When you login to play UO you usually have something you want to do. Whether it be a treasure map, going mining, hanging around Yew gate, etc. This is true for anyone playing any video game.
The dilemma for myself, and what I imagine many others, is there is nothing in particular that I want to do in UO. Thus I am not logging in as often anymore.
The biggest reason for me to login in the past 15 years were factions, IDOCs, and champion spawns. I like playing with our guild and competing against other people/guilds. If you are familiar with all three of these systems and how they have evolved over time then you can understand my frustration with UO today.
IDOCs are just unfun; housing demand has plummeted and the loot is pretty worthless. Champion spawns went from being a group activity with economy control to a solo sport with character transfers.
Then you come to mass group PVP. When factions came out in 2000 it was the best thing ever. I remember the first few nights there were corpses littered everywhere in Felucca. You had huge three way battles with dozens of players, sometimes over a hundred. This went on for over one year.
Then the classic development neglect kicked in. It would be eight years before factions saw some small additions which once again exploded participation numbers. It created new interesting dynamics with champion spawns. Then things went off the rails trying to do things that players didn't want. Instead of giving players reasons to participate in factions, the focus was on adding leaderboards for healing and stealthing.
I could go on all day about this. The point is that in factions, champion spawns, and IDOCs you can make plans. If an IDOC is going to fall at 2pm then you know to be there at 2pm. If the faction sigils are stealable you could tell everyone we are going to start guarding Thursday at 10am. When Harrowers were something people wanted to do our guild might plan to do one days in advance.
In Vice vs Virtue there is nothing to plan. It goes 24/7 with no stopping. You get the message that a city is being attacked, but if you go there is a 90% chance you won't see anyone there and you capture it yourself. The capture means nothing other than a few points. You can't lose those points or have them taken away from you. Group PVP in UO has been reduced to the same mindless fighting you see in Call of Duty or a World of Warcraft battleground.
The bottom line is I want a system where myself and other players can plan to do things. It is the biggest thing missing in this new way of group PVP.
It is sort of ironic how the governor system was added to Trammel which incorporates these concepts with elections and trade deals, yet they were removed from Felucca. So now in Trammel players can control towns and get bonuses while Felucca gets nothing. How messed up is that?
The dilemma for myself, and what I imagine many others, is there is nothing in particular that I want to do in UO. Thus I am not logging in as often anymore.
The biggest reason for me to login in the past 15 years were factions, IDOCs, and champion spawns. I like playing with our guild and competing against other people/guilds. If you are familiar with all three of these systems and how they have evolved over time then you can understand my frustration with UO today.
IDOCs are just unfun; housing demand has plummeted and the loot is pretty worthless. Champion spawns went from being a group activity with economy control to a solo sport with character transfers.
Then you come to mass group PVP. When factions came out in 2000 it was the best thing ever. I remember the first few nights there were corpses littered everywhere in Felucca. You had huge three way battles with dozens of players, sometimes over a hundred. This went on for over one year.
Then the classic development neglect kicked in. It would be eight years before factions saw some small additions which once again exploded participation numbers. It created new interesting dynamics with champion spawns. Then things went off the rails trying to do things that players didn't want. Instead of giving players reasons to participate in factions, the focus was on adding leaderboards for healing and stealthing.
I could go on all day about this. The point is that in factions, champion spawns, and IDOCs you can make plans. If an IDOC is going to fall at 2pm then you know to be there at 2pm. If the faction sigils are stealable you could tell everyone we are going to start guarding Thursday at 10am. When Harrowers were something people wanted to do our guild might plan to do one days in advance.
In Vice vs Virtue there is nothing to plan. It goes 24/7 with no stopping. You get the message that a city is being attacked, but if you go there is a 90% chance you won't see anyone there and you capture it yourself. The capture means nothing other than a few points. You can't lose those points or have them taken away from you. Group PVP in UO has been reduced to the same mindless fighting you see in Call of Duty or a World of Warcraft battleground.
The bottom line is I want a system where myself and other players can plan to do things. It is the biggest thing missing in this new way of group PVP.
It is sort of ironic how the governor system was added to Trammel which incorporates these concepts with elections and trade deals, yet they were removed from Felucca. So now in Trammel players can control towns and get bonuses while Felucca gets nothing. How messed up is that?
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