An idea. (My thoughts on restoring the community)

[ChReuter]

An idea to restore the feel of UO's community.

Over the course of the past year or so, I watched the debate over the classic shard unfold and end in a final(Somewhat?) decision to not pursue it's creation. While I was one of those who fancied the idea, I realized one belief folks had about it was completely false and would have probably ended with the shard being deemed a failure due to this belief. Really, all that belief was, was a hope. A hope that if the shard was created, it would somehow resurrect that feeling one had when interacting with the community we had back then. This was just not going to happen, no matter how well and accurate the shard was made to be.

With this said, I also came to believe that a newly created shard with a special but simple ruleset and no extremely complicated programming required in it's creation and upkeep, could in fact go a long way in pulling a community together out of the ashes of the former one. First, its creation would have to have the least amount of impact possible on the upkeep and further progression of the original shards (Siege included). This shouldn't be a huge hurdle to overcome as what I have in mind would still get the majority of patches and updates, with only a limited amount of stuff having to be withheld. After it's completion though, unlike a classic shard, it should require little extra attention in it's upkeep.

I'm proposing a shard which will be almost exactly the same as the current shards, will require little extra attention, and somehow bring back a sense of community to UO? Well, somewhat... There will be changes, but the changes I have in mind are for the most part, very simple. Every change which is suggested should only be put forth if it's goal is community. This is not an idea for a shard that has a goal of bringing back that feel and secondly, catering to some other group or desire for the game. Its only purpose would be community.

How I would go about this would be the act of disabling some systems within the game, and making other aspects simpler. Some of the changes might even take away aspects of the gameplay some or a lot have come to enjoy but with the intentions of creating an even more enjoyable game. As I'm only at this time throwing the idea out there, I won't list out everything that I've come up with, but for now just a sampling of the ideas and why I feel they would fertilize the growth of something possibly very special.

(Remember, this is just a sample and not even necessarily what I feel would be most important. They are only the first ideas that have popped into my head from a long list that has been brewing in my head for quite some time.)

The removal of the most powerful loot from mobs; while having certain pieces is nice and all, by removing the most desired items needed to complete suits that players find necessary to make a competitive suit, it would create more reliance on crafters. An aspect of the game today which is sorely lacking and at one point was a mainstay of why we had the community we did.

Universal stables and maybe even banks done away with; Anyone who can remember what it was like prior to having the universal stables should remember how it created certain towns populated by tamers and whatnot that normally probably wouldn't have been used. Skara Brae comes to mind.

Repair deeds ditched; Once again, the act of going to Brit forge for a repair was a social event. On top of this, it had the added effect of causing the crafter to generally be far more worried about his reputation within the community.

No town should have all needs placed within a few screens; Luna for example, the layout of the town is the reason why it overtook Brit as a shards hotspot. No town should have so much and a moongate so close.

Removal of LRC and reverting back to how vendors used to work; Sure, it might have been annoying, but it first off created a huge gold sink, allowed towns such as glow to flourish, and even created another player driven vendor market.

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Now these are just a few of the things which could be done to promote a community. There's so much more and also far more important things which would have to be done, but none of which do I believe to be a dev nightmare. Basically I'm curious what you folks here think. Of course my ideas are not the end all of this concept, I'm just making the suggestion that a shard could be created with simple changes that would promote community. If the concept finds some support here, than I'd love to have others input as I'm sure some here could far outdo me in ideas and I'd also be more than happy in posting my full proposal.

That's that though.
Thanks for reading.

EDIT: I thought I should add this, none of the above is an attempt to restore a certain eras gameplay. In fact, any future publish which would add to the enjoyment of the game should imo be included in such a shard. This shard would have tram, and fel, and all that jazz. It would have the AOS item system, and ninjas... The differences would come with those things that made it so we don't have to rely on each other.

 

[Uvtha]

Problem is, that no one will play on a shard that is "harder" or with artificial barriers in they way of game play they currently expect.

The problem with making a world where people need each other is the fact that there are other worlds (where everyone already is) that don't have those limitations.

