled into it, there has to be something to do that isn't a grind as far as your concerned.
This sandbox has 18 years of content piled into it, there has to be something to do that isn't a grind as far as your concerned.
I mean... what do you expect? Were you really thinking you could come back to an 18-year-old game that you had played at a time when it was helping to reinvent computer gaming with a nearly brand new concept, and everything would be just as fresh and vibrant after all this time had passed?
To dissent from the crowd a bit here, I don't think games are JUST what you make of them, especially online games. Obviously an individual's experience is just that, and some people could be content with UO unchanged for the next 18 years, but that doesn't mean that there aren't valid criticism to be made about the content of a game, nor that such love is or should be expected to be universally felt.
The game IS very grindy, maybe not for skill gain (but that still is to a degree) but pvm/"events", crafting, any of the repeatable quest where a half tab of content butter is scrapped over like 200 pieces of bread... basically everything you can do requires doing the same usually simple thing with very little variation ad infinitum either hoping to get a lucky roll on the RNG or to reach whatever ludicrously high point plateau you are shooting for (Blackthorn points, turn in points, tiered quests/various loyalties, whatever). Obviously UO isn't the only game to do it, but modern games tend to do a better job of making the grind fun, whereas UO plays very much like a game from the 90's (which isn't always bad, but often can be).
Basically, I think everyone here is right and wrong. There IS much fun to be had in UO, but that fun DOES have limits to all but most die hard fans. As for the "magic" yeah, that's long gone, but it has nothing to do with the state of the game, but more the state of gaming in general. UO WAS novel and fresh then. It was a new kind of game, it's not anymore. There are plenty of similar games out there that will appeal to different players in different ways, but the genre is now established. The magic of newness is just gone, as it inevitably must be with all things.
if you went to one of the most recent global events, yes it was very basic and the bulk of it boring. these are not regular events, most EMs have a very in depth story going thru the event. something the global events just dont have. This round of global events was: brief intro story, go kill sea monsters. good loot at least, those mobs have some of the best loot in the game.
i stopped doing champ spawns years ago cause its boring.
i havent really trained skills in years (if i really need a skill i train till it gets hard, then buy scrolls of trancendence)
building suits is something i find very enjoyable from time to time. Its certainly not a grind, as each suit is unique, like putting together a very complicated puzzle, where some of the pieces dont exactly fit, and some pieces missing that you have to go search for from either whats for sale or fresh loot.
Then actual loot, drops and such is like a surprise. I dont farm for loot (again, the grind would be boring) but do loot mobs at EM events and do public scalis hunts from time to time. When i do loot something amazing its a nice reward, but the thrill is mainly in the search.
Lets be honest, its a very casual game now but also lots to enjoy. Take collecting. Something many make fun of, but its a huge part of the game now. From holiday rewards to server births to weapons / armor to EM rares. and just about anything else.
PVP is also a nice diversion for many, a fulltime gameplay style for few nowadays. I take my guys out very infrequently, but it can be 30mins or so of something "different" from what i normally do in UO now.
to make a long story short, the game only becomes a grind if you let it.
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Find someone who is willing to do silly things with you!
I took a guildie to do the bag of sending quest yesterday, we had so much fun! Of course we hang out in vent together and just talk and laugh about stuff but it was so fun!
Then he was about to go to bed and we got to talking about how hard it is to fine high end ore and wood...and I said *Yeah that's why I try to do the void pool but I only have 17 points* *What's the void pool?* he asked, * and what does that have to do with high end ore and wood??*
Well...I told him about the rewards and he said *Okay lets go do it!*
We only made it to wave 14 with the 2 of us but now he's hooked! Gonna try to get the guild to do more runs.
Usually we are doing T-maps together or spawning. We do a LOT of medusa/navery/lady mel etc. so it was nice to get him out of his niche and teach him some *new* stuff!
Hope you find your niche!
I took a guildie to do the bag of sending quest yesterday, we had so much fun! Of course we hang out in vent together and just talk and laugh about stuff but it was so fun!
