If UO didnt have rares, would you still play?

[Smoot]

Simple poll, would you still play UO if there werent non-spawning, non-store item rares to collect?

and, as a topic of discussion, how do you feel broadsword should handle new items? store items? Like if a Phoenix suit or server births were added to the UO store, or any rare item really. How many rares would it take being made "non-rare" by any means before it would make you think about leaving the game?

we all know that technically nothing is "safe". there is no guarantee that anything will remain a "rare" forever, and that some are safer than others. by their nature, promotional items and serverbirths are the riskiest class of rares, with EM items and "old tagged" items generally the least risky of identical items being released or become spawning.

thankyou all for voting and discussing this topic, its been something ive always wondered about.

 

[DJAd]

Q. If UO didnt have rares, would you still play?

A. Yes

 

[Polaris75]

A. Yes... I played a year on Hybrid before coming back to Osi about 6-7 years ago... of course! But that said...
B. I never want to lose my rare items. I dislike the current trend of adding things to the UoStore... like the singing balls and secret chests. A lot of people who bought secret chests or singing balls could quit because of that... if they were on the edge already. (I know these were originally purchased and not achieved in game, but still.) Plus that gives the money hoarders and cheaters ample opportunity to cheat/exploit countless other players... also putting them further on the edge of whether they think UO is worth playing or not. If they did that to phoenix suits... before I have ever even owned one... I think my chances of "winning UO" have basically dwindled to zero at that point.. but hopefully that never happens, lol. That would be a little too far. I don't even like the current drop rate... there use to be a drop once per month per shard.... now it's like every week. Every new item sucks... and even the ones that don't like the Nightmare wave and mystery rock (bought one for 150m), nobody really wants them too because they are the new ones. I dunno, just my two cents. With that said... I'll take a nightmare wave for 300m right meow.... lol.

 

[DarkLotus[FL]]

Q. If UO didnt have rares, would you still play?

A. No

 

[Lord Gandalf]

Problem is that a great amount of items were "considered" rares by players, just cause "they cant get them anymore" without studying the cause of their disappearance.

Some players are dumb enough to disregard the fact that they are duped (ex: glacial cloth, weapons), or granted through an exploit (ice white cloths), or just too old for nothing like double exceptional crafted items, or weird named html runebooks its really funny how players turn those little game bugs making stupid conclusions by calling them unique and selling them for sick amounts just because the devs wont give a damn about fixing them.

Does anyone remember when the shroud of talkeesh got duped, and they got all turned into monks robes? Thats what expect the devs to do about each exploit item that hits the market.

So those "rares", i cant care less about having them in the game.

I would only judge a good rare by checking its functionality, color hue, animation, and number of drops. Otherwise it is not a rare. And those are the ones that should never go on UO store.

 

[Scribbles]

Rares are just souvenirs. They are the nostalgic reminder of what once was. With out them I have a feeling some other item in the game would take over that nostalgia. For instance i still keep my Raresfest outfits, some of the things players have engraved, etc etc.

Furthermore id still say that real rares, ie the ones like double exceptional, made by, sewn by.... you know the items that the game no longer makes... would ultimately still exist.

EM rares are not rares, they are just souvenirs to an event that are so rudely only handed out to a couple handfuls of people.

 

[Longtooths]

I honestly doubt I would play. I certainly would not keep 8 accounts open, maybe scale back to just one or two accounts

 

[Xavier-Catskills]

Selling rares in store is a cheap scummy way of getting revenue. They could create new items and make new names. For gods sake, its a small pixel image and theyre selling it for cash, spent 20 minutes and make something new. Its not blueprints for a newly designed fighter jet, its a box for storage.


and yes id play.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Yes I would still play if there were no rares.

I didn't really get into rares collecting until about 2010. I never had any interest at all in server births back in the old days and Seer items were a lot more difficult to come by back then compared to now.

I spent the majority of my time doing PvM just for the fun of doing champion spawns or farming Lich Lords and Ancient Wyrms to raise skills. I never really cared or even knew about what "expensive and rare" stuff they dropped.

 

[Smoot]

I spent the majority of my time doing PvM just for the fun of doing champion spawns or farming Lich Lords and Ancient Wyrms to raise skills. I never really cared or even knew about what "expensive and rare" stuff they dropped.

but to be fair, couldnt you just do this on a free shard without the EM program or close to 20 years of rares that have been created. 10 years ago i played much the same way, pvp and pvm with little concern for "rare" items. but now i feel that if i wanted to do that, there would be no reason for me to be paying a subscription fee. honestly i could do without all the new content of the last 5 years or so and still have a very enjoyable (probably more enjoyable) pvp and pvm experience. I realize my position is definitely a minority one, and there are other reasons to play the official servers. its just for the sake of arguement and the point of this thread, to try to gauge how many people are in fact playing UO on the official servers specifically for the rares collecting.

 

[Captn Norrington]

but to be fair, couldnt you just do this on a free shard without the EM program or close to 20 years of rares that have been created. 10 years ago i played much the same way, pvp and pvm with little concern for "rare" items. but now i feel that if i wanted to do that, there would be no reason for me to be paying a subscription fee.

