E
Extra Value Meal
Guest
After reading various threads about the topic and being frustrated by some of the hollow answers, I decided to write this "book" to portray my opinions on the whole "What ruined UO" debate.
Some bits I wrote myself while others I wrote awhile ago for my column. Link
Chapter 1 - A Unique Experience
When risk and consequence was actually common in online games, Ultima Online stood above the rest for delivering an engrossing and open-ended online experience rife with danger. UO was and still is one of the rare breeds of MMOs considered to be sandboxes. In sandbox MMOs, unlike their more linear brethren, players can do whatever they want to whomever and wherever. You can place houses, run a tavern or other place of business, hunt, mine, fish, treasure hunt, kill other players or steal from them. Grind was minimal as there were no levels to achieve, but only skills to gain. The skill system was also open ended and a player could be whatever they wanted. A lockpicking thief, a jack-of-all-trades craftsman, a bard tamer or a tank mage, all options were available and hybridization was encouraged.
UO was a game that offered true consequences for your actions. If you were killed, your belongings could be taken by other players and you had the choice of either fighting back to reclaim your possessions or head back to town to restock. Thieves skulked around town peaking into people's backpacks to steal their hard-earned goods and murderers roamed the countryside looking for players to kill and loot. Nothing was safe and because of this, bustling communities developed to help protect the innocents and combat those who would do harm to their fellow players. The only other commercial MMO to offer similar gameplay is EVE: Online and it is an extremely successful game.
Chapter 2 - The Golden Age
At its peak, UO boasted around 100K subscribers. Even though this number pales in comparison to WoW and Lineage 2, where WoW has more than nine million and Lineage 2 over 14 million, it was an accomplishment during the infancy of MMOs. While arguments still rage about what caused UO's descent into oblivion, I can honestly say, as a UO member for eight years, it was a combination of events ranging from extremely poor decision making, loud-mouthed individuals demanding more items over bugfixes and just simple excuses. Sadly UO's golden age was extremely brief as game developers began to cater to players who wanted little to no risk or consequence, zero need to interact with their fellow players and items, items, items. These players no longer wanted to risk anything and the community degenerated into a gimmie-gimme mob with an insatiable appetite for items.
Chapter 3 - The Further Rise of the Game, but at the Cost of Its Community
After years of flooded complaints about being incessantly killed, stolen from or griefed, developers finally realized what had to be done, but instead of thinking things through and coming up with a solution that would benefit all players, they released the poorly-implemented Renaissance expansion in 2000. Instead of making a new land mass for players looking to escape from PKs and thieves, the developers in all their wisdom duplicated the entire game and inevitably split the playerbase in half. Trammel offered complete sanctuary from ruffians while Felucca was old UO with all the trimmings. In Trammel, there was no longer the need for players to protect each other and no longer a purpose for Guilds to form to combat PKs. Since Trammel had the safety, people concerned themselves more with controlling monster spawns over anything else while begging and pleading to reduce the risk of being scammed, griefed or looted.
Do I think Trammel was a good thing for this game? Although the expansion was very poorly implemented, I feel UO bettered in terms of gameplay and content, but in regards to its communities it was a step backwards. Trammel’s implementation reminds me of how EVE: Online currently handles its player killing systems. If you’re not familiar with EVE: Online, let me explain the similarities for you. You have the relative safety areas called High-sec where you can be killed, but your attacker gets destroyed by Concord, similar to UO’s Guards. Players in High-sec, dubbed Carebears by their pirate and pvp brethren, are a little more individualistic and are content with being left alone while they perform missions, mine or manufacture. While Trammel did not have PKing, you still ran the risk of being looted and griefed by your fellow player. And then you have the completely unsafe areas dubbed Lowsec and 0.0 where killing and pirating was encouraged. Here, the similarities to Felucca are apparent.
Admittedly, this particular expansion allowed UO to see its highest subscription numbers and gave its players the opportunity to avoid frustration. I’ll admit, I really did enjoy the ability to monster bash with my fellow players and then hit Felucca if I felt the urge for a little pvping. Due to the newfound safety of Trammel though, it helped pave the way for future players looking to abolish even more risk in the game turning UO into a Lite-singleplayer game. And then we move towards the worse hit of them all.
Chapter 4 - The Age of Shadows: All Risk Goes Out the Window
If you want the true killer of UO, you need not look any further than Age of Shadows. Dubbed the Age of Sh#t by the majority of its playerbase, this "expansion" was the final nail in the coffin for UO as all risk was completely and utterly removed. With this expansion came new and overpowering skills and weapons, on top of that the item system received a complete revamp. The transformation from a skill-based MMO into an item-based and item-whoring game was achieved. There were no longer set item properties and everything turned into numbers, percentages and resistances. Instead of having an Accurate Broadsword of Power, a somewhat powerful item at the time, you had this garbage:
I didn't know I needed a math degree to loadout my character.
With the introduction of AOS, many overpowering yet easy to acquire arms and armors were introduced. These items, coupled with new overpowering skills allowed players to solo most high-end monsters indefinitely. This allowed players the freedom to not worry about forming a hunting party to fight and farm relatively tough monsters and bosses themselves.