Then he was about to go to bed and we got to talking about how hard it is to fine high end ore and wood...and I said *Yeah that's why I try to do the void pool but I only have 17 points* *What's the void pool?* he asked, * and what does that have to do with high end ore and wood??*
Well...I told him about the rewards and he said *Okay lets go do it!*
We only made it to wave 14 with the 2 of us but now he's hooked! Gonna try to get the guild to do more runs.
Usually we are doing T-maps together or spawning. We do a LOT of medusa/navery/lady mel etc. so it was nice to get him out of his niche and teach him some *new* stuff!
Hope you find your niche!
According to your profile you started playing this game at the age of 4 and quit playing at the age of 10 and now at the age of 22 you come back and things have changed. Yea things have changed but you have changed even more than UO. You no longer require your mom and dad to make decisions for you of what you can and can not do in UO and you are even allowed to have your own account and pay for it. Welcome to adulthood and like most of us the things we loved doing as a toddler hold no interest to us now. Was it UO that you enjoyed so much or was it being able to play an adult game with mom and/or dad that you really enjoyed and now that you can play on your own UO no longer holds that same flavor as you call it.
I did. But yesterday and not when I replied today. Sorry!
In this case, maybe UO just isn't the game for him anymore. It's not for everyone.
Could just be a fake age. According to my profile my DOD is Nov 24, 1902! Day, month and clearly year are all wrong
IMHO I think he/she changed the age to the right age because the way he/she is looking at UO back then is like a child playing on Mommy and Daddy's Account or looking through Rose Colored Glasses. Either way in 12 years, yes UO has grown but I think Rodge has grown up and the things he/she enjoyed as a child no longer holds his/hers interest anymore. The old UO is still there just go ask anyone that plays Seige. Look at Rodge's comment about greed is the other thread, killing someone and taking all of their stuff was totally all about greed and that was UO's basis in the beginning, PvP. It's hell growing up and even more hell growing older as even the most die-hard players from back in the day have changed their idea of what UO is and how they play it.Could just be a fake age. According to my profile my DOD is Nov 24, 1902! Day, month and clearly year are all wrong
Yes, UO has lost the flavor. Since Stygian abyss every developer team did produce failure after failure. Every single publish in the last 3 or 4 years was driven by the need to get it out of the door and keep people paying ( not playing, paying ). All of these could have been so much better with enough time or money. Instead all of the newer publishes look like a horrible quick panic hack that lacks polishing and testing. Unfixed bugs where ever you go, its pointless to report em, some bugs are as old as sa release.
Doesnt help that everything new is designed as a grind to keep people paying for their multiple accounts .
Alot of mmo games are grind heavy at top level , the big difference is, in certain other games, the grind can be fun or a challenge, in uo the grind is just an insult to the brain.
We got a heavy item based pvp which is time consuming as hell, since relevant consumables and items can get looted.
Pvm is outdated as hell, if the dev team doesnt produce outstanding stuff for new expansion, instead of the old lame random crap featuring chaining random necro spells,chaining mana drains and paralyzes plus a few heavy melee attacks, more people will leave.
There are a few challenging fights in uo, the big problem is, quite a few of them are complicated not because of the encounter , but because of either enhanced client bugs or encounter bugs. Dont talk about cc, the game will not win new costumers with that client, especially not gamers.
And why is it, that every single boss worth killing for loot is best done on archer or thrower, same for em events. Mystics or tamers second, every other temp is basically useless for doing damage against them.
I do not want to talk about lack of cheat or scripter protection or the whole multi client/ multi box issue, both of these are worth a multiple page rant by themelves.
Doesnt help that everything new is designed as a grind to keep people paying for their multiple accounts .
Alot of mmo games are grind heavy at top level , the big difference is, in certain other games, the grind can be fun or a challenge, in uo the grind is just an insult to the brain.
We got a heavy item based pvp which is time consuming as hell, since relevant consumables and items can get looted.
