Of that I have no doubt. I can only imagine if a classic shard was re-created by Broadsword and actually had a couple of dev's just working on content. No new lands, no different skills. Just balanced pvp and challenging pvm
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Broadsword should release a new 'BoosterPack Server'
- Thread starter Hotwheelz85
- Start date
- Watchers 3
You're missing my point. The reason we don't have constant incoming content and things from (enter studio name) is because whatever ideas/plans they want to put out has to be ok'd by someone who has nothing to do with the game and is only concerned with financial numbers.
I agree EA is messed up in soooo many ways. And I realize I'm not making a lot of friends here, but I think I have the right to express my feeling on hackers and thieves. In general I think some of you guys are HI-LAIR-IOUS to download from these people and even *GIVE* them your credit card info and such! WOW! Had I not read it I wouldn't believe it. I'll let you get back to running with scissors, using electrical appliances in the shower, and your other activities. hehe
This.Most are custom.. :/ but that's besides the point :/
I believe one HUGE emulator has finally closed the door to updates for this exact reason..Google it as I can't link it
I guess what I'm trying to say..if it weren't for the "evil" free shards 1000's of players would have moved on from UO a decade ago...we should be luring those players back instead of attaining new players, because let's face it..uo is at a stage where the graphics suck/there's not a ton of developers/it's a nostalgia game for 90% of people..Everytime I describe the game it's like oh that sounds cool let me me see a video.."what the :bleep: is this??? And you have to pay for it lol..I'll pass! They won't even log into one of my accounts for free it's so ugly. I have a few RL friends who got me started in UO, their reason for not playing is that there are more updates for these ftp games in a month than UO will see in 10 years. I mean the "new" expansion Stygian Abyss is what 5-6 years old now?
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I would come back to the official UO in a heartbeat if it ever went F2P. I personally am kind of disgruntled with the official UO,tis why I stepped away from it. Tried a very popular freeshard or two and I found myself kind of pissed at what is possible in UO and how UO has been held back for so long under EA`s slooooooooooooooooooooooooooow wheels of development and all the BS answers of "Can`t do that,we`ll look into it" and yadda yadda yadda. Its like resizing the screen in classic client. Why in one hell is that not possible in offical UO in this year of 2015? Cause its very possible in every free shard I`ve ever tried. I`ve settled for less for far to long.
I'm pretty sure EA has had more issues with Credit cards keeping them up to date/hacking through origin than any freeshard ever, which I've never once heard of..but regardless. With that said anybody who actually gives their real bank account CC or anything other than a throw away/pay pal account is an idiot regardless. No matter from what or where you're buying. Since I've played UO I've never once set up an automatic card. Always purchased game time with either a throw away or PayPal..not interested in putting my actual information in any "secured" form..
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who are you referring to? Origin after the fifa disaster? just saying, realistically youd probably be less at risk giving out info to a random unknown person selling a product on the web than a targeted company like EA (who i still dont think have acually admitted there has been a security breach)
You have demonstrated that you know very little on the subject. Many many games have not only survived on the F2P model, but thrived. UO on the other hand is desperately sticking to the subscription model and dying as a result.
You're one of the deluded elitists who somehow think you're better than the f2p crowd and completely oblivious that sticking to that model will result in you not having a game to play sooner rather than later.
only the f2p model can save UO by bringing in enough additional players and revenue through transactions in order to save this game.
Unfortunately EA have no interest whatsoever in saving UO. They are happy to milk it for all its worth whilst it withers and dies.
F2P games have a completely different model. UO is a persistent world with a player-driven economy, particularly harvesting resources. Whether a F2P is RPG or FPS, revenue is based on adding new combat zones that require better equipment, prodding players to buy more gold coins, before an entirely new version of the game is released. With the amount of content the current Dev team provides, how long do you suppose UO would last?
Not all F2P games fall into the parameters you state above. There are many different F2P models and different games adopt different approaches both in the F2P model and also how the game develops.
How long would any F2P game last with no updates? Not very long. F2P for UO is on the premise that EA decided UO had a future, were prepared to go F2P in order to generate players and revenue, and to reinvest revenue into the game to add content and keep the players and the cash coming in.