Its like regular shard vs siege. Siege has the elements that originally built a strong community (siege even has a strong if small community) but people wont play there because of the very reasons that the community is strong. Its harder to deal with people trying to kill you, and losing your stuff. People don't care about community as much as they care about all the other mainly solo aspects of the game.

Its the same with tram vs fel. People didn't flock, and subsequently stick to tram JUST because of a lack of pks, but because it was easier to accomplish you goals.

Bottom line is that necessity is what brings people together, but that only works if there is no other alternative. People will follow the path of least resistance, its just simple logic. The challenges that bring people together have to be universal, and they can't seem artificial (i.e. "Today all of the rules change on every shard") or people will become irate. I fear that its a path once strayed from, its very hard to get back to. Especially after like 10 years.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

I will agree with all of your ideas aside from removing LRC. I'm all for bringing reagents back, maybe putting in a quest to bless them, but if you remove lrc now your going to **** off alot of people and make mage pvp a bit harder. well more tedious really.

On a sarcastic note i think they should remove LRC, make all reagents weigh two stones per, then add a new special reagent to the game that anyone with no skill at all can use on you that will half your reagent supply every two minutes.

 

[Yellow Beard]

Community? Did someone say they were putting in a community center? I hope they put in a playground at the community center. One with a lot of bushes and an npc vendor nearby that sells cookies.

 

[Woodsman]

With this said, I also came to believe that a newly created shard with a special but simple ruleset and no extremely complicated programming required in it's creation and upkeep, could in fact go a long way in pulling a community together out of the ashes of the former one.

So you want to restore the community by adding another shard that would divide the player base up even more?

 

[virtualhabitat]

I wasn't around in the 'old days'. I carry no nostalgia for the original game. Communities, however, are much more than a pvp ruleset, which I believe is the primary impetus behind the campaign for the classic shard.

In it's current state, UO has all the tools required to build a strong player community. Most of these tools lie in the realm of how the economy operates.

The false scarcity algorithms, insurance, over-use of the random number generator, imbuing god-like suits, and crafting skills made obsolete are a few examples of what drives players away from what makes a community run smoothly.

Note that in my examples I mentioned imbuing. While imbuing does force some interaction among some players in the manufacture of the suit, the results are often characters that need no support from other players to hunt many of the top-tier bosses.

Further, many of the ingredients are extremely expensive, due in part to the RNG, making what little interaction there is exclusive to those who can afford it.

That last statement is not an indictment of the wealthy, merely an observation.

In my opinion, communities will be created in primarily two arenas.

The first is hunting, as in groups, due to difficulty in beating the spawn or boss. Making stronger, faster mobs are one way to fix this, but checking character power is another.

Second, and most important, is crafting. Look at the list of crafting skills in UO, it's quite impressive.
Unfortunately the game is rife with barriers preventing crafting from being the engine of community.

For example, this last week, I made a cook. As it happens, I had been working on a tinker so I was looking forward to using my tinker skill to makes some cooking tools.
A sifter costs 2 gold from the NPC, but it costs a tinker 3 iron ingots to make one. Most of you reading this already see the disincentive for me to use my tinker skill to make tools for the cook.

What exacerbates the example above is the fact that iron ingots sold on an NPC only go up in price. Currently, on Great Lakes, the price of one ingot in Luna is 24 gold and about 15 everywhere else.

On great Lakes, I can buy 20 sifters for less than the price of two ingots.

This thread isn't about cooking or tinkering. It's about community. If UO wants a community, my answer will be: "It's the economy, stupid!"

 

[Uvtha]

I wasn't around in the 'old days'. I carry no nostalgia for the original game. Communities, however, are much more than a pvp ruleset, which I believe is the primary impetus behind the campaign for the classic shard.

Well since you weren't around in the old days I can tell you that the open pvp rule set was like 80% of why we had a good community.

Economic reasons, and pvm reasons as well brought people together, but nothing on the scale of the way pks did.

However I don't think anything can bring back those times, because it was simply a different game, and the people playing were playing with a different mindset, in a different time for MMOs.

MMO' have become far too achievement based, where hunting groups aren't formed for protection or fun, but to achieve a goal (find uber stick) and same with economic community.

Removing insurance would certainly be a good thing and revamping items and monsters would certainly help, but i don't think it would help that much.