I completely agree that the same thing could be achieved on a free shard, but personally I have always refused to use free shards and stayed with real UO because I see the free shards as "cheap knockoffs" of the real thing, even though admittedly some of them do have graphics and perks that are superior to the real game. I guess to me I see it as the difference between buying a real gold ring, or a fake gold ring in real life. Yes the fake gold ring looks mostly the same and will cost you less, but you will always know it isn't real even if no one else does. Free shard UO just wouldn't feel the same as real UO to me if that makes any sense.

 

[Jason-]

I've come back and quit UO tons of times. The only reason I have stayed this time was because I found something different to do in the game that I enjoyed...which was collecting items. Be it official rares, old clothing/armor, player engraved items from player events that I was at, EM items....just random stuff that I like. For 15 years I didn't think for a second what my house looked like, unless it was to make sure no one could cast on me while I was afk. Now thats exactly what I spend my time worrying about...that and the ways to make gold to keep doing it. I would play if there were no rares, but I wouldn't keep playing. It would be a few months every other year or so.

 

[blend]

Q: If you didnt have rares collecting would you still play?
A: Maybe yes

Rares is the spice of UO. I like Rare people.
Most part is very friendly, also some are really intelligent people.
If they are leave UO, Maybe I can not continue the game.

some are covered in greed ...
Some people cling to rares for the benefit
For them this is not a game. This is a RL job $$$

Yes, they are also our one of the parts ,
Everyone has a greedy in mind...Including me ....

 

[Smoot]

I completely agree that the same thing could be achieved on a free shard, but personally I have always refused to use free shards and stayed with real UO because I see the free shards as "cheap knockoffs" of the real thing, even though admittedly some of them do have graphics and perks that are superior to the real game. I guess to me I see it as the difference between buying a real gold ring, or a fake gold ring in real life. Yes the fake gold ring looks mostly the same and will cost you less, but you will always know it isn't real even if no one else does. Free shard UO just wouldn't feel the same as real UO to me if that makes any sense.

i like your ring analogy, i guess to me i love rares collecting, and the EM program. its whats kept me paying a subscription all these years. otherwise id probably play very sporadically and much much less than i do now. like when i left UO for wow before i dove into the EM program. i think i would buy a wife i loved a real gold ring, but a wife i didnt love a fake one lol. if UO didnt have the EM program and rares collecting, i would still enjoy it but i dont think the love would be there. I wont do more than mention other investments that could influence a decision (friends, characters, skill gain time, armor, other deco/mounts/etc), this whole thread is largely hypothetical of course but mainly focused on rares collecting, which what i mainly do in UO now.

 

[Escaflowne]

Yeah I'd still play. There is so many different parts to UO to do. From when i first started playing in 2000 till around 2012 all I did really was Roleplay, 90% of my time was spent on roleplaying. The Europa RP community was what kept me playing all those years, it was like an RPG you couldn't complete, always different storylines, quests, different wars etc all thought up and brought about by the players within the RP community. When i quit for 2 years and came back, i created a new RP guild and tried to roleplay again. But the Europa RP community had gotten too small and died off. After 6 months i quit again and thought to myself I wouldn't play UO anymore without the RP community I grew up playing with.

2 Years later popping my head back in on return to britannia and I was talked into returning once again. But this time I came back with a different mindset. The RP community had gotten to a size I wasn't happy with anymore so I decided to try the other parts of the game. I created a casual hunting guild instead, starting doing all the PvM parts of the game, started helping out with Europa Auction once and week. After GM'ing a big RP guild for 3 years it was hard to go back to just attending events rather than creating them because im a creative person. So i started creating events for Europa as a shard, Public hunts, storylines, fun and games. I obtained Governor of Minoc Position and started attending all EM events which i never got to do in RP.

And even now after being back for 2 years, Ive just created 2 fel PvP chars as I have not done the fel pvp scene since 2002 when it was Order and Chaos without any magic gear.
I've collected rares for many years and whilst I love it and its a bit of an addiction lol; There are so many other parts to the game. I only realised this when i returned 2 years ago, I was all about the roleplay before and thought without Roleplay UO would suck. But I came back with a different mindset to make do with what you have and to try new things. If your feeling a bit bored doing something in UO, try something different and new. One time i was getting a bit bored so I decided to create a player town and got into the decorating side of UO. The most recent time i was getting a bit bored ive now decided to give the fel pvp scene a go. UO is what you make of it really and theres so many different things to do .

 

[Deaol]

I cherish my old items as they have sentimental value; old friends, lost friends.. good times. I could care less with what people are calling rares these days; so if they were to all go tomorrow; yes I would still at least keep my original account active just to keep my gf houses on sonoma standing.

 

[Tail of a Comet]

Of course I'd still play. I remember when my first tamed doggy died getting attacked by Orcs. I could not save his life... I was crying all day on my bed in real life ( that time Ultima didnt have the pet bonding system) and wanted to quit the game. But why do I keep playing this game?
Because I love making history in this game and house decoration and fun fighting with everyone too.