Thats where it all falls down. EA have no desire to save UO. They will let it die.
What I described is in fact the general scenario. Whether it's a new dungeon or new combat zone, the intent is to get players to buy game currency for real life money, then buy upgraded equipment for the new area. Or are you referring to equipment wearing down quickly such that regular play necessitates continuously buying gold to replenish armor? Even that's still making the game impossible to play without pumping in money over time. UO, however, is based on the flat fee and playing however much or however little one wants. Players are too used to that after all these years.
Of course a F2P model is based on new content; nobody ever said otherwise. But so is a subscription-based game that releases expansions periodically. Consider this: how long have you been playing UO, and how does that compare to any F2P game? Have you ever played a F2P game that held your interest for even a year, if the game was even designed to stay around that long? For me, I've played UO for 17 years, and any F2P for no more than a few months. I think I may have put as much as $80 into a single F2P game before the marginal value of each additional dollar became effectively zero. By contrast, UO's strength is that for a flat rate, there's as much as I can do, or as little as I want to do.
UO manages to hang on with a dearth of new content because there's still a variety of things for players to do and create, particularly better and better loot, however long the rest of us can remain interested. But you're acting as if F2P would bring in new players, when they'd do just what, do you think? Players will try UO for the first time, or return, because of new content, not even graphics, and certainly not because they can get a month's trial for just $5 (or however little a F2P subscription can be had). Then once new/returned players see how much it adds up, how much they have to keep pumping in, they'd get the same bad tastes in their mouths as existing players, who don't want to spend more per month for each of multiple accounts to maintain the same gameplay. EA may have a temporary surge in UO's revenue, but when people start canceling accounts to cut back, revenue may be below what was before. So it's not a risk worth taking, and EA will keep riding things out. They're unfortunately correct to conclude that that any investment in UO, e.g. hiring a couple more Devs, will not yield a positive return. There's just not the playerbase anymore to support any new salaries. It was EA's inaction, but not today, or in the last couple of years, but for over 10 years. If they had put a firm stop to exploits 10 or 11 years ago, so many wouldn't have quit in frustration for other games. If they had pushed out something like Stygian Abyss in 2007 or 2008, then another one or two significant expansions since, after having stomped out speedhackers and scripters, maybe things would be different. But a long time ago when it mattered, they seemed unwilling to lose any accounts for any reason, short-sightedly ignoring that they lost more accounts overall when legitimate players quit. Now it's to the point that, as much as I hate to admit it, UO may not be profitable enough for EA to keep alive, should they lose all the scripters and multiboxers' accounts.
Yes. More than one. And Ive probably spent more a month on it than the cost of a UO subscription as I feel I get value for money and it enhances my gameplay. I did in fact play totally free for maybe the first six months and when I realised the game was supported as much as it was and had some depth and longevity I was happy to invest as much or as little as I felt at any time I wanted.
The customer service is excellent, the content is updated regularly, there is a playerbase large enough to make it feel multiplayer, and there are things in the game that require you to team up, ie cant be solo;d. and there arent as many griefers. The owners care about the game as they know that if they dont provide a good service they will lose players and therefore profit. All of these things are the antithesis of UO.
That said UO is of course UO and holds a special place in most of our hearts as it was for a lot of us the game that started it all. I just wish that EA would firstly realise the potential that is still there and invest in the game to grow it rather than let it die, and secondly realise that the subscription based model is outdated and that games can thrive and prosper using the F2P model.
just wondering, what does the ability to harvest resources have to do with FTP payment model? currently very little resources, id say less than 3 percent, comes from active playing. if you havent noticed, com deeds / pinks are one of the last "good" dupe items (still cant believe mesanna allowed idocers to keep all the 60k deeds of imbue regs from that europa castle)
You're a rarity, particularly in that you waited so long to start buying that game's currency. The F2P model is always based on people buying gold almost from the get-go. People by nature want to get satisfaction much sooner than later, if the price isn't too high, and most F2P will intentionally make a certain level impassable without getting serious armor (which could take weeks of grinding to get that gold).
