Been Playing UO for 159 Months ... This Takes the Prize

[Antony]

I've been playing UO for 13 1/4 years .... started a short time after Beta Test ended. It's been a continuous time ... not everyday mind you but pretty consistent (I'd say at the least a couple of times a week, maybe 2 hours or so each time) .... fiddling with this, building a new character, changing houses designs .... basic therapy sessions.

Well over the past few days I've started to get supplies and making things that I would need to do battle on a ship. My plan was to spend a chunk of time up front getting prepared so I can play without having to stop to replenish suppiles every few times out ... well let me tell you this is INSANE. The amount of things that you have to make that build off of each other is NUTS. I thought some of the past "assemblies" type products were tedious ... this one is the Grand Daddy of all of them put together.

I can't imagine anyone staying into doing ship battles for any amount of time. It's just too much damn work. And if you wanted to see something that would drive any normal human being into macroing this is it.

More on this later ......

 

[popps]

Well, my opinion differs.

This is a multi-player game. Unfortunately, over the years, due to some design changes the ability of players to become self-sufficient has greatly increased.

With 7 slots per chard per account, with soulstones that allow the swapping of skills easy, why would any player need anyone else for anything ?

Basically, this brings Ultima Online to a solo player game "sometimes" played with others but where inter-action, at least as in regards to crafting, is rather limited.

Certainly, much more limited than it was in the past.

Now, this said, I imagine that "if" the Developers are trying to bring back interaction in the game, particularly for crafting, since it would be hard and unpopular to take the past design changes away (many players have spent real money to buy full soulstones and it would not be thinkable to remove them from the game or to reduce the number of slots per shard per account....), as I see it, the only possible way to have players again rely on each other and interact for crafting is to make crafting processes long and complicated so that it would be really a chore for each individual player to deal with the whole process on one's own.

Sort of like what happens with group fighting of bosses. Bosses are made so tough, with timers to fight them so that players trying to fight them solo might end up empty handed (fight drags for too long and player is booted out of the arena or Boss disappears) and thus, are motivated to seek others and group fight them for better and more efficient results.

But, if done in a team of players, each doing a specific part of it, it become much less tedious and more tolerable.

It brings multi-playing and players' interaction back to Ultima Online.

So, the question we need to ask ourselves is whether in Ultima Online we want to be able to do everything on our own and never need to count on others for our gaming needs or we want a game where players have to "specialize" on something and then rely on others for things and services/items we need.

Need cannon balls ? Buy them from someone else who makes them.
That's the idea I guess......

Personally, I much prefer a game where players have to resort to others for some of their needs because tasks are daunting and a chore to do them all on one's own rather than a game where players can do everything on their own and have no need to rely on other players.

 

[covert]

It's an unnecessarily expensive endeavor (whether you gauge this by time spent getting the stuff yourself or gold, it's both).

 

[Cupid]

Damn popps what an exceptional reply, unfortunately I am a solo player for the most part unless I can find peeps to help do lvl 6 maps which is more fun, or I used to love champ spawns when you got teleported out.