With every item being practically unique in its own way, making them near-impossible to get again if you lose them, the system of looting other people's stuff would obviously no longer have a place in this game. The answer came in the form of a system called Insurance. For a small sum of gold, you could insure your items so they could never be looted or stolen ever again. Considering that it went against the grain of everything Ultima and most importantly challenge, it was the dumbest addition in history.
Not only did it single-handedly destroy the Thieving profession it has allowed godly players to remain godly players. It has required many to piece together multi-million gold suits in order to compete and in many ways it has helped the individual player but in the same respect it has damaged the community as well. There is no longer a need to purchase weapons and armor from crafters when you don't have a chance of losing a specific item altogether. Items are not leaving the system because of Insurance. When I pieced together my 1400 luck suit on my tamer, I knew it was the set I’d be using for years to come. This isn’t right. Due to these reasons, UO's community has all but shattered because players no longer have to help each other to get by.
The funny thing is lead developers at the time came out and admitted they were heavily influenced by Diablo 2 and WoW when it was in development. So instead of coming up with something original, the developers decided to copy off existing games. Subscription numbers plummeted after this and UO has never been able to fully recover since.
Chapter 5 - Inaction
Currently UO is plagued with cheaters and scripters who are crippling the ingame economy while forcing many players to quit the game, but developers have done next to nothing to solve the issue. Scripting has affected the community in many different ways, it has completely made the honest resource gatherer obsolete. It has put many legit player ran vendors out of business since Scripters can control the market on select products. Finally, it has jaded the community so much so that everybody thinks everyone else is scripting or cheating. And perhaps these accusations are quite true. Suggestions to help fix the myriad of other problems have otherwise been ignored and most players believe they are just being milked for all their worth while EA shifts its attention to Warhammer Online, which is currently going through its own problems at the moment.
One sure sign of this came when UO reached its 10-year anniversary. A stunning achievement for any game especially MMOs, but all players got in return for their commitment was a stupid gift rehash. That's some dedication for ya.
Chapter 6 - The Great Game that Could Have Been
Ultima Online could have stayed as one of the most unique MMOs on the market if a vocal minority and a dev team prone to mistakes hadn't shifted the game in a different direction. UO once offered a truly unique experience, but tried too hard to please the masses and be like all the rest. What we're left with is a hollow husk of a game that is best left ignored to die. It really pains me to say it as UO was a big part of my life for a long time, but it's just not the same game it once was. Any remnants of Old UO have all been lost to the sands of time. What a shame.
Some bits I wrote myself while others I wrote awhile ago for my column. Link
Chapter 1 - A Unique Experience
When risk and consequence was actually common in online games, Ultima Online stood above the rest for delivering an engrossing and open-ended online experience rife with danger. UO was and still is one of the rare breeds of MMOs considered to be sandboxes. In sandbox MMOs, unlike their more linear brethren, players can do whatever they want to whomever and wherever. You can place houses, run a tavern or other place of business, hunt, mine, fish, treasure hunt, kill other players or steal from them. Grind was minimal as there were no levels to achieve, but only skills to gain. The skill system was also open ended and a player could be whatever they wanted. A lockpicking thief, a jack-of-all-trades craftsman, a bard tamer or a tank mage, all options were available and hybridization was encouraged.
UO was a game that offered true consequences for your actions. If you were killed, your belongings could be taken by other players and you had the choice of either fighting back to reclaim your possessions or head back to town to restock. Thieves skulked around town peaking into people's backpacks to steal their hard-earned goods and murderers roamed the countryside looking for players to kill and loot. Nothing was safe and because of this, bustling communities developed to help protect the innocents and combat those who would do harm to their fellow players. The only other commercial MMO to offer similar gameplay is EVE: Online and it is an extremely successful game.
Chapter 2 - The Golden Age
At its peak, UO boasted around 100K subscribers. Even though this number pales in comparison to WoW and Lineage 2, where WoW has more than nine million and Lineage 2 over 14 million, it was an accomplishment during the infancy of MMOs. While arguments still rage about what caused UO's descent into oblivion, I can honestly say, as a UO member for eight years, it was a combination of events ranging from extremely poor decision making, loud-mouthed individuals demanding more items over bugfixes and just simple excuses. Sadly UO's golden age was extremely brief as game developers began to cater to players who wanted little to no risk or consequence, zero need to interact with their fellow players and items, items, items. These players no longer wanted to risk anything and the community degenerated into a gimmie-gimme mob with an insatiable appetite for items.
Chapter 3 - The Further Rise of the Game, but at the Cost of Its Community
After years of flooded complaints about being incessantly killed, stolen from or griefed, developers finally realized what had to be done, but instead of thinking things through and coming up with a solution that would benefit all players, they released the poorly-implemented Renaissance expansion in 2000. Instead of making a new land mass for players looking to escape from PKs and thieves, the developers in all their wisdom duplicated the entire game and inevitably split the playerbase in half. Trammel offered complete sanctuary from ruffians while Felucca was old UO with all the trimmings. In Trammel, there was no longer the need for players to protect each other and no longer a purpose for Guilds to form to combat PKs. Since Trammel had the safety, people concerned themselves more with controlling monster spawns over anything else while begging and pleading to reduce the risk of being scammed, griefed or looted.