What was the maximum length of time you stayed in a F2P? Do you think you'd be playing it after five years? Ten years? Or would, despite any "excellent" customer service, the game last only a year or two before replaced with the next version, where you'd again feel an eventual need to buy gold for RL cash? Is there anything like UO's community, as small as it is now? I gave up on anything from GLU after their useless tech support couldn't explain why my purchased game credits didn't automatically appear on my new device.
Even if there were practical ways to convert UO, as I pointed out, players would start canceling accounts once they realized how much more they must pay for the same gameplay. It's just not going to work, not for something designed to last for years that was based on determining one's own destiny for a flat price.
I never said resources have anything to do with F2P, nor did I say that UO resources are coming from non-scripting play. You're reading a lot more than what's there. However, that players get such a wide variety of resources, from imbuing ingredients to PoF to script-mining, is something that makes UO a completely different game from any F2P, and the game's longevity is in no small part from our ability to tweak our own templates and equipment to precisely what we want.
Just wanted to clarify a few of my thoughts.
1. The price suggested of $15 was just going off the High Sea's booster pack price. Pretty much just to get the point across that it should be a one time payment to play. The price is obviously flexible.
2. In regards to some of the proposed changes I wanted to keep them fairly basic so its a feasible goal for this dev team (did not want to stir up a classic shard debate) but the overall goal is to help this server maintain longevity with minimal updates. The removal of LRC / Imbuing / Reforging and Enhanced Loot go along way to accomplish this.
3. With a F2P server the Ultima Online cash shop does need to be greatly improved, but regardless of whether or not we get a f2p option the cash shop needs to be greatly improved as of right now it's just lost revenue that could help improve UO.
4. I suggested a new shard because convincing the current playerbase that the F2P model is best for the future is impossible this will allow you to keep the servers the way you like while potentially adding in thousands of player's that will spend money at the UO store (assuming its improved upon) which gives the development team more flexibility financially to improve upon the game for everyone.
If UO currently has 1,000 subscribers that is not a very large market to develop future 'Booster Packs' for. However if UO was to jump up to 5000 players then it makes the concept of adding multiple booster packs in the future more reasonable. I seem to recall awhile ago the development team talking about how they'd like to add in a Farming booster pack in the future. I don't know what their concept for this is but you could even tie it into my idea of removing LRC by having reagents as as farmable resource. (these are just made up numbers to emphasis a point)
But getting players into the game whether they pay subscription or not should be priority #2. With the first being an overhauled item shop to support this. And as long as the majority of the items remain in token form even those that refuse to spend real money on a game will still be supporting the game by buying off those player's who wish to make extra gold by buying and selling tokens to their fellow players.
1. The price suggested of $15 was just going off the High Sea's booster pack price. Pretty much just to get the point across that it should be a one time payment to play. The price is obviously flexible.
2. In regards to some of the proposed changes I wanted to keep them fairly basic so its a feasible goal for this dev team (did not want to stir up a classic shard debate) but the overall goal is to help this server maintain longevity with minimal updates. The removal of LRC / Imbuing / Reforging and Enhanced Loot go along way to accomplish this.
3. With a F2P server the Ultima Online cash shop does need to be greatly improved, but regardless of whether or not we get a f2p option the cash shop needs to be greatly improved as of right now it's just lost revenue that could help improve UO.
4. I suggested a new shard because convincing the current playerbase that the F2P model is best for the future is impossible this will allow you to keep the servers the way you like while potentially adding in thousands of player's that will spend money at the UO store (assuming its improved upon) which gives the development team more flexibility financially to improve upon the game for everyone.
If UO currently has 1,000 subscribers that is not a very large market to develop future 'Booster Packs' for. However if UO was to jump up to 5000 players then it makes the concept of adding multiple booster packs in the future more reasonable. I seem to recall awhile ago the development team talking about how they'd like to add in a Farming booster pack in the future. I don't know what their concept for this is but you could even tie it into my idea of removing LRC by having reagents as as farmable resource. (these are just made up numbers to emphasis a point)
But getting players into the game whether they pay subscription or not should be priority #2. With the first being an overhauled item shop to support this. And as long as the majority of the items remain in token form even those that refuse to spend real money on a game will still be supporting the game by buying off those player's who wish to make extra gold by buying and selling tokens to their fellow players.