Pvm is outdated as hell, if the dev team doesnt produce outstanding stuff for new expansion, instead of the old lame random crap featuring chaining random necro spells,chaining mana drains and paralyzes plus a few heavy melee attacks, more people will leave.
There are a few challenging fights in uo, the big problem is, quite a few of them are complicated not because of the encounter , but because of either enhanced client bugs or encounter bugs. Dont talk about cc, the game will not win new costumers with that client, especially not gamers.
And why is it, that every single boss worth killing for loot is best done on archer or thrower, same for em events. Mystics or tamers second, every other temp is basically useless for doing damage against them.
I do not want to talk about lack of cheat or scripter protection or the whole multi client/ multi box issue, both of these are worth a multiple page rant by themelves.
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Yes UO has changed a lot... if it's grindy I suppose most games are anymore... or they are WoWesk and they are nothing more than a series of stupid quests until you reach the "end" at which they are just boring... But just having a series of quests makes them predictable and almost grindy and well... for people who lack any self-will and imagination.
UO is a Sandbox. What you bring to the sandbox to play in it determines what you are going to get out of it. If dungeons are a bore and a grind try mixing it up some. One of the biggest problems most folk find with things they always complain it's too easy... Well put your uber suit away and fashion yourself a suit that isn't quite so uber... Heck go into the dungeon in nothing but GM armor with a GM weapon.... See how "easy" it is. Find a group that will tackle an ancient wyrm with you that way!
That I suppose is one of the reasons I enjoy Role-play... you can role-play that some "curse" is upon Destard and you can no longer wear or use magical items in there... and you must kill this ancient wyrm in there who has this item that will allow you to take down the wizard in there... But look out the wizard commands 2 shadow wyrms and a demon whom you'll have to kill before you can get to him... Stuff like that spices up the game for me.
Go out and skuttle a prirate vessle. And as far as the EM events go... some of them can get grindy. And I can't speak for the EMs on other shards but the EMs on GLs are amazing storytellers. I really enjoy the role-play way they bring about their stories.... even telling tales about why there is a pyramid in the middle of the desert in Malas. Who once lived there.... etc...
Like I said UO is a sandbox... you get out what you put in. If you don't bring anything into the sandbox then you are left trying to play with those other kids already there.... and some don't share their toys. If you only rely on others in the sandbox to entertain you well then you might find yourself disappointed. But that goes for most games... Problem with a lot of gameplayers and the reason they don't play UO is because they lack the imagination to color outside the lines and draw their own pictures. Most gamers like the WoWesk playstyles that lead them around by the nosering... They simply can't or won't use their imaginations to play.
If you expect to be disappointed you probably will be. If you expect UO to be what it was when you played last you will be disappointed. If you expect to find folk you once knew it might be difficult. If you expect to be end game still after 12 years you'll likely be disappointed. Sometimes you have to forget about expectations and just play.
UO is a Sandbox. What you bring to the sandbox to play in it determines what you are going to get out of it. If dungeons are a bore and a grind try mixing it up some. One of the biggest problems most folk find with things they always complain it's too easy... Well put your uber suit away and fashion yourself a suit that isn't quite so uber... Heck go into the dungeon in nothing but GM armor with a GM weapon.... See how "easy" it is. Find a group that will tackle an ancient wyrm with you that way!
That I suppose is one of the reasons I enjoy Role-play... you can role-play that some "curse" is upon Destard and you can no longer wear or use magical items in there... and you must kill this ancient wyrm in there who has this item that will allow you to take down the wizard in there... But look out the wizard commands 2 shadow wyrms and a demon whom you'll have to kill before you can get to him... Stuff like that spices up the game for me.
Go out and skuttle a prirate vessle. And as far as the EM events go... some of them can get grindy. And I can't speak for the EMs on other shards but the EMs on GLs are amazing storytellers. I really enjoy the role-play way they bring about their stories.... even telling tales about why there is a pyramid in the middle of the desert in Malas. Who once lived there.... etc...