Do I think Trammel was a good thing for this game? Although the expansion was very poorly implemented, I feel UO bettered in terms of gameplay and content, but in regards to its communities it was a step backwards. Trammel’s implementation reminds me of how EVE: Online currently handles its player killing systems. If you’re not familiar with EVE: Online, let me explain the similarities for you. You have the relative safety areas called High-sec where you can be killed, but your attacker gets destroyed by Concord, similar to UO’s Guards. Players in High-sec, dubbed Carebears by their pirate and pvp brethren, are a little more individualistic and are content with being left alone while they perform missions, mine or manufacture. While Trammel did not have PKing, you still ran the risk of being looted and griefed by your fellow player. And then you have the completely unsafe areas dubbed Lowsec and 0.0 where killing and pirating was encouraged. Here, the similarities to Felucca are apparent.
Admittedly, this particular expansion allowed UO to see its highest subscription numbers and gave its players the opportunity to avoid frustration. I’ll admit, I really did enjoy the ability to monster bash with my fellow players and then hit Felucca if I felt the urge for a little pvping. Due to the newfound safety of Trammel though, it helped pave the way for future players looking to abolish even more risk in the game turning UO into a Lite-singleplayer game. And then we move towards the worse hit of them all.
Chapter 4 - The Age of Shadows: All Risk Goes Out the Window
If you want the true killer of UO, you need not look any further than Age of Shadows. Dubbed the Age of Sh#t by the majority of its playerbase, this "expansion" was the final nail in the coffin for UO as all risk was completely and utterly removed. With this expansion came new and overpowering skills and weapons, on top of that the item system received a complete revamp. The transformation from a skill-based MMO into an item-based and item-whoring game was achieved. There were no longer set item properties and everything turned into numbers, percentages and resistances. Instead of having an Accurate Broadsword of Power, a somewhat powerful item at the time, you had this garbage:
I didn't know I needed a math degree to loadout my character.
With the introduction of AOS, many overpowering yet easy to acquire arms and armors were introduced. These items, coupled with new overpowering skills allowed players to solo most high-end monsters indefinitely. This allowed players the freedom to not worry about forming a hunting party to fight and farm relatively tough monsters and bosses themselves.
With every item being practically unique in its own way, making them near-impossible to get again if you lose them, the system of looting other people's stuff would obviously no longer have a place in this game. The answer came in the form of a system called Insurance. For a small sum of gold, you could insure your items so they could never be looted or stolen ever again. Considering that it went against the grain of everything Ultima and most importantly challenge, it was the dumbest addition in history.
Not only did it single-handedly destroy the Thieving profession it has allowed godly players to remain godly players. It has required many to piece together multi-million gold suits in order to compete and in many ways it has helped the individual player but in the same respect it has damaged the community as well. There is no longer a need to purchase weapons and armor from crafters when you don't have a chance of losing a specific item altogether. Items are not leaving the system because of Insurance. When I pieced together my 1400 luck suit on my tamer, I knew it was the set I’d be using for years to come. This isn’t right. Due to these reasons, UO's community has all but shattered because players no longer have to help each other to get by.
The funny thing is lead developers at the time came out and admitted they were heavily influenced by Diablo 2 and WoW when it was in development. So instead of coming up with something original, the developers decided to copy off existing games. Subscription numbers plummeted after this and UO has never been able to fully recover since.
Chapter 5 - Inaction
Currently UO is plagued with cheaters and scripters who are crippling the ingame economy while forcing many players to quit the game, but developers have done next to nothing to solve the issue. Scripting has affected the community in many different ways, it has completely made the honest resource gatherer obsolete. It has put many legit player ran vendors out of business since Scripters can control the market on select products. Finally, it has jaded the community so much so that everybody thinks everyone else is scripting or cheating. And perhaps these accusations are quite true. Suggestions to help fix the myriad of other problems have otherwise been ignored and most players believe they are just being milked for all their worth while EA shifts its attention to Warhammer Online, which is currently going through its own problems at the moment.
One sure sign of this came when UO reached its 10-year anniversary. A stunning achievement for any game especially MMOs, but all players got in return for their commitment was a stupid gift rehash. That's some dedication for ya.
Chapter 6 - The Great Game that Could Have Been
Ultima Online could have stayed as one of the most unique MMOs on the market if a vocal minority and a dev team prone to mistakes hadn't shifted the game in a different direction. UO once offered a truly unique experience, but tried too hard to please the masses and be like all the rest. What we're left with is a hollow husk of a game that is best left ignored to die. It really pains me to say it as UO was a big part of my life for a long time, but it's just not the same game it once was. Any remnants of Old UO have all been lost to the sands of time. What a shame.
