Popps…
I agree with you 100%… but you would have to know that there is a big criminal element to the UO worlds that has players using illegal means to find and replace falling houses, solely for the design of turning a profit. These people are billionaires on shards like Atlantic and they even have the mentality that they are heroes somehow. Like people can't go out and find their own IDOC house and try and place a house. When I was new, every time even the smallest house would start to fall… 20-30 people would show up. I was a new player without hope of getting a house. I hate those profit guys, even today. They, like the book dropping gold sellers are villains in our game world and it's the staff who doesn’t do much about it. You still have to roll with the punches.
Not sure if it is still being done, but I remember years back that some were able to get info from the data stream and at server up know exactly which houses were about to fall and where.... That's why I never bothered with IDOCs, why would I waste my time walking around to look for Falling Houses when I would then face others at those locations who spent hardly anytime to find them ? No thanks.
The real problem, I think, is a game catering more for the "Haves" rather than for the "Haves not".
It is funny when I read about all concerns with Ultima Online subscriptions not going up.
I mean, when the GAP between existing, wealthy and uber developed players and new or returning players is so vast, how can one be surprised that the game lags in getting active subscriptions ??
What is really the point, I wonder -if the best interest of THE GAME is the one at heart here-, is that changes to the game, as I feel it, tend to cater those who already have lots to get more, rather than those who have little or nothing.....
There is people who has not 1, but 2 even 3 Castles and then Luna Houses, and then Tokuno Houses, then now Magincia Houses, sits on billions of gold and the game
still has received no Vendor Global Search capabilities which would help new or returning players to more easily find what they need at more decent prices or allow them to sell their wares even from their tiny house in whatever wood it may be..........
Is there even a Grand Master Plan to help Ultima Online gain more active subscriptions ?
Sometimes I wonder..........
And yes… many other shard people were coming to Atlantic just in hopes of landing these Maginica houses… to make money for themselves. The fact 10 of the 22 lots were unlimited is very geared to the super-rich players, unlike the 12 1 ticket only per account… but even then, the pro-house sellers have many accounts just for “business”. Nothing you can really do about it… other then like me… not take part in the lotto at all, because I didn’t… and I have no interest in buying one of the houses. “I’ll keep my little empire where it is, thank you.” was the drum I was beating this whole time, as a town owner… community leader, and 10 year vet.
That is a VERY good example how design can hurt players.
I think that Atlantic players have been greatly hurt by the way this Lottery has been designed and held because the greed has worked like a magnet diluting the tickets that actual, real Atlantic players might have purchased, with the plethora of non-Atlantic players all jumping there to grab tickets for the sole purpose of profiting from the re-sale of the plots, not to actually use them on Atlantic.
So, real, actual atlantic players rather then seeing their chances at getting a Magincia House be compared among the actual Atlantic players, had to see their hope greatly diluted over a huge number of tickets grabbed by non Atlantic players.
This is why I really think it would be about time that the game got a Vendors Global Search system. This way, it would not matter where a vendor was, all players would get equal chances at selling. The question is, though, will the Developers not listen to the various Luna, Tokuno or now Magincia owners (who often are mostly all the same players or from the same Guilds....) ??
FACT is… yes, you need gold to build your own empire… but that means getting away from the bank, explore the world… and do a little work with your play time. How many times, I will never know… I have tried to share how to make honest money in game with my fellow players, even giving them flat out limitless offers for items if they don’t want their own vendor… I never get any takers. The player today just doesn’t want to work and yet like in real life, no money in UO still makes bums. More then the gold… it's about the adventure! It astounds me why people sit around the banks doing nothing day in and day out. Only time you see me at the most populated bank is when I’m selling something too big for vendors.
In a game where many players have already everything, or have characters so beefed up that whenever anything new comes up
THEY are the ones who get it first, new or returning players have really very very little hope to make much gold selling anything.
Selling anything to who ? To those wealthy players who already have everything or have such developed character that they can easily get whatever they may want ?
So the new or returning players become the unwanted chores players, they struggle to gather resources which the wealthy players do not want to bother spend time gathering and prefer to buy, but paying peanuts for them because after all, there is still scripters in the game whose time is cheap since they can gather them 24/7..........
Of course new or returning players are deterred from staying in the game, that's no surprise to me. They try it out a short while, see how uphill the catching up is and move elsewhere. And Ultima Online, the game, looses out.........
When I was just getting my skills up, I made over 50 million gold selling savage kin paint over a years time… 5k a pop, because no one could keep up with demand… hunting savages 2-3 hours a day, every day of the week. We didn’t even have those no-regs suits then! Gold and riches can be found so easily in this world for those willing… unlike real life.
In a reduced player base game, infested by scripters who do not seem to face much consequences for their scripting, it is increasingly more difficult to sell anything.
The new items that may bring in some millions the players who have the gold and the sampires or characters to do it will hunt themselves, not buy from others, and will actually flood the market with them. New or returning players do not have much chances to compete with the wealth of existing players nor their developed characters.
And this is so, I cannot help not noticing, because this is the design of the game, a design where too much often it is the "Haves" who are catered for, not the "Haves not".
I do not hold my breath that the game will finally have a Vendors' Global Search system.
I think it would be a great addition for Ultima Online and much in favour of new or returning players. I just do not think the various owners or guilds having houses in Luna, Tokuno or now Magincia will much want it to happen.
We'll see, though all of the years waited to see scripting ended without it happening, made me become rather pessimistic as to seeing what I think would be good and positive changes to Ultima Online.
I just keep seeing changes that make the wealthy become wealthier rather than helping the non wealthy be capable to close that vast GAP and be on an equal footing to enjoy playing the game.
I’m sure it will be record breaking! hehe