Like I said UO is a sandbox... you get out what you put in. If you don't bring anything into the sandbox then you are left trying to play with those other kids already there.... and some don't share their toys. If you only rely on others in the sandbox to entertain you well then you might find yourself disappointed. But that goes for most games... Problem with a lot of gameplayers and the reason they don't play UO is because they lack the imagination to color outside the lines and draw their own pictures. Most gamers like the WoWesk playstyles that lead them around by the nosering... They simply can't or won't use their imaginations to play.
If you expect to be disappointed you probably will be. If you expect UO to be what it was when you played last you will be disappointed. If you expect to find folk you once knew it might be difficult. If you expect to be end game still after 12 years you'll likely be disappointed. Sometimes you have to forget about expectations and just play.
UO isn't what it used to be. The halcyon days are gone. The addicted die hards will tell you otherwise but truth be told, UO is a mere shadow of the great game it used to be. I keep an eye on developments hoping that something will happen to bring back those days but its not going to happen. Todays UO is a bloated strung out game with no structure or purpose and a dwindling niche player base combined with a Dev team which has no real clue as to what this game is about. If it was a dog they would put it down.
Let's step back for a sec. If this game were exactly the same it used to be years ago it would have already been dead.
I mean if Dude were to throw some spiders down now at brit crossroads and expect people to show up we would look at him as if he were deranged.
This game became item based YEARS ago, so yeah there will always be grinding of some sort. This comes with any game I've ever played.
The best part of UO is that it is a sandbox and you can do just about anything you want to do. You're not stuck on some never ending cycle of quests going from A to B to kill C before you can move forward.
If UO isn't your thing anymore that's cool, but it's not worth your time to come to stratics and tell us how terrible UO is because most of us still enjoy it..even if we need a break sometimes too..
I mean if Dude were to throw some spiders down now at brit crossroads and expect people to show up we would look at him as if he were deranged.
This game became item based YEARS ago, so yeah there will always be grinding of some sort. This comes with any game I've ever played.
The best part of UO is that it is a sandbox and you can do just about anything you want to do. You're not stuck on some never ending cycle of quests going from A to B to kill C before you can move forward.
If UO isn't your thing anymore that's cool, but it's not worth your time to come to stratics and tell us how terrible UO is because most of us still enjoy it..even if we need a break sometimes too..
Well said.
mesanna is/has been an avid player for years. and one of the other devs was chessy's former EM. i think they might have some idea what the game is about. now sometimes they may make decisions that we don't like but that doesn't mean they are clueless.
More of a sandpit than sandbox, full of children swearing and having tantrums.
I am not paying fifty bucks to sail a sea with three other people just to do fifty corguls to get one sash.
Use your imagination to think up new players to talk too, hope you have a strong imagination.
LOL love this.
some of the devs do actually play the game from time to time, however i get the feeling that "avid player" means "i played an "all kill" tamer 10 years ago" if youve gone to dev meet and greets, and even seen whats been posted recently there are many indications that many devs are generally out of touch. the most recent example, Mesanna thought "cross shard" players actually transferred the characters from shard to shard, and even implemented a game mechanic to combat this issue, which doesnt even exist. thats just the most recent example. Just one other, we got an event item that was a totally common item and color. totally re-creatable by any player with the dye. if devs simply looked around the game and knew about things it would have been obvious.
And then of course you have the broken EC, which no developer who plays would put up with - unless they all use CC, which would make them unqualified to make an EC in the first place
Maybe that's why the EC proved less than a winner with so many CC users when it was released. The Devs who wrote the EC code 'knew of' the good features in the standard modern game UI but couldn't make them work well or work well together because they were not crazy about the 'modern features' to start with.
If I, a definite CC UI fan, had been the one writing another client for UO, it would have been written to appear much like the CC by default with options for other settings. A CC like UI of the popular style with the new bells & whistles. Once they had a CC in modern code they would have had just one client and could have added bells & whistles to their hearts content.
It's the opposite for me
Love the EC UI. HATE the EC graphics. So I'll stick with old faithful. The CC.